The Catholic World, Vol. 07, April 1868 to September, 1868

by Various

Bound With Paul.

The warden's wife followed her husband down the steps leading to the prison. "'O caro Duca mio,' is there an inscription over the door?" she asked; "for I have brought hope with me, and will not let it go."

Not having anything to say, the warden kept silent. He was used to his wife's fanciful ways of speaking, and liked to hear her pleasant voice, though her meaning might escape him. For education had emphasized the difference which nature had pronounced between these two—a difference which William Blake has defined in a word: the man looked with his eyes, the woman looked through hers.

Besides, the warden's attention was at the moment fully occupied. The prison-bell had rung the second time, and the convicts had finished their day's work. Mr. and Mrs. Raynor stood just within the great entrance of the prison, and watched the sluggish streams of crime that oozed from the doors of the different shops, joined in the yard, and crept toward them—an Acheron, in which human faces presently became visible; but faces bleached, unwholesome, and expressionless. Perhaps their souls had been scorched up in the baleful flames that had wafted these men hither, or mesmerized in the leaden to-and-fro of their lives. Or, more likely, retired to some secret recess of the brain, their restless wits might be working out new designs of evil. An occasional spark in some sidelong eye favored the latter guess.

"Now for explanation," the warden said, keeping a strict eye on the advancing line, yet aware of a hand stealing toward his arm. "Be careful, dear! my revolver is on that side. Your man will go into the furthest cell in the first ward. His name is Dougherty; his nationality, of course, a mystery. He was sentenced ten years for assault and highway robbery, and has now but two months to stay. Excepting this one affair, he has always borne a good name, and there couldn't be a better prisoner. He might have been pardoned out long ago if he had tried, but he never asks favors. When he came here, his only brother, a decent fellow, went to California. He couldn't stand the disgrace. But he writes once a month, a very good letter, too; and when the ten years shall be up, will come or send for his brother. They say that Dougherty behaved very well by him when he went away, and gave him all his, Dougherty's, money. I shouldn't wonder. The fellow has the strongest sense of duty I ever knew in a man. That's what is the matter with him now. He told the deputy yesterday that he should never go to chapel again. He had before been in doubt about it, he said; but when the chaplain praised Martin Luther, and called the church some ugly name or other, then he knew that it was a sin for him to listen. I don't want to punish the man; but, of course, he must go to chapel. I can't make exceptions; and half a dozen of the worst rascals here have some way got wind of the affair, and have all at once experienced theology. That tall, heavy fellow, who murdered his mother and his brother, and then set fire to the house and burnt their bodies up, had his feelings badly hurt when the chaplain said something sarcastic of the pope's great toe. But Dougherty is honest, and if he will submit, I can easily bring the others down. If he should hold out, there will be trouble; for they will do for deviltry what he will do for conscience' sake. If you can talk him over, I shall be glad; but I haven't much hope of it. He is not a man likely to be influenced by a woman's soft words. He is granite."

The wife smiled saucily. "I have seen a silly little pink cloud make a granite boulder blush as though it had blood in it," she said.

At this moment the file of convicts reached the portal, and came winding through in the slow lock-step, separated noiselessly into detachments, a part moving toward the lower cells, the rest climbing the narrow flight of stairs leading to the upper tiers. The faces of the men caught an additional pallor from the cold, whitewashed stone of the prison, and a darker shade as, one by one, they disappeared into the cells, the doors clapping to in rapid succession behind them, like the leaves of a book run over in the fingers. In a few minutes the whole line had crumbled away, and there were visible but the three tiers of iron doors, each door with a hand thrust through the bars, and a dim face behind them. Mrs. Raynor glanced up the block to the last cell. The hand she saw there had a character of its own. The fingers were not half closed, listlessly waiting to be seen, but firm and straight, and the thumb was clasped tightly around the bar against which it rested—a dogged hand. "You think that the dungeon would have no effect?" she asked.

The warden repeated the word "dungeon" with a circumflex calculated to give the impression that the apartment in question was vaulted. "I doubt if even the strings will break him," he said. "You take a Catholic Irishman born in Ireland, and you can't hammer nor melt him into anything but a Catholic. He may lie as fast as a dog can trot, and steal your eye-teeth from under your eyes; but if you cut him into inch pieces, as long as he has a thumb and finger left, he will make the sign of the cross with them. You are losing courage, little woman."

"No!"

"Well, good luck to you! I'm going off."

The lady walked up the ward, nodding to the convicts who pressed eagerly for recognition, stopping to speak to those who had requests to make, and, pausing at a little distance from the upper cell, looked attentively at its occupant, herself unseen by him.

The warden had well compared this man to granite. He was tall, thick-set, as straight as a post, had the broad, combative Irish head, crowned with a luxuriance of dark-brown hair, and square jaws that promised a tenacious grip on whatever he might set his mental teeth in. But the face was honest, though hard, and the straight mouth did not look as though giving to lying or blasphemy, but had something solemn in its closing. The well-shaped nose was as notable for spirit as the mouth for firmness, and the blue-grey eyes were steady, not bright, and rather small. Altogether, a man of whom one might say that, if he was not so good, he would not have been so bad.

This convict sat on a bench in the middle of his little whitewashed cell, and appeared to be lost in thought. But in his attitude there was none of that easy drooping which usually accompanies such abstraction. He sat perfectly upright and rigid, the only perceptible motion a quick one of the eyelids, the eyes fixed—locked, rather than lost in thought.

He rose immediately on seeing who his visitor was, bowed with a soldierly stiffness that was not without state, and waited for her to speak.

After a few pleasant inquiries, civilly answered, she told her errand. It was not so easy as she had expected; but she spoke kindly and earnestly, urging the necessity for discipline in such a place, and the unwillingness of the warden to inflict any punishment on him. "I have no doubt of your sincerity," she concluded, "though the others mean only mischief. But the decision must be the same in both cases."

He listened attentively to every word she said, then replied with quiet firmness, "I am sorry, ma'am, that there is going to be any trouble about it. But it would be a sin for me to go and hear Protestantism called the church of God, when it is no more a church than a barnacle is a ship."

"That is not the question," she persisted. "Admitting that what the chaplain says may be false, I still say that you ought to go. You are here in a state of servitude; you have no will of your own; your duty is obedience to the rules of the place; and the more difficult that duty, the more your merit. If you should listen with pleasure, or even with toleration, while your faith is attacked, that might be sin; but the listening unwillingly and with pain you can offer to God as a penance in expiation of the crime which obliges you to perform it. I am speaking now as a Catholic would. I believe that your priest would say the same."

She paused to note the effect of her words; but his face was unmoved.

"I have a dear friend who is a Catholic," she added. "For her sake I should be sorry to have you punished for such a cause."

This plea made no impression whatever. Plainly, the man was not soft-hearted, nor susceptible to flattery. He merely listened, and appeared to be gravely considering the subject.

"To yield would be humility; to refuse would be pride," she said. "You need not listen while in the chapel; you can think your own thoughts and say your own prayers."

As he still pondered, she again went over her argument, enlarging and dwelling on it till it reached his comprehension. He listened as before, but made no sign of approval nor dissent. Either from nature or habit, it seemed hard for the man to get his mouth open. But at length he spoke.

"You were right, ma'am, in telling me that my duty here is obedience," he said; "but you left out one condition—obedience in all that is not sin. If the warden should tell me to kill a man, it would not be my duty to obey. I do obey in all that is not sin. It would be a sin for me to go to chapel."

He spoke respectfully, but with decision; and the lady perceived that their argument had reached a knot which only the hand of authority could cut. She sighed, and abandoned her attempt.

Could she abandon it? Remembering the dungeon and the strings, her heart strengthened itself for one more effort. She had begun by marching straight up to the subject, challenging opposition; it might be better to approach circuitously. "Let me undermine him," she thought; and, turning away, as though leaving the captive to silence and loneliness again, let the sense of returning desolation catch him for an instant, then hesitated, and glanced backward. It was a good beginning; he was looking after her. The sight of a friendly face, the sound of a friendly voice, and liberty to speak, were unfrequent boons in that place, and too precious to be willingly relinquished,

"The days must seem long to you," she said.

She came nearer, and leaned against the door. "Yes, they are long; but I thank God for every one of them. My coming here was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was getting to be drunkard, and this put a stop to it."

As he spoke, he lifted his face and looked out at the strip of sky visible through the window across the corridor, and his eyes began to kindle.

"Have you a family?" the lady asked.

He waited a moment before answering, seemed to break some link of thought that had a bright fracture, and his expression underwent a slight but decided change. A light in it that had been lofty softened to a light that was tender, as at her question he looked down again. "There's Larry," he said.

"And who is Larry?"

The convict stared with astonishment at her ignorance. And, indeed, Mrs. Raynor was the only person about the prison who had not heard the name of this Larry. "He is my step-brother, ma'am," he replied. "We had but the one father; but he had his own mother. When she died, there were two of us left, and I took the lad and brought him to this country. He was five years old then, and I was twenty. I was a stone-cutter, and thought to do better here; and, faith, one way I have, and another way I haven't. Shame never touched one of us at home."

"Who took care of the child?" Mrs. Raynor asked.

"Myself, ma'am. He ate and slept with me, and I took him on my arm as often as I put my hat on. He had his little chair on the table in my shop, or he played about at the end of a long string. For the lad was venturesome, and I never trusted him but with a tether."

"He must have been a great care," she said.

"Have you any children, ma'am?" the convict asked.

"No."

"I thought that," he said dryly; then smiled. "Larry was like a picture. He had red cheeks and black eyes, and his hair was like gold with a shadow on it. It used to take me half an hour every morning to make his curls, and they reached to his waist. Everybody noticed the child, and they'd turn to look after him in the street. One of the richest ladies in the city wanted to take him for her own, and me to promise never to see him again; and when she told what she would do for him, I thought that perhaps I ought to let him go. The lady coaxed him, and gave him picture-books and candy, and then asked him if he'd go and live with her; and faith, ma'am, my heart didn't get such a scalding when Mary asked her promise back, and said she liked Larry best, as it did when that child went to the lady's knee and said he would go and live with her. God forgive me, but I hated her that minute. Well, I told her that I would think about it, and let her know the next day. That night I dreamed that she had him, and that I saw him far off at play, dressed in jewels, and his little frock like a fall of snow. I dreamed that I couldn't speak to him, and that set me crying; and I cried so that I waked myself up. I put my hand out for the child, but I couldn't find him. He was a restless little fellow, and had crawled down to the foot of the bed. For a minute I thought that the dream was true; and then I knew that I couldn't let him go. I waked him up, and asked him if he'd stay and live for ever with his brother John; and I was a happy man when he put his little arms round my neck and said yes, he would. And I made a promise to the child that night, while he was asleep in my arms, that, since I kept him back from being a rich man, whatever he might ask of me in all his life, if it was my heart's blood, he should have it! And, ma'am, I've kept my promise."

The tenderness with which he spoke of his brother invested the convict's manner with the softening grace which it so much needed, and grew upon his rough nature like a gentian upon its rock.

"This brother is in California?" Mrs. Raynor asked.

The convict dropped his eyes. "He and Mary went there when I came here," he said.

"Who is Mary?"

"Mary is Larry's wife," was the brief reply.

"You hear from them?"

"Oh! yes," he said eagerly. "They write to me every month. In his last letter Larry said that he was coming after me at the end of my term; but I sent him word not to. I can go alone, and he will send me the money."

The man seemed to have a jealous suspicion of her thought that he had been cruelly deserted. "I told them to go," he said with a touch of pride; "and I shall go and live with them when I get out of this. They wouldn't hear to my going anywhere else."

He broke off, glanced through the window, and said, as if involuntarily, "There's the west wind!" then drew back, rather ashamed when the lady looked to find what he meant. "You see, ma'am, we don't have much to think of here, and there's only the sight of stone and iron, and that bit of sky. Three years ago there wasn't a glimpse of green; but two years ago I began to catch a flit of leaves when the west wind blew. Last summer I could see a green tip of a bough all the time, and now in the high March wind I can see a bit of a twig."

"It is an elm-tree," the warden's wife said; "and the branches are longest on this side. I think they stretch out for you to see. You miss many a pleasant sight here, Dougherty."

"What I miss is nothing to what I have seen," he said quickly, his eyes beginning again to kindle.

"What do you mean?"

He gazed at her searchingly for a moment, as if to read whether she were worthy to hear; then he looked up at the sky.

Mrs. Raynor tried not to be impressed. "He is a thief, serving out his sentence in the State prison," she repeated mentally. "He is a poor, ignorant Irishman, who can scarcely spell his own name, and who reverences a polysyllable next to the priest."

"I will tell you," he said after a moment, his voice trembling slightly, not with weakness, but with fervor. "When I first came here, I had to pray all the time to keep myself from going crazy; but by and by I got reconciled. You know we never have a priest here, and must find things out as well as we can for ourselves. All I wanted to know was whether God was angry with me. Sometimes I thought he was; but that might be a temptation of the devil. What I am going to tell you happened about six months ago, at nine o'clock in the evening. The night-watch was in, and had just gone round. He spoke to me, and I answered him. I was in bed, and I shut my eyes as soon as he went back to his place. Something made me open them again, and I saw on the wall of my cell here a little spot like moonlight. It grew larger while I looked, and the whole cell was full of the light of it; and it trembled like the flame of a candle in the wind. There didn't seem to be any wall here; it was all opened out. I pulled the blanket about me and went down to my knees on the stone floor. I don't know how long it was before two faces began to show in the midst of the light; and when they came, it was still. At first they were faint; but they grew brighter till they were as bright as I could bear. I couldn't tell whether it was the brightness in their faces or the thought in my heart, that brought the tears into my eyes. There was the Blessed Virgin with the Infant Jesus in her arms, and they both looking at me and smiling. And while they smiled, they faded away!"

"How probable that would sound if it were related as having happened in the year of our Lord 62, instead of 1862!" the lady thought, restraining a smile, awed by the perfect conviction of the speaker.

"Dougherty," she said, "a man like you ought not to be caught at highway robbery. How did it happen?"

Some swift emotion passed over his face; but whether of fear or anger she could not tell. The next moment he smiled grimly. "I know just how it happened, ma'am," he said; "for didn't the lawyers tell me? Oh! but they told the whole story so plain you'd have thought they did the deed themselves; and faith, they made me almost believe I did it. It is a very convincing way that the lawyers have about them. They made out that Mike Murray was at our house one night, and we all played cards and got drunk together; and when we were pretty high, that Larry and I went out with Mike to see him home; and that I sent Larry back, he being too drunk to go on; and that I waited upon Mike out to a piece of woods, and there I knocked him down and robbed him; and that he was picked up half-dead the next morning, and I was caught throwing the money away. They proved that I only did it because I was drunk, and that I never did a dishonest deed before; and so they sent me here for ten years. And the pity it was of poor Mike Murray! It would have brought tears to your eyes to hear that lawyer go on about him, as if Mike was his own father's son, and a saint to the bargain, instead of a dirty, drunken blackguard that Mary was mad to see in the house, and that beat his own wife with a stool, and kicked her down-stairs every morning; and that's the way she used to get down. She told our Mary that she was never without a sore spot on her head, and that when she got to the top of a flight of stairs, if it was in the church itself, she'd look behind for the kick that Mike always had for her. Indeed, ma'am, while the lawyer was talking, I didn't believe he meant the Mike Murray I knew at all, but a sweet, gentle creature with the same name, and that never took a sup of anything but milk. And that's the story of my coming here, ma'am," the convict concluded, giving a short laugh.

"You have had troubles enough," Mrs. Raynor said gently; "but now they are nearly over. Only two months longer, and you will be free. It won't hurt you to go to chapel for that short time."

"I shall not go," he replied.

She turned away at that, went into the deserted prison-yard, and stood there a moment recollecting a sermon she had heard not long before. "Why should we not now have a saint after the grand old way?" the speaker had asked.

"There is every reason why we should not!" she exclaimed impatiently. "Those bizarre, uncompromising virtues of the antique time would now scandalize the very elect. We must not offend against les bienséances, though all the saints should clap their hands. This poor Irishman is unquestionably a little wrong in his head, and will have to go to the dungeon. For you, Madge Raynor, you had best return to your moutons, and cease pulling at the skirts of the millennium. What a quixotic little body you are, to be sure!"

To the dungeon, accordingly, Dougherty was sent the next Sunday and after a few hours, the warden's wife went to see him.

A door of solid iron opened in the basement wall of the prison, and let the light into a stone vestibule that was otherwise perfectly dark. Opposite this entrance was what looked like an oven or furnace-door, about two feet square, and also of solid iron. Removing a padlock from the inner door, the guard opened it, and called Dougherty.

Mrs. Raynor started back as the foul air from the dungeon struck her face; for, though there was an aperture artfully contrived so as to admit a little air and exclude all light, it was not large enough to do more than keep the prisoner from actual suffocation.

"You are acting like a simpleton!" the lady exclaimed when the convict's pale face appeared at the opening. "Go to chapel next Sunday, and say your prayers under the parson's nose. I will give you beads that shall rattle like hail-stones."

"I thank you, ma'am!" the man replied in his provokingly quiet way; "but I can't go to chapel."

"You expect to enjoy staying here three days, with bread and water once a day, sitting and sleeping on bare stones, and breathing air that would sicken a dog?" she demanded angrily.

"That is nothing to what my Lord suffered for me," was the reply.

"You fancy yourself a martyr, and that the officers of the prison are children of the devil!" she said.

"I don't blame them," he answered. "They do what they think is right."

"Shut him up!" she exclaimed, turning away. "It's a pity we haven't a rack for the blockhead. He is pining for it."

Dougherty did not complain nor yield; but he was put to work again after three days, that being the longest time the rules allowed a man to be kept in the dungeon.

Mrs. Raynor was annoyed with herself for taking such an interest in this contumacious thief. Every day she protested that she would not worry about him, and every day she worried more and more. When Sunday came again, "I will not go near him," she said. "I will leave him to his fate. 'What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?'" and even while speaking, counted anxiously the last strokes of the prison-bell ringing for service. At that moment the convicts were entering the chapel, all but the sick, and that troublesome protégé of hers. "I won't go near him," she said in a very determined manner, and, five minutes after, was on her way up the prison-stairs.

Letting herself into the guardroom with a pass-key, she found but one man on guard; but the voices of others came through the open door of the hospital, and with them a long, agonized moan. Hurrying into the cell where the punishment called "the strings" was inflicted, Mrs. Raynor saw Dougherty hanging by his wrists to a chain run through a ring in the ceiling. His toes touched the floor and slightly relieved the otherwise intolerable strain on his shoulders and breast. One of the guards kept the chain up, while the deputy-warden stood by the convict and watched for the first sign of submission or of fainting.

The man groaned with pain, and drops of perspiration rolled down his face.

"Will you give up and go to chapel next Sunday?" asked the deputy.

"O God! strengthen me," cried the convict. "No, I will not go!"

Mrs. Raynor's pale face flushed as she heard this reply.

The moans became fainter.

"Now, give up like a man," the deputy said. "You've shown your grit, and that is enough."

"Lord, help me!" came in a broken cry.

"He's going; let him down," the deputy said.

"Dead?" cried the warden's wife, starting forward.

"No, madam; he has fainted."

They applied restoratives, and when his senses had returned, led him, reeling, out into the guardroom, and placed him in a chair by the open window.

"Did you ever read a history of the Spanish Inquisition, Mr. Deputy?" asked the warden's wife.

"Yes'm!" was the immediate reply. "This is just like it, isn't it?"

"Well, Dougherty, you will be content now, and go to chapel next Sunday, will you not?" asked the lady, touching the convict's sleeve.

He lifted his heavy eyes. He was still catching his breath like one who sobs. "I will die before I will go to hear the name of God and of his truth blasphemed!" he answered, speaking with difficulty.

"But if you should be again put up in the strings?"

He shivered, but replied without hesitation, "He that died upon the cross will strengthen me."

"The fellow is a fool!" muttered one of the guard.

"May God multiply such fools!" cried Mrs. Raynor, turning upon the speaker. Then to the convict, "I will urge you no more. I am not capable of judging for you, and you do not need help nor advice from me. Go your own way."

Dougherty's own way was to persist in his refusal to attend chapel; and since the officers had no choice but to punish him for his disobedience, it chanced that for the next four weeks he was put up in the strings every Sunday morning.

"It shall not be done again," the warden said then. "He has but a fortnight longer to stay; and, rule or no rule, he shall do as he likes."

"Only a fortnight," he said to the convict, "then you will be a free man."

Dougherty's face brightened. "Yes, sir! And I long to set my feet on the turf again. A man doesn't know what green grass is, till he gets shut up in a place like this."

"Don't come here again," the officer said kindly. "Let what you have suffered teach you to resist temptation."

The convict looked at Mr. Raynor with a singular expression of surprise, not unmingled with a momentary indignation, and seemed about to speak, but checked himself.

"It is only to keep from drink," the warden went on. "I don't believe you would be dishonest when sober."

The convict dropped his eyes. "God knows all hearts," he said.

The next day Dougherty had a cold and a headache; the second day he was unable to go to work; the third day he had a settled fever. He was removed to the hospital, where the cells were larger, and, being next the outside wall, had light and air; a convict whose term had nearly expired was set to take care of him, and Mrs. Raynor visited him twice a day.

But the fever had got well fixed before the man gave up, and it found him good fuel. He burned like a solid beech log, with a slow, intense, unquenchable heat. His pale and sallow face became a dull crimson; his strong, full pulses beat fiercely in neck, wrists, and temples; and his restless eyes glowed with a brilliant lustre. Mrs. Raynor was sometimes startled, as she sat fanning and bathing his face, fancying that she had soothed him to sleep, to see those eyes open suddenly, and fix themselves on her with a searching gaze, or wander wildly about the cell. But he lay almost as motionless as the burning log would, locked in that fierce and silent struggle with disease. Nearly a fortnight passed, and there were but two days left of Dougherty's term of imprisonment; but there was no longer a hope that any freedom of man's giving would profit him. There was scarcely more than the embers of a man left of him; not enough, indeed, for a fever to prey upon. The flushes had become intermittent, like the last flickerings of a fire, and the parched and blackened mouth showed how he had been consumed inwardly.

It was May, and the sweet air and sunshine came in through two narrow windows and lightened and freshened the cell where the convict lay. Everything was clean and in order. The stone walls and floor were whitewashed; a prayer-book, crucifix, medicine, and glasses were carefully arranged on a little table between the windows; and there was a spotless cover on the narrow pallet that stood opposite. The door was wide open for a draught, and now and then one of the guard, approaching laboriously on tiptoe, would put his head into the cell, raise his eyebrows inquiringly at the convict-nurse who sat at the head of the bed, receive a nod in return, and retire with the same painful feint of making no noise. Neither of the two men was quite clear in his mind as to what he meant by this pantomime; but the result with both was a conviction that all was right. Presently, as the afternoon waned, there was the soft rustle of a woman's garments in the corridor, and a woman's unmistakable velvet footfall. At that sound the convict-nurse went lightly out; and Mrs. Raynor came in, and seated herself on the stool where he had sat, and slipped a bit of ice between the lips of the patient. He had been lying motionless and apparently asleep during the last hour; but as she touched him, he opened his eyes and fixed them upon her. "What does the doctor say, ma'am?" he asked in a tone so firm that one forgot it was but a whisper.

"I think that you will want to see the priest," she said gently. "I have sent for one, and he will come tomorrow."

A slight spasm passed over the sick man's face, his eyelids quivered, and his mouth contracted for an instant.

"It must come to us all sooner or later," she continued; "and it is well for us that He who knows best and does best is the one to choose."

He said not a word, but closed his eyes again; and she kept silence while he went through with his struggle, her own tears starting as she saw how the tears swelled under his eyelids, and the stern mouth quivered, and knew that he was tearing up the few simple hopes that had taken root in his heart: the setting his feet on the green grass again, the meeting his brother, the dream of a cheerful fireside where he should be welcome, the honest gains and generous gifts, the happy laughter, kind looks, and sorrows from which love and faith should draw the sting. Simple hopes; but they had struck deep, and every fibre of the man's heart quivered and bled at their uprooting.

Presently the watcher spoke softly: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord hath mercy on them that fear him!"

"May his will be done!" said the convict. "But, poor Larry!"

"You want me to write to him?"

"Yes ma'am!" he answered eagerly. "Tell him that I was comfortable here, and that I was willing to die; and be sure to tell him that coming here was the best thing that ever happened to me. Don't let him know anything about the punishment. Larry'd feel bad about that. Don't forget!" he urged, looking anxiously in the lady's face.

"I won't forget," she said.

He stopped a moment for breath; then resumed, "Tell him that my last words were, that he should remember his promises to me, and never taste liquor again. And tell him to be kind to Mary for my sake. You see, ma'am, I was fond of Mary; but of course she liked Larry best."

The lady blushed faintly, and laid her cool white hand on his fevered one. "Dougherty," she said, "nobody but God thanks us for true love. In this world a light love meets with most gratitude."

"Sometimes I've thought the same," the man said gravely. "Some are made to give, and some are made to take; but the Lord gives to all."

The next day a priest came and spent some time with the sick man. Mrs. Raynor went up for her afternoon visit, and found him still lingering there, looking gravely and intently at his penitent, who lay with an expression of perfect peace on his countenance.

"Poor man!" she sighed, glancing toward the bed.

The father looked up with a light flashing into his thoughtful eyes. "Poor man, madam?" he repeated. "Not so: that man is rich! It is for him to pity us."

She followed the priest out, and spoke to him in the corridor. "Dougherty's brother has come from California," she said. "He reached here this morning. It seems hard to keep him out, but I hate to disturb a man who is dying."

The priest frowned. "Keep the fellow out for to-day. I have just given this man the viaticum, and want him to be undisturbed. His confession has exhausted him, and he mustn't be made to talk much more. How does his brother appear?"

"Oh! he is frantic. He fainted when I first told him, and I could hear him crying out in the yard when I got up into the guard-room. I told him that he couldn't come in till he should have become quiet."

"What sort of fellow is he?" asked the priest coldly.

The lady hesitated. In spite of her pity, she did not fancy Larry; neither did she like the coldness the priest showed toward him. "He is a very handsome young man," she said presently, "and very well dressed."

The father shrugged his shoulders. "Oh! then he should be admitted without delay."

She must, of course, free herself from such an imputation. "He looks weak and faithless," she said; "but his grief is genuine; and his having come so far shows that he loves his brother."

"You might tell Dougherty tonight, and let Larry in to-morrow morning if he behaves himself."

Mrs. Raynor sat by her patient without speaking, till presently he looked at her and smiled faintly. "May the Lord reward you, ma'am!" he said fervently. "You've been a good friend to me."

"Here is a note from your brother," she said. "Shall I read it to you?"

He glanced eagerly at the folded paper in her hand—a note which, in the midst of his lamentations, Larry had written and entreated her to take up to his brother.

"Read it!" the sick man said, making an effort to turn toward her.

"Would you like very much to see your brother?" she asked.

Dougherty's face began to work. "O ma'am! has Larry come?" he asked tremulously.

"Yes; and presently he is to come in to see you. Of course, he feels very much grieved, you know. That must be. But when he shall see how resigned and happy you are, he will take comfort."

Seeing that he eagerly watched the paper in her hand, the lady unfolded and glanced over it. As she did so, her face underwent a change. "It cannot be!" she cried out; and, crushing the note, looked at the man who lay there dying before her.

He did not understand, was too weak and dull to think of anything but the letter. "Read it!" he said faintly.

She began breathlessly to read the blotted page: "My dear brother John, for God's sake don't die! I have come to take you back to California with me, and Mary and I will spend our lives in taking care of you. We will make up to you what you have suffered for me, going to prison for my crime."

The sick man started up with sudden energy and snatched the paper from the reader's hand. "The lad is wild!" he gasped. "He didn't know what he was writing!"

She tried to soothe him, to coax him to lie down; but he sat rigid with that terrible suspense, his haggard eyes fixed on hers, a deathly pallor in his face.

"You won't tell anybody what the foolish boy wrote!" he pleaded.

"It was your brother, then, who robbed the man?" she said.

He sank back, moaning, upon his pillow, "All for nothing!" he said despairingly. "I've given my heart's blood for nothing! O ma'am! have you the heart to spoil all I've been trying to do, and have just about finished?"

It was a hard promise to give, but she gave it. Without his permission, what she had learned should never be revealed.

"The poor lad wasn't to blame," the sick man said. "It was drink did it. Drink always made Larry crazy. When he got home that night, he didn't know what he'd been doing; but in the morning Mary found the money on him, and the stain of blood on his hand. I tried to throw the money away, and they saw me."

He paused, gasping for breath. He was making an effort beyond his strength.

"Tell me the rest to-morrow," Mrs. Raynor said, giving him a spoonful of cordial.

But he went on excitedly, clutching at the bed-clothes as he spoke. "It would have been the ruin of Larry if he had come here. He would never again have looked anybody in the face. Besides, Mary's heart was broke entirely. So when I was caught, I just bid Larry hold his peace. But I didn't tell any lie, ma'am. When they asked me in court if I was guilty or not guilty, I said 'not guilty;' and it was true."

She gave him the cordial again, wiped his forehead, and, noticing that his hands were cold, first lifted the blanket to cover them, then hesitated, looked at him more closely, finally laid it back.

He lay for a while silent and exhausted, then spoke again. "You promise?"

"I promise, Dougherty. Set your heart at rest. You are dying; did you know it?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

After a while he said faintly, "My time will be up to-morrow morning."

"Yes!"

Twilight faded into night. Mrs. Raynor went into the house for a while, then returned to sit by her patient, sending the nurse out. One and another came to the cell-door, looked in, spoke a word, then went away. The heavy doors clanged, there was a sound of rattling bars as the prison was closed for the night, then silence settled all over. The dying man lay perfectly quiet, breathing slowly, and responding now and then to the prayers read by his attendant. He felt no pain, and his mind was clear and calm. He had no complicated intellectual mechanism to confuse his ideas of right and wrong; there was no labyrinth of sophistry to entangle his faith, no flutter of imagination to start a latent fear. He had done what he could; and he held on to the promises with an iron grasp.

That lonely watcher almost feared for him. Might he not be presuming on an act of devotion which, after all, rose from a love that was entirely human?

"My friend," she said, "even the angels are not pure before God. Perhaps you loved your brother too well."

"If I had loved him less, he would have been lost," was the calm reply. "I haven't loved him well enough to sin for him."

"Do not be too sure," she said.

"I'm a poor, ignorant man; but I've done as well as I knew how; and he has promised. I never broke a promise to man nor woman; and do you think that the Almighty would do the thing that I would scorn to do?"

"Are you not afraid of presumption?"

"It would be presumption to doubt the word of God."

"Do not rely on your own strength," she urged.

"I have no strength but what he gives me," said the dying man.

While they talked, or prayed, or were silent, the stars wore slowly and brightly past the open windows of the cell, dropping down the west like golden sands in an hour-glass, and counting out the minutes of that ebbing life. Then the dim and humid crescent of the waning moon stole by in the early morning twilight; then the air grew alive with the golden glances of the dawn. As the sun rose, the man called Dougherty, a convict no longer, lay dead on his prison pallet, his face white and calm, the dull eyes half open, as though the deserted body followed with a solemn gaze the flight of its emancipated tenant.

"Would you rather have been the angel loosing Peter, or Peter in chains? I would rather have been Peter!"

---

Translated From Le Conseiller Des Familles.
The Children's Graves In The Catacombs.

Childhood and the grave! Should these two words be placed together? Must flowers fall before bearing fruit, and children also die? This is what mothers think, and the church thinks as they do, because the church is a mother. In her view children do not die; they are born again, they are transfigured; and the grave in which cold death places them resembles the white bed, whereon, perhaps the day before, you saw them open their eyes to the sunlight. Do you recollect the ode in which a poet, at the time eminent, celebrated in beautiful verses the entrance of Louis XVII. into the heavenly palace to which his father had gone by the rough road of martyrdom? According to Catholic belief, all those little beings who die before making a name or obtaining a place in this world, are also young princes, heirs-apparent of a kingdom more beautiful than that of France, and who, like Louis XVII., fall asleep in a prison to awake upon a throne.

This is why the church has no prayers of grief at their burial. Assured of their happiness, she laments not, but gives praise. By the grace given at baptism, they are received into glory. She covers their remains with white drapery, which calls to mind the vestment which she put over them at the baptismal font. Instead of mourning, she invites the children of heaven to unite in praises, Laudate, pueri! The Virgin, who was herself a mother, receives them at her altar, where the triumphant procession congratulates the Queen of angels that her empire is enriched by one more subject—Ave, Regina caelorum! Ave, Domina angelorum! The funeral mass for little children is only a thanksgiving to God, who has reserved a favored space for those blessed beings, Venite, benedicti Patris. Having read the gospel of our Lord, who blessed and caressed those to whom he promised the kingdom of heaven, the last prayer of the church which throws a little earth upon the body that is to rise again, is that we, adult sinners, may one day rejoice with them in the same kingdom. Read again this funeral service, and if you have a mourning mother among your friends and relatives, (who does not know one?) give her these consolations. She will believe that she hears the voice of God, who stopped the coffin of the widow's only son and restored him to her.

But these are, if I may speak thus, only the first caresses of religion of the remains of children; the honor which she accords to them is perpetuated in the worship with which she surrounds their graves.

Paganism took little care of the tombs of those who had not furnished to their country a citizen or a soldier. We know that they considered a child's life very unimportant. Virgil alone, among the poets, uttered a cry for the souls of young infants, whom he represents as being cut down before the eyes of their mothers. In those family sepulchres, called by the Romans columbaria, I found several little busts in marble, representing children, by the side of which were funeral urns, containing at the bottom several pinches of ashes. This was all that remained. Among the innumerable inscriptions which cover the walls of the immense gallery of the Vatican, I saw several epitaphs coldly stating that Junius Severianus had lived two years; that Octavius Liberalis died when he was five years four months and four days old; that Steteria Superba had departed life at the age of eighteen months. But there was no wish or hope of meeting them again, and no religious emblem to console the mourners.

Elysium did not exist for those shades without a name, as they were called, sine nomine manes, and their sepulchre closed without hope and without glory. The position of children in heathen times was revealed to me by an epitaph which I found at Antibes, the ancient Antipolis, to which the fashionable Romans came to enjoy the fine coast and a sunny sky. A stone detached from the ruins of a theatre, now almost entirely destroyed by the action of the weather and the sea, had the following inscription: "To the divine shades of Septentrion, a child of twelve years, who danced two days in the theatre and pleased the people"! [Footnote 83] They made the poor slave-boy contribute for two days to their delight; but he was overcome, and they applauded— saltavit et placuit. See, then, what society made of this child—a plaything and a victim! Meditating upon this, I recalled to mind the time when another infant of twelve years of age glorified God in the temple at Jerusalem, and also when the Saviour took the hand of the dying girl and saying unto her, "Arise!" restored her to her father. I was obliged to leave these cursed ruins and enter for a moment into the temple of that God who, to save these little ones, took upon himself the form of a child—Custodiens parvulos Dominus.

[Footnote 83: "Diis Manibus pueri Septentrionis, annorum duodecim, qui biduo saltavit in theatro et placuit.">[

II.

Jesus Christ was born, was an infant; and since that time a revolution in favor of children began, which is perceptible in the epitaphs upon their graves. The child becomes a king, almost a god. It is at least a soul called to heaven and expecting us; and what new regards surround it for the future in that lapidary style, which says so much in so few words.

I was at Avignon, and visiting the museum of that city, my attention was attracted to a grave-stone of one of the first Christian centuries. It contained the following words: "Florentiola, pax tecum!" Florentiola, peace be with thee!" By the side was the monogram of Christ, surrounded with glory. Who was this little Florentiola? The tender diminutive proved plainly that she was an infant, and a beloved one. The wish expressed and the sign of Christ the Redeemer gave evidence that she was also a Christian. This little name brought to mind another inscription which I found somewhere in one of our cemeteries, upon the sepulchre of a young woman: "She bloomed, blossomed, and died." Of these three periods of life, Florentiola had passed through only the first; but the last words expressed the hope that, as she had given to this world the blossom, she would yield the fruit in another: "Pax tecum!"

But one must go to the catacombs in Rome, and read, in that great Christian city of death, the delicacies of the affections of earth, and the hopes of a resurrection, which are radiant upon the graves of little children. In the cemetery of St. Priscilla, I observed two epitaphs distinguished above all others by their brevity. One of them consists only of a single melancholy word, "Libera" that is to say, free. A dove flying away, carrying an olive-branch, explains the meaning, which to me appeared sublime.

This captive soul which had passed through the prison of earth was free at last! The church conveys a similar idea at the funeral obsequies of little children: "Anima nostra, sicut passer, erepta est de laqueo venantium. Laqueus contritus est, et nos liberati sumus." (Psalm cxxiii.) "Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken, and we are delivered."

The other one, which I remarked at the same place, containing only a word, was quite as beautiful and more Christian—"Redempta," redeemed. This was also expressive of liberty, but it was a freedom which had been acquired as the price of a ransom which was the blood of God: Redempta!

This last expression alludes to the grace given by baptism, which liberates the soul held in bondage by the demon. The children's epitaphs have it often, and prove that the church had conferred the sacraments upon them at the most tender age. You can find for instance, in the museum of the Lateran: "Paulina, neophyte of eight years; Candida, neophyte, twenty-one months old; Zozima, neophyte, five years, eight months, and thirteen days; Matronata Matrona, neophyte, one year, fifty-two days."

Upon a grave in the catacomb of Saint Calista, a Grecian inscription was found by the Canon Profili, consisting of the following words:

"Dionysius, newly illuminated, one year and four months." This title of enlightened was given only to those who came into possession of it by baptism. Saint Chrysostom mentions the enlightened in no other way.

This one, collected in the cemetery of the new road Salaria, and preserved at the Lateran, is more explicit:

"Florentius dedicates this inscription to his well-beloved son, Apronianus, who lived one year, nine months, five days. He was loved by his grand-mother, and seeing that he was nigh unto death, she asked the church to make him a Christian before he should leave the world." [Footnote 84]

[Footnote 84: "Florentius filio suo Aproniano fecit titulum benemerenti qui vixit annum et menses novem, dies quinque. Cum amatus fuisset à majore suâ et vidit hunc morti constitutum esse, petivit de ecclesiâ ut fidelis de seculo recessisset.">[

Baptism, which was conferred upon the newly-born, was a great consolation to those who witnessed their departure from this world. "O Magus, innocent child!" said an inscription at the museum of the Lateran, "thou hast gone to live among the guiltless. How much more endurable is life! With what joy the church, thy other mother, received thee, when thou didst leave the world for her. We will suppress the murmurings of our hearts and restrain the tears from our eyes." [Footnote 85]

[Footnote 85: "Magus puer innocens, esse jam inter innocentes coepisti. Quàm staviles (stabilis) tivi (tibi) haec vita est! Quàm te laetum excipet (excepit) mater ecclesia edeoc (de hoc) mundo revertentem. Comprimatur pectorum gemitus, struatur (destruatur) fletus oculorum.">[

Expressions of the most ingenious tenderness are shown in the last farewell to creatures of whom only smiles are known.

"Cyricus, dear soul, peace be with thee! He lived a year and sixty-two days!" [Footnote 86]

[Footnote 86: Cyricus, anima dulcis in pace, vixit annum i. dies lxii.]

"Here reposes our dear soul, named Quiriace, an innocent child, beautiful and good, who lived three years, three months, eight days." [Footnote 87]

[Footnote 87: Hic posita est anima dulcis, innoca sapiens et pulcra, nomine Quiriace, quae vixit annos iii. menses iii. dies viii.]

The word soul, in the Latin language, is a term of great tenderness. It signifies life as it is visible. But in the Christian language it has a more spiritual signification. As the poet says:

"Thou callest me thy life; call me thy soul!
I wish a name more lasting than a day.
Life is of little value, a breath extinguishes the flame;
But the soul is immortal as our love."

Maternal affection creates, in Christianity, a name for children which becomes as the family name for those beings who pass from earth, having only glanced at its sorrows. The mother remembers that the Lord said, the angels of these little ones behold the face of the Father who is in heaven. This was enough to make so many angels of those innocent babes by an intentional confusion. This is hereafter to be their title: and where is now the afflicted mother who, at the death-bed of her son, has not seen, like the poet, the radiant face of the angel bending over and calling the child who resembles him? Primitive epigraphy goes to show the cause of this synonymy upon the graves of children.

"Angelica, bene in pace." "Angelica, child, be happy in peace," was one inscription of the Catacombs.

Upon another was written:

"Laurentius to his beloved son Severus, who lived four years, eight months, and five days, and was called by the angels on the 7th of January." [Footnote 88]

[Footnote 88: "Severo filio dulcissimo Laurentius pater benemerenti qui vixit annos iv. menses viii. dies v. accersitus ab angelis, vii. idus Januarii.">[

One is pleased to recognize in these funereal places, the remembrances of school days, being the only ones that the departed youths have left in life. In several catacombs, near the Cubicula, where the faithful ones assembled for prayer, large halls can be seen, which have neither altar nor pictures, and no other embellishment than banks made in the turf, mostly terminated by one or two elevated seats. It is presumed that the antiquarians assembled children in school, and instructed them in the catechism. Near one of these halls can be read the following epitaph in the catacomb of Saint Priscilla:

"Obrimos to Palladios, his beloved cousin and schoolmate, as a remembrance."

In the catacomb of the new Via Salaria the school-teacher united with the mother to write an epitaph upon his pupil, whom he had adopted in his heart.

"With a holy and pure spirit, this grave has been made to Florentius, a child of thirteen years, by Coritus, his teacher, who loved him more than a son, and by Corda, his mother." [Footnote 89]

[Footnote 89: "In spiritu sancto bono, Florentio qui vixit annis xiii. Coritus magister qui plus amavit quam proprium filium, et Cordeus mater filio benemerenti fecerunt.']

The glass paintings found at the same place are a finished representation of the education of young Christians in those days. On a chalice made of glass there is a child, whom the father and mother are teaching to read the Scriptures. Another one represents two little children, Pompeianus and Theodora, with their parents, under the trees. They are holding a copy of the Gospel, and Pompeianus points to the monogram of Christ which is erected in the midst of this Christian family. Their father is discoursing and explaining to them the precepts of their faith.

But once torn from the bosom of their family, who received children into the world of souls, which they entered astonished? The epitaphs recommend them to the saints in heaven to attend them on their entrance into paradise. The mother of Aurelius Gemellus, who died at the age of eight years, added to the inscription engraved upon his tombstone the following: "O Saint Basilla! we recommend to you the innocence of Gemellus!" [Footnote 90] In former times this was to be found in the cemetery of Saint Basilla, now of Saint Hermes.

[Footnote 90: "Commendo Basilla, innocentiam Gemelli.">[

A similar prayer was addressed to this saint in the same catacomb, but for another child: "O Saint Basilla! we commend to thy care Crescentinus, and our daughter Crescentia, who lived ten months." [Footnote 91]

[Footnote 91: Domina Basilla, commendamus tibi Crescentinum et filiam nostram ... quae vixit menses x." ...]

More frequently it was to God they directed the loved soul, "Lord Jesus, remember our child," said a Grecian inscription reported by Northcote.

Is there not a remembrance of the stammering of a child in prayer, in the first pronunciation, and in the orthography of the last word of the epitaph on a little girl?

"Regina, bibas (vivas) in Domino Zezu!" "Regina, live in the Lord Jesus!"

If life is only a pilgrimage for us, is not this particularly true of those who have only passed a few days in this world? This idea has been rendered in the epitaph of a young Christian; and few have made so great an impression upon me as the following, simple and short as it is:

"Peregrina, vixit annos viii., menses viii., dies x. Decessit de corpore." "Peregrina lived eight years, eight months, ten days, then departed from the body."

Did this name of Peregrina, pilgrim, passenger, allude to her rapid voyage upon the earth, which she hastened to leave? I incline to this beautiful idea, which a similar inscription authorizes, not far from there, carved upon the tomb of a Christian: "Viator!"

Upon the grave-stones of children of the first centuries, it is not uncommon to see a white dove, carved upon an antique cup, drinking from the border. Those who repose beneath that stone had drunk of the cup of life, and taking a taste, not wishing more, had spread their wings and returned to heaven.

In that better land they become intercessors for their kindred on the earth. What family has not theirs? And who has not prayed to those young elect, yesterday our brothers and sons, to-day our defenders in that place from which they behold us and will prove their love for us? The following can be read in the Lateran Museum:

"Matronata matrona, intercede for thy parents!
She lived one year, fifty-two days." [Footnote 92]

[Footnote 92: "Pete pro parentes tuos, Matronata Matrona, quae vixit an. i. di lii.">[

And upon another stone:

"Anatolius has made this grave for his dear son, who lived seven years, seven months, twenty-two days. May the soul repose in happiness with God. Pray for thy sister!" [Footnote 93]

[Footnote 93: "Anatolius filio benemerenti fecit, qui vixit annis vii. mensis vii. diebus xxii. Spiritus tuus bene requiescat in Deo. Petas pro sorore tua.">[

III.

I must confess that we have preserved little of the architectural simplicity in the inscriptions upon tombs. It is just to say that they are of a poor style, laden with lengthy common epitaphs, emphatic declamations, and warm protestations, contradicted by the neglected and solitary aspect of those almost forgotten places. I make an exception of the sepulchres of children. If you find in a cemetery a grave which is preserved with love, invested with crowns, and dressed with fresh flowers, you can recognize the place of a child. In all countries of the world, a delicate worship is devoted to the mortal remains of innocence. The Indian graves have become celebrated, since Chateaubriand described them so charmingly. Now that Christianity has been established in those parts of the globe, mothers no longer suspend the cradles of their sons upon branches of trees, but their funerals have retained much of the simple grace of the time of Chactas.

A missionary has written: "I had to attend the burial of a little child five or six months old. They brought it to the church, laying it upon a mat, with garlands of flowers for a winding-sheet. We should have thought that it was sleeping sweetly, and notwithstanding its color, I admired its angelic beauty. After the prayers, which the church addresses to the good God, they dropped it gently into the grave, as if it had been its cradle, without covering even the face. Flowers were given in the place of earth, to throw upon the body. All the assistants did likewise, and some commenced to weep. It was sad to see the earth close over this little body so sweetly adorned, and cover that young face which appeared to smile upon us. It was to become food for worms; but the beautiful soul was already in heaven with the angels. I then united with the heavenly spirits to sing praises to God at the happiness of his little creature. I hope that this child will not forget the young missionary who celebrated its deliverance from this world of misery." [Footnote 94]

[Footnote 94: Vie de M. l'Abbé Chopart, p. 188.]

This scene recalls to me a similar one which I witnessed in the village of Beauvoisis. I met in the street the funeral procession of a little girl who was being carried to the cemetery. In advance of the coffin, a child of ten years, concealed under a floating drapery, was carrying a basket of white flowers. Thus she walked, gathering and smiling, happy with her part, until their arrival at the sepulchre; then throwing her basket into the grave, she disappeared among the trees, delighted at having prepared this flowery bed for her playmate, who was to sleep there the long night of death.

Menander said in a celebrated verse, "He whom the gods love dies young." And Sophocles said before him, "It is good not to be born; but if once born, the second degree of happiness is to die young." The ancients considered it fortune to be delivered from mortal misery. What would they have said if those who left them had appeared upon the bosom of God in a beatitude and glory without end? Bene in pace!

---

Harem Life in Egypt and Constantinople.
[Footnote 95]

[Footnote 95: Harem Life in Egypt and Constantinople. By Emeline Lott. 4th edition. 12mo, pp. 312. Richard Bentley. New Burlington Street, London. 1867.]

This volume has run through several editions in England within the last three years. It is destined from its popularity to run through as many more; but as yet, it has found no publisher on this side of the Atlantic, although its merits are well-established in British literature. Observing a new edition announced by Bentley, it reminds us that the neat, unpretending little work has not received any recognition from our republic, nor has any attention been called to it. In truth, the American public, deeply interested in travellers and travelling in the east, or in whatever comes from the press illustrating scriptural scenes and events, have strangely overlooked this production, which furnishes a better insight into oriental domestic life than any account published for many years.

Egypt is now what it was in the days of the crucifixion and of Julius Caesar; it is unchanged, it is unchangeable, in its social structure, as the pyramids in their architecture, or the sands of the desert in their external aspect. To understand the condition of the people now, is to understand their condition when the Israelites under the direction of Moses went out from among them. To enter the family circle in the valley of the Nile for the purpose of learning their present mode of life, is at once an introduction to all their progenitors who ever dwelt in the same region in the reign of the ancient Pharaohs. In order to see what a Roman city was in the first century, it is requisite to put aside the ashes from a submerged Pompeii, or to remove the superincumbent earth from a buried Herculaneum. But in Egypt, to comprehend what was the moral, social, intellectual, religious appearance of the country when Cleopatra sailed upon the river, all that need be done is to push aside the mat which serves for a door to the first mud hovel met with, or pass within the first portal where heavy hinges grate upon the ear an uncordial reception.

The same Egypt can be seen which Alexander of Macedon, Sesostris, and the shepherd-kings beheld. Egyptian institutions were never buried; or, if buried, their sepulchre is above ground. A living death is visible on all sides; it is a palsy that struck the land long before the dawn of history, and may remain as it now is, when the history of the present century has passed into oblivion. Although the Egyptian mind and morals will not die in their body, still no motion is in its limbs, no quickening vitality in its joints, no trembling in its nerves; the blood is stagnant; a black pool as destitute of national animation as the waters of the Dead Sea. Progress is a term never heard of near the habitation of the Sphinx; and the period of ruins has gone by. Everything seems running rapidly to demolition; but nothing is demolished; decay has in that mysterious soil a perennial existence, a species of recuperation, that renews itself like the integuments of neighboring snakes, lizards, and toads, which bury themselves in the same rich slime.

A book, therefore, on modern harem life in Egypt, is in one sense a hand-book for historians in their explorations after the vanities and household troubles of good King Solomon, when his domestic peace and quiet, his comfort and felicity, were invaded by many more spinsters than the Levitical law allowed to any one wise man. This dame Emeline is the very woman to aid them in their archaeological researches. Her volume furnishes important hints and information; and if on the title-page nine centuries before the Christian era were substituted for the date of publication, instead of nineteen centuries after it, the change would be so unimportant in a chronological point of view, that no annalist would be aware of the anachronism. It would look like a second edition of Herodotus, revised and improved, for the benefit of the ladies, and far surpassing in truth the first impression of that ancient Halicarnassian, full of his old gallinaceous and bovine stories.

Mrs. Lott, an English school-teacher, was engaged in London to proceed to Egypt in 1862-3, to take charge of the education of his highness the Grand Pasha Ibraim, five or six years old, the son of Ismail Pasha, the viceroy, and the grandson of the renowned and illustrious Ibraim. The lady in due time arrived at the port of Alexandria, consigned to the delicate consideration and tender mercies of the viceroy's agent, like any other bale of valuable and perishable drygoods. Her first glimpse of the land in the culinary and creature-comfortable line of development was not favorable. She next proceeded to the city of Cairo by rail, and was invited to the house of the vice-regal commercial partner, a German in lineage and language, but with principles and refinement somewhat neglected from want of proper planting and propagation in his youthful European culture. At the residence of this gentleman she was perpetually served with the same dishes at breakfast, noon, and dinner—boiled and roast mutton, stringy and dry, vermicelli soup, tomatoes stuffed with rice, chicory, spinach, and "the whole of the dishes were swimming in fat;" oranges and coffee followed after. Considering that the thermometer was raging above 100°, Fahrenheit, this oriental feed was rather oleaginous, and the lady longed for the wings of a dove to devour her provender elsewhere. So far she had learned one important lesson, and thus paints it. She says:

"I can endorse the veracity of the statement made by a contributor to Once a Week, who most naively and truthfully asserts that 'the land of Egypt is ruled over by twenty princes: one of whom is the viceroy, eighteen of the others are known as consuls-general of European nations; but the twentieth is the most powerful of all, and his name is Baksheesh, (gift, present, bribery.')"

To the high and mighty Prince Baksheesh, in duty bound we render all due homage; we bow our lowest salaam, and are pleased to make his acquaintance. He is not wholly unknown to fame in this hemisphere; for a popular superstition prevails in the rural districts that his majesty has many loyal subjects and followers in our own dearly beloved and dearly governed model republic. Prince Baksheesh is a power in our institutions, and a party to much of our legislation. The misfortune of the unprotected female was, that she did not propitiate the potentate; the superabundant fat would have been speedily withdrawn from the bill of fare.

At last the day arrived for her to remove to the harem of the viceroy on the other side of the river; and she was destined to leave the hands of the agent in the same sort of consignment in which she had come into them, that is, amid bales, barrels, and boxes of merchandise. The dame, therefore, had no opportunity to take a look into the royal market-basket, to ascertain how Ismail Pasha provided for his little private family of three hundred females of different colors, ages, sizes,—and sexes of the feminine and neuter gender. Although the English governess has an eye for the ornamental and beautiful, it is nevertheless only one eye; the other throws its dark splendor upon the useful and substantial. Sometimes she endeavored to close both against sights which were neither the one nor the other. The truth of history, however, compels her to supply her readers with specimens of all these. She observes:

"The vice-regal standard, the everlasting crescent, floated at the stem and stern. On they rowed most vigorously, and in less than ten minutes I was landed at the stairs of the harem. The building is a very plain structure, the interior of which is painted like the trunks of the trees of the Dutch model village of Broeck. In appearance it resembles the letter E, and is a large pile, composed of five blocks of buildings. Proceeding to the one which faced the Nile, I entered the harem, ('sacred,') passed through a small door—the grating sound of whose huge hinges still seems to creak in my ears like the grinding of the barrel-organ of an itinerant Italian or Savoyard—which led into a court-yard, at that time lined, not with a corps of the Egyptian infantry, with their shrill brass bands playing opera airs, but with a group of hard-working Fellahs and Arabs, toiling away like laborers in the London docks, and rolling into the immense space hundreds of bales of soft Geneva velvets, the costliest Lyons silks, rich French satins, most elegant designed muslins, fast gaudy-colored Manchester prints, stout Irish poplins, the finest Irish linens, Brussels, Mechlin, Valenciennes, Honiton, and imitation laces, Nottingham hose, French silk stockings, French and Coventry ribbons, cases of the purest Schiedam, pipes of spirits of wine, huge cases of fashionable Parisian boots, shoes, and slippers, immense chests of bon bons in magnificent fancy-worked cases, boxes and baskets, bales of tombeki, and the bright, golden-leaved tobacco of Istambol, (Constantinople;) Cashmere, Indian, French, and Paisley shawls of the most exquisite designs; baskets of pipe-bowls, cases of amber mouth-pieces, cigarette papers, and a whole host of miscellaneous packages too various to enumerate, of other commodities destined for the use of the inmates of that vast conservatory of beauty, all supplied by his highness's partners. For, be it known to you, gentle reader, that the Viceroy of Egypt may most appropriately be styled par excellence the Sinbad of the age, the merchant-prince of the terrestrial globe.
"Here I was received by two eunuchs, one of whom was attired in a light drab uniform. ... I was then ushered through another door, the portals of which were guarded by a group of eunuchs, similarly attired, but whose uniforms were most costly embroidered. Their features were hideous and ferocious, their figures corpulent, and carriage haughty,
"They also salaamed me in the most oriental style. Thence, passing along a marble passage, I entered a large stone hall, which was supported by huge granite pillars which led me to the grand staircase, where I was received by the chief eunuch, who is called kislar agaci, 'the captain of the girls.'
"This giant spectre of a man ... advanced toward me, made his salaam, and ushered me, the hated, despised Giaour, into the noble marble hall of the harem, which was then for the first time polluted by the footsteps of the unbeliever. The scene around me was so singular and strange that I paused to contemplate it. The hall was of vast dimensions, supported by beautiful porphyry pillars, and the marble floor was covered with fine matting. I was now handed over to the lady superintendent of the slaves, a very wealthy woman, about twenty-four years of age, with fine dark-blue eyes, aquiline nose, large mouth, and of middle stature.
"She was attired in a colored muslin dress and trousers, over which she wore a quilted lavender-colored satin paletot. Her head was covered with a small blue gauze handkerchief tied round it, and in the centre of the forehead, tucked up under it, a lovely natural dark-red rose. She wore a beautiful large spray of diamonds arranged in the form of the flower 'forget-me-not,' which hung down like three tendrils below her ear on the left side. Large diamond drops were suspended from her ears, and her fingers were covered with numerous rings, the most brilliant of which were a large rose-pink diamond and a beautiful sapphire. Her feet were encased in white cotton stockings, and patent-leather Parisian shoes. Her name was Anina: she had been formerly an Ikbal 'favorite.' ... The lady superintendent now took me by the hand, led me up two flights of stairs covered with thick, rich Brussels carpet of a most costly description, and as soft and brilliant in colors as the dewy moss of Virginia Water. The walls were plain. Then we passed through a suite of several rooms, elegantly carpeted, in all of which stood long divans; some of which were covered, with white, and others with yellow and crimson satin. Over the doorways hung white satin damask curtains, looped up with silk cords and tassels to correspond, with richly gilded cornices over each. ... Against the walls were fixed numerous silver chandeliers, each containing six wax candles, with frosted colored glass shades made in the form of tulips over them. On each side of the room large mirrors were fixed in the wall, each of which rested on a marble-topped console table supported by gilded legs. The only other articles of furniture that were scattered about the apartments were a dozen common English cane-bottom Kursi-chairs."

She is next conducted further on to some dormitories, where bedsteads are wanting, being an article of furniture unused by the Gypsies. Against the walls were piled up beds in heaps, covered over with a red silk coverlet. On the divan was placed a silver tray—both toilet-tables and wash-hand-stands being unheard-of comforts—containing the princesses' toilet requisites. In her general inspection the governess is led to the apartments of the Princess Epouse, the mother of the little boy for whom Mrs. Lott is engaged. This princess is dressed—but let dame Emeline describe the scene, as only a lady can do it:

"The Princess Epouse, attired in a dirty, crumpled, light-colored muslin dress and trousers, sat à la Turque, doubled up like a clasp-knife, without shoes or stockings, smoking a cigarette. ... Her feet were encased in babouches, 'slippers without heels.' ... In front of the divan, behind and on each side of me, stood a bevy of the ladies of the harem, assuredly not the types of Tom Moore's 'Peris of the East,' as described in such glowing colors in his far-famed Lalla Rookh, for I failed to discover the slightest trace of loveliness in any of them. On the contrary, most of their countenances were pale as ashes, exceedingly disagreeable, flat and globular in figure; in short, so rotund, that they gave me the idea of large full moons; nearly all were passé. Their photographs were as hideous and hag-like as the witches in the opening scene in Macbeth, which is not to be wondered at, as some of them had been the favorites of Ibrahim Pasha. ... Some wore white linen dresses and trousers. Their hair and finger-nails were dyed with henna. ... They had handsome gold watches ... suspended from their necks by thick, massive gold chains. Their fingers were covered with a profusion of diamond, emerald, and ruby rings; in their ears were ear-rings of various precious stones, all set in the old antique style of silver. ... Behind stood half-a-dozen of white slaves, chiefly Circassians."

The mother leaves a favorable impression on the mind of the governess, who, being finally dismissed from the interview, pursues her explorations and makes a great discovery neither complimentary to the princess nor cleanly, where water is abundant, but where ablutions seem to be abnormal; for it is written in her journal that

"Thence we passed along a stone passage which leads to her highness's bath-room. ... The marble bath is both long and wide, with taps for hot and cold water. The water actually boils into which their highnesses enter. This only occurs when they have visited the viceroy, and not daily, or even at any other time. The bath of the poets is a myth."

The governess at last reaches her own chamber, where she is destined to sleep and seclude herself in her leisure hours. The prospect at first is not inviting, nor does a second view afford more encouragement; an evident sense of disappointment, if not of dismay, is experienced; and thus she pours forth her vexation:

"On the right-hand side of the first room was the small bed-room which was assigned to me as my apartment. It was carpeted, having a divan covered with green and red striped worsted damask, which stood underneath the window, which commanded a fine coup-d'ceil of the gardens attached to the palace of the viceroy's pavilion. The hangings of the double doors and windows were of the same material. The furniture consisted of a plain green painted iron bedstead, the bars of which had never been fastened, and pieces of wood, like the handles of brooms, and an iron bar, were placed across to support the two thin cotton mattresses laid upon it. There were neither pillows, bolsters, nor bed linen, but as substitutes were placed three thin flat cushions; not a blanket, but two old worn-out wadded coverlets lay upon the bed. Not the sign of a dressing-table or a chair of any description, and a total absence of all the appendages necessary for a lady's bed-room; not even—"

Well, well, Mrs. Lott, the "not even" was, in your civilized opinion, certainly very odd to be sure. But don't mind trifles; let it be forgotten; let us ramble elsewhere. You were saying just now something about four broad steps; go on; that's right.

"Four broad steps led down into the garden, close to a plain white marble-columned gate, on the top of which stood out in bold relief the statues of two huge life-sized lions. ... Here and there were scattered rose-trees, the brilliancy of whose variegated colors and the perfumes of their flowers were delightfully refreshing; geraniums of almost every hue; jessamines, whose large white and yellow blossoms were thrice the size of those of England, and a variety of indigenous and eastern plants, shrubs, and flowers, which were so thickly studded about that they rendered the view extremely picturesque, and perfumed the air, grateful to the senses. Verbena trees, as large as ordinary fruit-trees; other plants bearing large yellow flowers, as big as tea-cups, with most curious leaves; cactuses, and a complete galaxy of botanical curiosities, whose names the genius of a Paxton would be perhaps puzzled to disclose, ornamented those Elysian grounds."

This is only one sketch of only one spot in the many gorgeous and luxurious localities. Space forbids copying more; but the book states:

"Leaving these neglected scenes of amusement, we proceed along a path to the right, through a superb marble-paved hall, the ceiling of which is in fresco and gold. It is supported by twenty-eight plain pink-colored marble columns, surmounted by richly-gilded Indian wheat, the leaves of which hang down most gracefully, on each side of which, and also above ... are some very handsome lofty rooms, the ceilings of which are also in fresco, with superb gilded panels. ...
"The grounds of Frogmore, the Crystal Palace, St. Cloud, Versailles, the Duke of Devonshire's far-famed Chatsworth, and our national pride, Kensington Gardens and Windsor Home Park, exquisite, beautiful, and rural as they are ... all lack the brilliant display of exotics which thrive here in such luxuriance. The groves of orange-trees, the myrtle hedges, the beautiful sheets of water, the spotless marble kiosks, the artistic statuary, are all so masterly blended together with such exquisite taste, that these gardens ... completely outvie them."

The princesses were sometimes as highly adorned as the halls of marbles and frescoes, and as ornamental as the gardens of blooming exotics. On the festival of the Great Bairam, or on state occasions, when lady visitors made formal calls to compare complexions and cashmeres, their highnesses are spoken of with the highest delight:

"They wore the most costly silks, richest satins, and softest velvets; adorned themselves with the treasures of their jewel caskets, so that their persons were one blaze of precious stones. That crescent of females (for they always ranged themselves in the form of the Turkish symbol) was then a parterre of diamonds, amethysts, topazes, turquoises, chrysoberyls, sapphires, jaspers, opals, agates, emeralds, corals, rich carbuncles, and rubies. In short, the profusion of diamonds with which the latter adorned their persons from day to day became so sickening to me that my eyes were weary at the sight of those magnificent baubles, to which all women are so passionately attached."

But weary as were her British eyes, still she gazed in rapture when the darling gems were on exhibition; moreover, in the journal the impressions were faithfully recorded. On another occasion, when some princesses were coming,

"The Princess Epouse, the mother of my prince, was attired in a rich, blue-figured silk robe, trimmed with white lace and silver thread, with a long train; full trousers of the same material, high-heeled embroidered satin shoes to match the dress. On her head she had a small white crape handkerchief, elegantly embroidered with blue silk and silver, and round it placed a tiara of May blossoms in diamonds. She wore a necklace to correspond, having large sapphire drops hanging down the neck. Her arms were ornamented with three bracelets, composed of diamonds and sapphires, and an amulet entirely of sapphires of almost priceless value. ... At times my eyes, when looking at the Peris arrayed in all their gems, have become as dim as if I had been fixing them on the noonday sun."

What young lady of an enterprising turn of mind would not be willing, after reading these glowing descriptions, to pack up her Saratoga trunks, to engage the Adams Express Company, and to charter the Cunard line of steamers, to aid her on to a glorious future near the base of the pyramids? Certainly not one of the ambitious and strong-minded. But they need not ask the English governess to go with them. She has been there; she will respectfully decline going again—not she, as Shakespeare's other old lady in Henry the VIII. exclaims, "not for all the mud in Egypt." For another part of the story remains to be told; another side of the picture to be presented; and dame Emeline tells it truthfully, she paints it lifelike; the rose is beautiful, but beware the serpent under it.

Mrs. Lott is apparently a gentlewoman, refined, accomplished, intellectual, with an appreciation of the difference between civilized society and barbarism. But in the vice-regal harem, education was not to be found; ignorance was universal, superstition reigned supreme. None could read, or write, or sketch, or converse on a rational subject. No one could sing or perform on a musical instrument; none cared for to-morrow or for a hereafter. Their daily routine had all the monotony of the desert with its burning sands, destitute of variety in incident or shade of change; it was equally unproductive and utterly worthless. They had nothing to expect with pleasing anticipation; they had nothing to remember with delight. Physically, morally, mentally they were unclean and debased. Their passions, when aroused, were ungovernable; their greatest joy was revenge upon a rival; and their revenge was deadly, by suffocation or submersion, poison or the bow-string. Their amusements were all sensual; their weary hours of listless idleness were passed in indulgence of some enervating vice alike deleterious to health, comfort, and color.

The servants were steeped in only a lower depth of dirt and depravity. The princesses had the power of life and death over them, and it was a power often exercised; they would put them to the torture for a trivial fault, the breaking of a plate or the falling of a cup; and cheeks and arms seamed with parallel rows of the red-hot iron, attested how often and how unmercifully cruel had been their punishment. The food of the menials was not prepared for them, nor given to them; but they purloined by stealth from the dishes on their way to the princesses' apartments; and after their repast was ended, the refuse of chicken and pigeon bones, of mutton, of soup, of rice, of vegetables, and the rinds of fruit were tossed into a basket in one loathing mess, mixed up, around which the servants flocked like carrion birds, and, squatting on the floor, inserted ravenously their reeking hands to pick out disgusting morsels with their dripping, unwashed fingers.

The laundry did not require much water; for the volume informs us,

"Those who performed the duties of washerwomen were occupied daily in their avocation, except on the Sabbath, (Fridays.) But that was not very laborious work, since neither bed, table, nor chamber linen are used. Thus they were engaged until twelve, when their highnesses partook of their breakfast separately. It was served up on a large green-lackered tray, minus table-cloth, knives and forks, but with a large ivory tablespoon, having a handsome coral handle, the evident emblem of their rank as princesses. It was placed upon the soofra, a low kind of stool, covered with a handsome silk cloth. The repast occupied about twenty minutes. Then pipes, in which are placed small pills of opium, or more often cigarettes and coffee, were handed to them, and each princess retired to her own apartment. Thus they became confirmed opium-smokers, which produced a kind of intoxication." ...

Their common indulgence in opium, with a profuse supply of European wines and Schiedam gin, produced its natural results, and is thus depicted:

"Oftentimes after the princesses had been indulging too freely in that habit to which they had became slaves, their countenances would assume most hideous aspects; their eyes glared, their eyebrows were knit closely together; no one dared to approach them. In fact, they had all the appearance of mad creatures, while at other times they were gay and cheerful.

"They only combed their hair (which was full of vermin) once a week, on Thursdays, the eve of their Sabbath, (Friday, Djouma;) when it was well combed with a large small-tooth comb; and pardon me, but 'murder will out,' the members of the vermin family which were removed from it were legion. It was afterward well brushed with a hard hair-brush, well damped with strong perfumed water. Their highnesses never wore stockings in the morning, nor did they change any of their attire till afternoon."

When the summer heats set in, the harem was transferred to the coast at Alexandria, to inhale the fresh breezes from the sea. The preparation for flight was attended with some rich scenes and ludicrous exhibitions. But their transit on the railroad, boxed up like pigs or poultry on a cattle-train, is indescribable in a decent print. The prelude to the trip will bear repeating; it is an amusing contrast with the festal robes on the day of the Great Bairam; the cutaneous sensation it excites is the penalty to pay for the knowledge imparted; the company is right regal.

"As soon as orders had been given to the grand eunuch to hasten the departure of the vice-regal family to Alexandria, ... there was bustle all day long. One morning when I returned from the gardens, ... I entered the grand pasha's reception-room; ... there were their highnesses, the princesses, squatted on the carpet amidst a whole pile of trunks. They were all attired in filthy, dirty, crumpled muslins, shoeless and stockingless; their trousers were tucked up above their knees, the sleeves of their paletots pinned up above their elbows, their hair hanging loose above their shoulders, as rough as a badger's back, totally uncombed, without nets or handkerchiefs, but, pardon me, literally swarming with vermin! No Russian peasants could possibly have been more infested with live animals. In short, their tout ensemble was even more untidy than that of washerwomen at their tubs; nay, almost akin to Billingsgate fisherwomen at home; for their conversation in their own vernacular was equally as low. They all swore in Arabic at the slaves most lustily, banged them about right and left with any missile, whether light or heavy, which came within their reach."

At last the governess lost her health. The food was too unsuitable for a Christian woman, and the atmosphere, redolent of the overpowering rich perfumes of the gardens mingled with sickening, stupefying opium smell and smoke, along with other odors, almost intolerable. After visiting Constantinople with the harem, she threw up her engagement and returned to England.

This abasement of woman is not to be wondered at; for wherever the Christian idea of marriage is lost or subverted, woman becomes the mere object of passion, and degradation is sure to follow.

---

Translated From Etudes Religieuses, Etc.,
Par Des Peres De La Compagnie De Jesus.
The Flight Of Spiders.
A Paper Read Before The French Academy Of Science, March, 1867.

About fifteen years ago, I was sitting in an arbor of my garden, reading, when a little spider fell on my book, whence I could not tell, and commenced to run over the very line I was reading. I blew hard to chase him away, but he would not go. He lifted himself strangely up, and I cannot explain how, but he lodged on a sprig of verdure just above my head. "Well," said I, "for a little animal like that, this is a wonderful feat! How has he accomplished it?" To satisfy myself, I took him up again, balanced him on my book, and, after assuring myself that he had no invisible thread to aid him, I blew again, and again the little fellow did the very same thing. With redoubled curiosity, I tried him once more, and, to see better, I sat down in the bright sunlight. Again I balanced him on the book, looked at him as closely as possible, and, when I felt assured no precaution could have escaped me, I blew once more. ... Resuming the same inclined position, the spider as quick as lightning darted the finest possible thread out of him, raised himself in the air, and disappeared.

I confess I was stupefied. Never had I imagined these little animals could fly without wings; so I consulted several works on zoology, but I was astonished to find there was no mention made of the flight of spiders, nor of the ejaculatory movement of which I had witnessed so curious an example. [Footnote 96]

[Footnote 96: In M. Eugène Simon's Natural History of Spiders, the most recent work of the kind, he says, speaking of the manner in which l'épéire diadème constructs its web: "Several authors suppose that the spider darts its thread like an arrow, others imagine it throws it upward in the air while flying as a fly would; but neither of these explanations rests on observation, and they are, after all, simple hypotheses." Then, describing his own observation as to how a spider acts to make fast its great threads, he says, "It seems to take a horizontal position, and moves contrary to the wind." M. Simon's work gives us nothing else to lead us to suppose he has observed the wonders spoken of.—Tr.]

So there was a new question presented to me, and my vocation to study the habits of these little animals—which hitherto had given me no concern—decided for me. I immediately lost all repugnance, all distaste, and threw away all the unjust precautions of which the spider is too often the object, and of which I was as culpable as any one else. And from that time I welcomed its appearance; was most happy to meet with it, looked for it, indeed, and studied its habits almost with furor. And I can say that, thanks to this hearty preoccupation, which never left me, I found every opportunity to follow my inclination, and knew where to find spiders in all sorts of unheard-of places.

Such are the singular effects of curiosity once excited, and still another proof that, in order to study nature well, we need only a mysterious glimpse of the unknown to redouble all our energies to explain it thoroughly.

And as in this study, trifling as it may appear, I seem to have met with facts not known hitherto, but which deserve to be understood, I here resume the principal ones: those that treat of the flying of spiders; of the habitation of some species in the air; and of the gossamer or air threads—a singular phenomenon, for a long time discussed in vain, but which I believe I have definitively solved. I only ask the naturalists to judge one fairly, not by theory, but by facts. And I am persuaded, if they will take the pains to verify what I advance, they will find me exact; and, if they begin doubtingly, I hope, after they have read my observations, they will conclude as others to whom I have communicated them. Mocking and incredulous at first, they have ended by believing their own eyes, and testifying to the evidence presented to them. May my labor prove useful, and, above all, contribute to the glory of the great God, whose just title is, Magnus in magnis, maximus in minimis.

I.
Threads Thrown Out By Spiders.

The first thing that I perceived, and that put me on the track of the rest, was, as I have just said, that the greater part of aranéides, especially certain varieties of thomises lycoses, etc., besides the thread that they always draw with them, have the power of darting one or more of extraordinary length, and of which they make use to accomplish distances, to fasten their webs from one point to another, and even, as we shall see further on, to raise themselves in the air and there to seek their prey. The spider always points his abdomen to the side where he wishes to go. The thread shoots like an arrow, fastens itself by the end to the place destined, and the spider passes as under a suspended bridge. If this thread is cut, it is immediately replaced by another; and the ejaculation is so prompt, so rapid, the thread so straight, so tenuous, so brilliant, that it might be taken, if I may so express myself, for the jet of an imperceptible ray of light. To perceive this clearly, the spider must be held on a level with the eyes, which should be shaded, and examined with one's back to the sun.

The best time for such an observation is in the morning or evening, when the sun is low in the horizon and the temperature is mild; for without this latter condition the torpid spider is more inclined to creep along the earth than to throw out new threads.

Sometimes, to excite them, they may be held by their ordinary thread and gently shaken or blown upon—just a few puffs of breath—which they detest.

I have thus been able to scan closely, while watching their development, this instantaneous jet of thread, which could not be less than five or six yards long, that is, fifteen hundred or two thousand times the length of the spider. What a tremendous apparatus must be necessary to these little animals for so rapid an ejaculation, and one so disproportioned to their size! And especially if we consider that this thread, inasmuch as it adheres to the animal, has not the appearance of an independent organ, but seems solely to obey its will. Thus I have seen spiders, who seemed to miss the end desired with the first stroke, continue to hold the thread in the same direction, and actually palpitate, if I may so say, while striving to make it adhere.

But a truly interesting sight, and one obtained at a very trifling expense, is that which the thomises bufo offer, described by Walckenaer, in the first volume of his History of Insects, page 506. In truth, these araneides do not only throw out one thread, but an entire bundle of them, and are seemingly guided by the smaller threads, just as a peacock unfolds by degrees his splendid plumage.

And even in one's own room this sight may be enjoyed. It is only necessary to collect these thomises and keep them in separate boxes, and nourish them in winter with one fly or so a month. Then take the boxes out, put them on a table in a very warm room, and sit a little in the shade and watch them. Very soon from each box will appear a multitude of threads, of extreme freshness and fineness, which the spider throws into the air with inexhaustible profusion. At certain seasons of the year we can enjoy this spectacle again, and at even less expense.

II.
Flight Of Spiders.

Another property not less remarkable that these araneides possess (thomises bufo, lycoces voraces, etc.) is that of flying; that is to say, of elevating themselves in the air, there sustaining themselves, and travelling about horizontally and vertically, with or without a thread; in a word, acting exactly as if in their own element. This fact I have witnessed a thousand times, and it has been certified to by a great number of people, who, at first incredulous, and alarmed for the laws of gravitation, were compelled to confess the reiterated testimony of their own eyes.

I had some pupils under my charge, and to them this study became a continued source of amusement. During their recreation, they found suitable spiders for me, and, when they brought them to me, I rested them on my fingers and made them mount upward in the air; and invariably, after having watched them for some moments, they were entirely lost to sight. But when I made the discovery—of which I will speak later—of the general migration which some species make yearly toward certain regions of the atmosphere, I had no longer any trouble to enjoy this performance to my heart's content.

The flight of spiders is sometimes very rapid, particularly when they start. They often escape from one's hands while they are carefully watched. This happened to me one day with a voracious lycose that I had for a long time importuned without success. Just as I was going to give him up as entirely stupefied, he suddenly escaped from me by a lateral movement, so rapid that for a moment I lost sight of him; but, when I found him a moment afterward, he was suspended quietly in the air. I also remarked that he set out without throwing any thread, and this was not the only time I made the same observation. I was experimenting one day with some amateurs in the interior court of the college where I live, and, having started a lycose, we saw him occupy himself at first with the neighboring galleries, running up and down for about twenty yards, about a tenth of a yard from the arch, against which he knocked himself from time to time, and groped about to look for a passage; not finding one, he threw himself back into the court, raised perpendicularly, and disappeared toward the clouds. His thread, if he had one, could not have been longer than a tenth of a yard. Ordinarily, however, before they ascend, they throw out a thread which they follow for a short time; then, arriving at a certain height, they break it, in order to navigate more easily. If any is left before them, they wind it rapidly with their feet, throw it aside, and form those pretty little crowns of white silk in form of cracknels, that we often see flying in the air in time of gossamers. Again, they balance themselves quietly with a thread which rises perpendicularly above them, and gives them the appearance of floating.

But a peculiarity still more remarkable in the flight of spiders is the attitude that they take in flying. They generally swim backward, that is to say, the back turned from the earth, the feet folded on the corselet, and perfectly immovable. How can such a flight be explained, for they are already heavier than the air? Plunged into alcohol, they sink quickly; but in the air they seem to possess an ease, a liberty, a facility of transport, so admirable that I have never been able to see in them the slightest motion, nor even an apparent increase of weight. Does not this fact present an interesting question for the skilful to contemplate?

III.
How Long They Can Remain In The Atmosphere?

At this portion of my history I have to relate facts the most curious and unexpected; and, unfortunately for me, more true than probable. I acknowledge I was loath to publish them, or assume concerning them any responsibility. But I was firmly convinced, and therefore hoped to be believed, especially by this generation of fearless naturalists, who are astonished at nothing in nature, and who, having often been surprised in the relation of almost incredible marvels, must certainly make allowances for a few more in another quarter.

Let us look at, for instance, the wonderful things related of the argyronete, or aquatic spider. [Footnote 97]

[Footnote 97: The argyronete is a spider that lives in the water where she constructs a charming little edifice that appears surrounded with a silky mortar. The down that covers her contains a certain quantity of air for respiration. This gives her in swimming the appearance of a ball of quicksilver, from which we have her name.]

I could not tell anything more unlikely, so I will only exact for the atmosphere a companion to what the Père de Lignac discovered in the last century for the water. Yes, I pretend there are spiders that live in the air as well as those living in water, and that every year, from the earliest days of spring, there is, unknown to us, a general migration of spiders toward the atmosphere, where they pass their best season, form their nets, chase their prey, and only return to earth in the first fogs of autumn to find their quarters for the winter. I add, also, that this ascent and descent give rise to the curious phenomenon, still so badly explained, of the gossamer. And as it was to the study of this phenomenon that I owe my knowledge of the rest, may I be permitted here, by way of demonstration, to relate briefly the path I have followed and the proofs which have led to the conviction I express?

Attracted, as I was, by all that concerns spiders, I could not remain indifferent to a fact so important and interesting as the periodical apparition of those threads which in spring and autumn we see flying about in long white skeins, clinging to trees, to hedges, and to the vestments of the passers-by, carpeting the country in a few hours with more silk, and finer and whiter, than could be spun in a year by all the reels in the world. Admirable netting, glistening in the light of the setting sun, and reflecting the sweetest, softest tints of gold, vermilion, and emerald, and receiving the pretty and poetical name of "fils de la Vierge." Was there not between this phenomenon and my preceding observations a secret tie, some mysterious relation? I seemed to foresee it, and, setting to work immediately, rejected from the very beginning the usual explanation of this phenomenon.

How, indeed, can we admit these floating gossamers as merely the refuge webs of spiders, torn by the violence of the wind from the trees and forests and carried capriciously through the air? Will not the slightest observation convince us that they never appear but in the calmest moments, on days foggy in the morning, but afterward beautiful, and not preceding a storm; never in summer, often in the spring and autumn, and sometimes even in winter? If the winds carry them, why do they not appear in summer? Are violent winds and spider-webs both wanting? And who has ever seen one of these webs carried by a hurricane, especially in quantity sufficient to produce such a phenomenon? For the fall of gossamers sometimes lasts for almost entire days, and in certain countries during the middle of the day the fields are covered with them. Add, too, that violent winds are generally local, while this phenomenon is universal, and so periodical that in the same climates it appears at the same epochs, and, when one knows what produces it, it is easy to predict the time and day of the apparition.

Discontented, then, on this point with books and their explanations, I turn completely to the side of nature, and present all I observed.

From the first appearance of these threads in autumn, I was struck with the immense multitudes of new spiders met with everywhere, and which I had not seen during the summer. Little brown lycoses filled the air, so that it seemed as if it had rained them. If one walked in the fields, the meadows, the gardens, on the borders of the woods, among heaps of dried leaves, scattered all through the forest everywhere, could be seen myriads of these little brown spiders, jumping up and flying before me in every direction, and exactly such as I had already recognized as such excellent swimmers. After having passed the winter in the earth, in the holes of worms that they completed with a little silk, they reappeared after the cold in great numbers, to disappear again entirely in the first bright days of spring, and as if by enchantment. If one is seen again during the summer, we may be sure it is some female retarded by laying her eggs, and dragging laboriously her cocoon after her. Now, what has become of the others?

For several months I could not satisfy myself on this point, when, on the 21 St of October, 1856, in the enclosure of the little seminary of Iseure, near Moulins, I came to a positive decision, I was observing the fall of a large quantity of gossamers, which were falling on that day in large white flakes, when I perceived close to me in the air one of those little black spiders descending gradually, and as if she were jumping. She held by an invisible thread to a large flake, which came down slowly about seven or eight yards above her; but, keeping outside of it, she hung by the end of the long thread, like an aeronaut underneath his balloon. My attention once attracted, I noticed so great a number that I was astonished I had not taken care sooner; for there was scarcely a flake underneath which there were not one or two, and this sometimes even before the flake itself was visible. [Footnote 98]

[Footnote 98: There is an observation which confirms my own. We read in Darwin's Journal, page 159: "Mr. Darwin saw a large number of gossamers on the ship Beagle, when she was about 60 miles from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. It was the first of November, and these gossamers were carried by a very light breeze, and on each were found an immense number of little spiders, similar in appearance, about the twelfth of an inch in length, and in color a deep brown. The smallest were a deeper shade than the others. None were found on the white tufts, but all on threads." Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries visited during the Voyage of his Majesty's Ship, the Beagle, 1845.]

Each one was separated by a slender thread, and followed the motion of its balloon. If they met a tree or a bush, they landed upon it; if not, coming close to the earth, they ran along and were lost in the verdure. If I approached them too quickly or made a noise, they remounted rapidly by their threads and went to disembark somewhere else.

I also examined some of the flakes. They were all shining white mats, appearing as if they had been washed. Several contained wings and feet of flies, fragments of the case of little coleoptera, and other remnants of their aerial festivities.

This encounter was for me a revelation. I knew where the spiders, whom I had seen disappear so brusquely, took refuge, and, however rash my judgment may appear, I felt assured I had solved an interesting problem.

But to establish seriously and give to science an opinion so new and original as that the atmosphere may be peopled with spiders, I soon felt that more proof was necessary in order to sit down calmly under my personal conviction. So I concluded I should not be doing too much if I added to the verification of their descent that of their ascension, and could surprise them in this new migration. I waited, therefore, impatiently for the spring.

But that spring, and for five or six that followed it, great was my disappointment; for, though I perceived several isolated ascensions, yet nothing in the proportion I had imagined or that could justify my hypothesis. I began then to doubt seriously my success, when an incident occurred that relieved my embarrassment, and proved how trifling sometimes are the causes which lift the veil from nature. I was looking straight upward, but sitting close to the earth, and so as to be able as much as possible to exclude the sun from my eyes. And here, by the way, a fact is made palpable, by no means microscopic, but which has escaped so long not merely the observation of the crowd of vulgar observers, but of those even who are wide awake and study carefully; namely, that it is not necessary to carry one's nose always in the air, if I may so express myself, to examine closely, to investigate, or to render a faithful account of phenomena.

On looking upward—as an ascension only takes place on very beautiful days, succeeding generally to bad weather—spiders cannot be distinguished from the multitude of other insects which fill the air. But if, on a beautiful day, mild, calm, and brilliant in sunlight, succeeding as nearly as possible to a rain warm with the south wind, at about nine or ten o'clock in the morning, a post is chosen on an eminence of a meadow or an avenue, and there, as near the ground as may be, and crouching low, the observer will look horizontally, he will perceive a series of fire-works, formed of innumerable threads launched from every direction and inclined toward the sky. This is the prelude. Soon the spiders detach themselves and mount slowly by their threads. The most conspicuous are the thomises bufo, because they are the largest, and because they only ascend with an entire bundle of threads, which gives them the appearance of small comets.

Thus have I decided

1st. That there is not only one ascension every year, but several, at least partial ones; that they do not always take place in spring, but often in the autumn, and sometimes even in the winter; and in general, from the descent which has taken place in the beginning of autumn until the definitive ascension in the spring, there are but few favorable days of which the spiders do not profit to make an aerial journey, or at least to throw out a large number of threads. Thus, in the Beaujolais, where I have lived for several years, there were partial ascensions on the 1st, the 19th, and the 28th of November, 1864; the 21st, the 23d, and especially the 25th of October, the 9th of November, and the 6th of December, 1865. In 1866, the 18th and the 30th of January, the 3d of February, the 3d, 14th, and 31st of October, and the 17th of December. In 1867, the 10th of February, ... the last, however, less considerable than might have been predicted by the beauty of the day. The day previous was so mild, though cloudy, that many of the spiders may have embarked incognito. Many, also, may not have judged it a propos to fly away, for a great number still remained on the ground. I forgot to observe the temperature of all the days I have noted. The director of the Normal School of Villefranche having had the kindness to show me the meteorological register which he had kept with great care, I was able to prove that in calm weather only ten or twelve degrees of heat were necessary to induce them to mount upward. The least exposed begin; then immediately the others, so soon as the heat reaches them; but after three or four o'clock in the afternoon no more ascensions are perceived, unless they are provoked; and this does not always succeed,

2d. Before taking their flight, they generally cling to some elevated object that they meet with easily, such as shrubs, bushes, props of vines, or blades of grass escaped from the scythe. To these they affix their threads and warm themselves well in the sun before commencing their excursion. This is the happy moment for amateurs to make their observations, for there is scarcely a blade of grass that does not contain one or more; and, if the branches of young trees are suddenly struck with a slight blow, a great number are detached, suspended at the end of their threads; and very often rare specimens are thus found not discoverable elsewhere.

IV.
To What Height Do They Raise
Themselves in the Atmosphere?

On this point I have not been able to make any direct observation. Perhaps I have dreamed of offering objections to the concourse of intrepid human navigators who undertake such perilous excursions in the air, and for my interest in the study I have found two excellent reasons. The first, that it would be well for them to know that, if they have not had rivals, they have had precursors, who, for 6000 years, have executed silently and noiselessly what they have claimed for themselves by every effort of puffs and publicity. The second, and a still more serious objection and that I believe will truly interest the future in this young industry, is that if the argyronete and its bell has given to science the instrument with which the divers explore the depths of the sea, why may not the study of aerial spiders furnish for aeronauts—these divers in air—the complete apparatus which they require to raise themselves to any height, direct their movements, and maintain themselves at will? Have not these little animals resolved this problem for centuries? Yet the present state of aerostation does not afford ground sufficient for comparison.

We are, therefore, reduced to conjecture; and, if I may be permitted to express mine, this is what I think:

I believe that spiders rise to the same height where on the fine days of summer one can see the swallows and martins hover, almost lost to sight, in pursuit of gnats that people these regions of the atmosphere. I found this belief on the webs of spiders seen falling in autumn, that seem to come at least from nearly such heights. They begin to be seen at a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards, and there is no great temerity in affirming that they have already traversed a good part of their course. An observation made in 1864, if conclusive, would tend to make remoter still the habitation of spiders; for the fog that determined the fall that year was a high fog, that is to say, one of those uniform mists that hide the sky for several days together, and seem to extend to a great height. But, I repeat, this is all conjecture. One good observation would have been worth far more.'

V.
Conjectures On The Mode Of Building
Of Spiders In The Air.

Perhaps here I should stop, and, having stated facts, leave to others their explanation. How do spiders sustain themselves in the air? How can they so long brave the winds, the rains, the storms; arrange their webs in emptiness and without apparent means of support? Prudence counsels me to avoid these questions, but my rôle of simple observer permits them. However, in waiting for better things, I decide still to hazard some conjectures, were it only to prove that a fact once admitted, it would not be absolutely impossible for the wisest to explain it.

The first idea that came to me was that these spider-webs raise themselves in the air as the kites of children, and, made fast to the tops of trees and edifices by long threads, they are sustained by their own lightness. This idea was suggested to me by a sight I was witness to one day at the Seminary of Vals, near Le Puy. From a corner where I was in shadow, I perceived distinctly on each high ridge of the roof, lightened by the rays of the sun, long threads which rose perpendicularly in the air, like large cords, balancing themselves slowly right and left, without ever going out of a certain field of oscillation. But I soon gave up this idea. How admit, in truth, that on two or three threads, and without any other means of support, spiders could weave their true webs? Would not some of these aerial constructions tumble down every day, ruined by their own weight? while it is acknowledged they only fall in autumn, and always together.

I therefore rather incline to believe that the spiders are sustained in the air by the distention of an interior vesicle, analogous to that of fish, and that they ejaculate by their threads, which are numerous, and pierced with an infinity of little tubes, large bundles of threads, by which are taken the insects that serve for their prey; that they resist the winds as fish do the tossing of the sea, and their threads, being glutinous, are not dampened by the rain; and also being excellent conductors of caloric, as is proved by the abundant drops of dew which they pearl near the earth, on the hedges, etc.; and if after a calm night they are touched by an autumn fog, these heavy and moistened threads weaken and fall one over the other, and form the silky flakes that are seen from ten to eleven o'clock in the morning, flying about in cloudy days with the spiders who inhabited them during the summer. This, hoping for better, is the explanation I hazard, and I submit it with the rest to the appreciation of competent men. If only these pages attract attention to a merited subject, and provoke numerous observations, which alone can ever fully elucidate it, the author will be more than repaid for the few researches he has presented in this article.

---

Translated From The "Revue Du Monde Catholique."
John Tauler.
By Ernest Hello.

History has an astonishing memory. She records the day and hour of battles with exact fidelity. She knows a thousand things. She has recently discovered, if I do not mistake, the name of Julian the Apostate's cook. She remembers everything of little importance. The names of celebrated mistresses who have amused or poisoned renowned personages, are transmitted from age to age. Erudition has been making strides during the last hundred years, as if she had seven-leagued boots. To deserve the admiration and gratitude of mankind, however, she should not have degraded herself, but taken a higher sphere in her progress. Her memory indicates greatness of genius; but she is like calumny, she increases in size as she advances through the centuries. In her labors, researches, and exploits, she has been mostly busied with soldiers, and frequently forgotten God and man. She could not think of everything at once; the hidden history of humanity is yet to be written; the greatest events of the world are secret to this very day; and those who reflect on them are men of a special caste.

If there were question of the battle of Marathon, or of Antony and Cleopatra, our contemporaries would be found well instructed; but do they know John Tauler, the German Tauler, of the Dominican or preaching order?

Master Tauler was a great preacher—powerful and popular. One day he gave a learned discourse, in which he taught the way of perfection, with all his characteristic assurance. To become perfect, he enumerated twenty-four conditions, which he developed before an attentive and brilliant audience. After the sermon, a layman, one of the poorest and most ignorant of his hearers, came to him. History, by one of those distractions so usual for her to have, when there is question of God, has forgotten the name of this individual. This simple layman said to Tauler:

"Master, the letter kills, and the spirit gives life; but you are a Pharisee."

Doctor Tauler: "My son, I am now old, and no one has ever spoken to me in this manner."

The Layman: "You think I speak too bluntly to you; but it is your own fault; and I can prove that what I say to you is true."

Doctor Tauler: "You will do me a favor, for I have never loved the Pharisees."

Then the layman, probing into the doctor's mental condition, showed him that he was held captive by the mere letter of the evangelical law, and devoid of its spirit.

"You are a Pharisee," proceeded the layman, "but not a hypocritical Pharisee. You are not on the road to hell, but on that which leads to purgatory."

Doctor Tauler embraced the man, and said to him: "I feel at this moment as the Samaritan woman must have felt at the well; you have revealed to me all my faults, my son; you have told all that was most secret in my soul. Who, then, has told you? It is God; I am convinced it must be so. I entreat you, my son, by the death of our Lord, to be my spiritual father, and I, a poor sinner, will become your son."

The Layman: "Dear master, if you speak thus contrary to order and reason, I shall not remain with you any longer, but straightway return to my own house."

Doctor Tauler: "Oh! no. I beg you, in the name of God, to stay with me, and I promise not to speak thus again."

The docility of Tauler is sublime and touching. His great good will, which broke the pride of science, led him into the paths of spiritual contemplation.

"Tell me, I conjure you, in the name of God," said Tauler, "how you have succeeded in arriving at the contemplative state?"

The Layman: "You ask me a very odd question. I confess to you frankly that, if I should recount or write all the wonderful things which God has been doing to me, a poor sinner, for twelve years, there would be no book large enough to contain them."

The layman then recounted how he had been deceived in his spiritual life; how, influenced by Satan, he had practised imprudent austerities, which would have injured both his body and soul; and how, warned by God, he had returned to the paths of wisdom.

Both Tauler and the layman were then lifted up to the regions of contemplation. The unknown monitor then said: "If the God whom we worship could be comprehended by reason, he would not be worthy of our service."

But before his great illumination, Tauler suffered during two years frightful temptations. Abandoned, poor, suffering, that man of iron was shaken like a reed. The layman comes to his assistance, and sustains in his time of misery him whom he had crushed in his period of pride.

"For the first time," said the layman, "God has touched your superior faculties."

At the end of two years, the doctor again ascended the pulpit. The crowd which came to hear him was large. Tauler cast his eyes over the expectant multitude, then drew his cowl over his eyes and prayed.

The crowd awaited him; but he spoke not a word. Tears filled his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. Tauler wept bitterly.

What a scene! The audience become impatient. Some one asks Tauler if he will preach. Tauler continues weeping. He wept and wept; and the multitude, anxious to hear his inferior oratory, and incapable of appreciating the higher eloquence of tears, could not comprehend the doctor's conduct. At last Tauler dismissed the assembly; for his sobs choked his utterance. He asked pardon of the people for having kept them uselessly waiting; and they went home. "Now," said some of them, "we see that he has become a fool."

But after five days' silence, Tauler preached before the friars of the convent, and he was sublime. One of the friars went to the pulpit and addressed the congregation as follows: "I am requested to make known to you that Doctor Tauler will preach here to-morrow; but if he acts as he did last time, remember not to blame me." "How will he succeed?" said one to another. "I do not know," was the answer; "God knows."

This time Tauler could control his voice, and silence was his theme. He had built his eyrie in silence, as an eagle on the summit of a cliff. His language, worked out in silence, seemed to long after it; to return to its home, and die away in the high sombre clouds of complete solitude. Silence is the doctrine of Tauler; his secret, his food, his substance and his slumber. Absolutely free from all oratorical finery, his sermons go right to the mark, without respect for conventionality or the cant of ordinary discourses. He utters what he wishes to express; praises solitude, and returns into it. This is the reason why his external word takes nothing away from his interior recollection. His words do not betray his soul. Silence is the guardian angel of strength.

It was doubtless this profound doctrine of silence which gave to the eloquence of Tauler an extraordinary virtue. This man, who seemed to come out of a tomb, appeared with a thunderbolt in his hand. Fifty men, after the sermon, remained in the church as if transfixed by an invisible hand. Thirty-eight of them were able to move during the half-hour which followed; but the twelve others could not stir. Tauler said to the unknown layman, his adviser: "What shall we do with these people, my son?" The layman went from one to the other and touched them, but they were as immovable as rocks.

Tauler was frightened at the paralysis which he had caused. "Are they dead or alive?" said he to his friend. "What do you think?" "If they are dead," replied the layman, "it is your fault, and that of the Spouse of souls."

This fact, which is historical, seems like a legend.

This picture would be magnificent, if an artist should sketch it. The place where Tauler had just preached was a cemetery, and the twelve men who were lying on the ground in ecstasy resembled those who slumbered in death beneath. The orator, walking with his friend through the audience, who had become almost his victims; feeling the pulse and the face of his hearers, to detect in them after the sermon, as after a battle, some sign of life; passing through the ranks of the vanquished and healing the wounded, must have seemed something superhuman. At last the friend of Tauler found that the thunderstruck hearers breathed still, "Master," said he, "those men still live. Request the nuns of the convent to take them away from here; for this cold floor will injure them." One of the nuns, who was a listener to the fearful discourse, had to be carried to her bed, where she lay motionless.

The biography of John Tauler, which serves as prologue to his sermons, says nothing of his exterior life; but dwells specially on his unhistorical and legendary character. Those who wrote about him have not deigned even to inquire in what century he lived. This strange man has dispensed history from its ordinary inquiries, as if eternity had been the sole theatre of his terrestrial existence.

His friends are as strange as himself. The astonishing layman, who tells his name to nobody, and gives us no means of discovering it, was not the doctor's only teacher. Another of his instructors was a beggar, just as extraordinary.

Tauler, according to Surius, petitioned God during eight years for a master capable of teaching him the truth. One day when his desire was more than usually strong, he heard a voice saying to him, "Go to the door of the church. Thou wilt find there the man whom thou seekest." He obeyed, and met at the appointed spot a beggar, whose feet were soiled with mud, and whose rags were not worth three half-pence. They began a dialogue, of which the following is a portion:

Doctor Tauler. "Good day, my friend."

The Beggar. "I do not remember ever to have had a bad day in my life."

Tauler. "May God grant thee prosperity."

The Beggar. "I know not what adversity is."

Tauler. "Well, may God make thee happy!"

The Beggar. "I have never been unhappy."

Urged for an explanation, the mendicant affirms that, "by means of silence, he had arrived at perfect union with God; never being able to find pleasure in anything less than God."

Tauler. "Whence comest thou?"

The Beggar. "From God."

Tauler. "Where hast thou found God?"

The Beggar. "Where I have left all creatures."

Tauler. "Where is God?"

The Beggar. "In men of good will."

Tauler. "Who art thou?"

The Beggar. "I am a king."

Tauler. "Where is thy kingdom?"

The Beggar. "In my soul."

We need often recall to our minds, in reading Tauler's life, that he was really a man of flesh and bone, an historical personage. Surius, Fathers Echard and Touron, have written his real life circumstantially. He was born in 1294. He was an Alsatian. He lived at Cologne, and died probably at Strasburg. We cannot fix the date of his death. It happened May 17th, 1361, says Father Alexander. Father Echard places it in the year 1379. Another historian, M. Sponde, puts it in 1355.

Let us now speak of his doctrine.

II.

The doctrine of Doctor Tauler is the practice of divine union. This union, transcending human thoughts and hopes, is the secret of his life and the leading principle of his work. His sermons are full of instruction regarding this union.

His Institutions also teach it. Some writers hostile to Tauler pretend to have found in his writings the foreshadowing of quietism. This mistake can be refuted in three ways: by the works of Tauler, which always affirm human activity to the most contemplative soul, thus clearly separating the doctrine of the quietists from that of the German thinker. Secondly, Bossuet, whom no one will suspect of any leaning toward quietism, says of Tauler: "He is one of the most solid and exact of the mystical theologians." Thirdly, Tauler himself predicted quietism in a remarkable monograph, blaming strongly all that Molinos, Madame de Guyon, and Fenelon afterward asserted.

A close study of the Alsatian doctor shows that he always gives to both internal and external activity all the reality and all the rights which they possess.

"If any one," says he, "ascends to such a height of contemplation as Saints Peter and Paul reached; and he perceives that a sick beggar needs his help to warm his soup, or for any other service, it would be much better for him to leave the repose of contemplation, and aid the poor man, instead of remaining in the sweetness of contemplative life." (Institutions, p. 195.)

Here is the plain truth and no illusion. And elsewhere he writes: "Men should not pay so much attention to what they do, as to what they are in themselves; for if the core of their heart be good, their acts will be so also without difficulty; and if their conscience be just and right, their works cannot be otherwise. Many make sanctity [to] consist in action; but action is not the chief element in it. Holiness must be judged in its principle as well as in its acts. In other words, we must be interiorly saints before we can perform exterior holy actions. No matter how good may be our works, they do not sanctify us as works. It is we, on the contrary, who make them meritorious, in virtue of inner sanctity which is their producing principle. It is in the bottom of the soul that we find the essence of a just man." (Institutions, p. 156.)

Here is the truth again. Collate those two passages, after having studied them separately, and you will find that they throw complete light on the nature and value of human acts.

The almost continual ecstatic state in which Tauler lived, never made him forget his smallest duties.

It has been often remarked that grace adapts itself to the natural qualities of the individual whom it sanctifies. This is as true of nations as of individuals. In Italy, asceticism has the color of the sun. Italian ascetics shout, burn with ardor, and seem full of exaggerated transports to the nations of cooler blood. The landscape of Italian asceticism presents you a burning sky, an ocean of fire, and a scorching earth. Sadness is generally wanting. In Spain, the hue is more sombre. The same ardor is there; but ardor tempered with jealousy. There is interior disquietude in Spanish mysticism, and even adoration in it examines itself as if suspicious of its truth. In Germany, profound gravity and stern austerity lead the soul into a horrible place. In Italy, images come crowding together, and divine love, instead of rejecting them, embraces them. The soul of the Italian saint holds garlands of flowers in his hands, offering them joyously to the blessed sacrament. Familiarity and adoration unite, like the two species of electricity before the thunder-clap. Familiarity, wedded to adoration, appeared in St. Francis of Assisi. The greatness of that strange man, who saw brothers and sisters in everything, and conversed with water, fire, the birds, and his monks, in the same tone and spirit, is not immediately manifest to superficial minds. Plain good nature veils his wonderful character. In Germany, those images which poetry presents to love are accepted with great precaution. Adoration is sober in thought and expression; and aspires to something sublime, whose form and name are intangible. German adoration is philosophical, meditative, broad, comprehensive, austere, silent, wrapped up in herself, and self-sufficing. She borrows only what is strictly necessary from persons and things. The world is a servant which she employs only with regret. She holds aloof from all creatures, and her words sound like concession. She says to no one, "My brother," or "My sister." If she had a brother. he would be silence. Her sister would be the mist which surrounds God.

Tauler is one of the most majestic representatives of Teutonic asceticism.

A disciple of St. Dionysius the Areopagite and of that layman of whom we have written, in the wake of those two great characters he follows, with eye and wing of eagle, into the region of translucent darkness. He does not flutter there, he soars; or, if he flies, his motion is so high and rapid, that it seems like the active repose of a sublime and fruitful immobility.

Tauler seems to desire obscurity. The remarkable effects of his preaching on his audience are less like thunder pealing in his language, than like the awful presence of the sacred cloud where the thunder is reposing.

Every man is a universe in himself. Unity and variety are the two terms of the antinomy, without which there is no life. But perfection consists in equilibrium between those terms. Such perfection is very rare. In general the antinomy of life is replaced by the contradictory, which is death. Man is divided between good and evil, always attempting an impossible reconciliation between them. Contradiction is a dead force which tries to serve two masters. An antinomy is a living force which, having chosen a master, and obeying but him, desires to serve him in a thousand different ways always useful. Nothing better displays the unity of a landscape than the variety of colors which it presents to the eye at the same time. The lights and shades, the undulations of the soil, and the accidents of sun, clouds, villages, forests, and spires, all are harmonized in the eye of the spectator; and the more numerous, varied, and unexpected are the details, the more does he experience delight and a certain dilation of mind and heart in the contemplation of their unity. If he takes away some of the circumstances, he mars the effect of the whole; for he cannot even destroy a shadow without diminishing the sunshine. What is true of a landscape is also true of a book or a man. But Tauler lost the balance between unity and variety, for he gave all to one and nothing to the other. Few individuals, even among the greatest saints, have been so ardent in the sentiment, love, pursuit, and conquest of unity. He seeks after it incessantly, and it haunts him. He never seems to look at the road he is travelling. He fixes his eyes solely on the goal ever present to his soul. He turns neither to the right nor the left. He knows not whether there be flowers or thorns on the borders of his pathway. Do not ask him to imitate St. Antony of Padua, and preach to the fishes of the streams. He minds neither fishes nor birds. He seems to regard creation as a stranger, of whom he had heard tell long ago, but whose remembrance is now but faintly glimmering in his mind.

His love of unity, his call to unity, his transports for it, always take the same shape, the same key and accent; and produce in the end a certain monotony, which is not a question of doctrine, but an affair of nature and temperament.

Tauler somewhere relates the history of a hermit, from whom a troublesome visitor begged something that was lying in the cell. The hermit went in to find the required object, but forgot at the threshold what was wanted, for the image of external things could not remain in his head. He went out, therefore, and asked the visitor what he sought. The visitor repeated his petition. The hermit re-entered his cell, but again forgot the request; and was at last obliged to say to his guest: "Enter and find yourself what you seek, for I cannot keep the image of what you ask for sufficiently long stamped on my brain to do what you desire."

Tauler, in narrating this story, unintentionally describes his own character. In every one of his sermons, he chooses a text and a subject. This was required by circumstances and by his audience. But the moment he enters the cell of his contemplation, he forgets text and everything else, and mounts into the realms of sublimity where he loses himself in that supreme unity after which his heart is always aspiring. The moment he begins to fly, he forgets the course he must take. With one stroke of her wings, his intellect finds her love, and then soars in her natural element, with plumes unruffled. Far above modes and forms of earth, she stretches out her broad wings in the cerulean vault of her beloved repose. If any should then ask him about some ordinary detail, he would certainly answer like the recluse above mentioned: "Enter yourself, and find what you are inquiring after. I cannot keep the image of material or minor things long enough in my mind to fulfil your request."

Tauler is continually citing Saint Dionysius the Areopagite. In fact, these two great men are at home in the same latitudes. The sermons of Tauler are to the works of the Areopagite what a treatise of applied mathematics is to one on theoretical mathematics. Tauler, like St. Dionysius, dwells in the interior of the soul, that secret and deep abode, the name of which he is ever seeking without finding, and which he ends by calling ineffable as God himself.

"It is in this recess of the soul," he preaches, "that the divine word speaks. This is why it is written, 'In the midst of silence, a secret word was spoken to me.' Concentrate then, if thou canst, all thy powers; forget all those images with which thou hast filled thy soul. The more thou forgettest creatures, the more thou wilt become fit and ready to receive that mysterious word. Oh! if thou couldst of a sudden become ignorant of all things, even of thy own life, like St. Paul, when he said, 'Was I in the body or out of the body? I know not, God knows it.'" ... "Natural animation was suspended in him, and for this reason his body lost none of its powers during the three days which he passed without eating or drinking. The same happened to Moses when he fasted forty days on the mountain, without suffering from such long abstinence, finding himself as strong at the end as at the beginning."

The desire of Tauler that his hearers should become Christian children, ignorant or forgetful of everything in sublime ecstasy, shows plainly the nature of his charity. He wished for them absolute perfection, contemplative and active, transfiguration, transport, exactness, total accomplishment of truth, and the plenitude of all heavenly things. The atmosphere in which he lived favored his hopes and helped the efficacy of his teaching. He declares that in the monastery when a soul is suddenly called to some interior consideration, it can leave the choir in the midst of the exercises, and plunge itself unseen into the abyss of meditation to which God draws it. He also affirms that when friars pass several days in ecstasy, they have no reason to be disturbed at any irregularity of theirs which may result from such an accident, provided they obey the rule again, when they become masters of themselves. Thus the prodigious transports of true asceticism are ever strengthening; while those of false mysticism enervate the soul. Hence it is that Tauler, though he is always speaking of ravishments, never loses the character of force, and of that austerity which is the sign of God and the test of true contemplation.

"Where then does God act without a medium? In the depths, in the essence of the soul? I cannot explain; for the faculties cannot apprehend a being without an image. They cannot, for instance, conceive a horse under the species of a man. It is precisely because all images come from without to the soul, that the mystery is hidden from it; and this is a great blessing. Ignorance plunges the soul into admiration. She seeks to comprehend what is taking place in her; she feels that there is something; but she knows not what it is. The moment we know the cause of anything, it has no longer any charm for us. We leave it to run after some other object; always thirsting for knowledge, and never finding the rest which we seek. This knowledge, full of ignorance and obscurity, fixes our attention on the divine operations within us. 'The mysterious and hidden word' of which Solomon writes, is working in our minds." (Sermons.)

Many men of genius, from the beginning of the world, have studied the human soul, and many are illustrious for the profundity of their psychological researches. Yet compared to the great mystical writers, those philosophers are mere children. Merely human psychology skims over the surface of the soul, only analyzing its relations to the interior world. They are ignorant of the phenomena which take place in the secret recesses of the mind. The great light, the incarnate Word, alone can throw its rays into those abysses. It is remarkable that those who study the soul for curiosity, merely to find out, and consecrate their life to such investigations, discover very little. While those who care nothing for simple science, but who act virtuously, obey and glorify the Lord, see all things properly. Instead of aiding vision to peer into the soul's penetralia, curiosity dims the light. Simplicity is the best torch in those catacombs. Simplicity, commissioned by God, penetrates into the abysses of the soul, with the audacity of a child sent by its father.

The interior and extraordinary efforts by which Tauler rose to the height of contemplation, gave him, though he knew it not, an astounding knowledge of the resistance which man makes to man and to God; of our combats, defeats, and victories; and of those artifices by which we veil from ourselves our true situation during the battle. The rounds by which the soul ascends are counted, and yet the ladder of perfection has no summit.

The gospel, so merciful to sinners, vents all its wrath on the Scribes and Pharisees. All its charity is for external enemies; all its severity for interior enemies. Jesus Christ used the whip once in his life to show men in what direction his indignation was turned. We have Magdalen and the woman taken in adultery on the one hand; the money-changers of the Temple, the Scribes and Pharisees on the other. There is a line of fire separating sinners from the accursed. All Catholic doctrine, all ascetical tradition, is but the echo of Christ's mercy and Christ's anger. Tauler teaches like all the great doctors, in this respect.

He reprobates exterior practices which are devoid of charity, as the works of hell, most hateful to the Holy Spirit. The fixedness of his ideas gives a singular solemnity to his repetitions. On every page his hatred of works done without interior life shows itself. Such works are his abomination. In all his meditations, prayers, experiences, and contemplations, he condemns them. "This doctrine," says he, "ought to be attentively meditated by those who torment and mortify their poor flesh, plucking out the bad roots which lie hidden around the core of man's heart. My brother, what has thy body done that thou shouldst scourge it in that fashion? Those men are fools who act as if they wanted to beat their heads against the wall. Extirpate thy vices and thy bad habits, instead of tormenting thyself as thou dost." ... "There are men in the cloister and in solitude whose soul and heart are always distracted by a multiplicity of external things. There are men, on the contrary, who in public places, in the midst of a market, and surrounded by countless distractions, know so well how to keep their heart and senses recollected, that nothing can trouble their interior peace or injure their soul. These deserve the name of religious far more than the former." (Sermons.)

Tauler goes farther. When those men who place God in external acts remain apparently virtuous, "the Lord," says he, "turns away from them. But when, in his mercy, he allows them to fall into grievous exterior faults, then he returns to them and offers them forgiveness." Tauler is always in the sky. He never stays long on earth. "God," says he, "can unite himself to the soul simply, immediately, and without image. He acts in the soul by an immediate operation; he operates in the depths of the mind where no image ever penetrates, and which are accessible only to him. But no creature can do this. God, the Father, begets his Son in the soul, not by means of an image, but by a process similar to the eternal generation. Do you want to know how divine generation takes place? God the Father knows himself, and comprehends himself perfectly. He sees down to the very source of his being; and contemplates himself, not by aid of an image, but in his own essence. Thus he engenders his Son in the unity of divine nature. In this manner also the Father produces him in the essence of the soul, and unites himself to her." (Sermons.)

All the discourses of Tauler end by a refrain. The chorus of his song is ever divine unity. Tauler is hardly a man; he is a voice speaking in the wilderness, calling men to descend into the depths of their souls. All his doctrine may be resumed in this word, to which we must give its etymological signification: Adieu, à Dieu. [Footnote 99]

[Footnote 99: The point of these words is untranslatable. The sense is adieu to creatures; and turn to God—à Dieu!—[Translator's Note.]

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