Fleurange.
By Mrs. Craven, Author of “A Sister's Story.”
Translated From The French, With Permission.
Part Third. The Banks Of The Neckar.
“Brama assai—poco spera—nulla chiede.”—Tasso.
XXXIV.
“Return, Gabrielle! if possible, return at once; at all events, come soon.” These simple words from Clement to his cousin give no idea of the agitation with which they were written. Fleurange herself would never have suspected it, and less than ever at the arrival of a letter at once so affecting and so opportune. She even paid very little attention to her cousin's assurances as to the inutility of any further sacrifices for the sake of his family. Clement, however, had written her the exact truth. The situation of Professor Dornthal's family was of course very different from what it once was, but the change was far from being as great as they had all anticipated and prepared for a year before, when ruin overwhelmed and scattered them.
To leave the house in which they had lived twenty-five years; to see all the objects that adorned it offered for sale; to give up the place where the happiest moments of their lives had been spent; all this at first excluded the possibility of anticipating anything but privation and sadness without alleviation. Madame Dornthal herself did not look forward to the future in any other light, and the courage with which she left her native city was the same she would have shown had her husband been condemned to suffer exile; she would have shared it with him, endeavoring to soften it as much as possible, but without anticipating the least possibility of joy in their changed lives.
Joy, however, returned. It not unfrequently happens that reverses endured without murmuring receive unexpected compensations.
In the first place, their new home, though simple, and even rustic compared with their old one, was neither gloomy nor inconvenient. Two spacious rooms on the ground floor allowed the whole family to assemble not only for their meals, but the evening reunions—their greatest pleasure when all the absent ones returned. A small garden surrounded the house, and a grass-plot extended down to the river with a covered alley on each side. This place, called Rosenheim, merited its name by the abundance of flowers, and especially of roses, which on every side cheered the eye and embalmed the [pg 019] air. Their very first impressions, therefore, were quite different from what they had apprehended. Besides, Clement had reserved two or three of his father's favorite paintings, several engravings, as well as a number of other familiar and precious objects, which preceded them, and were there, like old friends, to welcome them.
In the next place, the professor's rare collections, and the works of art he had selected with so correct a taste and such profound knowledge, proved far more valuable than they had anticipated, so that, if no longer rich, an independence more than sufficient was assured them. Moreover, Clement's prospects were exceedingly promising. His extraordinary ability was soon recognized to a degree that justified Wilhelm Müller's foresight. To tell the truth, fortune is not so blind and capricious as she is often represented, and if she sometimes bestows her favors on those who are unworthy of them, there are some she reserves exclusively for persevering industry, perfect integrity, shrewd calculation, strict economy, and undeviating exactness. These virtues—and not chance—lay the foundations of durable and honorably acquired fortunes, and where they are lacking the greatest skill does not prevent them from being frequently lost in a day.
It was one of these legitimate fortunes Clement was worthy of and capable of acquiring. His success was already sufficient to dispense his father from the share of labor he had taken upon himself, but he could not turn him from his purpose, and soon perceived he ought not to attempt it. He derived the poetry of his nature from his father, and was indebted to his mother for his force and energy. Of these the professor, with all the rare and exquisite gifts of his mind and heart, was entirely destitute. A profound dejection mingled with his apparent resignation to misfortune, which sprang from the humiliating conviction—felt too late—of having brought it on himself by a want of foresight, and thus being responsible for the ruin of his family.
He needed something to divert him from this rooted idea, and therefore the necessity of exerting himself to fulfil the duties of the position he had accepted, and of pursuing his favorite studies, was too beneficial to make it desirable he should renounce it. His new life, no longer burdened by any material anxiety, gradually became both active and serene, and when the family assembled together, everything would have had nearly the same aspect as before, had it not been for the vacancies around the hearth. But after the arrival of Hilda and her husband, and subsequently of Dr. Leblanc, the evenings at Rosenheim became once more cheerful and almost lively. Ludwig and Hansfelt resumed their favorite topics of conversation; Hilda's beauty and happiness delighted her father; the merry voices of the children resounded anew; and Clement often favored them as of yore with a lively air on his violin, but more frequently, at his father's request, with some graver melody, which he would play with such skill and so pathetic an expression as to surprise Hilda, who asked him one day how he had found time in his busy life to develop his talent to such a degree. Clement did not at first hear, he was so absorbed in some strain of Beethoven's, which gave forth a heart-rending accent under his bow. She repeated her question.
“I often play in the evening at Frankfort,” he then replied. “Müller [pg 020] and his wife accompany me. Music refreshes me after the tedious labors of the day, and this prevents me from losing what you are so kind as to call my talent.”
Such was the state of things Fleurange would have found at her new home had she arrived a month sooner. In that case, her involuntary sadness might have excited more attention. But the serenity of the household, so recently regained, had been violently disturbed again. It was not surprising therefore that tears should mingle with her joy at seeing once more those she loved, especially as among them she found Dr. Leblanc's sister in mourning for him, and she had to be informed of another misfortune, scarcely hinted at in Clement's letter.
Professor Dornthal's life was indeed no longer in danger, but his memory was greatly impaired, and his noble mind, if not extinct, only gave out a feeble and vacillating light. This was hoped to be merely a transient state, which time and absolute cessation from labor would soon remedy. But it was a severe affliction to them all, and Clement for the first time saw his mother's courage waver. It was with truly a sad smile Madame Dornthal saw her husband recognize and embrace Fleurange without manifesting the slightest surprise at her presence, or realizing the time and distance that had separated them. It was the same with Clara; but when she placed her infant in his arms, there was a momentary reawakening of the invalid's torpid memory. Tears came into his eyes; he embraced the child, murmured “God bless him!” and then gave him back to his mother, looking at him with an expression that filled them for a moment with hope. Then the gleam vanished, and he fell back into his former state.
In consequence of all these circumstances, when the family assembled in the evening in the large salon on the ground floor, every brow was clouded, all the young smiling faces were grave and anxious, and the same cause for sadness weighed on every heart. Perhaps this was best for Fleurange, who, ever ready to forget herself, seemed to feel, and indeed only felt the sorrows of the rest.
Ah! how her sadness, which seemed only sympathy, touched one person that night as he gazed at her in silent admiration. She was sitting between his sisters, the lamp suspended from the ceiling threw a halo around her charming face, and the voice, so dear and so long unheard, resounded for the first time in this place where everything seemed transformed by her presence!
The evening, so sad for all the rest, was not so for Clement. Even his anxiety for his father was suspended: he felt a renewed hope for him as well as for everything else—yes, every thing. He no longer took a dark view of things: he was, as it were, intoxicated with hope. With what a sweet confiding look she had pressed his hand! In what a tone she cried: “Dear Clement, how happy I am to see you again”! Could the future, then, be as doubtful as he had so recently feared? As to the smiles of fortune, he no longer doubted: he was sure of winning them henceforth. He once thought himself inefficient, but he was mistaken. Might he not also be mistaken in thinking himself incapable of ever pleasing?—To this question he heard no other reply but the quickened pulsations of his heart, and the rippling of the water flowing past the seat to which he had betaken himself on the banks of the river.
Meanwhile, Fleurange and her cousins went up-stairs. Clement soon saw them all talking together in [pg 021] low tones on the large wooden gallery that extended around the house, and on which all the windows opened. Then they retired; but the light that shone for the first time that night was a long time visible, and Clement did not quit his post till he saw it was extinguished.
XXXV.
Fleurange gradually resumed the habits of domestic life—once the realization of all her dreams—and then, only then, she realized the extent and depth of the change she had undergone while separated from her friends.
She was no longer the same. No effort of her will could conceal this fact. Her heart, her thoughts, her regrets, her desires, and her hopes, were all elsewhere. Italy in all its brilliancy did not differ more from the peaceful landscape before her, charming as it was, with the little garden of roses and the river winding around it, the ruins beyond, and the dark forest in the background, than the vanished scenes—still so vividly remembered—of which that land was the enchanting theatre, differed from those now occurring beneath the more misty sky of Germany. At Florence, her struggles and efforts, and the necessity of action, stimulated her courage. The peace she found at Santa Maria revived her strength. But there, as we have said, the past and the future seemed suspended, as it were. Now the struggle was over as well as the pause that succeeded it, and she must again set forth on the way—act, live in the present, and courageously take up life again as she found it, with its actual duties and new combats. Fleurange had never felt more difficulty and repugnance in overcoming herself.
After the long restraint she had been obliged to make, it would have been some relief to be dispensed from all effort, especially at concealment, and freely give herself up to a profound melancholy, to pass away the hours in dreamy inaction, to weep when her heart was swelling with tears, and, if not to speak to every one of her sadness, at least take no trouble to conceal it.
This would have been her natural inclination, and it was only by an effort she refrained from yielding to it. But this would have shown the strength gained in her retreat to have been only factitious, and her intercourse with Madre Maddalena to have left, this time, no permanent influence. We have, however, no such act of cowardice to record respecting our heroine.
On the contrary, whoever saw her up at the first gleam of light in the east to relieve her aunt from all the cares of the ménage; whoever followed her first to the store-rooms to dispense the provisions for the day, accompanied by little Frida, whom she initiated into the mysteries of housekeeping, and then to the kitchen to give directions and sometimes even lend assistance to the old and not over-skilful cook; whoever saw her even going sometimes to market with a firm step, basket in hand, and returning with her cloak covered with dew, would not have imagined from the freshness she brought back from these matutinal walks, and the brilliancy which youth and health imparted to her complexion, that, more than once, the night had passed without sleep, and while hearing her early Mass, never neglected, she had shed so many scalding tears.
Other cares, more congenial and better calculated to absorb her mind, occupied the remainder of the day. Her special talent for waiting on the sick, and the beneficent influence she exercised over them, were again brought into requisition around her uncle, and Madame Dornthal blessed the day of her return as she witnessed the evident progress of so prolonged and painful a convalescence—a progress that gave them reason to hope in the complete restoration of the professor's faculties, if not in the possibility of his ever resuming constant or arduous labor. The young girl found these cares delightful, and her new duties towards her dear old friend Mademoiselle Josephine no less so.
Josephine Leblanc's affections had all been centred in her brother. She lived exclusively for him, and had never once thought of the possibility of surviving him. A person left alone in a house standing in a district devastated by war or fire, would not have felt more suddenly and strangely left alone than our poor old mademoiselle after the fatal blow that deprived her of her brother, so dear, so admired, and so venerated—the brother younger than herself, and in whose arms she had felt so sure of dying!
She remained calm, however, and self-possessed. But the mute despair imprinted on her face as she went to and fro in the house, troubling no one with her grief, affected every beholder. She only begged to remain there that she might not have to return alone to the place where she had lived with him. From the first, Madame Dornthal had invited her to take up her residence near them, and Fleurange's return brought her old friend to a final decision, which proved so consoling that she firmly believed it to have been in the designs of Providence. The doctor left considerable property, which now belonged entirely to his sister. All their relatives were wealthier than they, and lived in the provinces. There was nothing therefore to induce Mademoiselle Josephine to return to Paris, and she resolved to settle near her new friends, that she might be near her whom long before she had adopted in her heart. It was a formidable undertaking for a person who for forty years had led a uniform life, always in the same place, and who was no less ignorant of the world at sixty than she was at twenty years of age. But it seemed no longer difficult as soon as she again had some one to live for. As to Fleurange, she found it pleasant and beneficial to devote herself to her old friend in return, and, in acquitting herself of this new debt of gratitude, her heart gained strength for the interior struggle which had become the constant effort of her life.
Notwithstanding the marriage of her two cousins, everything now resumed the aspect of the past. Clara and Julian, established in the neighborhood where the pursuits of the latter would retain him a year, did not suffer a day to pass without visiting Rosenheim. Hansfelt no longer thought of leaving his old friend, and Hilda's calm and radiant happiness seemed to lack nothing between her husband and her father, whose case now appeared so hopeful.
Clement alone was not, as formerly, a part of the regular family circle. He only came once a week—on Saturday evening—and returned to Frankfort on Monday morning as soon as it was light.
Business for which one feels a special aptitude is not generally repugnant. But Clement had such a variety of talents, and among all the things he was capable of, the duties [pg 023] of the office where he passed his days were certainly not what he had the greatest taste or inclination for. Nothing would have retained him there but the conviction of thereby serving the best interests of those dear to him. He must accept the most remunerative employment, and, this once resolved upon, nothing could exhaust the courageous endurance so peculiar to him. His courage was not in the least increased by the desire of surprising others or exciting their admiration, and nothing under any circumstances could daunt or turn him from his purpose. And he knew how to brave ennui as well as disaster. But this ennui, which he generally overcame by severe application, became from time to time overwhelming, and he would have had violent fits of discouragement had it not been for the cheering evenings he passed in the modest household of which he was a member.
Wilhelm Müller perceived that Clement's varied acquirements were useful to him, and his devotedness to him was mingled with an admiration bordering on enthusiasm. On his side, he procured Clement the opportunity and pleasure of talking of something besides their commercial affairs, and with the aid of music their evenings passed agreeably away.
But the kind and simple Bertha, with the instinct that often enables a woman to put her finger on the wound the most penetrating of men would never have discovered, had found a sure means of diverting him. The children had never forgotten the great event of their lives—the journey and the beautiful young lady they met on the way. Clement never seemed weary of listening to this account, to which Bertha would add many a comment; and this had been the commencement of a kind of confidential intimacy, which she discreetly took advantage of, and which was of more comfort to him than he realized. In short, this was the bright spot in his weary life. He would need it more than ever when, after a leave of absence on account of his father's terrible accident, which had been prolonged from day to day, he would have to return to his bondage, and this time with an effort that added another degree of heroism to the task he had imposed on himself.
It was now the eve of his departure. Fleurange and Hilda were sitting at twilight on a little bench by the river-side conversing together, and Clement, leaning against a tree opposite, was looking at the current of the water, listening silently, but attentively, to the conversation that was going on before him. They were discussing all that had occurred during their separation, and Hilda began to question Fleurange about her journey—about Italy, and the life she led at Florence away from them all. Fleurange replied, but briefly and with the kind of apprehension we feel when a conversation is leading to a point we would like to avoid. She foresaw the impossibility of succeeding in this, and was endeavoring, but without success, to overcome her embarrassment, when Count George's name at last was introduced. After some questions, to which Fleurange only replied by monosyllables, Hilda continued:
“Count George!—A friend of Karl's, who met him, was pretending the other day in my hearing that no one could see him without loving him. As you know him, Fleurange, what is your opinion?”
The question was a decided one, and Fleurange, as we are aware, had no turn for evasion. She blushed and remained silent—so long silent that Clement abruptly turned around and looked at her. Did she turn pale at [pg 024] this? or was it the light of the moon through the foliage that blanched her face, and its silver rays that gave her an expression he had never seen till now? He remained looking at her with attention mingled with anguish, when at length, in a troubled tone and with a fruitless effort at a smile, she replied:
“I think, Hilda, Karl's friend was right.”
These words were very simple after all, but the darkest hour of Clement's life never effaced from his memory the spot or the moment in which they were uttered, the silence that preceded, or the tone and look that accompanied them.
XXXVI.
The blindness of love is proverbial. His clairvoyance would be equally so, were it not for the illusion that unceasingly aids the heart in avoiding the discoveries it dreads. The very instinct that gives keenness to the eye is as prompt to close it, and when the truth threatens one's happiness or pride, there are but few who are bold enough to face it regardless of consequences.
To this number, however, Clement belonged. There was in his nature no liability to illusions which had the power of obscuring his penetration. Therefore the truth was suddenly revealed to him without mercy, and his newly budding hopes were at once blasted for ever.—That moment of silence was as tragical as if all his heart's blood had been shed on the spot, and left him lifeless at the feet of her who had unwittingly given him so deadly a blow!
Within a year—since the day he thought himself separated from her for ever, not only by his own inferiority, but by the sad necessity of his new position—two unexpected changes had occurred: First, in his exterior life—then he was apparently ruined: now, he felt capable of repairing his fortunes. Secondly, in the opinion he had of himself.
Not that a sudden fatuity had seized the modest and unpretending Clement. By no means; but the great reverses of his family had certainly effaced in a day every trace of his youthful timidity, and a kind of barrier had all at once melted away before him. Hitherto his worth had not been recognized beyond the narrow circle of his family, and even there he was loved without being fully appreciated. Necessity threw him in contact with the world; all his faculties were brought into action and developed by exercise. His features, his attitude, his manners, and his general appearance all participated in this transformation. The silent awkwardness that once left him unnoticed was overcome by the necessity of asserting himself, and also by that increased confidence in himself produced by a widening influence over others. This influence, at which he himself was astonished, was not solely the consequence of the superior ability he manifested in the dull and prosaic life he had embraced. But in this career, as everywhere else, he brought his highest faculties into exercise; and while observing and seizing all these details of his material life, he understood how to impart a soul to them by his dignity, trustworthiness, unselfishness, and generous ardor—which are the sweet flowers of labor and the noble result of a well-regulated nature.
He also reserved a prominent part of his evenings for the favorite studies in which he had not ceased to interest himself, as well as a thousand [pg 025] subjects foreign to his daily occupation, but exceedingly useful in the development of his mind. Thence sprang a simple and persuasive eloquence, which gave him an ascendency over every one, and caused him to be especially sought after on a thousand occasions that had no immediate connection with his actual position. Once or twice he had even been invited to speak at some public assembly which had for its object either a question of public interest, or one relating to literature and the arts, and he acquitted himself so well as to attract the notice not only of those to whom the name of Dornthal was already familiar, but of a great number of strangers. Numerous advances to acquaintance were made him on all sides, and Clement might easily have passed his evenings elsewhere than in the unpretending home of the Müllers. But he had no such inclination. Their company satisfied his present tastes. Music, which he would not willingly have been deprived of, was the delight of his hosts; and as is frequently the case in Germany, they were able to join him in duets or trios which many a professional singer would not have disdained to listen to.
Over his whole life, with its varied and absorbing interests, reigned one dear and ever-present form. It seemed at first like some celestial vision, far-off and inaccessible, but for some time, under the influence of all we have referred to, it appeared to have drawn nearer to him.
On this account, he began to appreciate the increased consideration with which he was regarded, but which he valued so little on his own. He ventured at last to ask himself if the good-will that seemed to beam on him on all sides did not authorize him to hope sooner or later for something more, and if his favorite poet was wholly wrong in promising that he who loved should win something in return.
Such thoughts and dreams, if allowed entrance in the heart, are apt to end by taking entire possession of it; and, as we have said, Clement was intoxicated with hope when Fleurange reappeared in their midst. But his dreams, fancies, and hopes were now all crushed by one word from her—one word, the fatal meaning of which was clearly revealed by the expression of her eyes, which Clement caught a glimpse of by the pale light of the moon!
The grief that pierced his soul enabled him to realize the full extent of his illusions, and he was astonished he had ever before considered himself unhappy. For some time after his return to Frankfort, he was overpowered by a dejection such as he had never experienced. He felt as incapable of any further effort as he was indifferent to all success. His daily task became insupportable, and study in the evening impossible. Instead of returning to the Müller's at the usual hour, he would leave the city afoot or on horseback, and roam around the country for hours, as if to wear out his grief by exhausting his strength.
Now he clearly saw he had only lived, planned, and exerted himself for her the two years past; he had given her not only his heart, but his entire life, and that life had had but one aim—the hope of some day winning in return the heart which would never belong to him now—because it was given to another! And while repeating Count George's name with rage, he sharpened his anguish by recalling him, as he had once seen him, clothed with irresistible attractions. His noble features, his look of intelligence, his taste for the arts, the charm of his manners, his voice, and his [pg 026] language, all came back unpityingly to the memory of his humble rival. He remembered him in the gallery of the Old Mansion, through which he accompanied him at a time when he was a mere student, and absolutely wanting in everything that was, not only attractive, but capable of exciting the least attention. His imagination mercilessly dwelt on the contrast between them. Was it surprising (and he blushed at so ridiculous a comparison) such a man should be more successful than he? And should he, inferior as he was, be astonished that this man, living so near Fleurange, under the same roof—At this thought a bitter anguish, a furious jealousy, took possession of him, and excited a tempest in his heart which neither duty, nor his sense of honor, nor the energy of his will, could succeed in calming. There are times when passion rises superior to every other impulse, and they who have not learned to seek their strength from a divine source are always vanquished. But Clement had been accustomed to the powerful restraints of religion; his strength consisted in never throwing them off. Therefore, he was not to fail in this severe struggle: he would soon turn his eyes heavenward for the aid he needed in again becoming master of himself.
XXXVII.
Disinterestedness, energy, and the power of self-control were, as may have been perceived, qualities common both to Clement and Fleurange. There was, in fact, a great resemblance in their natures, which, on his part, was the secret of the attraction so suddenly ripened into a more lively sentiment; and, on hers, of an unchanging confidence, in spite of the transformation of another kind she likewise experienced. And now they were both engaged in a like struggle: they were united by similarity of suffering, which separated them, nevertheless, as by an abyss.
Ah! if Clement could have hoped, as he once did, that a more tender sentiment would spring out of this sympathy and confidence, with what joy, what sweet pride, he would have regarded this conformity so constantly manifest between them! But the aspect of everything was now changed: there was no longer any possibility of happiness for him, he could now only suffer; and by the light of what was passing in his own heart he was enabled to read hers—at once open to him and yet closed against him for ever!
With all Clement's self-control, he would have been utterly unable to conceal the state of his mind from his cousin had he remained at Frankfort. But, after the days of overpowering anguish we have already referred to, after yielding without restraint to a despair bordering on madness, Clement at length succeeded in regaining his clearness of judgment.
One morning he rose before day, and left the city on foot. His walk was prolonged to such an extent that it might be called a pilgrimage, and the more correctly as its goal was a church, but so unpretending a church that it only differed from the neighboring houses by a stone cross to be seen when passing the door which it surmounted. The door was opened by the very person Clement came to see—a pious and simple young priest who was formerly his schoolmate. He was inferior to Clement intellectually, but his guide and master in those regions the soul alone attains. What Clement now [pg 027] sought was—not merely to pour out his heart by way of confidence—not even the consolation of discreet and Christian sympathy—but to recover his firmness by a courageous avowal of all his weakness, and afterwards make an unchangeable resolution in the presence of God and his representative at the holy tribunal. He had made a similar one while yet a youth, but now in his manhood he wished to renew it in a more solemn manner. It would of course require greater effort after the gleam of hope he had just lost, and the devotedness he pledged himself to would be more difficult after the revelation that she whom he loved, and must ever love, had given her affections to another. His voice faltered as he declared that no word, look, or act of his should ever trouble her, or reveal the sentiments she had inspired in the heart of one who would live near her, without her, and yet for her!
It was, in fact, his old devise: “Garder l'amour et briser l'espoir!” which he now solemnly assumed with the grave and pious feeling that accompanies all self-sacrifice.
Such piety may be regarded by some as rather exaltée. They are right, but it is the kind of exaltation which accords with the real signification of the word, which elevates the soul it inflames, and which, though powerless in itself, can effect much when the divine assistance is invoked to co-operate in aiding, increasing, in a word, exalting human strength!
That evening Clement quietly resumed his old seat at the Müllers' fireside. In reply to Wilhelm's questions, he said that during his long visit at Rosenheim he had neglected affairs that required his attention. “And then I confess,” continued he, “that I have been in a bad humor, and thought it wiser to relieve you from my society.” But to Bertha, who also questioned him, in a less vague way, however, he acknowledged more frankly, but no less briefly, that he had met with a great affliction, but requested her never to mention the subject to him. Then he took his violin and began to play a strain from Bach.
Bertha seated herself at the piano, and played an accompaniment to this and several other pieces. Her husband, who was beating time beside her, remarked that their young friend's bad humor had a singularly favorable effect on his talent.
“I assure you, Dornthal, you never played so well as you have this evening.”
“Perhaps so,” replied Clement with a thoughtful air. “Yes, I think you are right.”
It was really the truth. Music was the veiled, but eloquent, language of his soul. The very feelings he so successfully repressed, the words that no temptation or impulse could induce his lips to betray, made the chords vibrate beneath his bow, and gave their tones an inexpressible accent it was impossible to hear without emotion and surprise.
When, at the end of a fortnight, Clement reappeared at Rosenheim, all exterior traces of the excessive agitation he had given himself up to had disappeared. He resumed his usual manner towards Fleurange. No one would have dreamed—and she less than any one else—that between the past and present he found the difference of life and death. She little imagined that the new and strange sympathy that existed between them revealed to him the secret of all her thoughts and struggles. She also, apparently, had become the same as before. Her time was actively employed, the care she had of little Frida and that she lavished on [pg 028] her uncle, the ménage, sewing, exercise, and study filled up the days so completely that it was very seldom she could have been found inactive or pensive.
Hilda, her favorite cousin, though likewise struck for a moment by the hesitation with which she replied to her questions about Count George, almost ceased attaching any importance to this slight incident when she observed the apparent calmness with which Fleurange fulfilled the duties of her active life. Only one clearly read her heart and understood the passing expression of weariness and sorrow that now and then overshadowed her brow for an instant, and saddened her eye. Only one noticed her absence when the family assembled in the evening, and followed her in thought to the little bench on the bank of the river, where he imagined she had gone to weep awhile, alone and unrestrained. All she suffered he had to endure himself, and he lived thus united to her, and yet every day still more widely separated from her.
The weeks flew rapidly away, however, and the tranquility and happiness of the family were continually increasing. The professor's mental and physical strength gradually returned. Work alone was forbidden him, but reading and conversation were allowable and salutary diversions. His conversations with Hansfelt were sometimes as interesting as of old, and he might have been supposed to have regained the complete use of his faculties had not a partial decay of memory sometimes warned his friends he had not entirely recovered from his illness. For example, he often imagined himself in the Old Mansion, and this illusion became stronger after all his children, including Gabrielle, gathered around him. But in other respects his memory was good. Hansfelt found him as correct and clear as ever on all points of history or literary and religious subjects. It seemed as if the higher faculties of his nature recovered their tone first, and were invigorated by contact with the noble mind of his friend. Thus the evenings passed away without ennui, even for the youngest, while listening to their conversation.
These evenings frequently ended with music, which the professor craved and indeed required as a part of his treatment. Clement would take his violin, and not at all unwillingly, for he saw his cousin always listened to it attentively. In this way he dared address her in a mysterious language, which he alone understood, but which sometimes gave her a thrill as if she were listening to the echo of her own cry of pain.
One evening, when he had excelled, she said: “You call that a song without words, Clement, but the music was certainly composed for a song, which perhaps you know, do you not?”
“No,” replied he, “but like you I imagine I can hear the words, and feel they must exist somewhere.”
Hansfelt had also been listening attentively to the music.
“Yes,” said he smiling, “they exist in the hearts of all who love—especially in the hearts of all who love without hope. Here I will express in common language, but not in rhyme, the meaning of what Clement has just played.”
He took a pencil and hastily wrote four lines nearly synonymous with those of a French poet:
“Du mal qu'une amour ignorée
Nous fait souffrir
Je porte l'âme déchirée
Jusqu'à mourir!”[1]
The pang of unrequited love
I feel;
'Tis death the bleeding heart I bear
Must heal!
Clement made no reply, but abruptly changed the subject. The children rose and clapped their hands as he struck up their favorite tarantella, and became noisy as well as gay.
Fleurange left the room, unperceived as she supposed, but Hilda, who had been carefully observing her all the evening, followed her, determined to obtain a complete avowal of all that was passing in her heart. She softly entered her cousin's chamber. Fleurange was not expecting her. She had thrown herself on a chair, with her face buried in her hands, in an attitude expressive at once of dejection and grief.
Hilda approached and threw her arms around her. Fleurange sprang up, her eyes full of tears.
“Do you remember,” said Hilda in a soft, caressing tone—“do you remember, Gabrielle, the day when I also wept in the library at our dear Old Mansion? You asked me the reason of my tears, and I answered by opening my heart to you. You have not forgotten it, have you? Will you not answer me in a like way now?”
Fleurange shook her head without uttering a word.
“It has always seemed to me,” continued Hilda, “that the happiness which has crowned my life dates from my confidence in you that day. Why will you not trust me in a like manner, and hope as I did?”
“Happiness was within your reach,” replied Fleurange; “an imaginary obstacle alone prevented you from grasping it.”
“But how many obstacles that seem insurmountable vanish with time or even beneath a firm will!” She continued slowly and in a lower tone: “Why should not the Count George, then—”
“Stop, Hilda, I conjure you,” cried Fleurange in an agitated manner.
Her cousin stopped confounded.
“Listen to me,” resumed Fleurange, at length, in a calmer tone. “As it is your wish, let us speak of him. I consent. Let us speak of him this time, but never again. Tell me,” she continued with a sad smile, “can you make me his equal in wealth and rank? Or deprive him of his nobility and make him as poor as I? In either case, especially in the latter,” she cried, with a tenderness in her tone, and a look she could not repress—“ah! nothing, certainly nothing but his will, could separate me from him! But it is reasonable to suppose the sun will rise upon us to-morrow and find us the same as to-day: we no longer live in the time of fairies, when extraordinary metamorphoses took place to smooth away difficulties and second the wishes of poor mortals. Help me then, Hilda, I beseech you, to forget him, to live, and even recover from the wound, by never speaking to me either of him, or myself!—”
Hilda silently pressed her in her arms for a long time, and then said: “I will obey you, Gabrielle, and never mention his name till you speak of him first.”
XXXVIII.
The summer and autumn both passed away without anything new, except some variations in the professor's slow recovery, and an occasional gleam of happiness for Clement—the revival of a spark of his [pg 030] buried hopes—but such moments were rare, and succeeded by a sad reaction; nevertheless, they were sweet and lived long in his memory.
One day in particular was thus graven on his heart—a fine day in October, when he had the pleasure of rowing Hilda and his cousin to a shady point further up on the river, which gracefully winds nearly around it. There they spent several hours, conversing together with the delightful familiarity of intimacy, and now and then reading some favorite passage in the books they brought with them. As he sat listening to the silvery tones of Fleurange's voice, and met her expressive, sympathetic glance when he took the book in his turn and read nearly as well as herself; as he sat thus near her in that lovely, solitary spot, with no other witness but her whose affection for both seemed only an additional tie, hope once more entered his heart, as one breaks into a dwelling fastened against him, but, alas! to be promptly thrust out, leaving him as desolate as before.
While he was rowing them back in the evening, with his eyes fastened on Fleurange, he saw her delightful but evanescent emotions of the day fading away with the light, and another remembrance arise, sadder and more tender than ever, which gave to her eyes, sometimes fastened on the dark and rapid current, sometimes fixed on the shore, the expression he had learned to read so well—an expression that made his heart ache with pity and sympathy, but at the same time quiver and shrink with anguish, as if a lancet or caustic had been applied to his wound and caused it to bleed!
Two months later the festival of Christmas again brought him one of these fleeting moments of happiness. On the eve—the never-forgotten anniversary of Fleurange's arrival in their midst—the whole family were reunited, and felt as if they were living over again the delightful past. The Christmas tree was as brilliant as of yore; Mademoiselle Josephine, as ready to participate in the joy of her friends as she was to avoid saddening them with her sorrows, aided in adorning it, and every one found on its branches some offering from her generous hand. Then, as in bygone days, they wove garlands of holly, which Fleurange, as well as her cousins, wore at dinner, and this time without any entreaty. At a later hour they had music and dancing, which, ever ready as she was to catch the joy of others, gave her a feeling of unusual gaiety, to which she unresistingly abandoned herself—the gaiety of youth, which at times triumphs over everything, and sometimes breaks out with an excess in proportion to its previous restraint. Fleurange's laughter rang like music, and her joyous voice mingled with the children's, to the great joy of him who was looking on with ecstasy and surprise. Her radiant eyes, her glowing complexion, the brilliancy happiness adds to beauty, and had so long been wanting to hers, gave him, who could not behold it revive without transport, a feeling of intoxication which once more made him forget all and hope everything! But he was speedily and sadly recalled to himself.
Madame Dornthal was seated beside her husband's arm-chair, which she seldom left. A pleasant smile reappeared on her lips as she looked at her children moving around her. From time to time she leaned towards the professor, and was glad to see him entering into all that was going on with his usual pleasure and with perfect comprehension of mind. All at once she thought he turned [pg 031] pale. She looked at Clement, and made a gesture which he understood. The noise disturbed his father. In an instant profound silence was restored, and they all gathered around the professor's chair. He appeared suddenly fatigued: his eyes closed, and he leaned his head on his wife's shoulder. They all anxiously awaited his first words after this sudden fit of somnolency. Presently he opened his eyes and gave a vague, uneasy glance around. Then, turning to Madame Dornthal, he said in a sad tone, passing his hand over his forehead:
“Tell me why Felix is not here: I knew, but cannot remember.”
This new failure of his memory, the name associated with so many painful recollections and uttered in so distressing a manner, put an end to all the gaiety of the evening. The effect of so much agitation and fatigue on the professor was not regarded as very serious, but it left a painful impression, especially on Fleurange, who had fresh reasons for feeling his words.
Clement, who had been informed by Steinberg of what had occurred at Florence, silently entered into her feelings, and once more the flash of joy that lit up his heart vanished in a night darker than ever.
But he could not foresee that a public event of serious import was at that very hour transpiring far away, in a different sphere from his, which would have an important and painful influence on his humble destiny.
To be continued.
Review of Vaughan's Life Of S. Thomas.[2]
It is but too seldom that the reviewer has to welcome a work like that which we have already had the pleasure of introducing to our readers, and to which we now desire to render more fitting honors. An original life of a saint, and of an epoch-making saint like Thomas of Aquin, treated on a scale adequate to its importance, in the English tongue, by an English Benedictine monk, is a refreshing novelty to those who, like ourselves, have so much to say to what is slight, or frivolous, or common, or hostile. The contemplative reviewer, looking at the two thick volumes of the English edition, feels inclined, like a man who guesses before he opens a letter, to conjure up fancies as to what he will find in this new life of S. Thomas of Aquin. Two volumes, each consisting of more than 800 pages, are a great deal, in these days, for one saint. They are a great deal to write, and what is perhaps of more importance, they are a great deal to read. But no one can suppose that they are too much for such a saint as Thomas of Aquin. Considering that his own works, as printed in the splendid Parma edition lately completed, would make up some forty volumes of the size of these two goodly ones, it is not much. Considering that Thomas of Aquin has been more written about by commentators for four or five centuries than any other [pg 032] man, except perhaps Aristotle, who ever lived—considering that every student of theology is always coming across his authority, and that he has been the great builder-up of the vast building of Catholic philosophical and theological terminology, it is not much that he should have two volumes. Indeed, when we look into the book, we expect to find Prior Vaughan not seldom complaining of being obliged, through want of space, to leave out a great deal that he would have wished to say. And this leads us to notice the author's name. Father Bede Vaughan, though fairly known by reputation in England, is perhaps a stranger to the greater number of American Catholics. It is sufficient to say at present that he is a brother of the Very Rev. Dr. Herbert Vaughan, whose presence in this country lately, in connection with the mission to the negroes, will have made his name familiar to many even of those who had not the pleasure of personally meeting him. Father Bede Vaughan is Prior of the Benedictine Cathedral Chapter of Newport and Menevia. A cathedral-prior is a novelty, not only in literature, but absolutely. There were a great many cathedral-priors in England once upon a time—men of power and substance—wearing their mitres (some of them) and sitting in the House of Lords. Whatever be the lands and the revenues of the only cathedral-priory in English-speaking hierarchies of the present day, it is pleasant to meet with the old name, and to meet it on the cover of a book. That a Benedictine should have written a sterling book will not surprise the world of letters. It is perhaps a little new to find the great Dominican, the Angel of the Schools, taken up by a member of an order which S. Thomas is popularly supposed to have in set purpose turned his back upon. But this is a point on which the work itself will enlighten us. Meanwhile, on opening the first volume we catch sight of a portrait of the Saint. It is a reproduction, by photography, of a painting by the Roman artist Szoldatics, which was painted expressly for the present work. It represents the well-known scene in which the crucified Master, for whom the great doctor has written and taught his life long, asks him what reward he would desire. Portraits of S. Thomas of Aquin are not uncommon. We are all familiar with the large and portly figure and the full and mild countenance, the sun upon his breast, the black and the white, and the shaven crown of the Order of St. Dominic, the open book and the immortal pen. Some of the representations of the saint exaggerate his traditional portliness into a corpulence that almost obliterates the light of genius in his face. On the other hand, there exist many which give at once the large open features and the look of inspiration and of refinement. Those who have turned to the title-pages of the best Roman or Flemish editions of his life or works will remember these. The new portrait, photographed in the first volume, is very successful. Thomas of Aquin had Norman blood in his veins, and the fairness of his skin and the contour of his head are not those of the typical Italian. The artist has managed to convey very well that massive head, in which every lobe of the brain seems to have been perfectly developed and roomily lodged, thus furnishing the intelligence with an imaginative instrument whose power was only equalled by its delicacy. In the corresponding place in the second volume there is a photograph of a meritorious engraving, from a picture or engraving unknown to us, [pg 033] in which, however, the head of the Saint is not so noble or refined.
Passing, however, to consider the substance of the work itself, it is not too much to say that, as a life of S. Thomas of Aquin, it is perfectly original. We do not mean, of course, that the writer has found out new facts, or made any considerable alteration in the aspect of old ones. But his plan of working is new. He has had the idea of giving, not merely S. Thomas, but his surroundings. Some saints, even of those who have spent themselves in external labors for their fellow-men, require but little in the way of background to make their portraits significant. Ven. Bede's biography would not gain much light from discussions upon Mohammedanism, or upon the state of England or of Europe during his life. To understand and love S. Francis of Sales, it is not necessary to study the growth of Calvinism, to follow the steps of the De Auxiliis controversy, or to become minutely acquainted with the character of Henri IV. But it is very different with S. Thomas of Aquin. Opening his mouth, like a true doctor of the church, “in medio ecclesiæ,” he had words to speak which all Christendom listened to, and acted upon, too, in one way or another. He was a power at Paris, at Cologne, at Naples. Every great influence of the thirteenth century felt the impulse of his thought: S. Louis the Crusader, Urban IV., Gregory X., the Greek schismatics, the Arabian philosophers, the opponents of monasticism, the mighty power of the universities. Prior Vaughan thus speaks in the preface to the first volume:
“The author has found it difficult to comprehend how the life of S. Thomas of Aquin could be written so as to content the mind of an educated man—of one who seeks to measure the reach of principle and the influence of saintly genius—without embracing a considerably wider field of thought than has been deemed necessary by those who have aimed more at composing a book of edifying reading, than at displaying the genesis and development of truth and the impress of a master-mind upon the age in which he lived. It has always appeared to him that one of the most telling influences exerted by the doctor-saints of God, has been that of rare intellectual power in confronting and controlling the passions and mental aberrations of epochs, as well as of blinded and swerving men....
“The object which the author of these pages has proposed to himself is this: to unfold before the reader's mind the far-reaching and many-sided influence of heroic sanctity, when manifested by a man of massive mind, of sovereign genius, and of sagacious judgment, and then to remind him that, as the fruit hangs from the branches, so genius of command and steadiness of view and unswervingness of purpose, are naturally conditioned by a certain moral habit of heart and head; that purity, reverence, adoration, love, are the four solid corner-stones on which that Pharos reposes which, when all about it, and far beyond it, is darkness and confusion, stands up in the midst as the representative of order, and as the minister of light, and as the token of salvation.
“Now, the Angel of the Schools was emphatically a great and shining light. To write his life is not so much to deal with the subject of his personal history, as to display the stretch of his power and the character of his influence. Indeed, few of the great cardinal thinkers of the world have left much private history to record. Self was hidden in the splendor of the light which bursts out from it—just as the more brilliant the flame, so much the more unseen is the lamp in which it burns. It stands to reason that the more widespread the influence which such men as these exert, so much the wider must be the range taken by the writer over the field of history and theology and philosophy if he wishes adequately to delineate the action of their lives. The private history of S. Thomas of Aquin could be conveniently written in fifty pages, whilst his full biography would certainly occupy many thousand pages.”(Pp. iii., iv.)
The view which is thus sketched out is a large one. We have said that the author presents not merely his hero, but his hero's surroundings. But, in studying his mind and his work, he does not content himself with making a vivid background of the thirteenth century. One century is the child of another, and mind is educated by mind. The past is the seed of the future, and no time can be understood without understanding the times that gave it birth. This is especially true of the times when history accumulates most rapidly, and of minds to whom it is given to fashion history as it is made. Prior Vaughan finds the story of S. Thomas' intellectual work commencing far back in the work of those men whom he calls the “columnal fathers” of the church. He therefore takes his reader back to primitive ages—to the desert, the laura, the early conflicts of God's servants with paganism, with heresy, and with worldliness. He sets before him S. Anthony, in the majesty of his single-hearted union with Christ; S. Athanasius, worthy disciple of such a master, unsurpassed in the great opportunities of his life and the strength with which he rose to meet them; S. Basil, the monk that fought the world, and overcame it; S. Gregory Theologus, the vates sacer of the fourth century, who sang in verse and in rhythmical prose the song of the consubstantial Son of God. He introduces us to S. Augustine, to S. Ambrose, to S. Gregory the Great, and points out how essential a feature, in the greatness of S. Thomas, is the way in which he has reproduced all that was eternal and “catholic” in the thoughts of the men whom God has set up to be the pillars of the doctrine of his church. With other saints, it would, perhaps, be superfluous to trace their connection with the fathers; with the author of the Summa, it is indispensable.
“The Columnal Fathers and the Angelical were in completest harmony; they were knit together by the monastic principle. The intellectual hinges of the Universal Church (speaking humanly) have been monastic-men—that is to say, men who, through an intense cross-worship and a keen perception of the beautiful, threw up all for Christ; and through
‘The ingrained instinct of old reverence,
The holy habit of obedience,’
loved, labored, suffered for him, and died into his arms.
“For the one thread which pierces through all, and maintains a real communication between the Angelical and the heroes of the classic age—which creates a brotherhood between S. Thomas of the thirteenth century and the great athletes in the second and the third—which makes the ‘Sun of the Church’ illuminate the ‘Pillar of the World,’ and so reciprocally—that is to say, which renders S. Thomas and S. Anthony one in spirit and in principle—was this, that their beings were transformed into a supernatural activity, through an intense and personal love of their Redeemer.
“This was the one special lesson which the Angelical drew from the wilderness and the fathers, which came to him through S. Benedict, indeed, but rather as a principle of quies than of exertion. In the desert athletes, and those who followed them, he found that principle operative, and almost military in its chivalrous readiness to combat and spill blood in defence of truth. It lent to him what it exhibits in them also—breadth of view, largeness, moral freedom, stubborn courage, generosity of heart, expansion of mind, and an electric light of intellect, which bear about them a touch of the Eastern world. How could the Angelical read Anthony's life, or follow Athanasius in his exiles, or see Basil so heroically rigid in his defence of right, or hear, in imagination, Gregory Theologus pouring out a stream of polished eloquence, without being impressed by truth's grace and music; how could he watch S. Chrysostom, all on fire with his love of God and with his discriminating sympathy for men, or [pg 035]think of the ascetic Jerome, battling single-handed in the wilderness, or perusing his Scripture in the cave; how could he dwell in spirit with S. Ambrose or S. Gregory the Great, or follow the career of the passionate, emotional, splendid S. Augustine, without expanding in heart and mind towards all that is best and greatest—all that is most noble and most fair in the majestic character of God's tenderly-cherished saints?
“Had he not known them so intimately, great as he was, his mind would have been comparatively cramped, his character most probably would have been less imperial in its mould, and there would have been less of that oriental mightiness about his intellectual creations, which now reminds one of those vast monuments of other days, which still are the marvel of travellers in the East, and the despair of modern engineers.”(II., pp. 523-5.)
A great portion of the second volume is taken up with the exposition in detail of these thoughts and ideas. We do not think that any one who has thoroughly seized the author's point of view will be sorry that so much space is given to the lives and characters of men who are not the immediate subject of the book. The truth is, that the full significance of S. Thomas of Aquin has been very much overlooked in modern times. The non-Catholic theory has always been that he was a voluminous “scholastic,” more acute than most of his sort, perhaps, but mediæval, hair-splitting, and unprofitable. The Catholic theory has done him greater justice; but even the Catholic schools have too much forgotten S. Thomas. There is an interesting passage in one of Lacordaire's letters, in which he tells the Abbé Drioux, who has done so much for S. Thomas in France, how he read the Angelical every day, and yet how long it had been before he had come to know him! And then he speaks with some depreciation of that “Positive” theology which has pretended to take the place of the scholastic form and discipline. The great preacher was familiar with the spiritual wants of the world in their widest aspect, and he no sooner came to know S. Thomas of Aquin than he saw that he was face to face with the mind that has said more truth about God and man, and said it better, than any one man who has ever lived; and he has said it so well, because he has not said it out of his own consciousness, but first saturated himself with the living truth of the immortal fathers, and then reproduced in his own way what God had thus himself imparted to the world.
The influence which S. Thomas owed to the study and meditation of the great fathers was surpassed—or rather, we ought to say, most powerfully shown—by the impressions made upon his heart, even more than his mind, by his early bringing up. Every one knows that the Angel of the Schools, who was of the noblest blood of Italy, spent his early years in the great arch-monastery of Monte Casino. Prior Vaughan has no hesitation in making the assertion that Thomas of Aquin never lost what he acquired from the monks of S. Benedict during those seven childish years that he spent with them in the cloisters of the great abbey. He was never a professed Benedictine, although he would, in the natural course, have become one without making any explicit profession, had not the troubles of the times forced the monks to flee from the abbey. But the Benedictine or monastic spirit, the principle of quies, as our author calls it, with the vivid appreciation of the kingship of Christ, Thomas took away with him when he went forth and carried with him to the work he had to do. The new mendicant orders that had recently been founded were schools of activity, [pg 036] aggressive, moving hither and thither, pitching their tents in great towns, and lifting their voices in universities. Their saints were to be fitted for the regeneration of a new phase of the world. But in the saints themselves it was only an outward change. The essential spirit remained the same. That spirit had been the heirloom of the old monastic orders, and it could never be out of date. In the men who were to do the greatest things in the new life of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the old spirit of the cloister must be found strong and deep. In the man who above all was to stand forth as the sum and crown of the middle age, that contemplative, immovable, far-seeing realization of “the person of Christ” must exist as heroically as in Anthony of the Desert or Benedict of the Mountain. And it was S. Thomas' Benedictine training that contributed much to make him such a man.
“The monks thought much, but talked little; thus the monastic system encouraged meditation, rather than intellectual tournaments; reserve rather than display, deep humility rather than dialectical skill. The Benedictines did not aim so much at unrestrained companionship of free discussion as at self control; not so much at secular-minded fantasy as at much prayer and sharp penance, till self was conquered, and the grace of God reigned, and giants walked the earth. Self-mastery, springing from the basis of a supernatural life, moulded the heart to sanctity, and imparted to the intellect an accuracy of vision which is an act of nature directed and purified by grace. Theodore, Aldhelm, Bede, Boniface, Alcuin, Dunstan, Wilfrid, Stephen, Bernard, Anselm, these names are suggestive of this influence of the monastic system.”(I., p. 26.)
It is one of the aims of the book to bring out the view that the prince of scholastics and the king of dialecticians was a man of the purest and deepest “monasticism.” But he was not destined to be as an Anselm, a Bernard, or a Hugh of S. Victor.
The Saint was sent to Naples for the prosecution of his studies, and whilst there he asked for and received the habit of S. Dominic. The author gives a brilliant sketch of Naples as it was under the sway of Frederick II. He then devotes a whole chapter to a “study” of the new orders of S. Francis and S. Dominic, for the purpose of bringing out vividly before the reader the new world that was springing up and the new race of men that the church was calling forth to deal with it. We have no space to quote from this chapter, but, even taken apart from its connection with S. Thomas, it is full of interest and life.
Thus was Thomas of Aquin prepared and equipped; prepared by the great fathers and by S. Benedict, equipped in the armor of the Order of intellectual chivalry. And what was the work before him? Who were his enemies, his friends, his neighbors, his assistants? In answer to these questions we have the chapters on “Abelard, or Rationalism and Irreverence”; on “S. Bernard, or Authority and Reverence”; on the “Schools of S. Victor”; on the “Arabian and the Jewish Influence in Europe”; on “William of S. Amour”; on “Paris and its University”; and on “Albert the Great.” Some of these chapters relate, as will be seen, to men who were not contemporaries of S. Thomas. But if Abelard, and S. Bernard, and William of Champeaux had passed away in the flesh, their influence or their views still lived on when Thomas wrote. And we see the full significance of these chapters on the great schools of thought, orthodox and heterodox, when we arrive at the second [pg 037] volume, and find the author showing in detail how the Angel of the Schools, in some part or other of his voluminous writings, met and refuted every form of prevalent error, and, whilst majestically laying down principles for all ages, never forgot to clear up the difficulties of his own time. The rationalism of Abelard, the emanation doctrines that Arabian subtlety had elaborated out of the reminiscences of the old Gnosticism, the errors of the Greek schismatics, the perversity of the Jews, are all encountered by his never-resting pen, either in some one of his numerous Opuscula, varying in length from an essay to an octavo volume, or else in one or other of his two great Sums, or perhaps in more places than one, the refutation being the more complete as the writing becomes more mature. As for the two greatest and most prominent of his enterprises—the Christianizing of Aristotle and the formation of a complete Sum of theology—it was to be expected that Prior Vaughan should fully enlarge upon them. The chapters on “S. Thomas and Aristotle,” and “S. Thomas and Reason,” in the second volume, form a good introduction to the study of the Angelic Doctor, and at the same time give the enquiring mind some notion of how S. Thomas has performed one of the greatest feats that genius ever accomplished—the successful and consistent “conversion” of the greatest, the most original, and the most precise of heathen philosophers into a hewer of wood and carrier of water for the faith.
We would gladly dwell on the three chapters at the end of Vol. I., in which the writer, in reviewing the writings of the Saint in defence and exaltation of monasticism, gives a useful and spirited history of the whole of that exciting contest which took its beginning in William of S. Amour's book called Perils of the Last Times. It seems really impossible to say how much the religious state, humanly speaking, owes to the man who wrote the book Against Those who attack the Service of God and Religion, and that On the Perfection of the Spiritual Life.
Passing now from the more remote surroundings of the hero of the story to the immediate scene of the greatest portion of his labors, we venture to believe that one of the most popular parts of this work of Prior Vaughan's will be his animated description of the university system of the thirteenth century, and of the University of Paris in particular. He has spared no pains in getting at correct details and putting them artistically together. M. Franklin's splendid and comparatively unknown labors on mediæval Paris have supplied him with matter that will be found nowhere else. Paris is the natural type of the great mediæval university. More central and accessible than Oxford, safer than Bologna, freer than Naples, and founded on a wide and grand basis, the University of Paris soon grew into a formidable assemblage of men who, whilst ostensibly votaries of science, were not unprovided with excitable spirits and rough hands. Students gathered, rich and poor, great doctors taught, munificent founders, like Robert of Sorbon, bestowed their money or their influence, the monks of all orders gathered round silently, and to some extent distrustfully, from Citeaux, from Cluny, even from the Grande Chartreuse, with the Benedictines of S. Germain, the Premonstratensians—their church was where now stands the Café de la Rotonde—and the Augustinians. As for the Dominicans and Franciscans, they, as may be supposed, were [pg 038] early on the spot, to teach quite as much as to learn. The following is a sketch of the men who flocked to the great university—at least of one considerable class:
“There were starving, friendless lads, with their unkempt heads and their tattered suits, who walked the streets, hungering for bread, and famishing for knowledge, and hankering after a sight of some of those great doctors, of whom they had heard so much when far away in the woods of Germany or the fields of France. Some were so poor that they could not afford to follow a course of theology. We read of one poor fellow on his death-bed, having nothing else, giving his shoes and stockings to a companion to procure a Mass for his soul. Some were only too glad to carry holy water to private houses, selon la coutume Gallicane, with the hope of receiving some small remuneration. Some were destitute of necessary clothing. One tunic sometimes served for three, who took it in turns—two went to bed, whilst the third dressed himself and hurried off to school. Some spent all their scanty means in buying parchments, and wasted their strength, through half the night, poring over crabbed manuscript, or in puzzling out that jargon which contained the wisdom of the wisest of the Greeks. Whole nights some would remain awake on their hard pallets, in those unhealthy cells, trying to work out some problem proposed by the professor in the schools. But there were rich as well as poor at Paris. There was Langton, like others, famous for his opulence, who taught, and then became Canon of Notre Dame; and Thomas à Becket, who, as a youth, came here to seek the charm of gay society.” (I., p. 354.)
Amid all the noise, turmoil, and disputes of the huge colony of students, numbering more thousands than Oxford or Cambridge at this day can show hundreds, the great Dominican convent of S. James was a grand and famous centre of light and work. S. Dominic was not long before he settled in Paris. At first the friars lived in a mean hired lodging, apparently on the Island of Notre Dame. But soon their reputation for poverty and learning attracted the notice of influential benefactors, and they had a house of their own. It was dedicated to S. James the Apostle, and quickly became not only a great monastery but a famous school. The Dominican Order, divinely founded for a want of the time, soon began to show in front of the progress of the age, and to lead instead of following. It was here, in S. James, that Alanus de Insulis and Vincent of Beauvois wrote histories and commentaries; it was here that Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas lectured and wrote; and the crowd of lesser names that are mentioned on its rolls about this time, less distinguished but still distinguished, would take long to enumerate. It was for S. James that S. Dominic himself had framed a body of rules. These rules are most striking, as given in the pages of Prior Vaughan. They show how a saint and monastic legislator feels the “form and pressure” of the times, and how he provides for a new feature in monasticism. To read these rules, one feels tempted to say that the Dominicans sacrificed everything to give their men a first-rate course of studies. But we must remember the midnight vigil and the perpetual absence and the long silence. Still, the cloisters of S. James were different enough from those of Monte Casino. There was a great hall at S. James', where professors taught and whither students thronged to hear—how different from the remote cloister of Jarrow, where Venerable Bede taught his younger brethren for so many years on the quiet flats between the Wear and the Tyne! The cells knew the light of the midnight lamp, the cloisters resounded with disputation, the young students of the Order [pg 039] were men of few books—a Bible, a copy of the Historia of Petrus Comestor and of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, was all their private library. But half the day was spent face to face with a professor and with each other, and the want of books was not much felt. And what an education it must have been to listen to and take down the Summa contra Gentiles of the Angel of the Schools! As we have said, the whole of these two chapters is instinct with the liveliest description, and we cannot do better than recommend readers to go to it and judge for themselves.
We must reserve what we have not yet touched upon, viz., the personal life of the Saint himself, for another notice. It must not be supposed that Prior Vaughan passes over the person of S. Thomas in his anxiety to show us what sort of a world he lived in. It will soon be seen, on making some slight acquaintance with the book, that the strictly biographical portion is in reality most successful; the story is well told, and, like all stories of sanctity and supernatural heroism, goes straight to the heart.
Without saying that Prior Vaughan's two volumes partake of the nature of the perfect, we frankly say we do not intend to find faults in it. We welcome it, and it deserves to be welcomed by every Catholic that can read it. There are, of course, defects and a few errors here and there; but the book lays down no false principles, takes no dangerous views, and patronizes no pernicious mistakes. On the other hand, it deals with a wide theme in a large way. In language which, if at times too copious, is nevertheless frequently eloquent and always easy and fluent, the writer raises the life of a saint into a picture of a world-epoch. He has labored very hard at his authorities and sources, and when the book gets into use many students, we are sure, will thank him for his copious references and notes. His imagination is of a high order, and his picture-loving power is seen in the way in which he sketches with an epithet, puts together the elements that he finds up and down the old authors, and shakes the dust and the mildew from valuable bits of ancient chronicle, so that they look bright again. The Hon. John L. Motley is in the front rank of modern historians, and to compare any writer with him is to give praise that one must think much before giving; but if we wished to indicate the genre of Prior Vaughan's style—its pictorial power, its realism, and its tone of earnest conviction—we should mention the name of the historian of the Netherlands. The two writers are very unlike in their convictions; and Mr. Motley has, no doubt, a perfection and finish of art which few writers can approach. But still Prior Vaughan is quite fit to be named in the same sentence. And a book which has cost so many hours of thought and labor, which aims so high, which is so really the work of a man with views and with a power to express himself, and which deals with a subject that can never lose its interest, but one which, if we do not mistake, is as yet only at the beginning of a grand revival, is a book to be welcomed, to be read, and to be thankful for.