The Catholic World, Vol. 19, April 1874‐September 1874

by Various

Assunta Howard.

I. Juxta Crucem.

The full moon was pouring a flood of light upon the marble pavement of S. Peter's, and, by its weird influence, increased to an almost startling immensity the vastness of that mighty work of art, worthy offspring and expression of the faith which has subdued the world. The soft radiance in the nave seemed to throw into deeper gloom and an almost immeasurable space the ever-burning lamps which, like fixed stars, surround the central point of Christendom—the tomb of the great apostle, to whom was first given the power of the keys. No one could remain unmoved in such an awe-inspiring scene; certainly not two, at least, of the three persons who alone stood within the church, silently receiving impressions which come but seldom in a life-time. And yet, as the same sunbeam, falling upon different objects, will produce different colors, so on these three minds the impressions were stamped according to their preparation to receive them. To the man, in whom the moonlight, bathing him in brightness, revealed the appearance of gentle birth and refined culture, it was merely the human, the miracle of art, the power of man to design and execute; while the pure soul of the fair young girl at his side was struggling through the human up to the divine. The patient old sacristan standing apart, keys in hand, had dwelt for years in the midst of material and spiritual greatness with a faith so simple that he never dreamed it was sublime.

“How grand!” at length exclaimed Mr. Carlisle. “What a power there is in architecture; and how well those master-minds understood and used this power for the elevation of man!”

“Yes,” replied his young companion; “and it seems to me that in church architecture every detail should be symbolic, and the whole should convey to the soul the impression of some one of God's attributes. S. Peter's is so truly the home of the Christian world, and draws the heart so lovingly to itself, that it always seems to express the paternity of God. But to-night there is more than this. It speaks to my very soul of the Father, but ‘the Father of an Infinite Majesty.’ ”

Mr. Carlisle smiled. “Another of your pretty fancies, Assunta. One would hardly expect to find such grave thoughts beneath this shining hair, which the alchemy of the moonlight is fast turning into gold.”

The usual ready answer did not come; for any light conversation was out of harmony with the emotion inspired by such surroundings. Besides, the young girl was struggling with herself and against herself in a contest little suspected by her companion. The wonderful influence [pg 766] of the time and place had brought near the moment of defeat or victory. It is sometimes the way of God with the soul to prepare it gradually for some struggle, and then suddenly and unexpectedly to bring it face to face with the trial, and to permit its whole future to hang upon the decision of a moment. Thank God! to the faithful soul the strength is never wanting. It was such a crisis as this which clouded the bright face and darkened with doubt the mind of one in whom youth and innocence would seem to preclude the possibility of mental conflict.

It was but a few days since she had become convinced that the guardian who had been to her both friend and father had come to feel for her a love which indeed might include that of father and friend, as the greater includes the less, but which was something more than either. And with the consciousness there came a strange yearning of her heart to go forth and meet his heart with an equal love, to trust herself to the protecting care she knew so well, to yield to the happiness which promised to gild her life with a radiance too dazzling to be all of earth. But there arose a barrier between them, and hence the struggle.

Strange how we play the devil's advocate against our conscience! Must she respect that barrier? What if he were almost an infidel; would it not be her sweet mission to take heaven by violence, if need be, and by her importunate prayers obtain for him the light of faith? Dangerous sophistry! And yet on this quicksand how many women wreck themselves, instead of steering the bark freighted with the loved soul into the calm waters of truth!

They two, the guardian and his ward, had entered the church while yet the setting sun was irradiating column and statue with a glowing splendor; and they had continued to walk slowly and almost in silence up and down the long nave until the light had faded and darkness had succeeded the short twilight.

They were about to leave the calm influence and the majesty of repose which this vast temple of God ever inspires, when suddenly the moon, rising to a level with the window above the porch, poured its magic-working beams upon the pavement. They paused, and, turning to the sacristan, who was about to close the doors for the night, begged a few moments' delay, which he, with unusual cordiality, granted.

And what were the busy thoughts which induced so prolonged a silence during that hour's walk, until the gathering darkness and then the rising moon warned them how the time was passing, of which they had taken so little note? Suffice it to say that the mind of each was filled with the other. With Assunta Howard, the new sentiments kindled in her heart had conjured up the memory of a scene which, associated with her first sorrow, was a living picture to her imagination. Again, as if it were but yesterday, she, a little child, entered the room of her dying mother, and saw her lying pale and beautiful upon her bed, her crucifix in her hand, and beside her the little table covered with white linen, upon which were the exquisite flowers and the still burning candles placed there in honor of her divine Lord, whom she had just received as the Viaticum of her journey home. The little Assunta thought how much her mamma looked like the [pg 767] beautiful S. Catherine, borne in the arms of the lovely angels, which hung above her own bed; and she wondered if the angels would come before she had time to kiss her mother once again. It was almost with a feeling of awe that she whispered in the ear of the good priest who raised her in his arms, “Is mamma a saint now?”

“My precious child,” said the mother, strengthened for this bitter parting by the divine Guest who was reposing in her heart, “mamma must leave her little Assunta, her good little girl. But before long I hope that I shall be with the dear Jesus and his sweet Mother, whom you love so much. So you will be glad for mamma, and always remember how much she loves you. I am not very strong, my darling, but put your arms around my neck, and your curly head close to mine, while I say something to you. You will not understand me now, my poor child, but I know that you will try and remember all, and one of these days you will know what I mean. My darling, when you are grown up to be as tall as mamma, some one will perhaps find a way into that loving little heart. My little daughter, if divine love claims it, and our dear Lord wishes you to be all his own, do not hesitate, but gladly give your life as a sweet offering to him who has chosen you. Give him your whole heart without a fear. But if it is a human love which seeks to make my treasure all its own, think long and well and prayerfully, my child, before you give your heart into its keeping. And, O Assunta! remember, never marry one who does not cherish your faith as you do; who cannot kneel with you before the altar, and love you in God, even as you do him. I do not ask you to promise me this, for I feel that it would not be right to bind you by a promise which you cannot understand. Yet it is your dying mother's wish. But I must kiss the wondering expression away from those dear eyes. One of these days dear F. Joseph will remind you of my request when you are old enough to understand—will you not, father? But my little girl can remember that she is to be poor papa's dear comfort, and never forget the little prayer for him every day, that God will give to him—tell me what you ask for papa, my darling?”

The little Assunta answered through her sobs: “I want papa to love my blessed Mother Mary, and I ask God to make him. And, mamma, you said I must say faith; but I don't know what that means, except when I say it in the catechism, and so I ask God to make him as good as mamma is, and a saint just like S. Joseph in my picture; and I think he will, mamma, because you know he heard me once when I asked him to let me go to school to Sister Rose.”

The mother smiled, as she replied:

“How earnestly I hope so, my daughter! And papa has promised me to leave you with the good Sisters for a long time; so you must please him by being his good, obedient child. And now, my dear, precious little girl, kiss me—once again, my darling. I am very tired, and must rest. Perhaps, when I wake up, I shall see, instead of my darling's golden curls, the golden gates of the celestial city. When I am gone, Assunta, child of Mary, say every day: ‘Dear Jesus, take mamma home soon.’ Now call papa.”

The priest, who had stood by in silence, came forward and lifted the [pg 768] poor bewildered child down from the bed. He saw that the strength which had until now supported the mother in this time of trial was quite exhausted. She uttered aloud the words, “Thy will, not mine”—words which, since that night beneath the olives in Gethsemane, express both the bitterness of the chalice and the ministry of the angel—then her eyes closed; and though for a short time consciousness remained, they never opened until the resplendent majesty of the glorious humanity of her divine Lord burst upon her soul's vision.

As the child turned away to obey her mother's request, the priest began to repeat the Proficiscere, anima Christiana, with which the church so lovingly speeds her children on their last journey; and for the first time she realized that her mother was indeed going from her. She crept softly from the room, only to rush away to her own little chamber, where, kneeling before the picture of S. Catherine, evermore associated with that great, first sorrow, she poured out the grief of her loving, childish heart in sobs and tears.

And it was this scene which was again before the mental eye of the young girl as she stood there in the moonlight, herself so fair a picture. Her sainted mother, with her look of heavenly repose, and the angel-borne S. Catherine, blended themselves into one image in her mind, while the Holy Spirit was guiding her innocent soul. Suddenly an impulse seized her; perhaps it was what mystic writers call an inspiration. Turning to her guardian, whose eyes had for some time been wonderingly fixed upon her, she hastily exclaimed: “One moment, my friend,” and then walked quickly towards the chapel, where hung the lamp which told of the divine Presence upon the altar.

Mr. Carlisle was quite accustomed to what he was pleased to call her “pretty, graceful piety,” and so, without surprise, he turned to exchange a few words with the patient sacristan, while, on her knees before her Lord, Assunta fought and conquered in the first real battle of her life. She realized fully now the love which seemed to offer her such human happiness, and she knew what it would cost her to refuse it. But then came the remembrance of her mother's dying words—“Unless he can love you in God”—and her heroic soul gathered up its strength for the consummation of the act of sacrifice. With one appealing, heart-breaking prayer for help, she bowed her head, and made to God the promise which her mother had not required from the child. And those alone who know what it is to offer up the crown and joy of life in sacrifice can understand the peace and rest which came to her troubled heart, even through the vision of a life robbed of its brightness.

Absorbed as she was, she had forgotten the world outside and its distracting claims until her guardian stood beside her.

“Petite,” he whispered, “in thy orisons be all my sins remembered. But since the list is somewhat long, I think you must not wait to recall them now. Your one moment has lengthened into fifteen by my watch, and I have exhausted my powers of eloquence in my endeavors to charm that good old man into forgetfulness of the flight of time. Can you not leave heaven for earth and us poor mortals? There are so many angels up in heaven, they can afford to spare us our only one.”

Rising hastily, Assunta exclaimed: “I have been very thoughtless, and you, as always, kind and patient. We will go at once.”

Her gentle apologies to the old sacristan added value to the gift she slipped into his hand; and as he closed and locked the door behind them, he muttered to himself:

“She is a saint anyhow, if she is an American.”

As they passed down the steps towards the carriage, Mr. Carlisle suddenly stopped, exclaiming: “Why, child, what is the matter? You have the real martyr-look on your face. I read there, as in a book, that combination of suffering and triumph which we see in pictures, representing those times when men were not so chivalrous as now, and inflicted persecutions on account of a devotion which is so natural to your sex, and which,” he added, laughing, “is so particularly becoming where the woman is young and pretty. But,” he said uneasily, “I cannot see that expression in the face of my petite. Sunshine is her element; and the cloud which should cast a shadow upon her life would burst forth in thunder over mine. But what is it? Has the moonlight enchanted you?”

“No, dear friend,” replied Assunta, endeavoring to speak gayly. “Enough that you grant me the triumph. The laurel wreath is a woman's ambition. You need not bestow the martyr's palm until it is deserved. And now let us go home.”

“Indeed, that is the one thing in this world which I do not intend to do, at least at present. Thanks to my good sister's well-timed headache, we have a rare opportunity to follow out our own sweet will in the most unconventional manner. There is no respect for the world and the propriety Clara preaches left in me to-night. I, for one, shall take advantage of the absence of that inconvenient third party and her friend Mrs. Grundy to drive to the Colosseum. If you decline to accompany me, I will just remind you that the walk home is somewhat long and the hour somewhat late.” Saying which, he gave his order to the coachman, and took his seat beside Assunta in the barouche. After a short silence, he continued:

“The cat-is-away sensation takes me back to my school-boy days. Though I confess dear Clara to be the very best of the tabby race, still she does show her claws sometimes when I propose an escapade that shocks her sense of what is becoming at the advanced age of thirty-five. To see the Colosseum to-night is not to be resisted. There is no dampness whatever in the air, and the moon has risen just high enough to make the shadows perfect.”

“I think,” said Assunta, “that it must be a very guilty conscience that needs so many words in its justification. I, for my part, am so strong in innocence that I will meet Clara on my return with an unblushing brow—to speak poetically—as far as the Colosseum is concerned. The evening is certainly lovely enough to reduce even your friend Mrs. Grundy to a spirit of meek acquiescence. ‘How beautiful is night!’ Do you remember the first lines of Thalaba? It must have been just such a moon as this that suggested the opening of that remarkable poem.”

“Did you not read it to me? How can you ask, then, if I remember? However, I did not hear it then for the first time. The dogs, with their human eyes, made a great impression even upon my boyish [pg 770] mind. But here we are.” And jumping down from the carriage, he held out his hand to her.

One moment she hesitated; for, by that instinct which is the shadow of a coming event, she felt that her trial was not yet at an end. But if it must come, why not then? She might never again be so prepared to meet it. There is a fervor of heroism which immediately succeeds a sacrifice that makes us strong to endure. If there is a step to be taken, it is better not to wait until the inevitable reaction is upon us with its enervating influence.

The hesitation was too instantaneous to be remarked, and Assunta allowed her guardian to assist her to alight; and placing her arm within his, they passed the sentinel, and entered the vast amphitheatre. It was indeed a perfect Roman night; and, to an artistic eye, nothing could be more imposing than the strong contrast between the deep gloom beneath those bewildering arches, which threw their dark shadows across the open arena, and the brightness of a winter's moon. The two walked towards the centre, and seated themselves upon the steps of the large cross which rises in the midst of this mighty relic of heathen Rome. Assunta almost shuddered, as if at an evil omen, when she observed that she had unconsciously placed herself so that the shadow of the cross fell directly upon her, and stretched out its unnatural length at her feet. But even had she been superstitiously inclined, she might well have felt that no place could be so safe and sure as beneath the shadow of the cross; it rested so protectingly on her young head, seeming to stand between her and evil. Soon she realized this, and checked the impulse which, alas! too many of us follow when suddenly we find ourselves close under Calvary—the mount whose crown is a cross, and whose cross is salvation—the impulse to move “out of the shadow into the sun,” out of the cloud which wraps us about in love into the sunlight with which the world seeks to dazzle us into forgetfulness.

Gradually they fell into a quiet conversation, the beauty of the scene, the many associations of the past which cling to these ancient walls, furnishing ample topics. At last Mr. Carlisle, turning suddenly to Assunta, said:

“And how many years is it since your poor father summoned me to his bedside, and told me of the troublesome charge I should find in the convent, to be transferred into my hands when the patience of the nuns had reached the limit of endurance, and my young lady the age of eighteen?”

“It is five years since, my most ungracious and ungrateful guardian. But you will soon be released from duty. The fifteenth of next August will be my twenty-first birthday. It was because I came into the world on the Feast of the Assumption that my dear mother gave me the name, at which all her good, practical American friends wondered and held up their hands. Well, on that morning I shall offer you freedom, and I shall expect to hear you exclaim, quoting your favorite Shakespeare, ‘For this relief much thanks!’ ”

“And I suppose you will think,” said Mr. Carlisle, somewhat bitterly, “that it will be enough, after all these years, to say, ‘You have been kind to me, my guardian, quite like a father; I am very grateful, and hope that we may meet again’; and with a good-by and a pretty [pg 771] courtesy shake off the shackles, and take yourself, with all your sunshine, out into the world to make bright the life of others, forgetting him whose life you alone have the power to darken by absence. Ah! child,” he said, his tone changing to tender earnestness, “do you not know with what tie I would bind you to me so that no age could have the right to separate us? Do you think that it is as a father that I love you? That might have been once; but now it is the love of a man of thirty-five, who for the first time has found his ideal of woman realized. Assunta, do I ask too much? When that day comes of which you speak, will you not give me the right to devote my life to you? You were looking forward to the day which was to give you freedom; and you hesitate to put yourself under bondage? If you knew my love for you, you would believe that I ask but the right to love and protect you always. Have I been so severe a guardian that you dare not trust me as a husband? Assunta, you do not speak. If you cannot love me now, will you not at least let me try to win your love?” And as he looked into the face which she now turned towards him, he exclaimed with a mingling of doubt and triumph, “Child, you do love me!”

It was well for Assunta that she had fought her battle beforehand, else she could hardly have hoped to conquer now. “My dear, kind friend,” she said sadly, “I would have given much to spare you this. It seems indeed a poor return for all you have been to me to reject the love for which I am very grateful. But it must be so. I cannot marry you, Mr. Carlisle.”

The triumph in his face faded; but, fortunately for his diminishing hope, doubt remained.

“Petite,” he said, “I have taken you by surprise. Do not give me your answer now. Let me take home to-night but a hope and your promise to reconsider your hasty decision, and I will try to be content. But you are so cold, so calm, Assunta. Can it be that I have entirely deceived myself, that perhaps some other”—He paused.

“I am calm, my friend,” she answered, “because there is no struggle of indecision in my mind. There is very great regret that I must give you pain, and it costs me more than you know to do so. I entreat you to be generous—more generous than I have been to you—and end this trying conversation.”

“I cannot end it without one question more; pardon me if I am wrong in asking it. Assunta, there is something that I do not understand. You do not say that you could not love me, but that you cannot marry me. Who or what is it, then, that comes between us?”

“God!” And she spoke the word so reverently that for one moment Mr. Carlisle was subdued and silent. Then the bitterness which was always latent in his nature gained the ascendency, as he replied:

“Some interference of your church, I suppose.”

Assunta was not a saint, and her previous emotion had weakened her powers of self-control, for she spoke with unusual spirit.

“Yes, the church does interfere, thank God, to save her children, else were she no true mother.” Then, a little ashamed of her warmth of defence, she continued, without seeming to notice Mr. Carlisle's [pg 772] ironical repetition of her words “save her children”:

“You will no doubt consider me fanatical, but you have a right to know why I refuse the love which I value so much, and which, at the same time, I must beg you to forget. I can never marry one who is not of my faith. I believe that, in a true marriage, there must be more than the tie of human love—there must be the union of soul and the blessing of the church. And more than this, there is the insuperable barrier of a solemn promise made to God in consequence of my dying mother's last request. Need I say more? And must I lose my best friend because I can only respect and love him ‘as friends love’? I had not looked for so great a sacrifice.” And for the first time the tears stood in her eyes and her voice trembled.

She waited for a few minutes, but no reply came. Then, noticing that the moon had risen above arch and wall, and, pouring its light full upon the open arena, had sent the shadows back to their hiding-places, she said gently:

“Mr. Carlisle, it is getting late. Shall we go home?”

He started from his moody silence, and, taking in his the hand that rested on the cross, he said:

“Assunta, you are a noble girl; but,” he added with a faint smile, “this conclusion does not make your words easier to bear. But you are shivering. Is it so cold? Come, we will go at once.” And as he led the way towards the carriage, he wrapped her shawl closer about her, saying, “My poor child, how thoughtless I have been!”

Once seated, there was again silence until they reached the entrance of the villa. As they ascended the long stair-case, Mr. Carlisle paused. His old tenderness of manner had all returned, and he was her guardian, and nothing more, as he said:

“Assunta, I have not been generous. I have taken an unfair advantage of my position, and have told you what I had not intended you should know until you were released from all obligation to me. My child, will you trust your friend and guardian to be only that until next August shall make you free? I cannot promise to give up all hope, but I will not repeat what I have said to-night. Can you forgive me so far as to go back to our old relations? Will you trust me?”

“Most gladly,” said Assunta. “I feel as if my friend, whom I had mourned as lost, has been restored to me. And, Mr. Carlisle, the day will come when we will both look back without regret upon the decision which was made to-night under the shadow of the cross.”

“I hope so, even while I doubt, fair prophetess.”

But his thought was of the time when he might even yet win that stern conscience to his views, and then indeed he could afford to think without regret of a past disappointment; while she was thinking of that sweet providence of God which, in compensation for sacrifice, always lets us see in the end that all things are for the best to those who can wait and trust.

Mr. Carlisle opened the drawing-room door, and entered an apartment which had the rare combination of elegance and comfort, of art and home. Mrs. Grey, his pretty, widowed sister, was fond of what she called the “dim religious,” and therefore the candles were not lighted; but a blazing wood-fire contributed light as well as warmth, [pg 773] while the silver urn upon the side table hissed out an impatient welcome.

Mrs. Grey herself was lying upon the sofa in the most charmingly artistic costume and attitude; and the injured manner she assumed rather added to her fascination. She idolized her only brother; and when, after a short wedded happiness of two years, he had offered the childless widow a home with him, she had gladly accepted; and after a few months of becoming weeds and retirement, she was so far consoled as to mitigate her crape, and allow her brother's visitors to gaze from a distance upon her charms. The mitigating process had gone on until she was now the gayest of the gay, except when an occasional headache reminded her that she was mortal, and others that amiability is not to be found in perfection in this world any more than any other virtue. She was too frivolous to satisfy her brother's deeper nature, but he was as fond of her as her affection for him deserved. She had taken the orphan Assunta into her heart as if she had been a sister; though she insisted that the position of matron to a beautiful young girl was no sinecure.

“Really, Severn,” she exclaimed, as he seated himself beside the sofa, “you must have thought it very entertaining for me to stay alone five mortal hours with only my poor head for company.”

“Dear Clara, if I had dreamed you would be doomed to such a dearth of companionship, I should not have gone at all.”

“Hush! No impertinence,” she said. “Where have you left Assunta?”

“Here I am,” said the young girl, entering the room at the same moment, and answering for herself. “And how is your head, Clara? I hope you have not been suffering all this time.”

“Your sympathy is very pretty and pleasing, Assunta; but, indeed, it is of too mushroom a growth to be very consoling. Confess that this is the first time I have been in your thoughts since you left the house. But,” she exclaimed, suddenly recollecting herself, “you have been out alone all this time. Dear me! I hope you did not meet any one you knew, for what would they think? Where have you been?” And as she spoke, she rose from the couch, and went about the womanly occupation of making tea.

“We went to the Colosseum,” replied her brother; “and truly the night was so lovely that if it had not been for you and your head, who knows but we might have wandered about until the Roman police lighted upon us, and committed us to the care of the Holy Office as vagabonds?”

“Nonsense! I would risk you with Assunta anywhere, as far as that is concerned. She is Papal protection in herself. She is wrapped about in the yellow and white, metaphorically speaking. Besides, I believe it is not exactly the province of the Holy Office to deal with vagabonds, but with heretics.”

“And what am I?”

“Oh! I don't know anything about religion. Has Assunta been calling you a heretic?”

“Assunta never calls me hard names,” he answered, and he could not forbear adding under his breath: “But she has made me count the cost of unbelief.”

“Has she been trying to convert you?” asked his persistent sister.

“She has offered me every inducement,” was his reply.

“Assunta, here is your tea,” called Mrs. Grey; for the young girl had been arranging her music in another part of the large drawing-room during the conversation.

“Yes; and she needs it very much, poor child,” said Mr. Carlisle, placing a chair for her. “I was so selfish that I did not even notice it was cold until she was quite chilled through. You find your own head such poor company that you must go with us next time, Clara, and take better care of us.”

And then they relapsed into a quiet tea-drinking; after which, and the removal of the various articles which constitute the tea service, Mrs. Grey returned to her sofa, while Assunta went to the piano, and played some of Mendelssohn's “Songs without Words,” and Mr. Carlisle sat in deep thought before the fire.

It was a state of things which Clara could not endure long. Anything like constraint gave her the sensation of a caged bird, and she began at once to beat her wings against imaginary bars.

“I never knew such stupid people. Severn, do please light my candle. I am sure I trust my dreams will be more agreeable, or I shall die of ennui. Good-night, dear Assunta. Do not fatigue me by your efforts to rival the larks in early rising, if you have any mercy.” And looking the very picture of lovely discontent—if so paradoxical an expression may be allowed—she retired to her own room.

Assunta extended her hand as usual to her guardian. He held it a moment, and then said: “Good-night, petite; we will begin anew to-morrow”; and then he returned to his arm-chair, which he did not leave for many hours. Assunta was very tired; but it was rather with the weight of the cross she had lifted upon her shoulders than from any physical fatigue. She soon dismissed her maid, and, like a victorious soldier wearied with the conflict, she fell into a dreamless sleep, not, however, until she had returned thanks for the victory to the God of battles.

II. Cor Cordium.

It was an established custom of the household of Villa Moroni to be quite independent of each other until the twelve o'clock breakfast afforded occasion for an agreeable reunion. However pleasant an early family gathering may be in many home circles, where the habits and pursuits of all are entirely dissimilar and incongruous we escape much of the roughness of life by not attempting too early an interchange of forced courtesy. Indeed, in Mr. Carlisle's family it would have been difficult to effect an earlier meeting than the one which suited all parties so well. Mrs. Grey declared that the morning hours with Morpheus were absolutely necessary to her peace of mind. And certainly the drowsy god must have been lavish of bright visions during those hours when the sun was so carefully excluded from the apartment of the fair sleeper; for when at last he permitted the pretty lady to awake from her dreams, she came from the hands of her maid into the outer world the very quintessence [pg 775] of amiability and freshness. Who would feel assured of such a result had she seen the sun rise? True, it might occur to some persons who take severe views of life to wonder what her soul was doing all that time; but it never did to her. The supernatural was to her a terra incognita. She had skimmed over her sorrow as sea-birds over the waves of the ocean, scarcely bearing away a drop on their spread wings. The waters had never gone over her soul and forced her to cry from out of the depths to the God whom she acknowledged in theory, but persistently ignored in practice. Yet she was so lovely and affectionate, and besides, when she chose to exert herself, she had so much good sense withal, by all means let her enjoy life's sunshine, and pluck its sweetest roses, carefully guarding her dainty fingers from contact with the hidden thorns. But why waste our time in moralizing over one who would smile in unconsciousness of our meaning if we uttered our thoughts aloud, and charm the frown from our brow by some pretty petulance?

Mr. Carlisle understood as little of the supernatural as his frivolous sister. But he had a deep, earnest nature, which could not be satisfied with the mere outside of life. Mental food he must have, though it may be a question whether the mind is ever fully nourished when the soul is starving. He therefore, after taking his coffee and smoking his cigar, devoted his morning hours to reading or writing in the cosey little room he used as a library.

The carriage was thus left at Assunta's disposal; and she usually availed herself of it to assist at Mass, accompanied by her maid; and often an errand of mercy or charitable visit was accomplished before her return. It was her guardian's wish that she should never walk about the city, unless accompanied by himself, else she would many times have preferred to show her American independence by taking a morning stroll with her faithful Marie.

The morning after the eventful visit to the Colosseum was Friday, and on that day Assunta was accustomed to make her confession and receive Holy Communion. She awoke with a stunned feeling, as if recovering from a blow. It was still very early, but, remembering the duties before her, she arose quickly. She was so glad that it was Friday; for good F. Joseph would certainly be in the confessional; as he always expected her, and she felt the need of his counsel. It was the same F. Joseph du Pont who had placed her beside her dying mother, but who had shortly afterwards returned to Rome. When, a few weeks since, she had arrived in the Eternal City, he had welcomed her as a dear child, and she loved and respected him as a true spiritual father. The sun was just rising when she entered the carriage and drove to the Gesù. Her confession was soon made, and after the Precious Blood had poured its healing drops upon her soul through the words of the absolution, she said: “Father, can you spare me a few minutes more this morning? I want your advice.”

“Certainly, my child,” answered the good priest. “It is nearly an hour before my Mass. How can I help you?”

“Last evening,” said Assunta in a low voice, “I did what I believed to be right; but the morning light has only confused my mind, and I [pg 776] see nothing clearly. Father, Mr. Carlisle, my guardian, asked me to marry him.”

“And you, my child?” questioned the priest somewhat anxiously.

“I had been prepared somewhat to expect it. I had thought of my mother's request, and remembered that it was in accordance with the teaching of the church, and I was impelled to fortify myself by a promise to Almighty God to fulfil to the letter my dear mother's wish. Therefore, when the question came, I could only refuse.”

“It cost you something to do this, I can see, my poor child, and this morning you are suffering from the revenge our human nature takes upon us when we have done it violence. Let us look at the matter calmly before God. I believe that you are right, but it will help you to look at both sides of the question. It is a reasonable service that God requires of us; and, be very sure, he never leads us to the altar of sacrifice without bestowing upon us the strength and generosity we need to place our offering upon it. Perhaps you were a little too impulsive in binding yourself by anything like a vow. We must always be very careful not to mistake impulse for inspiration. However, as I understand you, your mind was already decided, and the promise to God was to act as a protection to yourself against your own human weakness. Am I right?”

“Partly, father,” replied Assunta, “and yet, as I knelt before the Blessed Sacrament, I felt that the sacrifice was required of me in a way I thought I could not mistake.”

“Then, my child, doubtless the Holy Spirit has inspired it for some end that we do not now see. But, aside from that, without that additional and conclusive obstacle in the way of such a marriage, I think you acted rightly. Our holy mother, the church, is very wise, as well as very lenient; and it is with great reluctance that she risks the soul of one of her precious children by placing it under the constant influence of one without faith. It is very true that while there is wisdom in knowing how to keep a rule, there is still greater wisdom in knowing when judiciously to make the exception. And I confess that, from a human point of view, yours would seem to be an exceptional case. You are quite alone in the world; and your guardian has been, and no doubt would always be, a faithful friend. As a man, I esteem him highly for his many noble qualities. The world will unquestionably look upon such a marriage as eminently fitting; and so it would be, but for the one thing which is so important. We, however, cannot act upon human principles, as if this world were all. It was not without reason, my child, that your poor mother said those last words to you. When she was married, her faith was as strong, her life as true and pure, as yours. But your father's intellect was powerful, and her love for him so great that she yielded to him until she nearly lost her soul. God be blessed for his mercy, she had the grace to die as a saint, and is now, as I hope, in heaven. But I have seen her in an agony of remorse such as I should grieve indeed to witness in this dear child of hers. The last two years of her life after her return to her faith were truly years of martyrdom, passed in the struggle to reconcile those duties which never should conflict—her love of God and duty to her husband. It was [pg 777] from the very depths of her own sad experience that she pleaded with her little girl. My child, that mother is praying for you now.”

“I believe it, father,” said Assunta, deeply moved by this story of her beloved mother, which she heard for the first time.

“So, my child, the past is all as it should be; and now for the future. May God grant you the grace to be always as good and brave as you were last night! I would not discourage you, and yet I must remind you that the sacrifice is only begun. It is not likely that your guardian, with only human motives to urge him, will give up so easily where his heart is engaged. He will, of course, do all he can to turn you from your purpose, and no doubt your own heart will sometimes plead on his side. Here lies your further trial. And yet I cannot, as under other circumstances I should do, advise you to shun the temptation. You cannot leave your guardian's care until you are of age; therefore you must face the trial. But I trust you entirely, my child—that is, I trust to the purity of your heart and the power of grace that is in you to guide your actions, even your very thoughts. You must try to be as you have been before; try to forget the lover in the guardian. Avoid coldness of manner as a safeguard; for it would only place you in an unnatural position, and would inevitably strengthen in the end the feelings you would conquer. It is not easy to give an exact rule of conduct. Your own good sense will teach you, and God will be with you. And, my child, you must pray for your guardian, and at the same time it must be without any future reference to yourself in connection with him. Is this too hard for you? Do your best, and grace will do the rest. By remembering him before God you will learn lo purify your feelings towards him—to supernaturalize them; and by committing your future unreservedly to the loving providence of God, your prayer will be a constant renewal of the act of sacrifice you have made. Make it heroic by perseverance. Do I explain myself clearly, my child?”

“Yes, father, perfectly so; and I feel so much comforted and strengthened.”

“Well, these are but the words of your father, spoken out of his love for you. Go now, child, and prepare to receive your divine Lord, and listen for the words of peace and comfort he will speak to your soul. To him I commend you with all confidence. One thing more—remember that there is nothing which helps us so much in such a trial as acts of charity towards the poor and the suffering. I know that you never fail in this respect; but now especially I would urge you to forget yourself in sympathy for others as occasion offers, though you must always recognize those claims which your position in society entails upon you. Come to me freely whenever you feel that I can help you. God bless you! I shall remember you in the Holy Sacrifice.”

The good priest went to vest himself for Mass, while the young girl returned to the place before the altar where Marie was patiently awaiting her. She was herself a pious woman, and time spent in church never seemed long to her.

When the Mass was over and her thanksgiving ended, Assunta returned home with her heart lightened of its burden. She dressed herself for breakfast with her usual [pg 778] care and taste, and, finding that it still wanted half an hour or more before the great gun of Sant' Angelo would boom out the mid-day signal, she seated herself at the piano, and song and ballad followed each other in quick succession. Her voice and manner were in harmony with herself. Her music soothed, but never excited. It had not the dangerous power to quicken the pulse and thrill the heart with passionate emotion, but it roused the better feelings, while it conveyed to the listener a restful, satisfied impression which ambitious, brilliant performers rarely impart. She was just beginning Cherubini's beautiful Ave Maria when Mr. Carlisle entered the room.

“Here is our early bird welcoming us in true songster fashion. Do not stop yet, petite,

“My soul in an enchanted boat,

Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float

Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing.”

But as Assunta had already left the piano to greet her guardian and his sister, he continued:

“By the way, Clara, my quotation has suggested to me an answer to your question. Assunta, my fickle sister, who a week ago was ready to live and die in a picture-gallery, has just now assured me that the very mention of a picture or statue is a fatigue to her; and she has mercilessly compelled me to find some new and original bit of sight-seeing for to-day. We cannot, of course, visit any church, since the Holy Father is, unfortunately for her, not an iconoclast. But, Clara, what do you say to making a Shelley day of it? We will take Prometheus Unbound with us to the Baths of Caracalla, and there, on the very spot which inspired the poem, we can read parts of it. And when we are tired, we can prolong our drive to the cemetery, and visit Shelley's grave, as a proper conclusion. How do you like the plan?”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Grey, “it will be deliciously sentimental; only breakfast is announced, and I am in a famished condition. I was up so early this morning. It must have been before eleven when that stupid girl called me, and it is an hour since I took my coffee.”

“Poor Clara!” said Mr. Carlisle, “your condition is truly pitiable. I should think you might find the almshouse a pleasant change.” Mrs. Grey seemed only amused at her brother's sarcasm, when suddenly she checked her silvery laugh, and, springing from the table, at which she had just seated herself, she went towards Assunta with such a pretty, penitential air that she was quite irresistible.

“My dear child,” she exclaimed, “speaking of almshouses reminds me of something you will never forgive. Promise me not to scold, and I will devote myself henceforth to the cultivation of my memory.”

“What is it?” asked Assunta, smiling at her earnestness. “I am sure such a pleading look would force forgiveness from a stone.”

“Well, then, for my confession, since you absolve me beforehand. While you were out yesterday morning that miserable woman of yours sent word that she was sick, and something about not having a mouthful of bread in the house. I forget the whole message. My maid saw the girl who came, and I promised to tell you. But you remember my wretched headache. You forgave me, you know.”

Assunta looked both grieved and vexed for a moment, and then she controlled herself enough to say:

“I must attach a condition to my forgiveness, Clara. Will you [pg 779] let me drive to the house on our way to the baths? I will only detain you a few minutes.”

“Heavens! Assunta, you will not go there yourself?” exclaimed the astonished Clara. “I dare say it is some filthy hole, and perhaps the woman may have fever. Send a messenger with some money. I'll give her five dollars.”

“Thank you. I will take the five dollars to her willingly,” replied the young girl; “but I will take myself too. I can easily walk,” she added, looking for permission to her guardian, as the occasion was exceptional.

Displeasure at his sister's thoughtlessness was evident in Mr. Carlisle's tone, as he said:

“You will go in the carriage, Assunta, and I will accompany you. We will return for Clara after the visit. Giovanni, order a basket of provisions to be put up before one o'clock, and be ready yourself to go with us and take charge of it; and now that the matter is settled, we will have some breakfast.”

Poor Mrs. Grey looked disconcerted; but she thought it her duty to make a further protest.

“You surely will not wear that dress, Assunta? It will never be fit to put on again.”

Mr. Carlisle laughed outright at this new objection, while Assunta said with a smile:

“Why, Clara, have you so soon forgotten your admiration of Mrs. Browning's Court Lady, who put on her silks and jewels, and went to the hospital as to the court of the king? On the same principle I should be arrayed in purple and fine linen, for I am going to the court of the King of kings; and if I am not very much mistaken, this same poor woman, whose contact you fear so much, will find her place very near to the throne in the ranks of the celestial nobility. However, I should be sorry to ruin my new dress, as you predict, and I will be very careful.”

The breakfast was soon despatched, the carriage came punctually to the door, and Mr. Carlisle and his ward drove rapidly towards the miserable home of the poor woman, who, in the midst of her poverty, possessed a faith at which Assunta often wondered.

“You are very kind, Mr. Carlisle,” she said. “I am sorry I have given you so much trouble.”

“In this case,” he replied, “the trouble is not altogether disinterested. I must myself find out what the sickness is before I can allow you to enter the house. I cannot let you run the risk of fever or any other malignant disease. You see I came as a sort of police.”

“But,” said Assunta, touched by his thoughtful care of her, at the same time anxious not to be prevented making what amends she could, “I am so accustomed to visiting the sick, I do not think there can be any danger.”

“My child,” he said, “as long as your life can be guarded by me, it shall be done. You are under obedience still, you know.” She dared not insist; and, indeed, at the same moment they reached the wretched dwelling. After exacting from her the promise to remain in the carriage, Mr. Carlisle ascended the broken stair-case. In a few moments he returned, and, without saying a word, he took the basket from Giovanni, and again went up the stairs. As he reappeared, he said to the coachman:

“Drive on slowly. I will walk a little. You must not go in, Assunta.”

He continued to follow the carriage [pg 780] at a quick pace for a quarter of a mile; then he hailed the driver, and took his seat beside the wondering girl, saying:

“I thought it would be best to give myself an airing after leaving that room. Petite, the poor woman died two hours since of a terrible fever. You could have done nothing, and, as usual, Clara was mistaken in the message. They sent word to their ‘guardian angel,’ as they are pleased to call a certain little friend of mine, of their suffering and need, but with the particular warning that she should on no account direct her flight that way, lest she should expose the unangelic part of her nature to contagion. I left the basket, and money enough to supply all the temporary wants of the children; but it was a dreadful scene,” he added with a shudder.

He had striven to speak lightly at first, because he saw the distress in Assunta's anxious face and tearful eyes. But his own feelings were strangely stirred, and he forgot his self-control, as he continued, in a voice low and husky from the very intensity of emotion:

“Child, I am in an agony of terror at the bare thought of what might have been the result had you been exposed to that atmosphere, whose every breath was poison. My God! when I think of the danger you have so narrowly escaped. Oh! if I might always shield this dear life at any risk to mine.”

“My life is in God's hands,” said Assunta coldly, as she gently disengaged the hand which her guardian had clasped in his, as if he would show, by the action, the power of his love to avert any and every evil which might threaten her.

Poor child! she longed to ask more about the woman's death, and especially to express her gratitude to Mr. Carlisle for his kindness; but she dared not face his present mood. However, as they again reached the villa, she said hurriedly and in a tone full of anxiety:

“Mr. Carlisle, you have exposed yourself to great danger, and I do not forget that it was for my sake. I shall not be satisfied unless you promise me that you will take every possible precaution to avoid any future evil consequences. I should never forgive myself if any harm came to you.”

Her eyes lowered beneath the look he for one moment fixed upon her appealing face; then, with the exclamation, “An unblessed life is of little consequence,” he sprang from the carriage, and, saying to Giovanni, “I will summon Mrs. Grey,” he dashed up the stone staircase.

Assunta sank back with a feeling almost of despair at the task before her. Even if she had not to struggle with her own heart, it would have been hard enough to steer the right, straight course between these contradictory moods in her guardian; one moment so tender and thoughtful, the next so full of bitterness. How could she reconcile them? How should she ever be able to bear her burden, if this weight were added to it day by day?

Assunta possessed the gift—which, advanced to a higher degree, might be termed the natural science of the saints—of receiving religious impressions and suggestions from the natural objects about her. Now, as in a listless manner she looked around, her eyes fell upon the snow-crowned hills which bound the Roman horizon, and rested there. She had no thought of the classic associations [pg 781] which throng those mountain-sides and nestle in the valleys. She needed strength, and instantly the words were present to her mind: “I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me.” And following out the consoling train of thought, she passed from those peaceful Roman hills to Jerusalem and the mountains which surround it, even “as the Lord is round about his people.” Then, by a natural transition, she turned her thoughts to the poor woman who had just left behind her poverty, privation, and suffering, and, accompanied only by that hope and love which had endured and survived them all, had entered, so she confidently hoped, into the possession of God—the Beatific Vision. What a contrast between the temporal and eternal!

Her silent requiem for the departed soul was interrupted by Mrs. Grey's bright presence and merry voice.

“I cannot imagine what you have been doing to Severn,” she said; “but he is in one of his unaccountable conditions of mind, and declares that he will not go to drive—pressing business, etc. I am sure we can do without him very well, all but the reading part, which had been assigned to him. It is so late, at any rate, that perhaps we had better give up the baths, and drive at once to the cemetery. You see I have secured an excellent substitute for our recreant cavalier,” she added, as a gentleman emerged from the massive doorway. “Come, Mr. Sinclair, we are waiting for you.”

There was just a shade of stateliness in Assunta's manner as she greeted the somewhat elegant man of the world, who seated himself opposite to her. She would gladly have been dispensed from the drive altogether, feeling as she did then; nevertheless, she submitted to the necessity which could hardly be avoided.

“Truly, Miss Howard,” said Mr. Sinclair, as they drove away, “I begin to believe the ancient goddesses no myths. Flora herself would find in you a worthy rival. It is not often that I have the happiness to be placed opposite two such lovely ladies.”

“Very good for a finale, Mr. Sinclair,” replied Mrs. Grey; “but if you were to speak your mind, you would be calling me Ceres, or something else suggestive of the ‘sere and yellow leaf.’ ”

“That is a gross injustice, not only to me, but to yourself,” answered Mr. Sinclair in his most gallant tone. “Have not the poets ever vied with each other in disputes as to the respective merits of spring, with its freshness, and the rich bloom of early summer? And permit me to add that neither has yet been able to claim a victory. In such a presence it would be rash indeed for me to constitute myself a judge.”

“Unwise, certainly,” rejoined Mrs. Grey, “to take into your hand such an apple of discord. Women and goddesses are pretty much alike, and the fate of Paris might be yours. Remember the ten years' siege.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Sinclair, “there you do not frighten me. Welcome the ten years' siege, if during that time the fair Helen were safe within the walls. After ten years one might perhaps be reconciled to a surrender and a change of scene, since even the lovely Trojan's beauty must have lost the freshness of its charms by that time.”

“O faithless men!” said Mrs. [pg 782] Grey, very much as if she were pronouncing an eulogy.

“Miss Howard,” said Mr. Sinclair, “you are silent. Does our classic lore fail to enlist your interest, or are you studying antiquities?”

“Pardon me,” replied Assunta; “it was rude in me to be so abstracted. I must excuse myself on the ground of sympathy for suffering which I have been unable to alleviate.”

“By the way, Assunta,” exclaimed Mrs. Grey, “how did you find your protégée?”

“She is dead,” replied the young girl, softly.

“Oh! I am so sorry. How very sudden! Mr. Sinclair, you were telling me about the Braschi ball when Severn interrupted us. When did you say it is to be?”

“In about three weeks,” replied the gentleman. “I hope that you ladies will be there. Our American blondes are greatly in demand among so many black eyes. You are going, are you not?”

“Most certainly we shall,” answered Mrs. Grey with ready confidence, the future being to her but a continuation of to-day. The cloud that might appear on her horizon must be much larger than a man's hand to turn her attention to it from the sunshine immediately about her.

And so, between pleasantry and gossip, the time passed until the carriage stopped at the gate of the cemetery.

“You have chosen a very serious termination to your afternoon's drive, Mrs. Grey,” said Mr. Sinclair, as he assisted the ladies to alight. “I always carefully avoid whatever reminds me of my latter end.”

“Let me play Egyptian coffin, then, for once,” replied Mrs. Grey, but with a merry laugh that belied her words. “I will lead you to a contemplation of the fate of genius. I dote on Shelley, and so we have made a pilgrimage to his grave.”

“You have every appearance of a pilgrim about to visit some sacred shrine,” said Mr. Sinclair with an echo of her bright laugh. “Lead on, fair pilgrim princess; we humble votaries will follow wherever your illustrious steps may guide.”

A small, horizontal slab, almost hidden beneath the pyramid of Caius Cestus—itself a tomb—is all that marks the resting-place of the gifted, ill-fated Shelley.

“Here is your shrine, my lady pilgrim,” said Mr. Sinclair, as he removed some of the green overgrowth from off the inscription.

“Somebody make a suitable quotation,” said Mrs. Grey. “You know we ought to be sentimental now.”

Assunta at once rejoined:

“ ‘How wonderful is Death—

Death and his brother, Sleep!’

Poor Shelley! But I do not like the inscription, Clara; or rather, I do not like such an expression on such a grave.

“What do you mean, dear Assunta?” said Mrs. Grey, looking at her as if she were talking Sanscrit. “I think it is lovely. Cor cordium—the heart of hearts, is it not? I am sure nothing could be more appropriate.”

“It does not seem to me appropriate,” answered Assunta; “but then you know I always do have strange ideas—so you say. Why should Cor cordium be written over the ashes of one who was burned in true pagan fashion, and who, as I think, should rather be pitied for what he did not do, with [pg 783] his marvellous gifts, than loved for anything he has done?”

As she paused, a voice beside her exclaimed, “I am sure I cannot be mistaken. Is not this Miss Howard?”

Assunta turned and welcomed with a pleased surprise the young man who appeared so unexpectedly, then she presented him to her companions as Mr. Percival, of Baltimore, the brother of her only intimate school friend. He was tall and slender, not handsome, but with a manly and at the same time spiritual face. His eyes were his finest feature, but their beauty was rather that of the soul speaking through them. Assunta had not seen him since her school days at the convent, and then she had known him but slightly; so she was herself surprised at her ready recognition of him.

“And what has brought you so far away from my dear Mary?” she asked after the first greetings were over.

“I am on that most unenviable of expeditions—health-seeking,” was his reply. “After graduating at college, the physician doomed me to a year of travel; and so we meet again at Shelley's grave!”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Grey, “and Assunta and I were in the midst of an amiable quarrel when you found us out. I engage you on my side, Mr. Percival. It is about the inscription, which I like and Assunta does not, for reasons which are Greek to me.”

“I was just going to say,” said Assunta, “that Cor cordium seemed to me a sacred phrase wholly misapplied, though I have no doubt the irreverence was unintentional.” And turning to Mr. Percival with that sort of spiritual instinct which teaches us where to look for sympathy even in a crowd, she continued:

“I hope that I am not guilty of the same want of reverence in thinking that if those words are to be inscribed on any grave, they should be written upon that stone which was rolled against the opening of the new sepulchre in the garden, and sealed with the Roman seal; for there the true Cor cordium was enclosed.”

“Mr. Percival, I see that you have gone over to the ranks of the enemy,” said Mrs. Grey; “and if Mr. Sinclair deserts me, I shall never be able to stand my ground against two such devotees.”

“I am yours to command, Mrs. Grey,” replied Mr. Sinclair with an expression of contempt in his tone. “But perhaps it might be well to transfer our operations to another battle-field. Allow me to offer you a souvenir of the occasion.” And he handed to each of the ladies a sprig of green from beside the marble tablet.

Assunta quite simply shared hers with Mr. Percival at his request, and then they retraced their steps. As they approached the carriage, Mrs. Grey very cordially begged Mr. Percival to occupy the fourth seat, which he reluctantly declined, as also the invitation to visit them.

“For,” said he, “to-morrow I start for Jerusalem; and, Miss Howard, when I am kneeling, as I hope to do, in the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, I shall remember you and those suggestive words of yours.”

“You could not do me a greater kindness,” replied Assunta, “than to remember me there. And when you return, what do you intend to do in the way of a profession? You see I am interested for Mary's sake. I know what her desire is.”

An hour before, if this question had been proposed to him, Augustine Percival would have been able to give a probable answer. Though he had not yet decided, his few days' sojourn in Rome had stirred up within him a feeling which had been latent even in his boyhood, and from the depths of the Catacombs and beneath the lofty domes he had thought he heard an interior voice which whispered to him, “Follow me.” And now a fair young face had made him hesitate, though, in justice to him, it must be added that no mere charm of beauty would have touched him for a moment. It was the purity and beauty of mind and soul, which he read and appreciated, that caused him to reply to Assunta's question:

“The matter of my future vocation will be left, I think, until my return.”

Then, with many pleasant farewell words, they parted; and, except to mention the meeting to her friend in her next letter, Assunta thought no more of the thread of another life which had for a moment crossed hers.

That evening there were guests at the villa; and, as usual, Assunta's amiability was taxed by the repeated demands for music. As she sat absently turning over the leaves before her in one of the intervals, Mr. Carlisle came and stood beside her.

“Petite,” he said, “I have been to see the authorities about the family of that poor woman who died to-day, and everything will be arranged comfortably for them; so you need feel no further anxiety!”

“How good you are, dear friend!” she replied. “God bless you for it!”

“It is your blessing that I want,” said he. “It was for you that I took the little trouble you are pleased to magnify into something deserving of gratitude.”

“Please do not say so, Mr. Carlisle,” said Assunta earnestly. “You do such noble acts, and then you spoil them by your want of faith.”

The word was unfortunately chosen.

“If by faith,” Mr. Carlisle replied, “you mean your Catholic faith, I cannot force myself to accept what does not appeal to my reason. I can respect an honest conviction in others when I am in turn treated with equal liberality; but,” he added in a low tone, “I could hate the faith, so called, which comes between me and the fulfilment of my dearest wish.”

There was a call for more music, and so there was no opportunity, even had there been inclination, for a reply. But as Assunta was passing wearily to her room after the last guest had departed, Mr. Carlisle stopped her, and, after his usual good-night, he said: “Forgive me, child. I have not been myself to-day.”

Two weeks afterwards, when her guardian lay prostrate on his bed in the delirium of fever, Assunta remembered those few words, which at the time had given her pain, with that agony of sorrow which can only be aroused by the knowledge that the soul of one beloved may at any moment be launched upon the immeasurable ocean of eternity, rudderless and anchorless.

To Be Continued.

Church Music. Concluded.[167]

II. (Continued.)

Having settled that plain chant should have a part, and indeed a large part, in our choral service, but that figured music should not be excluded, it remains for us to say what figured music is to be used in alternation with plain chant, or substituted when plain chant is completely set aside.

Some seem to imagine that no figured music is suitable for the church but that which is termed alla Palestrina. They urge the great fitness of this species of music for church purposes; for, like the plain chant, it is ancient, can boast a long and exclusive connection with the Catholic ceremonial, admits of no personal display, is dissimilar from the music of the world, never alters the words or does violence to them, is not only distinctly ecclesiastical but papal, and quite as solemn and grave as plain chant, while it is of wider range and of far more pleasing effect. Though written in strict measure, it follows the tonality of plain chant. Its origin is holy, since S. Charles and S. Philip were intimately associated with Palestrina. Then, again, it has the best possible authorization—that of having been used for the last three hundred years by the popes, to the edification of the whole world, non-Catholic as well as Catholic.

We admit all these claims. But against the use of this species of music amongst us there is a fatal objection.

It was written to be sung without instrumental accompaniment, which, when used in conjunction with it, always mars its effect; and hence, though nothing more suitable can be imagined for Lent and Advent, when, according to the rubrics (too often slighted), the sound of the organ should not be heard, we cannot be expected to sing it at other times; for we absolutely need the organ to make amends for our scanty numbers, our lack of proficiency in execution, to support the voices, and to give variety to the service.

The organ is regarded by us as essentially a church instrument by its nature and the associations we connect with it; indeed it never fails to arouse in us deeper feelings of reverence and devotion, and we cannot do without it.

An attempt was made in several of the German cathedrals some years ago to revive music of the Palestrina style, to the exclusion of the more modern; but circumstances, we think, have already led to some modifications of the strict rules first proposed.

III.

Practically, we can hardly hope ever to exclude from our churches modern figured music—as Benedict XIV. says, that would be an extreme measure; but we can exclude, and are bound, he says, to exclude, such compositions of it as are unsuitable for church purposes.

But how shall we determine what is suitable and what is not?

Music, it will be said, is a mere matter of taste, and the adage has it, De gustibus non est disputandum.

But there is bad taste as well as good taste. Moreover, church music is a matter of principle as well as of taste, and good taste in this case is closely allied to principle.

Taste is the instinct or habit, or rather the instinct following habit, and perfected by it, whereby we are enabled to discern and detect what is most proper and congruous in each province of art.

Now, the reason for employing music in the service of the church is religious or it is none. Unless the musical sounds, therefore, subserve the meaning of the text, they are better away. “Where the religious song is accompanied by musical instruments,” says Benedict XIV., “these must serve solely for adding to its force, so that the sense of the words penetrate deeper into the hearts of the faithful, and their spirit, being roused to the contemplation of spiritual things, be elevated towards God and the love of divine objects.” That style of music, then, will be the most religious which deals most reverently with its subject, and gives the least scope to the play of irreligious dispositions. Being the most suitable to its subject, it will also be in the truest taste.

Hence that music will be the most suitable and the best which in its construction will correspond most perfectly with the peculiar spirit of each festival and with the special character of each service; which will most naturally and reverently render the sense of the words without changing, inverting, or abridging them, or marring their sense by useless and tiresome repetitions,—which, in other words, will speak as distinctly and as religiously to the ear as the altar, the vestments of the priest, and the ceremonies speak to the eye. Music and ceremonies, and everything connected with them, should be in the most perfect harmony, reminding all that they are in the house of God, and assembled in his presence to pay him homage on earth like that rendered him by the members of the church triumphant in heaven.

Hence, 1, church music should not in any way recall the world, its temptations or its pleasures; and the prohibition made by popes and councils against the introduction into the church of compositions written originally for the theatre or the concert-room, but with other words, or of compositions written for the church, but in a style suggestive of the stage, is so evidently just and proper that any one who objects to it must be wanting in common sense.

“Humana nefas miscere divinis” finds its application here. To carry the minds of worshippers in the church back to the theatre by the music is a crime, for it is a desecration.[168]

Hence, 2, not even the feelings of the congregation should ever tempt the director of the music of the church to admit what is not in every respect most suitable to the place, the time, and the occasion. Fortunately, we have no difficulty here in the United States with our own people. The only trouble is when we go out of our way to satisfy the expectations of non-Catholics who occasionally are present at our services, or of a few musicians not otherwise interested in the services.

Hence, 3, undue prominence should never be given to individual singers. It is, to say the least, very distracting.

Hence, 4, the director of the music should never be willing to sacrifice the liturgy, even the least part of it, to the exigencies of the music, whatever they may happen to be; but, on the contrary, he should be ever ready, if need be, to sacrifice even the most admirable musical numbers to the exigencies of the ceremonial.

In other words, he should never forget that music is one of the many accessories to our public worship—never the essential—and is never to be heard merely for its own sake.

This is brought out clearly and distinctly in two decrees that have for us in this section of country the full force of law—a decree of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, and another decree of the Third Provincial Council of New York:

“That all may be done according to prescribed order, and that the solemn rites of the church may be preserved in their integrity, we admonish pastors of churches to labor earnestly to remove those abuses which in our country have crept into the church chant. Let them therefore provide that the music be subservient to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the other offices, and not the divine offices to the music. Let them also bear in mind that, according to the ritual of the church, it is not lawful to sing hymns in the vernacular languages at High Mass and at solemn Vespers.”[169]

“At solemn Masses singers are prohibited from so protracting the Offertory, the Sanctus, and the Benedictus that the celebrant is obliged to delay till they have made an end of singing.”[170]

The general principles we have laid down will be still better understood if we examine the declarations made by the church through several of the popes.

The most notable and the most precious of these are the brief of Benedict XIV. already mentioned, and the rules for composers given by Pius IX.

Pope Benedict XIV., in his Constitution Annus 19, February, 1749, begins by laying down the general principle that the music of the church must be so ordered that nothing profane, nothing worldly, and especially nothing theatrical, be heard in it. He repeats this principle again and again, and says that there is no one who does not detest operatic music in the church, and who does not look for and desire a difference between the music of the church and the music of the stage.

He then reminds us of the Constitution of Pope Innocent XII., by which it is forbidden to sing at solemn Mass and Vespers motets or hymns that are not a part of the Mass or the Vespers of the day; that is, at solemn Mass, the only pieces allowed to be sung besides the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, [pg 788] and Agnus Dei are the Introit, Gradual, Offertory, and Communion of the Mass of the day (a single exception being made for Corpus Christi, when the O Salutaris! or other hymn of the office of the Blessed Sacrament may be sung at the Offertory), and at solemn Vespers only the Antiphons and the proper hymn with the Psalms.

He then proceeds to condemn frequent repetitions of the same words, and places the chief distinction between theatrical music and church music in this: that in the former the words are made quite subservient to the singing and the accompaniment; whereas in the latter the words are rendered intelligibly, and the music is made subservient to them.

He next instructs bishops to banish from the church absolutely all instruments except the organ; but with the organ he allows the use of violins, violas, violoncellos, contrabassos, and bassoons, because these add, he says, to the force of its tones; but he prohibits cymbals, horns, trombones, oboes, flutes—in general, all wind-instruments, as also harps and guitars, because all these, he says, recall the theatre.

He directs that while the singing is going on the instruments must merely accompany, never take the place of, the voices.

He allows suitable symphonies when these are dissociated from the office proper—probably meaning the pieces played at the beginning and the end of service, and to fill up pauses when the choir is silent.

He closes by urging the Italian bishops to comply with these instructions faithfully, that foreign bishops coming to Rome may see in Italian, and especially in Roman, churches the public offices properly carried out, and thus be induced to imitate them.

The present vicar-general of Pius IX., Cardinal Patrizzi, by order of the Pope, wrote two letters to composers of church music in Rome, on the 18th and 20th of November, 1856, and in them he so far supplements the directions of Benedict XIV. that we have wherewith to determine without much difficulty what music is, and what music is not, admissible in Catholic choirs.

In his first letter he says:

“The most sustained gravity is to be observed, and nothing introduced suggestive of theatrical pieces, either by the arrangement or by the melody; too many repetitions, and all changes and arbitrary inversions of the words are to be avoided.

“At Mass, Exposition, and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and other sacred ceremonies, organists are forbidden to execute the whole or parts of theatrical pieces, or to play in a too florid or distracting style; and their music ought to be such as to promote the recollection and devotion of the faithful.

“As we consider an interruption between the various parts of the words of the liturgy very unbecoming, even when any verse is finished, as being an occasion of distraction and noise among the musicians and hearers, we order that every part of the offices, especially at Mass, shall be sung through continuously, so that the Kyrie, Gloria, and other parts may each have a unity of structure.”

In his second letter he teaches composers the necessity of their having for their object the praise [pg 789] of God and the devotion of the faithful, and shows how church music in its whole construction ought to differ from that of the stage.

“If all composers,” he says, “drew their inspirations from piety and religion, as some of them have the good spirit to do; if they always kept before their minds that their music ought to tend to praise God in his holy temple, and to excite the devotion of the faithful, there would have been but little need to make rules for musical composition. But it is only too true that, in some instances, to the great surprise of the truly religious among the faithful, there has been heard in the churches certain music unworthy of the house of God, and showing that the composer, far from having in view the service of the divine Majesty and the edification of his hearers, has only aimed at displaying his own imagination, and that he has forgotten the church and written for the theatre, not only by borrowing its style of melody, but also by introducing portions of theatrical music, to which he has sometimes violently adapted the words of the sacred liturgy. In order that so great a scandal may not be renewed, and that those who write music for the church may have a rule to keep them within due bounds, we prescribe as follows:

“1. Music destined for execution in the churches ought to be distinguishable from profane and theatrical music, not only in its melodies, but also in its whole character; hence

“2. Those movements are forbidden which would not be naturally inspired by the sacred character of the words, and which would be suggestive of the theatre.

“3. We forbid too lively or exciting movements; if the words require cheerfulness and joy, let it be expressed by the sweetness of religious mirth, and not by the unbridled liveliness of the dance.

“4. In all movements, whether slow or quick, the words of the sacred text must be pronounced clearly, and never more quickly than in ordinary discourse.

“5. The words must be put to music in the order which they occupy in the sacred text. When the sense has been entirely expressed, it will be allowable to repeat some word of it, or some phrase of it, as may be necessary, without inversion, without confusion of the sense, and with the required moderation.

“6. All the words must be sung, and none added nor any omitted. It is not allowed for one syllable of them to be changed.

“7. We forbid ariettas, duets, and trios in imitation of theatrical pieces. Recitative and everything approaching to it is forbidden; as also operatic finales, such as are known by the term cabaletta.

“8. As regards instruments, long introductions and long preludes are to be avoided, whether with full orchestra or with solos.

“9. Without depriving instrumental music of the grace and coloring which art and good taste suggest, an effeminate softness is to be avoided, as well as immoderate noise, which is always tiring and unbecoming in the house of God.

“10. The composer must not forget that the use of instrumental music in the churches is in a state of simple toleration; the object of it must be to sustain and enrich the singing, to be far from overpowering it, or from enfeebling and deadening it, or reducing it to a mere accessory.”

These rules, if adhered to, would [pg 790] give us music which would meet the requirements both of devotion and of art; nor do they exclude such variety as the diversity of our feelings calls for. It could, by its placid, quiet, and smooth-flowing measures, soothe and subdue us into that mood which best fits us to offer to God reverential homage, and to make acts of resignation when we feel the hand of affliction bearing heavily upon us; but also, by more joyous and inspiriting strains, dispose us to praise God according to the immensity of his greatness, in joy and gladness, on loud-sounding cymbals (in cymbalis jubilationis), and send us back to the battle of life with renewed courage and strength.

IV.

But, it will be asked, can this style of music which we have just sketched be had? Most certainly.

It is true our organists do not know it; for they are lamentably ill-read in musical lore. They seem to imagine that whatever is published as music for the service of the Catholic Church is to be regarded as “Catholic music,” and perfectly proper, and they scarcely dream of looking further than to the publications or importations of Ditson, Peters, and Novello, or of critically examining these to test their fitness for the purposes of divine worship. To take the two best composers of their class, how few organists have taken the trouble to study critically the Masses of Haydn and Mozart. Of the sixteen Masses composed by Haydn, there are only four in which the words are all correct. These are Nos. 4, 5, 6, and 9. All the others are consequently defective.

In Nos. 7, 8, and 11, although all the words are to be found in one or other of the voice parts, yet each voice is often singing different words at the same time.

In Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 16 the words Qui ex patre filioque procedit are altogether omitted. In Nos. 3 and 16 the words et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum, filium Dei unigenitum, are wanting. In No. 2 the words Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur are omitted. In No. 10 the words Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris, qui tollis peccata mundi miserere nobis, are omitted. In the Credo all the words from et in unum Dominum as far as per quem omnia facta sunt (inclusive), and again all the last part of the Credo from et in Spiritum to the end, are altogether omitted.

In No. 12 the words Qui tollis peccata mundi (secundo) are omitted.

In No. 13 the words Jesu Christe, Domine Deus, are omitted. The words Filius Patris are immediately followed by miserere nobis, quoniam tu solus, etc.

Again, in the Credo of this same Mass, after the words et invisibilium we find the text read thus: credo per quem omnia, etc., with all the intermediate part left out. No. 14 consists of a Kyrie and Gloria only. In the Gloria the words Qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe, etc., qui sedes, etc., are omitted. In No. 15 the words Qui tollis peccata mundi (secundo) are omitted. In the Credo of this Mass, beginning with Et resurrexit, different words are sung simultaneously by each part, as remarked above of Nos. 7, 8, and 11.

While it cannot be denied that much of the Mass music of Haydn is the most beautiful in the world, some of it is trivial and undevotional, and it would seem as if, by some of his movements, he wished to

“Make the soul dance a jig to heaven.”

Concerning the sacred compositions [pg 791] of Mozart, a recent French author, M. Felix Clement,[171] makes the following startling assertion:

“The religious musical compositions of Mozart are much less numerous than is generally believed, and the catalogues of music publishers and the repertories of maîtres de chapelle are not to be trusted. Many of these musicians frequently take the liberty of stealing from Mozart's operas, and even from his compositions for instruments, and of adapting them to a Latin text, let the adaptations be worth what they may.... The only authentic religious compositions of Mozart are the following:

“A Stabat mater for four voices, without instruments, and very short.

“A Veni Sancte Spiritus for four voices, two violins, two hautboys, two horns, a clarinet, tympanum, alto, and violoncello.

“A solemn Mass for four voices, two violins, two hautboys, two altos, four clarinets, and tympanum, 1768.

“A short Mass for four voices and the same accompaniment, 1768.

“A Grand Offertory for four voices and similar accompaniment, 1768.

“An Ave Verum Corpus, 1791.

“The Mass of Requiem.

“Two solemn Masses in C major.”

There are adaptations in many of Peters' publications that are simply shocking, and even our most worthy Anthony Werner forgot himself while he was compiling the Memorare and the Cantate, and inserted a few compositions that are out of rule, and therefore out of taste.

Again, few organists amongst us have a sufficient knowledge of Latin, of the structure of the ritual, and of the traditions of the church to judge of the appropriateness of compositions; and the evil is aggravated to the last degree by the custom of making the organist the director of the music as well. Hardly any of them know either the theory or the practice of plain chant.

Music of the kind we have described as fit for church use abounds in Italy, but mostly in the condition of MS. The works of the Augustan age of Italian music, from the time of Carissimi to that of Jommelli, including those of Durante, Leo, Clari, Steffani, Martini, and Pergolesi, and even of later masters, like Terziani, afford inexhaustible treasures almost entirely neglected.

The new order of things in Italy has wrought and is working mischief there in more ways than one. Thus it has already been the occasion of the loss of a great number of valuable musical manuscripts, and unfortunately the end is not yet. The revolution of 1848 caused a great deal of wanton destruction, the result of that spirit of vandalism which seems to possess all revolutionists; and the recent suppression of so many churches by the Italian government has brought about the dispersion and consequent loss of the manuscripts of as many musical libraries—a loss that can never be repaired.

If we do not resume the execution of the compositions of the older masters, we must at least recur to them for the purposes of study. In no other way can we shake off the influence of the drama.

We have learned from the instructions of Benedict XIV. and the cardinal vicar of Pius IX. that there is a distinction between the music of the stage and that of the [pg 792] church, and that this distinction is based on the fact that in the latter the music must be written to suit the words of the sacred text, and that the music, whilst having that serious and chastened expression which befits the language of devotion, should be distinctively vocal and choral; whereas in the former the tendency is to make the words suit the modulations of the music, to subordinate the voices to the rich and powerful instrumental symphony which accompanies them, to flatter the popular ear by light and taking airs, and to display to the best advantage the voices of individual singers and their wonderful execution.

These characteristics of secular music, due to the influence first of Mozart and afterwards of Rossini more than to that of any other composers, have been too long felt in the music of the church, and to be rid of them we must lean more towards the past, and return to the study of those grave and solemn forms which existed prior to their day, and in which the instrumental accompaniment contained no suggestion of levity, and was used to support and enrich the vocal harmony without drawing attention from it.

The celebrated Robert Franz is now editing some of the works of Durante, who flourished not long after the departure from Palestrina was made, and whose piety and exclusive devotedness to church music have given a more ecclesiastical character to his compositions than to those of any other composer of his day.

In France the war between those who advocate the exclusive use of plain chant and those who plead that music may have some share in the divine service is waged fiercely, and the consequence is that both parties go to extremes, and both assert principles with regard to the respective merits of the two styles that are utterly untenable. There is no country in the world where plain chant is so much sung, and none where so much wretched stuff is palmed off as sacred music. Nevertheless, France has composers of merit, who might achieve great results if they had a public of broader views to write for, chief among whom is Gounod, who, in his Messe Solennelle and his Ave Verum, has struck the right chord, and proved himself able to write sacred music for great occasions, in which all the resources of modern art may be combined with a solemnity and an expression of piety not less remarkable than that which we find in the compositions of Palestrina.

In England the advocates of what we may call the canonical style of church music are not inactive.

The late Cardinal Wiseman had an excellent collection of Palestrina music, published in the most elegant style by Burns.

Years ago Monsignor Newsham, at the cardinal's suggestion, composed for smaller choirs four chorus Masses, to be sung in unison or in parts ad libitum. They are easy, flowing, and very devotional, and strictly in rule. They are published by Novello.

Mr. Richardson, an excellent musician, has revised some of the Masses of Haydn and Mozart, and, without altering substantially the music of these two great composers, reset the words with rare skill; so that we have all the beauty of the music, while the text of the Mass does not suffer. They are published by Burns & Oates.

Of late years Archbishop Manning has had a series of six Masses composed by excellent musicians, chiefly for unison singing, but they may also be sung alternately in parts. They have a full and artistic organ accompaniment, and are so arranged that the effect produced by them is scarcely inferior to that of vocal part music, while they are not hard to learn, and do not overtax the voices.

He has also had other Masses published for four voices in the highest style of art. These are by eminent composers, and have organ obbligato accompaniment. They are full without being of inconvenient length.

In these, as in the preceding Masses, the Sanctus and Benedictus in no case exceed the proper limits.

They are published by Burns & Oates.

Other compositions of the same class are promised.

Of what is being done in Belgium we cannot speak so confidently; but at the last Catholic Congress of Mechlin the subject of church music received due attention; prizes were offered for compositions that would meet the requirements of devotion as well as art, and a concursus actually took place, and the works of the contestants published.

It is in Germany that the movement in favor of the reform of church music has been the most active and has made the most progress.

We have already mentioned the introduction of the Palestrina style of music into some of the German cathedrals, and four immense volumes of music of that class have been published by Pustet, of Munich; and, as we have just said, Franz is publishing and drawing attention to the works of Durante, who represents the style that came into vogue when Palestrina was first departed from.

But they have a large and able society, called the Cecilia, extending all over Germany, which last year numbered 7,000, and is ever increasing. They have at their head F. Francis Witt, an exemplary priest of Spire, whom the Germans call “the modern Palestrina.” He is trying to achieve in our day the success that Palestrina met in his.

The number of compositions for the church published by this society or under its own influence is immense.

A writer in the London Tablet stated recently that by means of S. Cecilia's Society a thorough reform had been effected in the church music of Germany, and that frivolous compositions in the secular style have at last been banished from the churches.

The writer of this paper remembers hearing in the autumn of 1869, in the Cathedral of Munich, two Masses of this school, which contained no passages for soli, and in which the words were treated as respectfully as in the compositions of Palestrina and his school, none being repeated or inverted. The accompaniment of the organ and the orchestra, in which no wind instruments were heard—except, perhaps, the bassoon—was so fully subordinated to the voices and so perfect otherwise that his ear has been spoiled, as it were, and every similar performance heard since in other places has been a grievous disappointment. He never heard any music more pleasing artistically, and at the same time more devotional and proper. It showed that composers can give us the best music which modern art can furnish, and yet keep strictly within the [pg 794] limits marked by ecclesiastical authority.

The Cecilia Society of Germany has a branch in this country, which has recently begun to publish select music, and to issue a musical journal called the Cecilia. The editor is F. Singinberger, and the publishers Fisher & Brother, Dayton, Ohio.

The publications of sacred music amongst us have not been very numerous or very remarkable for excellence. Among the very best we feel bound to notice the publications,[172] and especially the elegant compositions[173] of Mr. Falkestein, who has shown that he knows how to unite in his skilfully-constructed and charming yet devout compositions the depth and severity of the old ecclesiastical masters with the graceful and flowing melody and orchestral effects of the modern school.

There is no lack of good-will and talent amongst our musicians, but the trouble is that they have not the models by the study of which they may form a true ecclesiastical style. A library is as necessary to the student of music who hopes to be a composer as it is to the student of literature who has the ambition of becoming an author. Our directors of church choirs need a larger acquaintance with the great masters, especially the older ones. Above all, they need to have a better knowledge of Gregorian chant. For this chant should not only form a part of our service, as was already stated in the first part of this paper, but it should also be the source of inspiration to those who wish to compose for the church, as it was to Palestrina and his followers, as it is to-day to Gounod. The language of Mr. Ritter may be exaggerated, but it conveys a truth to be remembered:[174] “The Gregorian chant,” he says, “runs like a red thread through the musical part of the service of the Catholic Church; this really sacred song creates in Catholic countries the first impressions which touch the soul of the young Christian on his entrance into the church, and is, as such, the indestructible echo of his first sacred associations. As Holy Writ forms the invariable foundation of the religious and moral principles of the true Christian, so the Gregorian chant ought to form the ground and invariable theme of the true church composer; and as long as composers understood and valued this inestimable, noble, and really sacred practice their works composed for the church truthfully and appropriately fulfilled their solemn office; these works were thus imbued with the sacred character derived from the themes of the sacred songs; then necessarily a distinct line of demarcation was drawn between secular and sacred music.”

A Week In Wordsworth's Haunts.

We had only a week to spare, but we were not long in choosing where to spend our holiday. At that time the Lake Country was accessible, but not yet crossed through and through, by railroads. The cars took us from London almost through to Windermere, but, that being the gate of the sanctuary, they went no further. We had to cross the “Black Country,” a weird region of coal-mines and furnaces, where scarcely a blade of grass meets the eye; interminable plains, strewn with gaunt machinery and bristling with tall brick chimneys or low, wide, oven-like buildings, stretch from the track of the railroad as far as the horizon; a muffled noise, rumbling and crackling, is the only sound besides the shrill whistle of the engine; the sky is black as with the promise of ten thousand thunder-storms, the murky air hangs like a pall over the earth, and tongues of flame shoot up now and then from the mouths of the furnaces. At night the scene is gloomily splendid; everywhere lurid flashes leap up from these openings, for the work is incessant here; half-naked forms stalk from chimney to pit, wheeling giant barrows or pushing forward heavy trucks on tramways; no sound but the never-ceasing rumble of wheels and crackle of flames—apparently a silent Pandemonium or Dantesque city of Dis; at any rate, a sight that one does not easily forget.

Windermere is the largest, the most fashionable, and the best known of the English lakes. It was Saturday night when we reached it and went to an inn overlooking the calm sheet of water. The moon was up, and streaked the shadows of the great mountains that lay across the lake with her shimmering silver pathway; the little boats moored by the various landings rocked to and fro in the gentle breeze, and the wavelets came with a “swish” against the pebbly shore. Next morning, on inquiring for the Catholic church, we were told that there was a private chapel in the house of a Catholic gentleman who lived on an island in the lake, and allowed any respectable tourist to come on Sunday. We rowed over to the island, and found it all a garden: smooth lawns to the water's edge, broad gravel-paths through groves of elm and chestnut, a glowing parterre, rustic seats, fountains and marble balustrades, and by the boat-house a little group of gay skiffs dancing up and down on the blue water. The chapel was up-stairs, and there was an outside stair-case leading to it, down which we saw a familiar figure coming slowly towards us. It was that of a London priest whom we knew, and who, like us, was spending a brief holiday among the lakes. He had come over to say an early Mass; the master of the house was not at home, he said, but the chaplain would be glad to welcome all Catholics, many of whom came during the touring season. After Mass we strolled for an hour about the garden, admiring the vistas contrived [pg 796] between the trees, at the end of which glimpses of the blue sky and sparkling water, with some gray or purple peak cleaving the line of the horizon, could be seen. From every point of the lake itself these mountains strike the eye; for the most part bare of trees, their lower ledges covered with green pasture-land, and seamed here and there with the foamy streak of a beck or stream; their summits sheer rock. Their names all have a grand, free sound that suits their craggy, majestic beauty—Helm Crag, Hammar Scar, Silver How, Skiddaw. This one is the monarch of the lake country. Great How is a single, conspicuous peak rising at the foot of Lake Thirlmere, to the west of the lovely vale of Legberthwaite, near the high-road between Ambleside and Keswick. Ambleside is a favorite resort of students; young men from the two universities often come to spend the long vacation here, where reading, walking, and boating can be combined. The scenery is very beautiful; the valleys are broken up into a thousand nooks where fern and heather grow, and some tiny rivulet trickles beneath the broad-arched fronds of the bracken; every old wall wears a golden crown of celandine, or, in native dialect, pilewort; the “ghyll”—i.e., a short, steep, narrow gorge, a miniature cañon—is traversed by the foamy brook, leaping to the waterfall called in Cumberland a “force”; the birch, the rowan, the oak, cling to the rocky ledges that jut out over the little cataract, and everywhere above the greenery lies the shadow of the great lonely hills. Black Comb in Cumberland Wordsworth calls a spot fit for a “ministering angel” to choose, for from its summit, on a tolerably clear day, England, Scotland, and Ireland are all three visible. Many of the mountains, both in Cumberland and Westmoreland, have traces of inscriptions on the native rock which have by some learned men been supposed to be Runic, but which it is now generally agreed to call Roman. They are very rude, and much effaced by time and the action of the weather; hence the uncertainty.

It was by the shores of Windermere that a party of young men, all enthusiastic Tractarians, spent a vacation in one of the first years of that movement now called Puseyite and ritualistic, but then known as the Young England movement. In those days ladies washed and ironed the church linen, and wore their dainty fingers to the bone sewing surplices and embroidering altar-cloths; while others would take it by turn to sweep the churches and dust the pews; and others again, intent on doing penance, would kneel for hours on stone floors, and even use the discipline unsparingly, until the doctor's verdict put an end to their misguided zeal. Blindly they were beating about for the truth, and thought they had found it in practices of self-denial. It was a touching blindness—one that God often and often enlightened during those fruitful years. Young men made a point of exercising bodily mortification, even in vacation time, and, when thrown by circumstances amid unsympathizing companions, would carry their zeal into the commonest actions, and make a silent boast of their new-found faith. One Friday, for instance, a few young members of Parliament, assembled in the lobby of the House of Commons, called for “tea and toast” instead of the unfailing mutton-chop [pg 797] of tradition, and the mild protest created quite a sensation. On going home they were received by their several households as champions of a holy cause who, from humble beginnings, were going to bring about a mighty revolution, a national awakening. It was very beautiful, this child-like faith in their own ideal—so beautiful that God rewarded many of those who held it by leading them into the everlasting reality of the great universal, apostolic church. The athletic young hermits of Ambleside were not left out of the reckoning. One day one of them strayed out alone over the hills, with some old volume of the fathers under his arm, and his questioning young soul eager for the knowledge which the wonderful serenity of this mountain region seemed at the time to typify so well. He was out a long time, and, when he came home to his companions, he seemed to them transfigured. A new peace and yet a more ardent enthusiasm had come to him, and he spoke in words almost incomprehensible to them:

“I have found the man who has the idea!”

What had happened to him was this: In his walk he had met a young stranger, and spoken to him. Kindred thoughts and aspirations had led them into a long and eager conversation, wherein it soon appeared that the stranger, with his fair, girlish face and dreamy blue eyes, was the master, and his new friend only the humble disciple. They had talked on into the twilight, and the latter, entranced, at last asked the name of him who in a few short hours had taught him to see things in a clearer, diviner light than all the patristic reading had been able to do during his college course. The young man opened the book he had with him, and showed him his name written on the fly-leaf. It was Frederick William Faber.

From Windermere we started on our real tour. The native conveyances are called “cars,” and hold four people sitting opposite each other, but sideways and parallel with the horses. From a rough, square box, painted dark blue or green, up to a real town-made carriage in the same shape, this conveyance is universally in use over the north. Everywhere the same beautiful scenery—moist nooks, a natural fernery, tumbling waterfalls, walls covered with wild flowers; here and there an old-fashioned inn with an old-fashioned landlord, waiting himself on his customers, and sitting down to tell them at his ease all the gossip and the guide-book lore of the neighborhood, the best time to go up the mountain, when it was safe to take a boat out on the mere, the accident in the lead-mine last year, etc., etc. At such an inn, “The Swan,” we passed one night, and had an excellent and abundant rustic supper, not a hundred yards from the brand-new tourist hotel, “The Prince of Wales,” gas-lighted and high-priced, with saucy waiters and London upholstery, and each floor exactly the counterpart of the other, like a penitentiary.

Ullswater is a stormy lake, a sort of caldron enclosed in steep, forbidding rocks rising perpendicularly from the water. Above them is a wooded table-land, with old houses hidden up the slopes beyond, one a ruined monastery, with a modern home fashioned out of a few available fragments of strong mediæval masonry, and a sort of museum or armory [pg 798] contrived among the standing arches of a less useful portion of the building. It was a steep climb to get to it, and for miles on either side of the pathway, that was half a natural staircase, there was no other road to it. The view over the dark lake was impressive; the waters, calm enough now, lay beneath us like a floor of black marble, with a fringe of heavy shadows along the edge where the cliffs overhung it.

Now and then we would pass detached hamlets with their sturdy, grave population all astir, the women fine specimens of their sex, with that frank expression and grand physical development which are bred of mountain training and open-air life. Together with all the people of the north, they have many peculiar customs, and altogether form a race apart from the inhabitants of other English counties. The accents of their nervous, expressive dialect, the names of their mountains and lakes, the flavor of quaintness and individuality that hangs about their life, somehow suggest the old times of early Christianity when S. Wilfrid ruled in York, or struggled inch by inch for his invaded territory and ignored rights. Stopping to water your horses in one of these hamlets, you may see a knot of men standing silently and expectantly round the door of a clean, home-like cottage, and just outside, laid on the porch seat, a basin filled with sprigs of box-wood. The men are waiting for a coffin to be borne out, and, when it comes, they will all fall into line behind it, and each, taking a sprig from the basin, will throw it into the grave after the prayers have been said. Of course this is a Catholic reminiscence of the days when the box sprigs were used to sprinkle the coffin with holy water, as they are now in most countries on the Continent; but, besides this, box-wood is an evergreen, and therefore a symbol of the immortality of the soul.

Sometimes we would come to a little mountain tarn, across which we were ferried, car, horses, and all. The regular travelling in these regions is done by stage-coaches, of which we availed ourselves for sending forward our slender baggage, so as to be quite independent and unencumbered in our movements. The mountain lakelets, that are never mentioned in guide-books, are very beautiful with their fringe of rushes and boggy earth starred with white and golden flowers, and their flocks of teal and wild duck dwelling in peace in these undisturbed wildernesses.

Grasmere, a village on one of the larger lakes bearing the same name, was Wordsworth's home for eight years, the first eight of this century. He was born in Cumberland, and the home-passion that has gained him his title of Lake Poet never left him. Fortunate in his worldly circumstances, he went to Cambridge, and, though a desultory reader, took a fairly creditable degree after four years' study. He made tours on foot through Wales and Germany, and published his poetical reminiscences, though with little success; but through their medium he gained the friendship of Coleridge, his fellow-poet and life-long companion. He settled at Grasmere in 1799 with his sister, who was throughout his life, even after his marriage, his guiding star—the kindred spirit whose approval and sympathy were the secret sources of his intellectual life. Of her he says, speaking of a peak which they could see from their “orchard-seat”:

“There is an eminence, of these our hills,

The last that parleys with the setting sun.

The meteors make of it a favorite haunt;

The star of Jove, so beautiful and large

In the mid-heavens, is never half so fair

As when he shines above it. 'Tis, in truth,

The loneliest place we have among the clouds.

And she who dwells with me, whom I have loved

With such communion that no place on earth

Can ever be a solitude to me,

Hath to this lonely summit given my name.”

Of his wife he wrote, after three years of marriage, words contrasting his first impressions as a lover with the sweet, solemn experience of a husband. Then “a phantom of delight, ... a lovely apparition, ... a dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, to startle, and waylay,” but now

“A being breathing thoughtful breath,

A traveller betwixt life and death;

The reason firm, the temperate will,

Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;

A perfect woman, nobly plann'd,

To warn, to comfort and command;

And yet a spirit still, and bright

With something of angelic light.”

Song seemed to gush from Wordsworth's soul as naturally and copiously as water from a mountain spring. Some of his verses were written with a slate-pencil on stones in lonely places; for instance, in a deserted quarry on one of the islands at Rydal, on a stone half way up the grim mountain of Black Comb, in Cumberland, or with a common pencil on a stone in an outhouse on the island at Grasmere. He lived poetry. Everything with him was a pretext for verse; neither the commonest household occurrence nor the sublimest spectacle of nature up there among those rocky fells and green valleys lying under awful shadows of coming storms, was a stranger to his ready pen. He says of himself that

“The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colors and their forms were then to me

An appetite, a feeling, and a love.”

There are few places so thoroughly fitted for a poet's home as the lake country of Cumberland and Westmoreland, yet more so then than now, when it has become the fashion to make a tour among the lakes, even as one does down the Rhine. England has wakened to the consciousness of her own beauty within the last forty years, and a home-tour often takes the place of a foreign one; yet to those who first visited these Eden-spots the rare charm is gone, for sight-seers have taken the place of the “wanderer,” and regular guides usurp the simple escort of a stray shepherd whom in old times you might have happened to meet by some force, on the cool banks of which he would have told you, in his racy dialect, the old traditions and legends of the neighborhood—the legend of the horn of Egremont Castle, for instance, a Cumberland tale, telling how Sir Eustace Lucie and his brother Hubert rode away to the Holy Land, and the former, pointing to the “horn of the inheritance” that hung by the gate-way, and which none could sound,

“Save he who came as rightful heir

To Egremont's domains and castle fair,”

said to his brother: “If I fall, and Christ our Saviour demand my sinful soul, do thou come back straight-way, and sound the horn, that we may have a living house in thee.” And Hubert promised. But out in Palestine Sir Eustace disappeared, and, when the news was brought to Hubert that his elder brother lay “deep in Jordan flood,” he said darkly to the messengers: “Take your earnings. Oh! that I could have seen my brother die.” He went home, and whether he sounded the horn or not none knew; it was never heard, but Sir Hubert lived in glee for years, with wife [pg 800] and sons and daughters, until one day

“A blast was uttered from the horn

Where by the castle gate it hung forlorn,”

and Sir Eustace came back safe and unsuspecting. Hubert rose up and fled in silence, and it was years before he was again heard of; then he came and asked forgiveness, and obtained it, and ended his penitent life in the cloister; so that Eustace's “heirs of heirs, through a long posterity, sounded the horn which they alone could sound.” The same legend is told of the Hall of Hutton John, an old house of the Huddlestones in a lonely valley on the river Dacor, also in these parts.

Or it might be the tradition of Henry, Lord Clifford, the shepherd-boy, whose father lost his title and estates during the wars of the Roses. Henry was restored, after twenty-four years of shepherd life, in the first year of the reign of Henry VII., and it is recorded that, when called to Parliament, he behaved nobly and wisely, but otherwise came seldom to London or the court, and rather delighted to live in the country, where he repaired several of his castles, which had gone to decay during the late troubles. “There is a tradition,” says Wordsworth himself, “current in the village of Threlkeld (in Cumberland, where lay the estate of his father-in-law, Sir Lancelot Threlkeld), that in the course of his shepherd life he had acquired great astronomical knowledge.” The poet clothed this incident (as he did every other that struck his fancy in that poetic land of the north) in verse, singing a lay of the Red Rose, revived at last, the flower of Lancaster, and weaving in the tale of the boy's wanderings on “Carrock's side,” in “Rosedale's groves,” and “Blencathara's rugged coves.” The common name of this last-mentioned mountain is Saddle-Back. Near Threlkeld, hidden in the gorges of the purple hills, lies Bowscale Tarn, where the people of the country still believe two immortal fish to dwell. Tarn signifies, in north-country dialect, a small mountain mere, or lake. Wordsworth's descriptions of scenery are exquisite; everywhere you find the traces of that personal love of the places he paints, that patient, detailed minuteness of touch which only comes of long gazing on a favorite scene, and of familiarity with its every aspect, in winter and summer, in storm and sunshine, in mist and rainbow. Every place has some tender associations in his memory; the stately fir-grove whither he was wont

“To hasten, for I found beneath the roof

Of that perennial shade a cloistral place

Of refuge, with an unencumbered floor,”

reminds him of a dear friend, “a silent poet” but a sailor by profession, after whom he called the pathway to the grove, whence

“The steep

Of Silver How, and Grasmere's placid lake

And one green island”

could be distinctly seen. That friend never returned, but perished by shipwreck in the discharge of his duty. Here, too, in this beautiful lake country, both at Grasmere and at his later and more celebrated home, Rydal Mount, in Westmoreland, Wordsworth lost others dearer yet—two of his children, who died young, and Dora, his favorite daughter, who died six years after her marriage. When on his own death-bed, three years later, his wife, brave and self-forgetting to the last, comforted him by whispering: “William, you are going to Dora.” His poems are so complete a guide-book [pg 801] to the lake country, as well as a series of living sketches of the people of the north, that it is almost unavoidable to treat them as tourists in Scotland do The Lady of the Lake, or tourists at Rome Childe Harold. In his day, however, many popular traits were in full vigor which now have almost disappeared. For instance, he says himself that “the class of beggars to which the old man here described belongs will probably soon be extinct. It consisted of poor and mostly old and infirm persons, who confined themselves to a stated round in their neighborhood, and had certain fixed days, on which, at different houses, they regularly received alms, sometimes in money, but mostly in provisions.” In his verse he describes the “Old Cumberland Beggar” thus:

“Him from my childhood have I known; and then

He was so old, he seems not older now.

He travels on, a solitary man—

His age has no companion.”

The passing horseman does not throw him a careless alms, but stops, lingers, and drops a coin safely into the old man's hat; the toll-bar keeper sees him from a distance, and leaves her work to lift the latch for him; the post-boy slackens his horse's speed, and turns with less noisy wheels out of his path; the very dogs do not bark at him.

“But deem not this man useless. Statesmen! ye

Who are so restless in your wisdom, ye

Who have a broom still ready in your hands

To rid the world of nuisances; ye proud

Heart-swoln, while in your heart ye contemplate

Your talents, power, and wisdom, deem him not

A burden of the earth.”

No; he is “a record binding together past deeds and offices of charity”; “a silent monitor” to those who sit sheltered “in a little grove of their own kindred”; an object to call forth that blessed feeling that you have, though “poorest poor,” been “the fathers and dealers-out of some small blessings”; a prompter to “tender offices and pensive thoughts.” See this picture:

“Such pleasure is to one kind being known,

My neighbor, when with punctual care, each week,

Duly as Friday comes, though press'd herself

By her own wants, she from her chest of meal

Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip

Of this old mendicant, and from her door,

Returning with exhilarated heart,

Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in heaven.”

And the poet, the lover of nature, the child of the mountain, ends by a warning and a prayer:

“Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness

Gives the last human interest to his heart.

May never House, misnamed b‘of Industry,’

Make him a captive! For that pent-up din,

Those life-consuming sounds that clog the air,

Be his the natural silence of old age!”

Though we have quoted Wordsworth's poetry, it is not as a poet but as a man that we speak of him here, not desiring to criticise his verse or to enter into discussions concerning the judgment given of it by critics of his own time. In the Lake Country his personality strikes you with the same sense of reality and continued presence as do the everlasting hills and the changeless lakes themselves. He died only a quarter of a century ago, though his principal poems all belonged to the first and second decades of this century. In 1814 The Excursion was published, and the poem which has made his chief fame was so severely criticised at the time that one of the reviewers boasted that he had crushed it. A brother poet, Southey, exclaimed: “He crush The Excursion! He might as well fancy he could crush Skiddaw!” If his verse was coldly received at first, it was chiefly because emotional, passionate poetry, such as Byron's, Moore's, Scott's, and Campbell's, was the fashion then. [pg 802] Wordsworth's was calm as nature herself, and concerned itself little with man's history, past or present. When he did mingle the deeds of men with the loving touches of his scenery descriptions, he would choose pure, white lives, such as would not jar with the calmness of lake and fell, of opal sky and shimmering water. Here is what the legend of the ruined hermitage on S. Herbert's Island, on Lake Derwentwater, suggested to him. The story of the holy friends is told also in Montalembert's Monks of the West.

“This island, guarded from profane approach

By mountains high and waters widely spread,

Is that recess to which S. Herbert came

In life's decline, a self-secluded man,

After long exercise in social cares

And offices humane, intent t' adore

The Deity with undistracted mind,

And meditate on everlasting things.

But he had left

A fellow-laborer whom the good man loved

As his own soul; and when within his cave

Alone he knelt before the crucifix,

While o'er the lake the cataract of Lodore

Peal'd to his orisons, and when he paced

Along the beach of this small isle, and thought

Of his companion, he would pray that both

(Now that their earthly duties were fulfilled)

Might die in the same moment. Nor in vain

So prayed he; as our chronicles report,

Though here the hermit number'd his last day,

Far from S. Cuthbert, his beloved friend:

Those holy men both died in the same hour.”

Derwentwater is the most picturesque of all the lakes in point of smiling landscape. It has several little wooded islands dotting its surface; its waters are clear and more blue than those of the other lakes, and the mountains round the shore are less abrupt and naked. Lodore Force tumbles almost perpendicularly into it from the steep, shelving rocks that jut out from the dense forest growth, like the backbone of a huge black snake wriggling through the underbrush. These are the same waters whose sound swept over the lake and smote the ears of the hermit-saint twelve centuries ago. It is, except one, the most romantic waterfall in the Lake Country. Below this wooded hill, and on the very margin of Derwentwater, stands a little old-time inn, as clean as a Dutch house, with a rustic porch and a little lawn before it, ringed in with chains hung in festoons from four or five low posts. In the middle is a miniature gun, which is fired off every now and then for the amusement of the tourists. The echoes thus awakened among the surrounding hills are almost endless.

This beautiful North Country has another interest not so romantic—that of its mines, which are mostly of lead. Just across Derwentwater there is a fine mine, which, from its convenient position, is often visited. We rowed across the lake to see it; but if you have seen one mine, you will scarcely care to see a second—at least if you have no better motive than curiosity. To us on that first expedition it was simply fun. Luckily, there was no proposition made to don male attire for the only woman of the party; a huge oilskin coat with an ample hood quite wrapped her up and protected her for the downward journey. We got into a rough box or “basket,” preferring this quicker and more adventurous mode of descent to the species of chair contrived for the visitors to the mine, and were shot down in an incredibly short space of time to the second “level” of what we saw there is really very little to tell. The lodes or veins of metal looked like irregular lines of shining moisture drawn on the rocky walls; there was a tramway occupying the whole of the narrow gallery that formed the level, and up and down this tramway, at a tremendous rate, and with a noise like thunder, came the trucks loaded [pg 803] with ore. We had to squeeze up against the wall as they passed. The path was more than half submerged; we splashed into pools and puddles at every third or fourth step, and the moisture dropped persistently from the glistening roof. We should have gone to the third and lowest “level” had it not been so thoroughly under water that the miners had to wear long waterproof boots mid-way up their thighs when they worked there. On going up again we stopped at the first level, which looked exactly like the other. We did not gain much information by our excursion, but it was a rare frolic, and we were greatly excited. Our clothes came out of the “basket” in a soaked and streaky condition; but nobody cared, the achievement was enough to make up for anything. Some years later we tried the same sort of experiment, and did not find it nearly so exciting. It was at an iron-mine in Monmouthshire, near the river Wye, famed in the legends of the Round Table; we were let down the shaft in a kind of iron cage (the miners' regular conveyance), which swung unpleasantly to and fro, grinding against the sides of the narrow opening, and bumping us roughly down at the bottom, where, as their time was nearly out, the men were gathering, ready to go up. Here there was literally nothing to see. The work was done a long way off, and there was no time to go there; besides, the place was several inches under water. The interest of this expedition consisted simply in going down and coming up again, and in the feeling that we could “say we had done it.” What was really interesting on this same occasion was the sight of the iron-works and furnaces at nightfall. The metal was put into the furnaces at one end, and came out at the other in a continuous stream of intensest light; blindingly white it poured out, running slowly and spreading itself into a network of grooves all parallel with each other, ready fitted for its reception, where it was left to cool. Few things so truly realize one's idea of light as molten metal. There seemed no color in this beautiful stream, and one could fancy just such an intense glow as that to be the very radiance round the throne of God. It was impossible to stand near it for more than a second, the heat was so fierce, and we had to watch the calm, uninterrupted lustre from a respectful distance. This work was going on in a kind of open shed, sheltered above to protect the furnaces and machinery, but open at the sides, where in the darkness all kinds of strange groups and forms succeeded one another. The commonest circumstances took on solemnity and mystery in this half-light, the red flashes from inside darting like tongues into the fading light, and making of it all a wonderful, living Rembrandt.

To return to our lakes. We had seen all the great ones, and driven across the country in all directions—through mountain passes where the bare crags and bowlders lay heaped together, as if the Titans had flung them there to bar the passage to their fastnesses; through smiling pastoral valleys where the summer stream bubbled peacefully enough, hiding its secrets of roads washed away and trees uprooted by its anger in early spring; by Esthwaite Lake with its solitary yew-tree celebrated by Wordsworth; out into a bleak region of gray stone walls and hungry-looking pastures to Westdale [pg 804] (valley) and Wastwater. Lonely and silent lies the black mere under its frowning cliffs; no house, no inn, near it; tourists seldom pass it, and tradition says that its depths have never been plumbed. We got a boat at a fisherman's hut; it was not often he used it for anything but the necessities of his craft. And yet, in spite—or rather because—of this desolation, Wastwater has made a more lasting impression on us than the show-lakes with their pretty activity and cheerful bustle of tourist-life. Westdale would be just the place to live in if the mind needed bracing and restoring; few places within the pale of civilization can so truly boast of being absolute solitudes. We trust it is not changed even yet. Quite close, but you would not suspect it from the grim, rocky aspect of the scenery, is a little waterfall. It is in a narrow gully, a mere cleft in the rock, but alive with a thousand varying shades of green—ferns in abundance and in every stage of development, broad, dark, glossy leaves of water-plants, and waxy spikes of rockwort. The incline of the waterfall is so gentle, and so many bowlders jut out from the stream, that you could almost climb up this natural staircase; the snow-white spray dashes all over the banks, turning to diamonds in the hearts of the tiny flowers, and to rainbows on the broad surface of leaves; and the noise of the waters—their plash, their gurgle, or their trickle, as they strike moss, pebble, or little hollows round the big bowlders—seems like a living voice.

Our week was nearly up, and we were to meet the noonday train at a station several miles beyond Wastwater. The road lay through rocky passes, and was reckoned a bad one. Our car-driver was doubtful as to whether we could make the distance in the time that remained; for we had been tempted, by the rugged beauty of the lovely vale, to overstay our appointed time for exploration and natural-history collections. The drive was sufficiently exciting, a last bit of “fun” to end our holiday, and we jolted over the rough road, crossing the worn channels of mountain streams, and noticing on the steep sides of the hills what looked like moving bowlders, but what were in reality small, sure-footed sheep, white, brown, and black. The country grew bleaker as we went on, till at last we reached the primitive railway station just in time. We were very sorry to part with our North-Country driver and his car, and return to the civilized mode of rapid locomotion; the more so as the scenery through which we flew for two or three hours was as barren and as desolate as the shores of the Dead Sea. Gray stone walls made a sort of magnified chess-board of the level country, enclosing small fields of forlorn-looking stubble or bits of dark-red ploughed land. It was inexpressibly dreary, and a marvellous contrast to the beautiful region, bold and rocky, or wooded and smiling, which we had left behind us.

At last we reached Furness, our last halting-place. Here there was a coquettish little station, gay with ornamental wood and wire-work, and with autumn flowers and late climbing roses, while beyond the trim lawn stood an inviting hotel—modern, it is true, but decked out in villa style, full of bay-windows and gables, with green Venetian blinds and long French windows opening into a garden. There was no trace of a village near, or of any human dwelling but these two [pg 805] buildings. The reason was that both of these were subservient to the ruins of S. Mary's Abbey, which stood, as it were, within the hotel-garden. S. Mary's, Furness, is one of the three most stately and most perfect ruined abbeys in England; the others are Fountain's Abbey in Yorkshire, and Tintern on the Wye, Monmouthshire. It is built of red sandstone, the warm hue contrasting beautifully with the luxurious growth of evergreens all round and inside its arches and cloisters. The tracery of the great pointed windows is almost intact, but here and there the tracery of delicate climbing plants is so interwoven with it that the marvel of carving is lost in the wealth of each summer's renewed growth. The church is built in the shape of a cross. The walls and windows of the nave are untouched, and down the centre are the two rows of columns that divided it from the aisles—round Saxon pillars, alternating with clustered Gothic shafts, a sheaf of colonnettes forming one support. The bases of all of them remain, though every one is broken more or less near the base, none being more than two or three feet high. Of course the roof is gone, and everywhere around shaft and pillar grow tall flowering grasses, shrubs with bright berries and spear-like leaves, while a carpet of grass as green as an emerald covers the stone floor. There were seven altars in the church, and the steps to the smaller ones are even now marked by the gradual ascent of the turf. Poking into the earth with a walking-stick, we soon came to the stone steps, not more than three inches under ground. The chancel and sedilia are very perfect, and everywhere the piscinæ are visible in the walls. The chapter-room preserved its stone groined roof up to twenty or thirty years ago, when it fell in. On the walls are the remains of lovely, intricate diaper-work. The refectory is a long hall with a row of columns (only the bases exist now) down the centre, and the principal dormitory is said to have been exactly above this. The whole is now open to the sky. The quiet cloister, with some of the old graves of dead and gone Cistercian monks, is still traceable, and beyond is a little enclosed and railed-in stone chamber, contrived out of the ruined walls, but carefully roofed in, and used to stow away such fragments of sculpture as have been found within the precincts of the abbey. They are thus preserved from the rapacity of tourists. There are bones and skulls among them, too. The North of England was once called the garden-land of the Cistercians; their abbeys abounded in that region, and their power, temporal and spiritual, was paramount. The abbots at the head of those religious corporations of early days had episcopal jurisdiction and claimed episcopal privileges, and were far more powerful than the wandering bishops who had no abbey to back their authority. They had tracts of land and many serfs. In many respects the “villeins” of the church were a happy and a privileged set of people. They were not obliged to serve in the king's armies, as were the serfs of secular lords, and they could not be sued for debt or trespass, or any other local offence. They were immediately and solely under the jurisdiction of the abbot, which superseded, in their case, that of the common law. In return for their service, agricultural and otherwise, [pg 806] the abbot gave them shelter, food, clothing, and protection—not an unequal bargain, even for our days; but when we transport ourselves into the conditions of life in the middle ages, it will be easily seen how desirable a fate it was to be “made over to the church.” In those days protection was a greater boon than even food, lodging, or clothing; it was then what “habeas corpus” and the right of inviolability of domicile are now; and so long as the substance existed, it is idle to quarrel with the garb in which it was clothed.

The ruins were thronged all day; that was the only drawback to our enjoyment, but we remedied that at night. Every train came laden with tourists to see Furness Abbey; they walked about with guide-books and luncheon-baskets, and popped champagne-corks in the cloisters, and strewed chicken-bones among the bases of the great Saxon pillars, chatting, laughing, and joking, and evidently enjoying themselves as they would at a country fair or a cattle-show. This went on all day long; but towards night, after a late dinner at the hotel, they subsided, and scarcely a soul was to be seen in the garden. The men were in the billiard-room, and the women probably packing their things for the morrow's journey; so we slipped out, two of us, and went over to the deserted ruins. The moon was up, not quite at her full, but bright enough to make the scene very beautiful, and there were many stars as well. It is not easy to describe the impression this night-view of the old Catholic abbey made on us; one might as well try to catch a moonbeam, and examine it and find out what it is made of. Every one can sketch the picture for himself; every one with a love of the beautiful, the spiritualized, will understand what was its solemn charm. We roamed about in silence from nave to cloisters, from refectory to chapel-room, and then, hand-in-hand, went with something of awe in our hearts into the old chancel, where in the days of the monks none ever went but the cowled, white-robed Cistercians themselves—an angel and virgin choir meet to sing the praises of the Lamb. By the sedilia, in the beautiful carved recesses of which scarcely a stone is out of place or an ornament broken off, we knelt down and said the rosary together for the conversion of England.

Presently a strange green light flashed before our eyes, right above the place where the high altar had stood of old; it was gone in a minute, and the calm radiance of the moon was still undisturbed. Seen, as it was, in this dim, silent place of song and worship, it was very impressive; and had it been nothing but what we first took it for—i.e., a railway signal—even then it would have remained in our imagination, idealized into something symbolic. Green is the color of hope, and where is there more room for hope than under the arches of a ruined abbey, once the pride of a Catholic country, the home of learning and charity, the representative of a nation's civilization? We stayed a long while yet, lingering about the dusky arches, catching sight of the starry sky through the Gothic tracery of the windows, repeopling the place in fancy with its silent, prayerful denizens in their white robes and hoods, and wondering what that fitful flash might have been. Next morning we saw in the newspaper that just at that very hour a meteor of greenish hue had appeared and been observed in many [pg 807] places all over England. You may imagine how glad we were to find that it had been no railway signal that had cleft the white moonlight while we were praying in the chancel. It was a beautiful remembrance to carry away from the Abbey of S. Mary at Furness. God does not forget the places where his feet have rested, and there are heavenly, undying flowers yet in the gardens of Paradise which the angels fling down on those consecrated spots which princes once endowed, because they humbly acknowledged that “the roses and flowers of kings, emperors, and dukes, and the crowns and palms of all the great, wither and decay, and that all things, with an uninterrupted course, tend to dissolution and death.”[175]

So we took leave of the beautiful North Country, its lakes, its solemn mountains, its abbeys, and its hardy, independent people, whose character has in it yet all the elements out of which God, infusing into them his grace, moulded the great Northumbrian saint, Wilfrid of York, the Thomas à Becket of the VIth century.

On The Wing. A Southern Flight. VI.

“An evil spirit swept the land,

Of ruin and unrest.”

Not far from the villa we occupied there stood an uninviting house, as it appeared to me, the loggia of which was surrounded on three sides with green trellis-work, and commanded a fine view of Naples and the bay. Outside the door I had noticed barrels of oysters, as indicative of what we might find inside. This was the Caffe Frisio, renowned in Naples, spite of its unattractive appearance. I was somewhat surprised when, a few days after our engagement, Don Emidio suggested to Mary that we should all dine there, including, of course, the Vernons. I remonstrated. I did not see the fun of leaving our own quiet, cool house, with a modest but sufficiently well-cooked dinner prepared by Monica and served with the honest awkwardness of our unpretending Paolino, for the hurry of noisy waiters and the click-clack of other people's plates and glasses. I stood up for my point with my usual undiscerning obstinacy until I thought I saw a puzzled and half-pained expression come over the usually serene brow of my future master. Of course I yielded instantly, and, before I had stammered out a dozen words, found I had gone the length of declaring that my appetite for that day would fail me unless I dined at the Caffe Frisio. That point gained, Don Emidio hurried off (no! I am wrong there; I never as yet have seen him hurry about anything) to press the Vernons to be of our party. From thence he went, no [pg 808] doubt in his usually leisurely style, to order dinner for us. He was no sooner gone out of the room than I turned to Mary a bewildered face of inquiry, and asked her if she could at all understand Emidio's being so anxious we should dine at a caffe. Mary's reply was an indirect one. She look my hand in hers, and said with a smile:

“I sometimes wonder, my dear girl, whether you will quite easily take to the foreign ways of your intended husband.”

“Do you doubt it, Mary? I think, on the contrary, there is something so charming in that strange mixture of childlike simplicity and manly generosity which is so remarkable in the really good and noble Italians. Emidio always reminds me of a high-bred school-boy.”

“That is even more the characteristic, perhaps, of a thoroughly consistent Catholic life from childhood upwards than of any particular nation; though I agree with you that it is generally evident amongst Italians. Joy is the attribute of childhood, as distinct from any other period of life; and a joyful spirit is one of the marks of hidden sanctity. But I was not thinking of anything so serious as this. I mean that I wonder whether you will take easily to the out-of-door, unprivate life which is engendered amongst Italians by their beautiful climate, and which makes it not only a simple, but almost a necessary, thing that Don Emidio should immediately think of celebrating your engagement by dining at the celebrated Caffe Frisio.”

“I certainly wondered why he wished it, but I suppose it is the custom, and I am quite content.”

“You will doubtless, as you go on, find many customs which you will have to comply with. At Capo di Monte you will sit in the open loggia of your husband's house, instead of in your drawing-room with closed doors, as you would do in England. When you want your man-servant, you will call for him at the top of the stairs at least quite as often as you will ring a rare and occasional bell. You will order your dinner, from the balcony, of the cook below, just starting for his marketing. And I am afraid you may very possibly see your maid surreptitiously laying out your fine linen to dry on the trim-cut box hedge which surrounds the geometrical divisions of your garden. Of course in your palazzo in Rome you may succeed in keeping up a little more state. But even there, and certainly in Villegiatura[176] at Naples, you may have to make up your mind to your chef calling your attention to an unusually fine piece of beef in its uncooked state which he designs for your dinner that day.”

“Do you remember, Mary,” I replied, laughing, “the man-servant one day in Rome bringing you in a beautiful pigeon with an ever-varying purple breast that reminded me of the shot silks or stuffs in Raphael's pictures? You asked the man if he supposed you could by any possibility eat it an hour after you had fondled it.”

“I had to go without meat for luncheon that day, and the pigeon's life was spared. I fed it with rice, and it used to sit on my chest and pick the grains from between my lips.”

“At last it got too bold, and, mistaking your teeth for grains of rice, pecked at your lips till they bled.”

What a mischievous bird it was! When we came home, after leaving it at liberty in the house, we found all the heads of a bouquet of violets that stood in water picked off and strewed on the table, and all the pens taken from the pen-tray and laid on the floor. Finally one day the pins had been extracted out of the pin-cushion and put on the table, and the long, black hair-pins taken out of Mary's silver toilet-box and laid on the bed. At last we noticed a black pigeon that used to come often and sit on the water-pipe of the house opposite. We never closed the windows on account of our purple pigeon, as it had shown no disposition to leave its human friends for others of its own kind. But blood is stronger than water; and no doubt the black pigeon had wonderful tales to tell of the many roofs of Rome as presenting eligible habitations, and of the daily markets in the Piazza Navona and beneath the shadow of the Pantheon as affording an easily-obtained repast among the refuse. So one day, when we came home, the window was open, and the pigeon nowhere to be found. Nor did we ever again see the black seducer sitting on the neighboring water-spouts.

After all we were very much amused at our dinner at Frisio. We ate frutti di mare,[177] and macaroni dressed with pomi d'oro.[178] Of the meat the less said the better. I rarely thought any of it good at Naples; though no further off than Sorrento the beef is excellent. All provisions are, in fact, better there than at Naples. Our supply of butter came from Sorrento, and was obtained for us by Pascarillo, our coachman's master; so that frequently, as we passed his door returning home from our drive, his wife would hail us, and hand into the carriage the fresh butter wrapt up in green vine-leaves.

When dinner was over, and we sat looking out on the sea, I remembered that Emidio had promised to tell us the story of Padre Cataldo's escape at the time of the Italian revolution in 1860, and I asked him to give us the particulars.

“This will be a very good time to do so, Miss Jane,” was his reply, “because we are quite safe at Frisio from the father's presence. He does not like talking of it. You very probably have heard of the earthquake in Italy that took place in 1857; though I dare say the devastation it caused was hardly noticed in the English papers. The Jesuit Fathers had a college at Potenza which was partly thrown down at the time, and consequently the boys had been sent home to their parents and most of the fathers dispersed. Padre Cataldo and one other alone remained. You are aware that Potenza is the principal town of the Basilicata, and is the see of a bishop. There were forty villages in the same province destroyed at the same time. The king (of course I mean Francis II.) had obtained that Padre Cataldo should be sent on a mission to the inhabitants of these unfortunate villages, not only to preach in the different places, but to carry relief to the inhabitants, and to organize the proper burial of the dead, who lay neglected among the ruins at the imminent risk of breeding a pestilence. He was also to encourage the poor people to rebuild their habitations, and to aid them once [pg 810] again to gain their livelihood and resume the cultivation of the land. He was engaged in this arduous labor for a period of about fifteen months, during which he lived amongst the people with the affection of a father and almost the authority of a ruler; for there was nothing they would not do at his bidding.”

“The work accomplished, he returned to the half-ruined college at Potenza. There was but one other priest in residence with him there, and Padre Cataldo had hardly joined him when the revolution broke out. The Jesuits were far from apprehending any violence at first from the inhabitants of Potenza, a great many of whom were much attached to them. But at that time they had not had personal experience of the insidious ways by means of which the revolutionists instil their doctrines into the minds of the unsuspecting. They soon, however, began to notice that the caffes were thronged with noisier guests than usual, and who remained till late into the night discussing and disputing over their wine or coffee. The few shops where books or newspapers could be found in the not highly-educated or literary town of Potenza began to display pamphlets with brilliant-colored covers and dubious titles. The men frequenting the churches were fewer, and those that came were less respectful in their demeanor. At night the young men wandered about in file, arm-in-arm, walking rapidly with what no doubt they thought a military step, a flower stuck behind the ear, the hat on one side, and singing revolutionary songs in a loud and often inebriated voice. The symptoms were all bad. And the fathers were not surprised when one morning, having noticed an unusual agitation in the streets and the piazza, they received a secret message to the effect that they would do well to leave the town as quickly and as quietly as possible, for the one simple reason that where there is a Jesuit the revolutionist is his enemy. The persons sending this message to the fathers added that if their advice were not forthwith taken, acts of violence might follow.

“Not very far from the Jesuit college there lived a priest who had known Padre Cataldo for many years, and who, though himself corrupted by revolutionary principles, and not in any way an honor to his sacred calling, maintained a great friendship and regard for the father. He had gone on from one thing to another in his own downward course until at this time he was actually one of the leaders of revolutionary principles in the Basilicata. He had nevertheless always told Padre Cataldo that in case of need he would befriend him. And he kept his word; for one night, when Potenza was getting too hot for a Jesuit to remain in safety, and the only question seemed to be what kind of violence against the college would be attempted, the apostate priest arrived in his own carriage, to fulfil his old promise, and safely conveyed Padre Cataldo to a house at some distance where he could lie hidden for the night. The flight had been so sudden that Padre Cataldo, who was not likely at any time to be cumbered with wealth, had come away without a franc in his possession. The next morning he despatched three messengers to various friends in the neighborhood to say where and in what condition he was; and they, in return, sent him the money he needed. With this he procured [pg 811] for himself the disguise of lay clothes, and set out to join the Jesuits residing at Bari. When he arrived, he found the Jesuits had already left; and the condition of the country was such that he was unable to proceed with any hope of safety to Noci, his native place, where his parents lived.

“For many days he had to fly from place to place disguised as a layman, and with a false beard. But even so there was something in his whole appearance which betrayed him. One day he was walking along the street, swinging a walking-stick, when he heard one man say to another, as they passed him, ‘There goes a Jesuit in disguise.’

“A lady residing at Bitonto concealed him in her house for one night. He left the house before dawn; but already the rumor had spread that a Jesuit was in hiding there, and early in the morning the brother of the lady, who was a liberal and the syndic of the town, came to tell her the people were in such a state of excitement that if she did not give up the father, they would burn the house to the ground. And it was not till she had taken him into every hole and corner of the place that she could persuade him there was no one concealed there, and that his assertions to that effect calmed the mob. ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests,’ but, like their Master, the priests of the Son of man had not where to lay their heads. Thus driven from place to place, and hunted down like a wild beast, Padre Cataldo at length reached Venosa, where, as he had once preached a very successful mission, he was well known and much respected. He took up his abode at the house of some friends, and the next morning, which was the Feast of S. Ignatius, the founder of his order, he went to the church to say Mass. While he was vesting in the sacristy he received a message that the intendente or governor of the place wanted to speak with him. It so happened that the intendente was the brother-in-law of a man who had been condemned to death for murder a short time previous. Padre Cataldo had been acquainted with the case; and as he considered it had been attended with extenuating circumstances, and that the crime was not premeditated, he had used his influence with success to get the sentence commuted to a term of years' imprisonment at the galleys. He also obtained permission for the man, who was a jeweller, to work at his trade during his incarceration. Padre Cataldo had not happened to see any members of the family since that event, in which he had saved them from so great a calamity. Very naturally, therefore, on hearing that the brother-in-law of the criminal wanted to see him, he thought he had come to thank him for saving his relative from the guillotine. But on going to the door to receive him he found the governor surrounded by soldiers, who, at a word from him, seized the father as their prisoner. He was at that time suffering from fever brought on by exposure to all weathers in his endeavor to elude his enemies; creeping into some sheltering house late at night, when the evening damp, so fatal in Italy, was falling; making his way over fields and mountains in the noon-tide heat, and getting from place to place through by-ways, as he dared not take the frequented road; and of course often without sufficient food. He was put upon a horse, and conducted by a guard of soldiers [pg 812] to a small place called Rionero. It was a long day's journey, and his sufferings were intense. Having been seized before he had begun his Mass, he had not tasted food. When they reached Rionero in the evening, they found a terrible scene. The revolutionists had entire possession of the town. It is said that the piazza—the large open place in the centre of every Italian town—literally ran with blood. Strange to say, many persons connected by family ties with the intendente who had so cruelly betrayed Padre Cataldo perished in the massacres of that night. I know a man who saw the father brought into the town in the midst of the guard. The insane fury of the mob at the sight of a Jesuit knew no bounds. It was the Ecce Homo over again in the person of one of his servants. He was taken through the piazza on horseback, and the soldiers did nothing to restrain the people. They flung at him every missile they could lay their hands on; and as it was evening, a band of masons were returning from their work, and, transported with rage, actually threw their tools at him, and beat him with them as he passed. To all this ill-usage he made no other reply than by blessing them. Some of the most violent cried out, ‘Here is the King of the Basilicata.’ Did they know they were parodying the cry of ‘the King of the Jews’? At length the prison-doors shut him in from his persecutors; and as he lay there, bruised all over, and severely cut about the head and face, he could hear them crying out that they would yet get at him to burn him alive, while actually they began building up a pile in the centre of the piazza for that purpose.

“The liberal priest who had been his friend in the first instance, and had brought him away from Potenza, had by this time heard of his arrest, and immediately came to the rescue. This, however, was no easy matter. He was himself one of their leaders; and, lest they should accuse him of infidelity to their cause, he was obliged to begin by pretending that he shared their views with respect to Padre Cataldo. It was only in this way that he could succeed in getting himself heard. By degrees he induced them to consider whether, on the whole, the burning alive of a well-known Jesuit priest in their piazza would be altogether a wise proceeding. It might get them into trouble at some future day. It might be considered an extreme measure. At length he gained sufficient influence for them to propose that the question should be decided by an appeal to the people. The general inhabitants of the town were not a bad set of people. They were probably not very courageous in a good cause, and they were overwhelmed by the noisy and daring wickedness of the revolutionists. But when thus appealed to, their real sentiments found expression; and Padre Cataldo, whose prison-cell overlooked the piazza, could hear the shouts of Noi lo vogliamo salvo.[179] Soon after his prison-door was unlocked, and in the dead of the night he was conducted by two guards to a distance from the town, where they left him. Faint with loss of blood, bruised, and weary, he managed to reach the house of some friends. He lay there for a fortnight, ill from fever and the cruel treatment he had received. And it was not [pg 813] till some time after, when the troubles had calmed down, that he was able to return to Naples in safety.”

We sat silent for a few seconds at the end of Don Emidio's account. It seemed to bring the nature and qualities of revolution keenly before us when we thus heard of what it had done to one so well known and so beloved by us all. Ida was the first to speak; and she told us that not long after they had settled at Posilippo with Padre Cataldo, a gentleman had called to see him on some business, accompanied by a young man. Ida remarked that when the latter came into the room, as soon as his eyes fell on Padre Cataldo, he turned deadly pale. As he was only in attendance on the other gentleman, he sat a little back, and no one paid much attention to him, while she watched him. She saw he was greatly overcome and trembled very much. She tried to enter into conversation with him, but he seemed too absent to talk. When at length the gentleman had concluded what he came to tell Padre Cataldo, the latter turned towards the younger man, who got up and approached him, exclaiming, “O father! how is it I find you here? I thought you had died at Rionero. I witnessed the treatment you received there, and I and many others believed you were dead. By what miracle did you escape?” When the conversation became more general, the young man, who could hardly recover from his emotion, told Ida that he should never forget the father's countenance, as he sat silent and calm on his horse, with stones, sticks, and missives of all sorts flung at him. The blood poured from his head; but there seemed to be a celestial light beaming from his face which reminded him of the pictures he had seen of the martyred saints.

We finished our evening on our own loggia. It was a lovely night, and we felt we could never weary of watching the moonbeams on the sea, and, when the moon had gone down, the fishermen's little boats, noiselessly sailing one by one from the dense, dark shadow of the caves where they are moored, and then, each with a burning torch at the prow, casting anchor and waiting for the fish to rise to the light. From time to time the fishermen utter a soft, monotonous cry to each other in a minor key, which comes floating through the darkness on the still night-air like an echo from another world. There must be a strange fascination in this life of the fisherman, whose occupation begins as other men are laying aside theirs, and is continued through the silence of the night on the vast solitude of the ocean.

Don Emidio drew his chair near to where I was sitting, leaning on the low wall of the loggia and looking down upon the plain of waters, which so mysteriously appear to flash an unreal light from their dark bosom, as if the sea itself gave out sparks. Presently I heard a voice asking me if I thought I could learn to love the world-famous beauty of the Bay of Naples.

“I have learnt to love it from the first moment I saw it; for I love all that is beautiful. And when the beauty of this glorious land comes to be wound up with the duties of my life, I shall love it doubly.”

“Say with life's affections too, dear Jane.”

“Why should I not say it? Of course I mean it.”

“Will you never tire of this unmitigated beauty? Will you never, cara mia, have a pining for a soft, gray day, with the perfumed damp that comes up from the velvet moss and dense greenery of an English copse? Will you heave no sigh for the pale but varied and most abundant wild flowers of your chilly springs, a lapful of primroses, a wealth of cowslips? Shall I have you longing after a narrow lane of yellow sand, the trees meeting overhead, the meadow-sweet growing lavishly in the moist hedge, and the ripe nuts hanging just within reach, crisp and sweet in their slippery brown shells? Shall I hear you reproaching me that the mushrooms are dotting the Sussex downs all round the fairy rings, and that you long to tread the close, fine grass where the sheep are browsing, with the little hillocks of purple thyme scenting the breeze with its aromatic breath? When your nerves are overstrung by the continuous dry heat and the brisk air of our joyous land, will not your Saxon nature long for one of the short autumn days of old England, when you might walk through the fields to the edge of the western hill, and watch the sun sink amidst yellow and red clouds painted on a pale blue sky, and then, returning in the soft wind of evening redolent with nameless perfumes, feel the damp like a creamy balm uncurl your locks and bathe your cheek as if with moist kisses? It will be almost dark when you reach home; there is a low wood-fire flickering on the hearth, and the steam of the urn curling up with a scent of new-made tea. Papers, pamphlets, magazines, and new volumes by the dozen from the London library are there to greet you. And day by day, hour by hour, in that land of rapid thought and universal intelligence, the latest news from pole to pole finds its way with every post into the remotest depths of the I country. Cara mia, it will not be so here.”

There had been a choking sensation in my throat as Emidio described the dear old land of my birth, and brought so vividly before me exactly those little touches of home and country life which I should most certainly not find in my future Roman palazzo or in the villa at Capo di Monte, beyond the garden of which I could not stray into any wild woods and barren but ever-beautiful heaths, as in England. But there was something in the close of the vision he called up before me which turned the current of feeling and made me smile. Strange as it may seem, I felt it was the newspapers and the I rapid intelligence that I could spare the more easily.

“There are good old books I have never read, Emidio, and which you have in your library. From time to time we will get a few new ones from the teeming British press. I am none the happier in England for tracing day by day the progress of modern ideas. I will turn my thoughts upon the past. I may sometimes sigh for the shady lanes and breezy downs of England; but I think the imperious beauty of Italy will hold quite as much sway over my heart in time. Are you satisfied?”

“I am satisfied as much as my jealous Italian nature will allow me to be.”

“Are all Italians jealous?”

“Nearly all, especially husbands.”

“But I shall never give you cause.”

“I am quite sure of that. But [pg 815] it will not prevent my being jealous. Do not look frightened, carissima.[180] I am not going to prove a regular Bluebeard, like some of my countrymen. But it would sound strange to your English ears to know the intense sense of appropriation which an Italian has with regard to his wife. It is true he adores her; but it is an adoration which would exclude the remotest homage of the merest stranger. He waits upon her, watches her, serves her. But it is possible to have too much of that, particularly when it is done with an evident intention to prevent the approach of any other human being. I had an acquaintance—for I cannot exactly call him a friend; he was too great a fool for that—who would not allow his wife to set her foot outside the door unless he accompanied her. She was not permitted to look out of the window, if he could prevent it; and he actually one day consulted me on the possibility of running a railing in front of his windows inside the rooms to prevent her getting near enough to look out.”

“And they did not shut him up as a madman?”

“Not at all; though I think the generality allowed he was eccentric. The poor woman had a melancholy time of it; for of course, if he would not allow her to look out, neither would he allow any one else to look in.”

“Well! and how did it end?”

“The only way any man of sense could expect it to end. She got out of the window and over the wall one fine night, and left him. The poor thing went no further and to no other place than her father's house. But nothing would ever persuade her to return to her husband, who grew yellower and greener every day until he finally died—of jealousy.”

“Serve him right,” was all I deigned to reply, being too indignant to be grammatical.

“I knew a young girl,” continued Don Emidio, “who had made up her mind she would marry a certain Neapolitan duke of immense wealth. Her parents did not object (which they ought to have done). But her confessor, that Padre Cristoforo whom you heard preaching through the month of May at Santa Catarina, did everything he could to dissuade her. The only answer she would ever make to his remonstrances was that she should have a carriage. All life seemed to résumé itself in her mind in the possession of that one luxury, with just the addition of gowns from Paris. She was married to the old duke, and very soon after came to Padre Cristoforo to complain of her hard lot. He could only repeat that he had warned her how it would be, and recommend her to take a drive in her carriage, and ever more and more to drive in her carriage, reminding her that it was for that she had married. Alas! she had to confess that even that consolation was denied her, as her husband was too jealous of the passers-by to allow of her being seen driving out, and that for the most part she was kept to the house. It is true he was constantly making her magnificent presents of that other great object of her ambition—dresses from Paris; but, as she represented to him, they were quite useless to her, as she could not wear them shut up alone with him in the house. Now, are you not frightened by this peculiarity in us Italians, carina, or are you prepared for it?”

Emidio was laughing, and so was I, when he more gravely added:

“The other day we were talking of the reverse of the medal, as regards the good or bad qualities of different people and nations. And I think I can promise you, cara mia, that as my respect for you, and I hope my own good sense, will always preserve me from this ludicrous excess of a national characteristic, so the only form which it will take will be in making me more observant that you should receive from my hands alone those little attentions, and what the French call petits soins,[181] which are so necessary to a woman, and which make up so large a share in the lesser enjoyments of her life. I hope never to bore you. But I hope always to wait upon you.”

I looked over my shoulder as we came to this point in our discourse. Frank and Elizabeth were discussing their future also in another part of the loggia. And I thought to myself, if we could have compared notes, we should no doubt have traced many differences characteristic of English and Italian future husbands. But I am convinced that both English maidens were equally content with their prospects.

We paid more than one visit to the great museum of Naples, now called the Museo Nazionale, but which Mary and Frank remembered as the Museo Borbonico. Since they were last here, the dynasty being changed, the name of the collection and the arrangement of the objects have also changed. Mary, who is very decided in her artistic preferences, had her favorites here, as I have always found she had in every collection of pictures or statues she had once visited; and faithful to her old loves, she never could rest or look at other objects till she had revisited those that had already struck her imagination. I do not know whether it may arise from the fact that in Rome the attention is naturally more turned, in the collections at the Vatican, to those which have reference to the life and customs of the early Christians, in preference to the indications of pagan life; but certainly the objects in the museum at Naples brought before me, with a vividness I had never felt elsewhere, the very minutest details of old Roman existence. And I believe, in point of fact, no collection equals that at Naples, enriched as it is by the treasure-trove of Pompeii and Herculaneum. It would be quite easy to furnish a house with every requirement of life from roof to kitchen out of the abundance of these interesting relics of the long ago past. And as I wandered about the large chambers filled with kitchen utensils, lamps, vases, and female ornaments, and then passed into the halls where are the frescos that decorated the walls of their dwellings, I felt I could realize to myself the many differences in the external forms of their life and our own.

The first conclusion I arrive at is that there was more sameness and less multiplicity. For instance, there was a certain received form for lamps. You had your choice, in the ornamental parts, of the heads of lions or of griffins, but the shape was the same. In the kitchen the like shape reigned as in the triclinium or the œci—the dining-room and drawing-rooms of the ancients—minus the [pg 817] ornaments.[182] The same absence of diversity is observable among the jewels. There could be very little difference, except in size and weight, between one lady's necklace and another's. The houses, judging from the discoveries at Pompeii, and borne out by the classic writers, were all built on the same model, some large and magnificent, others small and mean, but alike in structure. I pause, and ask myself how life went on without modern china in the houses of the great. Though much of their glass was beautiful, yet what a difference between their earthenware pots and our Sèvres and Dresden, Worcester and Minton! Everywhere the tables and seats and chairs were alike. The difference lay in the draperies and the cushions, never in the shape. It sounds bald and trite to register these remarks; but if we carry out the thought, and try and place ourselves where the men and women of Rome and its subject provinces stood, and in imagination sleep in a cubiculum[183] six feet long and four wide, sit on a marble representation of a camp-stool, and lay our work or our book—which latter will be in the inconvenient shape of a long roll of papyrus—on a round marble table with three lion's paws for legs; if we fancy our rooms divided one from the other by portières, or hangings, instead of doors, artistically draped in longitudinal folds, and fastened with cords by the fashionable upholsterer of the day; if to this we add an almost entire absence of washing-basins, and, instead, a lavishness in the article of marble baths, all more or less taken in public; if from vestibule and atrium,[184] from hospitium[185] and exedra,[186] we dismiss all notion of knicknacks, all glass-fronted cabinets, all buhl and marqueterie, all enamelled snuff-boxes, china pug-dogs, and filigree; with no Berlin-wool work and no miniatures; a few severely beautiful bronze figures, some busts, some heathen goddesses in tinted marble, standing cold and naked in a niche; an ever-plashing fountain like the pattering of incessant rain—if we bring all this vividly before us, we shall soon feel that the minute yet all but infinite circumstances of external life having been so different from our own, the whole flow of thought and fancy must have been different.

We owe more than we are aware, both for good and evil, to the way we furnish our houses. And if we decorate them according to our own ideas, we must remember that those decorations are for ever throwing back our ideas upon ourselves in a perpetual reflection until a sort of moral identity is established.

My impression is that the greater simplicity of form, combined, as was the case with the ancients, with a very high though but slightly varied style of decorative art, may have left a greater solidity, unity, and intensity in the old-world characters, as compared with what we find in modern minds, distributed amongst such an endless variety of objects.

It is a great thing to be elevated by noble desires and high Christian aims above the trivialities of modern life. But if those high aspirations are absent, it is perhaps a safeguard to take to old china, old lace, and Louis Quinze furniture. It breaks up the thoughts into a kaleidoscope [pg 818] of fancies; and that, on the whole, is decidedly preferable to the restlessness of youth, health, and idleness, leading to a craving for gladiatorial fights and scenes of bloodshed and cruelty. In those days the virtuous were nobly virtuous, and were very rare. The vicious were horribly vicious, and formed the generality. It always struck me that an old Roman house must have been a dull home. And ennui is the mother of naughtiness quite as surely as the devil is the father of lies. There are minds which cannot be great, as there are lives which never are much more than harmless. Surely for these the multiplicities of modern times, the toys of fashion, the novelties of the day, in dress, furniture, and ornament, are safety-valves and almost godsends! At least they are better than the arena, with its brutalizing scenes of blood and horror, where a vestal had but to turn her thumb to take the life of the victim bleeding before her eyes!

These results of modern civilization are not Christianity; and I am taking a very low standard in all I am now saying. But they are the dross of a civilization leavened by Christianity, and they are very different from the poison that found its way into the daily life of Roman men and women from the seething wickedness of the great heathen empire.

Nothing can exceed the interest of the paintings taken from Pompeii. Of course I was intimately acquainted with them from engravings, and had been all my life. One of the early impressions of my childhood was the delight of finding that the grave old Romans (and therefore the Greeks before them), for whom I had a very pagan admiration, were capable of appreciating humor as expressed in the movements and attitudes of animals. I was overjoyed at this touch of sympathy with a dead past; and I recommend all visitors to Naples to look out for certain cocks and hens and other creatures among the lesser mural decorations taken from Pompeii. The well-known dancing girls I had never properly admired until I saw them being copied by a Neapolitan artist in the Museum. He had not deviated one hair's breadth from the original outline; but the mere restoration of vivid coloring had imparted to them an airy, floating grace which I had failed fully to detect in the scratched and faded originals, but which I at once felt must have belonged to them when they decorated some rich Pompeian's house.

While I was wandering about, trying to live for an hour the inner homespun life of a Roman maiden by gazing long on the walls she must have looked on, Mary had gone in search of the Farnese Bull and the exquisite half-head and figure of the Psyche, that wonderful embodiment of virginal grace and feminine delicacy which makes one long to have seen the statue in its unmutilated condition. She had stood for a good quarter of an hour before the Aristides (for we insist on believing it is Aristides), and was, as she told me afterwards, growing more and more in the consoling belief that many of the old pagans will have found a place among the thrones of the blest through the mercy of Him who never asks for more than he has given, and who since the creation has never left the world without a witness of himself. Then she visited the Farnese Flora, that wonderful triumph of [pg 819] art over matter, where in a statue of above twelve feet such floating grace is expressed that she seems to be skimming along the ground, while the light wind plays in the drapery.

I found Mary lost in thought before a beautiful bronze statue of Mercury in repose. The lithe figure has just sat down to rest on the edge of a rock. The tension of the muscles is gradually relaxing. One foot as yet only touches the ground with the heel. Wait a moment, and the foot will yield and rest. Never was fatigue gradually giving way to repose more exquisitely depicted. Then Mary turned to the dead Amazon with the death-wound beneath her breast, and finally declared that having satisfied herself by revisiting these, that for one reason or another had haunted her for twenty years, she was ready to admire the others. It is curious how the long lines of statues and busts seem to give out cold. The same stone walls covered with pictures could never be so severely cold. The old gods and heroes seem to breathe upon you with an icy breath from out of the grave of the old classic world.

The best pictures in the Naples Museum are not very numerous, but are admirable specimens of the Italian schools. They are collected into one or two rooms, deserving time and study. A cursory view of the others will be sufficient to satisfy most people. There is much more to be seen besides the relics from Pompeii and Herculaneum, the statues and pictures. It is all worth visiting, and, to be fully appreciated, requires many hours to be spent on each different class of objects.

I had a very distinct and not altogether a pleasant recollection of the mysterious grotto of Pozzuoli, which had haunted my imagination ever since I was here as a child. Ida and I had made an engagement to visit Astroni, Victor Emanuel's happy hunting-grounds, one day when we were to have the carriage to ourselves; and accordingly we were to pass through the grotto. You approach it by a deep cutting in the rock, the sides of which are draped with ivy and hanging plants, with bright tufts of wild flowers wherever a few grains of earth give them a roothold. There is a small oratory to the right as you enter, of a most simple and rustic kind, and kept by a Capuchin, whom I cannot call a venerable hermit, as he happened to be of rather youthful appearance. On festas his little altar was covered with flowers, and a few votive candles burnt before the obscure picture of the Madonna within the dark recesses of the cave. When the poor Capuchin heard a carriage approaching, he would hurry forth with a little tin box, which he held up to us for an alms. We seldom failed to give him some, and from time to time it would be silver instead of the more frequent copper; and then his gratitude became eloquent, and many a blessing followed us down the murky gloom of the long, unsavory grotto. Certainly, this strange road, which it appears dates from the middle of the first Christian century, is not calculated to leave a pleasant impression, though in many ways it presents picturesque bits which reminded me of some of Salvator Rosa's pictures. It would be quite dark but for the yellow, faint light of gas-lamps, not sufficient in number to dispel the gloom, which is greatly increased by the clouds of dust the numerous carts, carriages, and herds [pg 820] of goats are constantly raising, the latter adding thereto their own peculiarly suffocating odor. It is paved in the same way as the Neapolitan streets, and the noise reverberates from the roof. It has a curious effect when you lean forward to see the bearded goats just visible through the dusty air, and further on, perhaps, a cabriolet laden with people—six inside, four out, and one boy at least, after the Neapolitan fashion, hanging in a net beneath the vehicle—drawn by one horse, always equal to his load, no matter how starved and miserable he may be. On it comes, the merry inmates singing, shouting, piercing the darkness, but compelled thereby to slacken their pace a little, lest there should be a collision in this Erebus. We were always silent and a little uncomfortable in the din, the dust, and the darkness. Yet it had to be passed through again and again, as being the only road out into the country, unless we went all round by the Strada Nuova and Nisida. At the entrance of the grotto from Naples is the supposed tomb of Virgil, hidden beneath ivy and acanthus leaves-just as a poet would have wished! We came out from the grotto on the busy, picturesque village of Fiorigrotta, where the whole population seem to live out in the one long street. Astroni is an extinct volcanic crater, the sides of which are clothed with ilex and other trees. It is circular, and a wall runs along the upper rim to prevent the escape of the deer and wild boar that are kept there for the king's pleasure. There are two carriage-roads through the dense forest. At the bottom of the basin there are a few open spaces, marshy land, and water. The solitude and silence are intense; for, as usual in Italy, there are not many singing birds, and what there are do not give song during the heat of the day any more than in our northern climes. I never shall forget the silence that reigned, nor the feeling of solitude induced by peering through the trees, looking down on the small lakes of intensely blue water below, and knowing that in those dense thickets myriads of wild animals were hiding in their lair, while we were the only human beings. The gates are kept locked, and it requires a special order to penetrate this sylvan scene. It does not seem to me a very satisfactory way of sporting. You are too sure of your game, walled in as it is all round. After visiting the extinct crater, we saw the emptied lake of Agnano, once notorious for malaria, now drained off and leaving a wide plain more or less adapted for agriculture. At present it seems in a rather neglected state, of which nature has taken advantage to cast her unsolicited gifts of flaunting bright wild flowers broadcast over the whole space.

One of our most interesting excursions was to the Solfatara, not far from the Lago Agnano. This also is an extinct crater; and yet so barely extinct that we feel, as we tread the sulphur-checkered soil, and hear the hollow reverberation if we stamp on the ground, as if at any moment it might again burst forth.

From time to time our nostrils were disagreeably met by a puff of steam redolent of sulphur; and occasionally these puffs grow stronger and more threatening. The stones you pick up are tinged with yellow. The vegetation is sparse and dwarfed. At the further end of the plain is a cave, from whence at regular intervals rush clouds of hot steam, [pg 821] while a roaring, boiling sound surges within. The aperture is large enough for a person to enter by stooping a little. Most of our party peeped in, but instantly retired from the suffocating and horrible stench and great heat.

The rocks are covered with sulphur and alum; and in my eagerness that we should all equally benefit by the sight, I wanted to persuade Ida just to take one peep. It would, however, have been a risk to do anything which even for a second might embarrass the action of her delicate lungs and weak heart. She tried to approach, but turned back with the feeling that one puff more would have suffocated her.

I think we all felt as if we were standing in one of the outer halls of a region never to be mentioned “to ears polite,” and almost too “Dantesque” to be pleasant. We gladly breathed a purer atmosphere as we passed out of the gate (inside which is a fabric of sulphur-works), and bent our steps between white walls on which the green lizards basked, and between fields of unripe corn and mulberry-trees, till we reached an open space commanding a fine view of the Gulf of Pozzuoli and the hills beyond. From thence we turned into the Capuchin church dedicated to S. Januarius, and said to be built over the spot where he suffered martyrdom in 305. There is a stone, on which he is believed to have been beheaded, let into the wall, and protected with an iron grating. It is seamed with red marks as of blood. It is very probably a stone on which he knelt and on which the blood fell. But a block, whether of stone or wood, for the purposes of beheading, is a modern invention. The Romans used a sword—as the Turks use a scymitar for that ghastly purpose to this day—and the patient knelt upright.

It was pleasant to rest in the cool church, which, humble as it is, is not without its quota of beautiful marbles, and is kept exquisitely clean, with fresh flowers on the altar, and all care taken of it as if the community were still there. We found only a lay brother left in charge. I think he said he had a companion. All the poor fathers were dispersed by Victor Emanuel's government, and Mass is only said on feast-days; though it seemed to be the only church in that immediate neighborhood, and the poor of the district must greatly miss the presence of the Capuchin fathers, those special friends of the poor.

As we came down the hill, we were met by peasant lads, who wanted us to buy lumps of sulphur and the skeletons of the pretty little fish called the sea-horse, which abound in this part of the Mediterranean, and which are just like the knights among chessmen. They may be seen alive in quantities in the aquarium at Brighton. They twist the tapering end of their tails round a fragment of sea-weed, or indeed, as the buoyancy of the water keeps them up, they need but to touch something stationary. And there they stand in groups, motionless, and looking for all the world like a grave assembly of horses' heads of the most delicate race, and with noses slightly turned up. Nothing can be more graceful than the way they hold themselves. Their heads are not bigger than those of ordinary-sized chessmen.

As the Vernons had been at Posilippo all through the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in April, 1872, they were naturally anxious we should see something of the devastation [pg 822] it had occasioned. We determined, therefore, to drive to San Sebastiano, a village which was almost entirely destroyed. As we approached the spot, it seemed as if we were driving into the kingdom of chaos, where “the earth was void and empty.” On either side lay wide plains of gray-black lava, looking as if a dead, unfertile earth had been furrowed with the burning shares of some gigantic and infernal plough, and had remained calcined and sterile for ever after. We left the carriage and climbed up a large mound of lava. I found myself nearly on a level with the low roof of the small church, round which the lava had crept, but had spared it. I looked down into the basement of a house below me. The lava had poured in and filled what once were rooms, but had left the walls and the roof standing. There was part of a street left, the lava having, with seeming caprice, turned off to the left, as it poured down the mountain, just in that spot. Our friends told us that as they used to sit by the hour and watch the progress of the burning stream through glasses, they could see the small white houses, with the fiery flood approaching, when suddenly each house seemed to leap into the air like a lighted straw, and then was seen no more. A cat ran past me, in haste to save her paws. We could not stand still long, for, though more than a year had elapsed, the land was still too hot to be pleasant; and when we reached home, we found our feet were blistered. The poor creatures whose homes have thus perished approach you timidly with bits of lava to sell. They still have a scared look in their faces. But nothing will persuade them to shift their quarters and leave their grand but dangerous neighbor. They are trying to rebuild their village, and are deaf to all the remonstrances of the great scientific philosopher[187] who lives a hermit's life in the observatory half-way up the mountain. He has a Capuchin priest as a companion; and the latter was able to give the last rites of the church to about forty of the unfortunate people, who, actuated by curiosity, had attempted to climb the mountain during the eruption. It seems they had never calculated upon the effect of the burning heat from a distance. They thought if there were a certain space between them and the lava, they should be safe. They forgot that actual contact was not needed; and they were scorched to death long before the stream reached the spot where they stood. Not one of those thus licked up by the breath of the volcano ever recovered, or even lived long enough to quit the place.

Signor Palmier and the Capuchin saw a carriage full of people, coachman and two horses, advancing up the mountain. Suddenly the whole was submerged. They could only tell where it had been arrested by the carrion birds hovering over a certain spot for many days after!

A Discussion With An Infidel.

VIII. Laws Of Nature And Miracles.

Büchner. We differ very widely in many points, sir; but there is one point about which we shall have no difficulty in agreeing—the immutability of natural laws. In fact, you have already conceded that the laws of nature are unchangeable.

Reader. Yes, I admit the unchangeability of the laws of nature; but I most strongly protest against your rash inference that therefore miracles are impossible.

Büchner. Yet my reasoning is very plain. “The law of nature, observes Moleschott, is a stringent expression of necessity. There exists in it neither exception nor limitation; and no imaginable power can disregard this necessity. A stone not supported will in all eternity fall towards the centre of the earth; and there never was, and never will be, a command for the sun to stand still” (p. 33).

Reader. Is this what you call “reasoning”?

Büchner. Yes. “The experience of thousands of years has impressed upon the investigator the firmest conviction of the immutability of the laws of nature, so that there cannot remain the least doubt in respect to this great truth” (p. 34).

Reader. This I grant.

Büchner. “Science has gradually taken all the positions of the childish belief of the peoples; it has snatched thunder and lightning from the hands of the gods ...” (ibid.)

Reader. It was Christianity, not science, that conquered the gods.

Büchner. “The eclipse of the stars and the stupendous powers of the Titans of the olden times have been grasped by the fingers of man” (ibid.)

Reader. How can the fingers of man grasp the eclipses and the Titans?

Büchner. “That which appeared inexplicably miraculous, and the work of a supernatural power, has, by the torch of science, proved to be the effect of hitherto unknown natural forces” (ibid.)

Reader. You dream, doctor. Has “the torch of science” made known those hitherto unknown forces? No scientific work has yet explained how, by an act of the will, water can be changed into wine, how the deaf and dumb can be instantaneously cured, how the blind can be made to see, the paralytic to walk, and the dead to rise, at the sound of a voice, four days after burial, and when already in a state of advanced putrefaction. You may of course deny these facts, as you deny that the sun ever received a command to stand still; but to say that “the torch of science” has shown these facts to be the effect of unknown natural forces is to tell us the most stupid lie that can be uttered. Lies, you know, should at least be credible.

Büchner. “We have the fullest right, and are scientifically correct, in asserting that there is no such thing as a miracle. Everything that happens does so in a natural way—i.e., [pg 824] in a mode determined only by accidental or necessary coalition of existing materials and their immanent natural forces. No revolution on earth or in heaven, however stupendous, could occur in any other manner” (p. 34).

Reader. These are mere words. I deny that science gives you the least right to suppress miracles. How can you establish such a right?

Büchner. “Wherever fire and water meet, vapors must arise and exert their irresistible power. Where the seed falls in the ground, there it will grow; where the thunderbolt is attracted, there it will strike. Can there exist any doubt as to these truths?” (p. 35).

Reader. Please, doctor, come to the point.

Büchner. “How is it possible that the unalterable order in which things move should ever be disturbed without producing an irremediable gap in the world, without delivering us and everything up to arbitrary power, without reducing all science, every earthly endeavor, to a vain and childish effort?” (p. 36).

Reader. All this rhetoric is most absurd, doctor. “The order in which things move” is not unalterable; and He whom you call an “arbitrary power” can alter it when he pleases without asking your permission, or without reducing science to a childish effort.

Büchner. What? You contradict yourself, sir. For, if the order in which things move is changeable, the laws of nature cannot be unchangeable.

Reader. Not at all. You sophistically confound two things entirely different—the law of nature, and the course of nature. The first is unchangeable, because it is connected with the essence of things; but the second is changeable, as a constant and universal experience compels us to admit. However much you may hate “arbitrary power,” you cannot deny that, besides necessary causes, there are others which are free in their exertions. Can you deny, for instance, that a stone may be thrown upwards in spite of gravitation, or that we can catch hold of the stone from the window, and, in spite of gravitation, we can prevent it from falling back to the ground? Now, if we do this, we do not change the law of nature, and nevertheless we modify the course of nature by freely producing a phenomenon which nature would not produce.

Büchner. Would you call this a miracle?

Reader. The question is impertinent. I call it a change in the course of nature. Now, if the course of nature can be modified without the law of nature being altered, it is absurd to pretend that there is contradiction in holding the unchangeableness of the latter and the changeableness of the former. This being evident, let us go a step further, and draw an obvious conclusion. We can, when we please, catch the stone from the window, and prevent it from falling; and cannot God do the same? We are free to exert our power; but is not God free, or has he less power than we have? If you are honest, you will own that what can be done by us can be done by our Creator and Lord. Now, if he stops the stone in the air, a miracle will be wrought, and no law of nature violated. You cannot deny the possibility of miracles without denying God.

Büchner. “A spirit independent of nature cannot exist; for never [pg 825] has an unprejudiced mind cultivated by science perceived its manifestation” (p. 36).

Reader. Are you not ashamed, doctor, to repeat such a nonsensical assertion? You have already failed to prove it, and I have shown its absurdity in a preceding discussion. Must I answer it anew? The only answer you now deserve is that “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” Fools, in fact, deny God in their hearts, but cannot deny him in their minds, because atheism is not the result of intellectual knowledge, but of moral depravity. Our present question, however, is not theism or atheism, but the possibility of miracles without any breach of natural laws. Surely, if there were no God, no miracle would be possible; but your argument was that if the laws of nature are unchangeable, no miracle is possible; and this I have shown to be false. If there is a God, as we must now assume, miracles are possible. In the same manner, if a single true miracle has ever been wrought, there is a God.

Büchner. “Apparent exceptions from the natural order have been called miracles, of which there have been many at all times” (p. 36).

Reader. You should know better, doctor. The church is not satisfied with “apparent” exceptions from the natural order; the exception must be rigorously proved.

Büchner. “We should only waste words in our endeavor to prove the natural impossibility of a miracle. No educated, much less a scientific, person who is convinced of the immutable order of things can nowadays believe in miracles. We find it rather wonderful that so clear and acute a thinker as Ludwig Feuerbach should have expended so much logic in refuting the Christian miracles. What founder of religion did not deem it necessary, in order to introduce himself to the world, to perform miracles? And has not his success proved that he was right? What prophet, what saint, is there who has not performed miracles? The miracle-seeker sees them daily and hourly. Do not the table-spirits belong to the order of miracles? All such miracles are equal in the eye of science; they are the result of a diseased fancy” (pp. 36, 37).

Reader. This is miserable logic, doctor. Why do you speak of the natural impossibility of miracles? Have we ever taught that miracles are naturally possible? We know that nature works no miracles, and that all miracles are supernatural. It is therefore either a mean trick or a logical blunder on your part to pretend that the natural possibility of miracles is the point in question. That no educated or scientific man can nowadays believe in miracles is not only an empty boast, but also a disgraceful calumny. We Christians believe in miracles, and yet, I venture to say, we need not resort to you for lessons in science or education. As a reason for not believing in miracles, you allege “the immutable order of things”; that is, you assume what is to be proved. The order of things is so far from being immutable that we see it modified at every moment. It is the laws of nature, not the order of things, that are immutable. That Feuerbach “expended so much of logic in refuting Christian miracles” I will not deny; I only say that his logic, like your own, is mere sophism and cavil. Of course you call him “so clear and acute a thinker”; but we know what this means on the lips of Freemasons. If he was “so [pg 826] clear and acute a thinker,” why did he not furnish you with at least one good argument against Christian miracles?

Besides, you pretend that all founders of religion deemed it necessary to perform miracles. What then? Were it true, the fact would scarcely help your cause; for it would only prove that there have ever been impostors, as there have been quacks and coin-forgers. Now, who would think of selling counterfeited articles, if there had existed none genuine? Would there be quacks, had there been no doctors? And yet your reasoning leads to the conclusion that, because there are so many quacks, there can be no doctors. Are you, then, a mere quack yourself?

You say with a malicious sneer that all prophets and saints performed miracles. Yes; they performed miracles, or rather, to speak more correctly, God wrought miracles through them. Yet, in the teeth of sacred and ecclesiastical history which testifies to an infinite number of unquestionable miracles, you are shameless enough to conclude that no miracle has ever been performed, on the plea that miracle-seekers, table-spirits, and diseased fancy must have conspired to deceive the world. Is it necessary to refute such a silly assertion? Was Elymas the magician a miracle-seeker when S. Paul, to punish him for his opposition to Christianity, struck him blind with a word in the presence of the Roman centurion? Was it a trick of table-spirits that made the blind see, the lame walk, or the dumb speak? Was it diseased fancy that impressed on an immense crowd the belief that they had been miraculously fed by Christ in the desert, where no provisions were at hand? No, doctor, you are not silly enough to believe anything of the sort.

Büchner. But what do you answer to the following difficulties? First, if we admit miracles, “science will be reduced to a vain and childish effort” (p. 36). Secondly, how can we conceive “a supreme legislator who allows himself to be moved by prayers and sobs to reverse the immutable order which he himself has created, to violate his own laws, and with his own hand to destroy the action of natural forces?” (p. 38). Thirdly, “every miracle, if it existed, says Cotta, would lead to the conviction that the creation is not deserving the respect which all pay to it, and the mystics would necessarily be obliged to deduce from the imperfection of the created world the imperfection of the Creator” (p. 38). Fourthly, “is it a view worthy of God to represent him as a power which now and then gives a new impulse to the world in its course, and puts on a screw, etc., like the regulator of a watch? If the world has been created by God perfect, how can it require any repairs?” (p. 39). Fifthly, we see that nature works without superior control; “its action is frequently quite independent of the rules of a higher reason, now constructing, now destroying, now full of design, then again perfectly blind and in contradiction with all moral and rational laws. That in the formation of organic and inorganic bodies, which are constantly being renewed, there can be no direct governing reason at work is proved by the most striking facts. The nisus formativus inherent in nature is so blind and so dependent on external circumstances that the most senseless forms are frequently engendered, that it is often incapable of obviating [pg 827] or overcoming the slightest obstructions, and that frequently the contrary of what according to reason should happen is effected” (pp. 41, 42). These are serious difficulties, sir.

Reader. I hardly think them to be serious, doctor. The first entirely disappears when you reflect that the conclusions of physical science are all hypothetic, inasmuch as they regard phenomena which must take place under the action of given powers, to the exclusion of any other power extraneous to those taken into account. Such conclusions, therefore, imply the condition that no extraneous agent and no disturbing cause interferes with the production of the phenomena. If an extraneous power interferes, the conditions are changed, and with them the phenomena; but science is not upset. A stone not supported must fall. Not supported; such is the condition. Now, whether you, or I, or the roof, or God, or an angel support it, the consequence will be that the stone will not fall. Now, I ask you, is science “reduced to a vain and childish effort” because you or I or the roof prevent the stone from falling? I presume, doctor, that if such were the case, science would long since have disappeared from this world. Why, then, should science become a vain and childish effort as soon as God would do himself what we can freely do without destroying science? Take another example. Nature builds no stately palaces, no fine steamers, no locomotives, no railroads. All such things are our free creations. Yet surely you will not maintain that by building palaces or by boring mountains we destroy science, although we may interfere very materially with the works of nature.

Now, if our free action upon nature does not destroy science, why should God's free action destroy it? Answer me in the name of reason: What theory of natural science would be falsified were God to send angels to build you a palace, or devils to dig you a grave?

And now I come to your second difficulty. You assume that the supreme legislator cannot work a miracle without destroying the action of natural forces and violating his own laws, thus reversing the immutable order which he himself has created. But you are mistaken. The order of things is not immutable; this I have already shown. On the other hand, we have just seen that no law of nature is ever violated by a miracle. Lastly, God's action does not destroy the action of natural forces, but produces an effect superior to and independent of them. Nor is this strange; for we ourselves can do the like within the range of our limited powers. When we go up-stairs, do we destroy the action of gravity that urges us downwards? By no means. The action of gravity continues its work, but our contrary exertion prevails; and thus our body obeys the resultant of the two opposite actions, both of which obtain their effect. You see, therefore, that there is no need of destroying the action of natural forces in order to produce an effect which natural forces cannot produce. After these remarks, nothing remains of your second difficulty but “the prayers and sobs” which you cruelly ridicule as useless and superstitious. But our Father who is in heaven listens to such prayers and is moved by those sobs. This is abundantly proved by innumerable authentic facts; and this suffices for us.

Your third difficulty is based on Cotta's notion that the creation deserves respect on account of its perfection. Cotta may be one of your great men, but surely he does not know what he is speaking about. What “respect” do we owe to creation? Benighted barbarians thought, indeed, that the sun, the earth, and the stars deserved respect; but how can a man who pretends to be a philosopher, and who professes himself an enemy of superstition, adopt such a stale pagan view, unless he blinds himself and renounces reason by bestowing upon matter the worship which he refuses to the living God? To say that the world is “perfect” is a mere equivocation. The world is perfect after its own manner, inasmuch as it serves all the purposes for which it has been made; it is perfect in the same sense in which we say that a thermometer, a telescope, or an engine is perfect; it is a perfect instrument in God's hand for the attainment of a determinate end; and therefore its perfection is relative only, and might be greater and greater without end. Now, Cotta's argument overlooks this obvious restriction, and presents the world as absolutely perfect. If the world is imperfect, says he, God is imperfect; but miracles would show that the world is imperfect; and therefore miracles would show that God is imperfect. Now, is not this, doctor, asinine logic? We might as well argue thus: If an engine is imperfect, its maker is imperfect; but the opening of a turning-cock for admitting more steam shows that the engine is imperfect; and therefore that opening shows that the engine-maker is imperfect. And this leads me to your fourth difficulty, which is nothing but a repetition of the third.

You ask: “Is it a view worthy of God to represent him as a power which now and then gives a new impulse to the world in its course?” I answer, Yes; it is quite worthy of God to exercise his power in the world in the way he thinks fit. Shall we say, then, that God, “like the regulator of a watch, puts a screw on the world”? Why not? The watchmaker is not degraded by regulating his work. But, then, “the world requires repairs”? I say, Yes. And if you conclude that the world “has not been created perfect,” I reply that although it came out relatively perfect from the hands of the Creator, it has gradually and most sadly deteriorated by the malice of man. Moreover, the world, whether more or less perfect in itself, without a constant active intervention of its Creator can neither work nor last for a moment. The world is, therefore, constantly “repaired,” to use your expression, and has “screws put on it,” as history testifies; and other “screws” are undoubtedly ready for further “repairs” when they will be wanted.

Your last difficulty arises from your assumption that nature works without being controlled by a superior power. But how do you know that nature is not controlled? What are the “striking facts” which prove that “there is no direct governing reason at work” in the formation of organic and inorganic bodies? Your nisus formativus proves nothing. You say that the nisus is “blind.” You may well call it blind, inasmuch as it is a work of secondary causes; but you cannot deny that it is ruled by a superior reason. What does it matter if “most senseless forms are frequently engendered”? You yourself admit that the nisus formativus [pg 829] depends very much “on external circumstances,” which may mar or spoil the work of organization, and which nothing obliges the superior reason to alter or improve. On the other hand, such senseless forms are not so “frequently” engendered as you pretend; and if a few such senseless or monstrous forms can move you to doubt whether their formation is controlled by a superior reason, I do not see why the immensely greater number of other forms perfectly constituted should not constrain you to banish the doubt, and to recognize that matter not controlled and not directed by reason cannot co-ordinate its efforts towards the formation of an organism of which it knows neither the plan nor the object.

I trust, doctor, that these remarks suffice to solve your difficulties, and to show that the world is governed by a superior reason.

Büchner. It may be; yet “what this or that man may understand by a governing reason, an absolute power, a universal soul, a personal God, etc., is his own affair. The theologians, with their articles of faith, must be left to themselves; so the naturalists with their science. They both proceed by different routes” (p. 43).

Reader. This is no reply, doctor, and your remark is misplaced. The existence of a personal God, the possibility of miracles, and many other such truths, are proved by natural reason. Had I refuted your objections by quoting “theologians” and “articles of faith,” your reply might have some meaning. But since your allegations have been answered by reason, what does it avail to say that “theologians, with their articles of faith, must be left to themselves”? Moreover, you unwittingly condemn your own tactics. For if theologians are to be left to themselves, why do you, then, who are no theologian, and not even a philosopher, invade the province of theology, and fight against faith?

If you have any desire to know the truth about the reality of miracles, I will tell you what you have to do. M. Artus, a Frenchman, on the 23d of July, 1871, publicly challenged all the free-thinkers of the world to show the falsity of any two out of the many miracles registered in M. Lasserre's book entitled Notre Dame de Lourdes, and staked 10,000 francs upon the issue of the contest. This money was safely deposited by him in the hands of a notary-public in Paris; and fifty judges were appointed, some of whom were members of the French Institute, and others fellows of other celebrated institutions and academies, or members of the bar, including even a Protestant; so that there could be no suspicion of fanaticism, ultramontanism, or mysticism about them. Now, incredible as it may appear to you, none of your great braggarts has dared from that day till now to accept the challenge. It is for you, who are so peremptory in denouncing miracles, to come forward, and to blot out by an act of philosophical valor the stain which the cowardice of your enlightened friends has left on the glory of free-thinkerism. It is for you, I repeat; for if a man of your standing and reputation quails before the challenge, the world will most reasonably conclude that you have no faith whatever in your own doctrines.

IX. The Heavens.

Reader. The laws of nature are [pg 830] universal. Such is the subject of the seventh chapter of your Force and Matter. I need hardly say that, while admitting with you the universality of the natural laws, I cannot but condemn the materialistic spirit which disgraces your explanation of that obvious truth. But in the chapter which follows you speak of the heavens in a most objectionable style.

Büchner. “Every school-boy knows that the sky is not a glass shade covering the earth, but that, in contemplating it, we behold an immense space interrupted by infinitely distant and scattered groups of worlds” (p. 51).

Reader. This I grant; but I am at a loss to understand how the contemplation of the heavens can furnish you an argument against the existence of God. Is it not strange that what has hitherto been considered to proclaim most loudly the existence, and magnify the power, of God, has become, in your hands, an evidence in support of atheism?

Büchner. The heavenly masses “are in constant motion—a motion singularly combined and complicated, yet in all its modifications merely the result of a single universal law of nature—the law of attraction.... All these motions may be determined and predicted with mathematical exactness. As far as the telescope of man reaches, the same law, the same mechanical arrangement, according to the same calculated mechanical formula, is found. Nowhere is there a trace of an arbitrary finger which has ordered the heavens or pointed out the path of comets. ‘I have searched the heavens,’ says Lalande, ‘but have nowhere found the traces of God.’ And when the Emperor Napoleon asked the celebrated astronomer Laplace why there was no mention of God in his Mécanique Céleste, he replied, ‘Sire, je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse.’ The more astronomy progressed in its knowledge of the laws and motions in the heavens, the more it repudiated the idea of a supernatural influence, and the easier it became to deduce the origin, grouping, and motions of the heavenly bodies from the properties inherent in matter itself. The attraction of atoms rendered the bodies compact, whilst the law of attraction, in combination with their primary motion, produced the mode of their reciprocal rotation which we now observe” (pp. 51, 52).

Reader. Waiving the more than problematic plausibility of your premises, and setting aside the blasphemies which you have diligently copied from the books of the French unbelievers, and which are too stolid to need an answer, I reply, doctor, that you are always too hasty in drawing your conclusions. Why did you not reflect that the matter of which the celestial bodies are formed must have had an origin, that the revolutions of those bodies cannot be ruled by an abstract law, and that their enormous distances, as well as the expanse of their orbits through the immensity of space, compel the admission of an infinite being ranging infinitely above matter and necessarily prior to it? You should not have overlooked the fact that the heavens proclaim God's existence by their immensity far more eloquently than by the revolutions of the celestial bodies. You speak of movements ruled by a law. I admit the movements and the law which rules our calculation of the movements. But without space there is no movement, and without [pg 831] God there is no space; therefore without God there is no movement. Extricate yourself, if you can. Do you concede that without space there is no movement?

Büchner. It is evident.

Reader. Do you admit that without God there is no space?

Büchner. This I deny.

Reader. Then what do you mean by “space”?

Büchner. I fancy that space is nothing but the volume of bodies.

Reader. How is this possible? A body moves through space. Now, does a body move through its own volume, or does it move through the volume of other bodies? On the contrary, the body cannot move without pushing away before it all other bodies and volumes whatever from the space they occupy. It is therefore evident that space, as such, is not the volume of bodies.

Büchner. Then I shall say that space is the capability of bodies and motion.

Reader. This definition of space may be admitted if properly understood. But what is such a capability? Is it, in your opinion, a real and positive entity?

Büchner. I should not think so, unless, indeed, it be occupied by bodies.

Reader. I know that many are of this opinion, that the reality of space depends on the presence of bodies; but I say that, if such were the case, then empty space would be mere nothing. Now, if you admit this, you will be compelled to admit also the absurdity that a mere nothing can be greater or smaller. For between two neighboring atoms there may be a greater or smaller interval of space; and such an interval, by the hypothesis, would be nothing. Hence it is evident that space, no matter whether occupied or unoccupied, must be something real.

Büchner. Then I say that space is a mere relation of material objects.

Reader. There are relations of bodies in space; but all such relations presuppose the existence of absolute space, and therefore space itself is none of those relations. Moreover, since all real relations have their reason in something real, which is the foundation of the relativity, it follows that space, as that through which one body is really related to another, is in itself a reality, independently of the relations which may result from the existence of bodies in it. And again, before bodies can be considered as related through space, they must be each located in space. But, evidently, they cannot be located in space if there is no space. And therefore there must be space before any local relation of bodies can be imagined as possible. Hence you cannot maintain that space is a mere relation.

Büchner. Perhaps I shall be obliged to say with Kant that space is only a subjective form of the mind.

Reader. Then you will entangle yourself still more. The assumption would imply the denial of all real distances, of all real volumes, of all real movements, of all real phenomena, and of all natural laws. For if space is only a subjective form of our mind, then there is no space out of the mind; and consequently there are no real distances and no real movements in the outside world, and science becomes an array of lies.

Büchner. What is, then, your notion of space?

Reader. Space is the region of [pg 832] all possible ubications and movements. Do you accept this definition?

Büchner. Why not? It is substantially the same as that which I have given by saying that space is the capability of bodies and motion.

Reader. Very well. Then, since I have shown that this capability of bodies and motion is a positive reality, space is a positive reality. Moreover, space is neither matter nor any of the forces of matter, nor dependent on matter, but prior to it, and is prerequired as a necessary condition for the existence of matter. Lastly, space is independent of time and motion, and therefore is absolutely and strictly eternal and unchangeable. Do you object to these conclusions?

Büchner. No, sir.

Reader. Then you concede that space is an infinite, eternal, unchangeable, independent reality, prior to matter and above matter, and therefore, according to your own theory, prior to the world and above it. Now, to concede so much, and then to deny God, would be an evident contradiction. For you must admit that absolute space is either a substance or not. If it is a substance, then it is an infinite, eternal, independent, unchangeable substance, embracing and transcending with its immensity all imaginable worlds; and a substance having such attributes is what we call God. If space is not a substance, it must still have the reason of its reality in a substance from which it borrows its infinity, its eternity, its immutability, and of which it is the extrinsic manifestation. Hence the contemplation of the heavens and of “the immense space interrupted by infinitely distant and scattered groups of worlds” affords an irresistible proof of God's existence, and leaves no room for your pretended “scientific” objections. If there is no God, there is no space; and if there is no space, science is a dream and scientists mere visionaries.[188]

Büchner. I cannot fight on this ground, sir. Space is a mystery which our reason has no power to explain; and I decline to argue about anything that transcends reason. The strongest argument in favor of the existence of a personal God was ever drawn from the necessity of a first mover, in order to account for the movement of the celestial bodies. But such a necessity has never been proved; and therefore “even in this remote position a personal creative power cannot hold its ground” (p. 52).

Reader. You cannot cover your retreat by pretending that space is a mystery; for if space is a mystery, then science also is a mystery—a conclusion which you do not accept. But while you thus implicitly acknowledge your defeat, you try to secure a safer position by alleging that the movement of the heavenly bodies may have originated in the powers of matter itself without any exterior impulse from a first mover. I wish you to remark that the words “first mover” can be understood in two manners; for not he only who directly imparts the first movement, but he also who governs the exertions and establishes the conditions on which the first movements depend, [pg 833] can be called “first mover.” The old philosophers, who did not know the fact of universal gravitation, proved the existence of God by affirming the necessity of a first mover—that is, of a first cause—giving the first impetus to the heavens, and governing their revolutions. But since gravitation became known philosophers have acknowledged that all matter could receive motion through the action of other matter, and therefore that the first movements in the material world could arise from matter itself, with no need of a special impulse from without. This, however, does not mean that we can dispense with a “first mover.” However great your effort to convince yourself that “matter is eternal, and the motion of matter as eternal as matter itself” (p. 53), you will not succeed. Matter is created; and He who created it placed it in definite conditions, that it could exert its powers in a definite manner and give rise to definite effects. To him, therefore, as to a first cause, are to be traced all the movements arising from his production and arrangement of all the proximate causes. Now, the first cause of all movements is a “first mover.” What can science object against this evident truth?

Büchner. “Why matter assumed a definite motion at a definite time is as yet unknown to us; but the investigations of science are as yet incomplete, nor is it impossible that we may get some clue as to the period of the first origin of individual worlds. Even at this day astronomers give cogent reasons that some of the nebular spots are worlds in embryo, which, by gradual condensation and rotation, will become worlds and solar systems. We have, therefore, concluding from analogy, a right to say that those processes through which the existing solar systems have arisen can have formed no exception to the general laws inherent in matter, and that the cause of the first definite motion must have existed in matter itself” (p. 53).

Reader. This is possible; but is it true?

Büchner. “We are the more justified in asserting this, as the many irregularities, contingencies, etc., in the economy of the universe and individual bodies, exclude the thought of an external personal activity” (ibid.)

Reader. What? Are you serious?

Büchner. “If it were the object of a personal creative power to create worlds and dwelling-places for men and animals, why, we may ask, these enormous, waste, useless spaces, in which but here and there suns and planets swim, floating about as imperceptible points? Why are not all planets of our system so formed as to be inhabited by man? Why is the moon without water and atmosphere, and consequently adverse to every organic development? Wherefore the irregularities and enormous differences in the size and distances of the planets of our solar system? Why the deficiency in order, symmetry, and beauty? Why have all comparisons, analogies, speculations, in regard to the number and forms of the planets, proved idle fancies? Why, asks Hudson Tuttle, did the Creator give rings to Saturn, which, surrounded by its eight moons, can have little need of them, while Mars is left in total darkness? And again, the moon's rotation round its axis is, in relation to that of the earth, such that it always presents to it the same [pg 834] surface. What is the reason of this? If there be design in this arrangement, it must be admitted that it is very imperfect. Why did the Creator not impart to the celestial bodies that order from which the intention and the design could irresistibly be inferred?” (pp. 53, 54).

Reader. Unfortunate man that you are! You have already received the just punishment of your rebellion against truth; you have been struck with blindness. The thing is evident, say what you will. You make a fool of yourself, as your preposterous queries prove nothing but your arrogance, ignorance, and malice. You will never be cured of your blindness till you lower your tone and humble your pride before the God whose works you disregard, and whose wisdom you call in question. You are a smoky little candle challenging the sun thus: “Why these enormous, waste, useless spaces?” Is it necessary to inform you that those spaces are not waste and useless? We have just seen that the expanse of the heavens reveals the infinity of the Creator; accordingly, the enormous spaces which you arrogantly call waste and useless proclaim most eloquently the highest truth, the necessary truth, the source of all truths. “Why are not all planets of our system so formed as to be inhabited by man?” In return let me ask you, Why is not the atmosphere so formed as to be inhabited by fishes? Indeed, if God has no need of peopling the air with fishes, it would be hard to say on what principle he can be obliged to people the planets with beings exactly similar to us in their organization. It is plain that man, though the best creature on earth, is not the last effort of Omnipotence; there can be rational beings made according to other patterns, having a different organization and different needs. But whether there are or not, it is not for you to ask why the planets are not so made as to be inhabited by man. It is no less preposterous to ask, “Wherefore the irregularities and enormous differences in the size and distances of the planets of our solar system?” If the planets were all alike, and their distances equal, would you not pronounce the world monotonous, and the plan of creation a limited conception of an unintelligent mind? But now it is variety that offends your æsthetics; and you denounce it as being “irregularity.” Did you never hear that variety is a source of beauty? To me, the musician who always harps on the same chord is a nuisance; and I am sure that you too would prefer a full orchestra, with all the “irregularities and enormous differences in the size, etc.,” of the instruments employed. You find in the heavens “a deficiency in order, symmetry, and beauty.” This only shows your bad taste. Do you think that symmetry is indispensable for beauty? An oak is beautiful, though its branches are not symmetrical. The sea-shore, the hill, the valley, the mountain, would lose much of their beauty, were they to be reduced to symmetrical forms. Then you speak of a want of “order.” What do you imagine order to be? Look on a chess-board when the game is going on. Is there any order? If you are no chess-player, you will not perceive order, but confusion; and yet there is order. Order is a suitable disposition of things in pursuance of an end, and must be different when it has to lead to a different end. [pg 835] He who has no knowledge of the end pursued cannot judge of the suitableness or deficiency of the arrangements made in view of such an end. When you think that the pieces are most disorderly mixed up on the chess-board, then perhaps they are in the most perfect order, and the intelligent player already knows that he is about to checkmate his adversary. So do not speak again of the order of the heavens until you are called into the secret council of Divinity. I thought, doctor, that you had some ability; yet how dull that man must be who asks “why all comparisons, analogies, speculations, in regard to the number and forms of the planets, have proved idle fancies”! The why is evident. It is because men are ignorant, and yet presumptuous. But does our ignorance show that there is a deficiency of order in the heavens? No; our ignorance only shows that the best thing we can do is to hold our tongue. As to the rings of Saturn, what do you know besides their existence? And how could you show that, because Saturn has eight moons, the rings can have no duty to perform? But then, you say, “Mars is left in total darkness.” I reply that twelve hours of darkness are not a total darkness. Moreover, the dense atmosphere and the small diameter of Mars are calculated to afford it a long crepuscle, which may shorten very sensibly the length of its night. And, after all, what need is there that Mars should have a moon? Could we not do on earth without our moon? But you are scandalized that our moon “always presents to us the same surface,” and never deigns to show its other side. What a disorder! What an evidence of a want of design! This it is that causes you to exclaim that “if there be design in this arrangement, it must be admitted that it is very imperfect.” I remark that you here admit with Tuttle that there may be design in this arrangement. But if there is a design, there is a designer. Who is he? Is he not the Omnipotent? For how can he fulfil his design if he does not hold the heavens in his hand? The design, however, in your judgment, is imperfect. Why? Only because your ignorance can put a question to which it cannot make an answer. You say: “Why did the Creator not impart to the celestial bodies that order from which the intention and the design could irresistibly be inferred”" Your curiosity, doctor, lacks modesty. What right have you to be instructed in detail of the intentions of the Creator? Is he not the Master? Is he obliged to discover his secrets to you, rebel and arrogant being, who disregard the most clear evidence of his very existence? Would you be able to understand his plan if he were willing to reveal it? The heavens proclaim God's existence and attributes; they glorify him by their beauty, variety, and harmony; they reveal the general scope of creation; but they withhold the secrets which God has reserved for himself. God's providence and his government of the world are infinitely wise, but they are inscrutable.

Büchner. Although you treat me with little regard, and apply to me very hard epithets, I wish to make a short remark on what you call “providence”: “Some perceive in the position and relations of the earth to the sun, moon, and stars a designing providence; but they do not consider that they confound cause and effect, and that we should [pg 836] be differently organized if the inclination of the ecliptic were different or not existing” (p. 55).

Reader. I think that you would have done better if you had withheld your remark. That I treat you with little regard I do not deny; but, in truth, I believe that if you deserve respect as a doctor, you deserve only contempt as the author of Force and Matter. Freemasons praise your person and extol your book; be satisfied with this. To us you are nothing but a blind and obstinate sophist. If we apply to you some hard epithet, you gave us the fullest right to do so; for remember that you have called our great men “charlatans.” We, at least, when we call you ignorant, arrogant, presumptuous, take care to prove that such epithets are well applied; whilst you make denunciations, and give no proofs.

And now as to your remark about Providence. “Some,” you say, “perceive in the position and relations of the earth to the sun, moon, and stars, a designing providence.” Indeed, all great philosophers, nay, all mankind, perceive that designing providence; but, from your words, it would seem that this is only a peculiar bias of a few obscure and eccentric thinkers. Hence those words, “some perceive,” are calculated to conceal or disguise a great historical truth—the testimony of mankind in favor of divine providence. This may be called a trick. But what follows is a real blunder. Those who recognize a providential order “do not consider,” according to you, “that they confound cause and effect.” Where is there confusion? Do you mean that what we call “Providence” is an effect of natural laws?

Büchner. Exactly so.

Reader. Natural laws are abstractions, and abstractions can produce nothing. Did you ever imagine that a law of geometry could make a circle, or that a law of harmony could write a quartetto? Laws do not produce facts, but are gathered from facts of which they exhibit the general expression. Thus the natural laws are not natural causes, but abstract formulas, and do not rule the world, as scientists too often assert, but only our calculations and scientific inductions. Your blunder is evident. But is it true, at least, that “we should be differently organized if the inclination of the ecliptic were different or not existing”? No, doctor, you are not happy in your illustration. A change of inclination of the ecliptic would only alter the distribution of heat on the terrestrial surface without altering its amount; and as now men can live under different latitudes and in different climes without being differently organized, so also they would live and thrive under some different inclination of the ecliptic without acquiring a different organization. And if so, it would appear that your physical knowledge is as limited as your philosophical attainments.

Büchner. Of course I am a doctor in medicine, not in physics or in philosophy; but this I know: “that empirical philosophy, wherever it may search for it, is nowhere able to find a trace of a supernatural influence, either in time or space” (p. 55).

Reader. Quite true. Your “empirical philosophy” is unable to find anything supernatural, wherever it may search for it. But are you so simple as to believe that, if there is a God, you should be able to reach him with the telescope, or [pg 837] to detect him by the microscope, or to get by the balance an indication of his presence, or to find him in a retort, as a residue after some chemical manipulation? Shame! shame! Is this your method of convincing yourself that there is no God? Then, by shutting yourself in a dark cellar, you should be able also to convince yourself that the sun does not exist. Is it not a mockery to pretend that there is nothing supersensible, because it cannot be reached by experimentation upon sensible things? I cannot but repeat that you have received the punishment of your rebellion against truth. A man of your ability would never fall into such absurdities from want of light; it is your hatred of truth that distorts your reason and instigates you to heap sophism upon sophism, and blasphemy upon blasphemy. You need not search for God; you know him, and try in vain, like Cain, to fly from his face.

Büchner. You make a sermon rather than a discussion.

Reader. But whose fault is it if your assertions are so openly incongruous as not to bear discussion? Even your “empirical philosophy” is a myth. Are you not ashamed to appeal to a science which has no existence? Chemistry is empirical, and other parts of physics may be empirical; but empirical philosophy is nothing but a bombastic word without meaning, a fit conclusion to a chapter wherein you try to make the heavens bear witness against their Maker.

X. The Earth.

Reader. After the heavens you try to enlist the earth also among your witnesses against God. But what can the earth say in your favor?

Büchner. “The investigations of geology have thrown a highly interesting and important light on the history of the origin and gradual development of the earth. It was in the rocks and strata of the crust of the earth, and in the organic remains, that geologists read, as in an old chronicle, the history of the earth. In this history they found the plainest indications of several stupendous successive revolutions, now produced by fire, now by water, now by their combined action. These revolutions afforded, by the apparent suddenness and violence of their occurrence, a welcome pretext to orthodoxy to appeal to the existence of supernatural powers, which were to have caused these revolutions in order to render, by gradual transitions, the earth fit for certain purposes. This successive periodical creation is said to have been attended with a successive creation of new organic beings and species. The Bible, then, was right in relating that God had sent a deluge over the world to destroy a sinful generation. God with his own hands is said to have piled up mountains, planed the sea, created organisms, etc.” (p. 56).

Reader. And so he did. But mark that these Biblical expressions are metaphorical.

Büchner. “All these notions concerning a direct influence of supernatural or inexplicable forces have melted away before the age of modern science” (p. 57).

Reader. Melted away? Indeed? And how?

Büchner. “Like astronomy, which with mathematical certainty has measured the spaces of the heavens, so does modern geology, by taking a retrospective view of the [pg 838] millions of years which have passed, lift the veil which has so long concealed the history of the earth, and has given rise to all kinds of religious and mysterious dreams” (ibid.)

Reader. To call our views “religious and mysterious dreams” is no argument, doctor. We have a history of the earth far more certain than all your modern geology; and that portion of geology which is not fiction and charlatanism not only does not contradict, but rather completes and confirms, the Mosaic history.

Büchner. This is what I cannot admit. “It is now known that there can be no discussion about those periodic creations of the earth of which so much was said, and which to this day an erroneous conception of nature tries to identify with the so-called days of creation of the Bible; but that the whole past of the earth is nothing but an unfolded present” (ibid.)

Reader. You say, “It is known.” No, sir, it is not known; it is only wished. You infidels pretend to know a great many things of which you are ignorant. If you know that geology refutes the Bible, how does it happen that you cannot impart to us such a knowledge in a rational manner—that is, by proving what you assert?

Büchner. “Geology, supported by the knowledge of surrounding nature and its governing forces, is enabled to trace the history of what has happened in infinite periods of time with approximating exactness, frequently with certainty. It has proved that everywhere and at all times only those material and natural forces were in activity by which we are at present surrounded” (p. 59).

Reader. This cannot be proved by geology.

Büchner. “Nowhere was a point reached when it was necessary to stop scientific investigation, and to substitute the influence of unknown forces” (ibid.)

Reader. Not even for the origin of life?

Büchner. “Everywhere it was possible to indicate or to conceive the possibility of visible effects from the combination of natural conditions; everywhere existed the same law and the same matter” (ibid.)

Reader. Of course. But this does not exclude the intervention of a superior cause.

Büchner. “An enlightened intellect no longer requires the aid of that powerful hand which, acting from without, excites the burning spirits of the interior of the earth to a sudden rebellion, which pours the waters as a deluge over the earth, and shapes for its designs the whole structure like soft clay” (p. 60.)

Reader. This is openly false. All enlightened intellects acknowledge that He who declared his intention of desolating Sodom by fire and the world by the Deluge must have had a hand in the fulfilment of his menace.

Büchner. This is your Bible history, which we reject.

Reader. But can you refute it?

Büchner. “How curious and whimsical is not the conception of a creative power, which conducts the earth and its inhabitants through various transitions and immense periods of time to a more developed form, in order to make it finally a fit dwelling-place for the most organized animal—man! Can an arbitrary and almighty power require such efforts to attain its object? Can it not immediately and without delay do and create what seems good to it? Why these roundabouts? The natural difficulties [pg 839] alone which matter meets with in the gradual combinations and formations of its parts can explain to us the peculiarity of the origin of the organic and inorganic world” (p. 60).

Reader. It is ridiculous to speak of “efforts” of the Almighty; for no one but a fool could dream of such an absurdity. Moreover, you confound creation with formation. By creation matter received existence immediately, without “roundabouts”; for creation is not movement, and therefore needs no time. This creation of matter was the work of God alone; but the formation of the earth was successively brought about, according to God's plan, through the exertion of the natural powers, which were not created to remain idle, but to carry on the objects intended by their Creator. Now, the exertion of natural powers could not give rise to a perfect order of things “immediately and without roundabouts.” Hence your argument is worthless; and it is worthless precisely on account of the “difficulties which matter meets with in the gradual combinations and formations” of complex things. But matter meets with a much greater difficulty, which you omit to mention. The difficulty is that matter does not know how to form a molecule of hydrogen; and yet there is hydrogen.

Büchner. It chanced to be formed by nature.

Reader. Indeed? Chance might form one molecule, or two, but could not form millions of millions of them all perfectly equal to one another, for chance excludes uniformity. Nor does it avail to say that their formation is the work of nature; for nature, according to you, is only matter, and consequently it cannot do more than matter itself is capable of doing.

Büchner. Science is still imperfect; we cannot as yet explain everything. But geologists refute the Bible as to the six days of creation. “The so-called coal formation alone required, according to Bischof, 1,004,177; according to Chevandier's calculation, 672,788 years. The tertiary strata, about 1,000 feet in thickness, required for their development about 350,000 years; and before the originally incandescent earth could cool down from a temperature of 2,000 degrees to 200, there must, according to Bischof's calculation, have elapsed a period of 350 millions of years. Volger finally calculates that the time requisite for the deposit of the strata known to us must at least have amounted to 648 millions of years! From these numbers we may form some notion as to the extent of these periods of time. They give us, moreover, another hint. The enormous distances in the universe which stagger our imagination, in combination with these almost unlimited periods of time, lead us to acknowledge that both time and space are infinite and eternal” (p. 61).

Reader. You are always the same. Your conclusion that time is infinite is pinned on the statement that the periods of geology are almost unlimited—that is, not altogether without limit. I need not show that such a rash conclusion is contradicted by your very calculations. And again, as to the geological periods themselves, their length does not clash with the six days of creation as described by the Bible. The word “day” is often used in the Bible to express a great interval of time, and may be interpreted as an “epoch,” or, as you say, a “period.” This is, in fact, the interpretation of the [pg 840] word now accepted by our writers when explaining the days of creation. Only our writers, more prudent than you, do not pretend to determine the length of those epochs or periods; for they do not indulge in wild calculations or imaginary data. When we see a difference of 331,389 years between the results of two calculations regarding the period of the coal formation, we may well suspend our judgment, and not commit ourselves by the premature choice of either opinion. But we admit the periods, nor are we afraid of identifying them with the days of creation. The Bible has nothing to fear from geology or any other science. We might, on the contrary, prove from geology the truth and divine inspiration of the Mosaic narrative. Moses was no geologist, and could not know the order of the events which took place before the creation of man, except by supernatural revelation. Now, in his cosmogony we observe not only the description of an order of events like that deduced from modern geology, but “a system in the arrangement, and a far-reaching prophecy,” as Prof. Dana well remarks,[189] “to which philosophy could not have attained, however instructed.” You see, doctor, that your geological periods, instead of refuting the Bible, furnish us with a new argument in support of its divine origin. Have you anything to reply?

Büchner. Your explanation of the Bible is quite new.

Reader. Be it so. Our ancient doctors, however, knew very well that the word “day” in the Bible frequently means a great length of time. Had they known geology, they would have unanimously interpreted the six days as six great geological periods, just as we do.

Büchner. But I have still other arguments deduced from the primeval generations.

Reader. I am ready to meet them. But I really think it is scarcely worth the trouble to continue the discussion, as you have hitherto uniformly failed in every point you have tried to establish.

(To Be Continued).