“God is everything to the soul. The soul breathes: God is her atmosphere. The soul needs nourishment and wherewith to quench her thirst: God is her daily bread and her spring of living water. The soul moves on: God is her way. The soul thinks and understands: God is her truth. The soul speaks—God is her word; she loves—God is her love.”[25]
Exquisite thoughts! Oh! love, the love of God, can replace everything. May we be kindled with this love, dear sister of my life!
November 22.
My sweet one, I love to keep my festivals with you! Yesterday, the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, we spent here in retreat—a retreat, according to all rules, preached by a monsignor! René is writing you the details. I am not clever at long descriptions; with you especially it is always on confidential matters that I like to write—the history of my soul, my thoughts, my impressions.
What a heavenly festival! How, on this day of the Presentation, must the angels have rejoiced at beholding this young child of Judea, scarcely entered into life, and
yet already so far advanced in the depths of divine science, consecrating herself to God! How must you, O St. Anne! the happy mother of this immaculate child, have missed her presence! This sunbeam of your declining years, this flower sprung from a dried-up stem, this virgin lily whose fragrance filled your dwelling, all at once became lost to you. Ah! I can understand the bitterness which then flowed in upon your soul, and it seems to me that for this sacrifice great must be your glory in heaven!
To-day, St. Cecilia, the sweet martyr saint, patroness of musicians, the Christian heroine, mounting to heaven by a blood-stained way. Louis Veuillot, in Rome and Loretto, speaking of the “St. Cecilia” of Raphael, calls it “one of the most thoroughly beautiful pictures in the world.” “The saint,” he says, “is really a saint; one never wearies of contemplating the perfect expression with which she listens to the concert of angels, and breaks, by letting them fall from her hands, the instruments of earthly music.” Kate, do you remember the museum at Bologna, and how we used to stand gazing at this page of Raphael?
I am reading Bossuet with René. What loftiness of views! What vehemence of thought! Another consolation for Karl: “Death gives us much more than he takes away: he takes away this passing world, these vanities which have deceived us, these pleasures which have led us astray; but we receive in return the wings of the dove, that we may fly away and find our rest in God.” Hélène had copied these lines into her journal, and remarked upon them as follows: “Beautiful thought! which enchants my soul, and makes me more than ever desire that hour for which, according
to Madame Swetchine, we ought to live; that day when my true life will begin, far from the earth, where nothing can satisfy the intensity of my desires.” We are going to travel about a little, and visit the funeral cemetery of Quiberon and various other points of our Brittany, so rich in memories. I am packing up my things with the pleasure of a child, assisted by the gentle Picciola and pretty little Alix, whom I have surnamed Lady-bird.[26] One of my Bengalese is ill, and all the young ones are interested about it, wanting to kiss and caress it, and give it dainty morsels, but nothing revives the poor little thing. Ah! dear Kate, this Indian bird dying in Brittany makes me think of Ellen, a thousand times more lovable and precious, and who is also bending her fair head to die.
Sister, friend, mother, all that is best, most tender, and beloved, God grant to us to die the same day, that together we may see again the kind and excellent mother who confided me to your love.