March 8, 1868.
Beautiful sunshine; your Georgina in the drawing-room; René at the piano, making the children sing a quartette. This harmony penetrates my heart. All these deaths had overwhelmed me; I have now recovered my balance of mind. Oh! it is undeniably sad to see so many sister-souls disappear; but they go to God. Each day brings us nearer to the eternal reunion; and your Georgina says, with Mme. Swetchine, that “life is fair and happy, and yet more and more happy, fair, and full of interest.”
Yesterday Monsignor preached at Saint-Euverte; I wished very much to go, but the wish was not reasonable. I must wait until Saturday for my ecstasy. Heard a strange bishop this evening. “I will give thee every good thing.” “The eye of man hath not seen, nor his ear heard, nor his heart conceived what God hath prepared for them that love him.” The preacher employed a profusion of words, thoughts, and images which interfered with his principal idea; and it was only with the greatest difficulty that one could keep hold of it under this overflow, this torrent, this avalanche of expressions, which, although rich and well chosen, were far too superabundant. Monsignor was there. How well he would have treated this fruitful subject! With what genius would he have depicted the immense suffering of man, who, being made for heaven, finds happiness nowhere upon earth, is never satisfied, whilst everything
around him is at rest. “Without being Newton, every man is his brother, and, in proceeding along the paths of science, he can repeat that we are crushed beneath the weight of the things of which we are ignorant.”
Lamartine describes this when he says:
“Mon âme est un rayon de lumière et d’amour,
Qui du flambeau divin détaché pour un jour,
De désirs dévorants loin de Dieu consumée
Brûle de remonter à sa source enflammée!”[80]
Dear, sweet Kate, all the lovable little singing party salutes you. God be with you!