Le dernier jour est le plus beau![157]
Emmanuel grows, “and is determined to live.” Margaret is admirable in her goodness. It is this which I find so attractive in her; there is nothing in the world preferable to goodness. Lizzy has been in great distress for some days, her little Isa being threatened with the croup. Poor mothers!—always anxious and tormented while on earth. O the sorrows of mothers! Nothing touches me more; all my sympathy is for them. They have here below the most immense joys and the most heartrending anguish. What happiness must it be to have a child of one’s own, to pray by his cradle, to consecrate him to God from the dawn of his existence, and to see one’s self live again in him!
Kate, Kate, I do not tell you how greatly your pages touched me. What wishes shall I offer you this evening that I have not offered a hundred times before?—wishes for holiness, happiness in God, and of a blessed union in eternity. May every one of your days add a flower to your crown, my beloved!
January 3, 1869.
The year is begun; shall we see it close? Marcella was most particularly kind and sweet on the 1st of January. I sent to the nearest station an enormous package addressed to you, for your chapel and poor; have you received it? The three graces put into it some bunches of violets. Our Brittany is charming, notwithstanding the winter.
Edith has written a long and kind letter; she is regaining her strength. Mistress Annah, whom I asked to send me full details, tells me of the amiability of the two children, who are making real progress, and are scarcely to be recognized since the terrible brother is no longer there. Adrien takes him to-morrow to a friend who has some business at Paris. You cannot imagine what this child is. René assures me that there is in him the making of a saint. God grant it! He frightens me.
Picciola grows and grows—not only in height, but also in virtue. Thérèse and Anna follow her; but, in any case, my darling advances with wonderful rapidity. I have taken up Homer again, whom I am translating from the open book. How much I prefer reading Bossuet or Joseph de Maistre!
Lizzy sends me four pages of news—many particulars respecting Isa the saint and Isa the angel, about the mothers, friends, etc.; but the flower of the basket is that Mary Wells has entered a convent. Again another who chooses the better part!
To-morrow the Saint of the Seacoast is coming here; we shall try to keep her. What an enjoyable life it is in this Brittany, the sister of Ireland! We have installed with the keeper a blind old man, to whom René reads every day, and who is a model of patience. If his eyes are closed to earth, they are truly open to heaven, of which he speaks luminously.
I speak to you but seldom of Hélène. She lives but for sacrifice, and has entirely broken with the outer world since the day of which René told you. Every three months a sign of life to her mother. O Gertrude! her life is a martyrdom!