Mrs. Netterville heard this impatient cry for her only child, and flung her arms for one last passionate embrace round Nellie's neck. Then, firm and unfaltering to the end, she led her to Hamish, who lifted her as reverently as if she had been an empress (as indeed she was in his thoughts) to the pillion behind her grandfather.
Lord Netterville barely waited until she was comfortably settled, ere he stooped to kiss once more his daughter-in-law's uplifted brow, after which, waving his hands toward the weeping people, he dug his spurs deep into his horse's sides, and rode swiftly forward.
Then, as if moved by one common impulse, every man, woman, and child in presence there, fell down upon their knees, mingling prayers and blessings, and howls and imprecations, as only an Irish or an Italian crowd can do; and yet obedient to the last to the wishes of their departing chief, it was not until he was well-nigh out of sight that they broke out into that wild, wailing keen, with which they were known to accompany their loved ones to the grave. But the wind was less considerate, and as it unluckily set that way, it bore one or two of the long, sad notes to him in whose honor they were chanted. As they fell upon the old exile's ears, the stoical calmness which he had hitherto maintained forsook him utterly; the reins fell from his hands, he bowed his head till his white locks mingled with his horse's mane, and, "lifting up his voice," he wept as sadly and unrestrainedly as a woman.
To Be Continued.
The Church Review and Victor Cousin.
[Footnote 31]
[Footnote 31: The American Quarterly Church Review. New York: N. S. Richardson. January, 1868. Art. ii., "O. A. Brownson as a Philosopher. Victor Cousin and his Philosophy. Catholic World.">[
The article in the Church Review promises an estimate of the character of Dr. O. A. Brownson as a philosopher; but what it says has really no relation to that gentleman, and is simply an attempt, not very successful, nor very brilliant indeed, to vindicate M. Cousin's philosophy from the unfavorable judgment we pronounced on it, in the magazine of last June. Dr. Brownson is not the editor, nor one of the editors, of The Catholic World; the article in question was signed by no name, was impersonal, and the Review has no authority for charging its authorship to any one but ourselves, or for holding any but ourselves responsible for its merits or demerits. When the name of a writer is signed to an article, he should be held answerable for its contents; but when it is not, the magazine in which it appears is alone responsible. According to this rule, we hold the Church Review answerable for its "rasping" article against ours.
The main purpose of the reviewer seems to be to prove that we wrote in nearly entire ignorance of M. Cousin's philosophy, and to vindicate it from the very grave charges we urged against it. As to our ignorance, as well as his knowledge, that must speak for itself; but we can say sincerely that we should be most happy to be proved to have been in the wrong, and to see Cousin's philosophy cleared from the charge of being unscientific, rationalistic, pantheistic, or repugnant to Christianity and the church. One great name would be erased from the list of our adversaries, and their number would be so much lessened. We should count it a great service to the cause which is so dear to us, if the Church Review could succeed in proving that the errors we laid to his charge are founded only in our ignorance or philosophical ineptness, and that his system is entirely free from them. But though it talks largely against us, assumes a high tone, and makes strong assertions and bold denials, we cannot discover that it has effected anything, except the exhibition of itself in an unenviable light. It has told us nothing of Cousin or his philosophy not to be found in our article, and has not in a single instance convicted us of ignorance, malice, misstatement, misrepresentation, or even inexactness. This we shall proceed now to show, briefly as we can, but at greater length, perhaps, than its crude statements are worth.