The opening of the month of
Mary has been very beautiful; the altar splendidly lighted; lovely hymns. Noted an enchanting voice of a young girl, which caused me some distractions.… Kate, where is our dear oratory in Ireland, and my place close to yours? My country, my country! Some one has said, Our country is the place where we love. The true country and fatherland of the Christian is heaven. René speaks like an angel of the love of heaven, and this, too, makes me afraid. Oh! how well I understand the saying of Eugénie de Guérin, ‘The heart so longs to immortalize what it loves’—that is to say, the heart would fain have no separation, but life or death with the object of its love. Dear Kate, to whom I owe my happiness, may this day be always blest!
I leave you now, as my mother-in-law sends Picciola to request my company. “If,” says the gentle little ambassadress, “it is to Madame Kate that you are writing, tell her especially that I love her with all my heart; and let me put a kiss upon the page.”
By the side of this sweet, pure kiss I place my tender messages, or rather ours, loving you as we both do.
May 6.
The spiritual enjoyments of this fairest of months are infinitely sweet to me, my sister. I had minutely described your oratory to Lucy and Hélène, and these two affectionate girls have prepared me a heartfelt enjoyment. In a small, unoccupied drawing-room I found all my souvenirs of Ireland, … all … excepting only your dear presence, my devoted Kate. Tell me how it is that so many hearts agree together in strewing with flowers the path of your Georgina.
The Odeurs de Paris, by Louis
Veuillot, is much spoken of. This book is a sequel to the Parfum de Rome—a sort of set-off or contrast between the unseemliness of Babylon and the beauties of Sion. I wanted to read it, but Adrien dissuaded me, and René read me the preface, which contains some remarkable thoughts. The modern Juvenal says of Paris: “A city without a past, full of minds without memories, of hearts without tears, of souls without love”; and elsewhere: “To paint Paris, Rousseau discovered the suitable expression of ‘a desert of men.’” There is also a touching complaint respecting the continual confusion and, as it were, overturning of this city, which Gabourd calls the city of the Sovereign People: “Who will dwell in the paternal house? Who will find again the roof which sheltered his earliest years?…” Read the Souvenirs of Mme. Récamier, and Marie-Thérèse, by Nettement. The latter is written with a royalist and Christian enthusiasm which delighted me. My mother-in-law is passionately fond of poetry, and has selected me as reader. I am gradually becoming her pet bird; she is so kind and good in her continual solicitude for her youngest daughter! Master Arthur, l’enfant terrible, confided to Picciola that I was grandmamma’s spoiled child. The fact is that, having my time more free than my sisters-in-law, who are absorbed by their maternal cares, I can occupy myself more in anything which may please Mme. de T——, whose innate refinement knows how to appreciate the smallest attentions. Then, yesterday my mother-in-law sent me a nice little packet, carefully sealed; guess what I found in it? A Shakspere and a Lamartine, bound with my monogram, and a choice little volume by Marie Jenna, a name
which pleases me. This is full of heavenly poetry. There are pieces which are worth their weight in gold, if gold could pay for this delicious efflorescence of the poet’s soul. How I love Lamartine when he says:
“Moi-même, plein des biens dont l’opulence abonde,