who have remained almost unknown. Why were you not there, dear Kate? This is always the cry of my heart, which wants you everywhere.
To see Dom Guéranger formed part of our plan. When one has read his Sainte Cécile and his admirable pages on the Temporal Power of the Popes, it is a happiness to listen to him in his monastic humility. What a fine head he has!—a countenance so expressive of both intellect and sanctity, and such vivacity and genius in his look! We were present at the Benedictine Office, but went first to Sainte-Cécile, a monastery of Benedictine nuns which Dom Guéranger is building at some distance from the abbey. It will be splendid: magnificent cloisters, and in the middle of the great quadrangle one of those marvellous fountains that we used to admire in the pictures of the cloisters in Spain.
Benediction, in the abbey church, was very beautiful. At the moment when the benediction is given a dove descends upon the altar; the sight is striking when the heart is already predisposed to heavenly emotions. When, at the conclusion, the monks stood up to chant the Te Deum, that song of the eternal Jerusalem which I never hear without a thrill of inward joy, I felt an indescribable impression of happiness and peace. Oh! how sweet it must be to serve God thus, and spend one’s life in study and in prayer.
Dearest Kate, may God bless you, may he bless us all, and may he deliver Ireland!
October 2.
To-day Sarah B—— takes a lord and master. God grant that she may be happy; that her heart, so upright, delicate, and loving, may
not be disappointed! She is in communication with Margaret, to whom she has related the causes of her almost rupture with Mary. Both had suffered greatly from the loss of that affection which for twenty years had filled their life; this marriage draws them nearer together. Mass has been said for her, in this sweet corner of our Brittany, this oasis. Margaret is about to leave us. What bitterness is linked to every separation! How often our heart is divided, our life cut in twain, and our happiness destroyed! We went on Monday to C——, where we have an aunt, superior of a convent of the Visitation. “Convents do not change, like the world,” said René, when we came out from the parlor; “it even seems to me that these ascetic faces do not grow old. And I know men of forty years of age who appear to be sixty, so much have passions worn them out. Why is not every Christian house a monastery? Why do not all men love our good God?”… My aunt was very affectionate; promises of prayers were mutually exchanged.… I am prayed for in many sanctuaries, in many retreats, pious homes of refuge for wounded souls and for timid doves, dwellings where lilies bloom, and where the Holy of Holies makes his habitation. And everywhere, on every coast on which a Catholic hand has planted the Cross of Christ, I am prayed for, in virtue of this great communion of saints, this dogma so divine and so full of comfort, the sweetest of all, it seems to me, giving hope for those who do not yet pray for themselves! Oh! can I wonder that the religious life, to which our Saviour promised a hundred-fold in this world and paradise in the next—this life of self-renunciation and of sacrifice—has
stolen my Kate from me? Madame de P——, Lucy’s mother, is seriously ill; and her son the abbé, the grand-vicaire, the holy priest, the joy and consolation of her heart, is with her. All the Edwards have just left us; Gaston has been ill, and is recovering slowly. His pale, gentle face so little resembles that of the rosy boy who smiled so gaily upon us only a few weeks ago, that we are all pained at the change. I trust God will spare this pretty little angel to dear Lucy; but were the hosts of heaven to open their ranks to receive this little brother, who, however, pitying the mother, would think of pitying the child? Oh! what have I said? In my desire for heaven I was almost forgetting earth!
Lady Sensible, Marguérite, is gravely working in the embrasure of the window at a set of baby-linen which she will have made entirely herself. This child will be a remarkable woman; there is something singularly attractive about her; she talks little, but thinks much, and her words are full of solidity and good sense. She is charmingly pretty; last winter, in her little dress of black velvet over a blue silk skirt, she looked like the daughter of a king.
Dearest, here is your letter, in the white hands of Picciola, and a letter from Hélène, triumphantly brought to me by Alix! Kind little angels! who possess the understanding of the heart, and so read mine. Thanks, dear sister; may our Mother in heaven repay to you all the love you bear me!