down to us from the most remote antiquity. Be that however as it may, she keeps her sorrows to herself, and rarely speaks of them. Ἐντὸς δὲ καρδία στένει. Like Mme. de Sévigné, suffering in her heart, being in consequence obliged to have ever in her hand the sole remedy-that holy book of the Christian's Day, just as you would hold aromatic vinegar, to smell it every moment through fear of fainting, she is a living proof of what that other devoted mother said, “qu'on est à plaindre quand on aime beaucoup !" But there also, kept close to her bosom, was, as she remarks, the reviving essence. So now, seated in front of the fountain in that garden, whose seclusion deep had been so friendly to her thoughtful hours, John and Thomas and her mother, and perhaps others too, for a different reason, are in her mind, and she prays; for prayer, says St. Jerome, is a sigh. And, as St. Chrysostom remarks, she who was pardoned was found weeping and asking nothing*;" for our sighs are prayers. The grief is in itself an involuntary appeal to that invisible power of which our soul invokes the aid. So one might say, in the language of the poet, that she never told her grief, but pined in thought, and sat smiling at sorrow. For still there is, strange to say, the smile as of old. 66 66 Nature, ever just, to her imparts Though not unwilling here t' admit It is only another portrait taken from old traditionary manners, those ages of faith. "When the body of Messire Jaques de Lalain, the young knight, whose soul by the mercy of God, and by the appearance of the life he led, gives us hope that it has taken the road to paradise, was brought to Lalain in Haynaut, it was received very piteously, says Olivier de la Marche, by Messire * Hom. in Ps. vi. Guillaume de Lalain, his father, knight of honour to the Duchess of Burgundy, and by Mme. Jehannette de Crequi, his mother, who mourned, as you may suppose; mais toutesfois se monstrerent sages et constans, en portant leur deuil patiemment, cognoissant que du plaisir de Dieu chacun se doit contenter." Precisely so was it in the instance before us; and hence the twofold aspect of this heart's wound. The equability of what some would call her humour, continued to be always the same, and constituted, to her last day, one of the charms of her society that never failed. Alive still, as in her happiest years, to the loveliness of art, to the charms of poesy, to the inspirations of nature, all bright and immortal things pass "Undisturb'd and undistress'd, Into a soul which now is blest But by tender fancies brighten'd." In other words, we behold in her one whose sorrows and moral courage, exercised from the first to meet them face to face, had subsided into a deep and sweet, and even mysterious resignation; for I doubt not in her heart floated mysteries ineffable, while to the eye of the world she only presented one who seemed to verify what is described with such beauty in the line of Young, "Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair." 1 66 CHAPTER XV. LIFE so innocent, so holy, so useful, and still so full of promises, (for how many were depending on her, and what a noble part remained for her to play!) ought to have been long. So also says the author who relates the life of Mdlle. de Louvencourt. "The interests of the glory of God," continues that writer, "the comfort of the poor, the good of souls, demanded the prolongation of days so precious to humanity and religion. But," he adds, "the designs of God are different from those of men." A trite observation this; and here was another occasion in which it naturally presents itself, furnishing an instance too of the truth of the saying, that on this earth there are only beginnings. "Il n'y a sur cette terre que des commencements." But what great things are these beginnings! what results already! Assuredly, here also was a most remarkable instance of a good tree yielding good fruit-of a tree consequently that one little thought to have seen so soon and unseasonably, as it would seem to human eyes, cut down. "The best of mothers has been taken away," wrote an English priest, remarkable for the penetration of his glances, "a mother who, through the whole of her innocent life, was a model of perfection." One of the first scholars of England, presenting the rare union of the highest erudition with the graces of a most amiable nature, who had been for some years preceptor to her sons, and who had had daily occasion to observe her own character-one the most reserved, the most cautious, the most exact in his expressions, so deep and practical was the reverence which he always entertained for truth, did not think it an exaggeration to render to her a similar testimony, saying, in a letter written long after he had left her family, on hearing of her death, "She was a person to whom, in all truth, it would be nearly impossible to find an equal. She had attained a degree of perfection, I really do think, almost beyond an ideal standard. I regard so very sudden a departure as a signal mercy vouchsafed to one who required not the trial of suffering, which most of us must undergo." Moreover, notwithstanding what we have recalled on our two last visits, one cannot but be still struck with the fact that the innocent, and one might add, divine ties which bound Jane Mary to this life, were still manifold and strong. Much, I grant, had been effected providentially to diminish their number and weaken their hold upon her mind; but there was still sufficient to attach her to this present existence with a love as intense as it was pure. One might add, though no doubt in regard to one instance that is a small matter, that she was every day more and more connected with the life of others, bound up with it, identified with it. "The honeymoon is short," says an author who treats on the family. "Yes; but what sentiment loses in freshness it gains in maturity. The flower fades, but the roots strike deeper—and under this cold and monotonous intimacy there are knots secretly entwined with so much force, that their rupture tears to pieces, often in an irreparable manner, the heart of the survivor *.' Let it be permitted to speak with the boldness of Lacordaire, and to use his words. 'Friendship is free-an act of supreme liberty, seeking no law, human or divine, to consecrate its resolutions. It lives by itself. Time even confirms it. I used to think for a long time that youth was the season for friendship, and that friendship itself was as a gracious preamble of all our affections. It was an error. Youth is too frivolous for friendship; it is neither in its thoughts nor in its will. On the other hand, maturity is too cold for this great sentiment; it has too many interests which preoccupy it and enchain it.—It wants the generous liberty of one who belongs not yet to the world, and also that simplicity which believes, that impulse which gives itself up, that independence which fears nothing in life. Youth brings more promptitude in sympathy, maturity more constancy, but old age more detachment and depth. Friendship is a divine thing and the sure sign of a great soul. It is the crown of the mar riage state; for beauty fades, but the mind does not grow old. * Paul Janet, La Famille. Confidence, esteem, respect, the habit of an intimate and reci- "Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life, It is easy in the way of an hypothesis to accumulate disappointments and bereavements in life, and so conclude that it is well to be quit of them. The saint after all, one must reflect, in general has human feeling, perhaps with quite as much intensity as that young and brilliant Marquis de Laval, who, at the siege of Dunkerque, we are told," in spite of his bravery regretted life somewhat." Nevertheless, there seems to exist, even independently of Christianity, a kind of traditional wisdom, a certain science founded on observation of facts, and developed by the reflections of the thoughtful, which comes to the aid of humanity on such occasions as we are about to speak of. The voices which convey it come to us, not to speak of what is heard every day in lowly circles, through the Oriental monuments, as well as the Greek and Roman classics; but it is perhaps in the fragments of the ancient Greek poetry that they are most audible. * Lacordaire, Sainte M. Madeleine. |