CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIV., No. 142.—JANUARY, 1877.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. Hecker. 1877.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.[134]

A national literature is the most perfect expression of the best thoughts and highest sentiments of the people of which it is born, and of whose life it is the truest record. No other Englishman may have ever written or thought like Shakspere, but he wrote and thought from the fulness of a mind and heart that drew their inspiration from the life of the English people. He may be great nature’s best interpreter, but she was revealed to him through English eyes, and spoke in English accents. The power to take up into one’s own mind the thoughts of a whole people; to give a voice to the impressions made upon them by nature, religion, and society; to interpret to them their doubts, longings, and aspirations; to awaken the chords of deep and hidden sympathy which but await the touch of inspiration—is genius. Every great author is the type of a generation, the interpreter of an age, the delineator of a phase of national life. Between the character of a people, therefore, and its literature there is an intimate relation; and one great cause of the feebleness of American literature is doubtless the lack of conscious nationality in the American people. We have not yet outgrown the provincialism of our origin, nor assimilated the heterogeneous elements which from many sources have come to swell the current of our life. The growth of a national literature has been hindered also, by our necessary intellectual dependence on England. For, though it was a great privilege to possess from the start a rich and highly-developed language, with this boon we received bonds which no revolution could break. When the British colonies of North America were founded, Shakspere and Bacon had written, Milton was born, and the English language had received a form which nor power nor time could change; and before our ancestors had leisure or opportunity to turn from the rude labors of life in the wilderness to more intellectual pursuits, it had taken on the polish and precision of the age of Queen Anne. Henceforward, Pg 434 to know English, it was necessary to study its classics; and in them Americans found the imprint of a mental type which had ceased to be their own. And being themselves as yet without strongly-marked or well-defined national features of character, they became fatally mere imitators of works which could not be read without admiration, or studied without exciting in those who had thoughts to express the strong desire of imitation. Their excellence served to intimidate those who, while admiring, could not hope to rival their ease and elegance; and thus, in losing something of native vigor and freshness, our best writers have generally acquired only an artificial polish and a foreign grace.

It must be remembered, too, that more than any other people we have been and are practical and utilitarian; and this is more specially true of the New Englanders, whose mental activity has been greater than that of any other Americans. We have loved knowledge as the means of power and wealth, and not as an element of refinement and culture. If evidence of this were needed, it would suffice to point to our school system, which is based upon the notion that the sole aim of education should be to fit man for the practical business of life. As the result, knowledge has been widely diffused, but the love of excellence has been diminished. Education, when considered as merely a help to common and immediate ends, neither strengthens nor refines the higher qualities of mind. If we may rely upon our own experience in college, we should say that the prevailing sentiment with young Americans is that it is waste of time to study

Another cause by which the growth of American literature has been unfavorably affected may be found in the unlimited resources of the country, offering to all opportunities of wealth or fame. The demand for ability of every kind is so great that talent is not permitted to mature. The young man who possesses readiness of wit and a sprightly fancy, if he does not enter one of the learned professions or engage in commerce, almost fatally drifts into a newspaper office, than which a place more unfavorable to intellectual pursuits or to true culture Pg 435 of mind cannot easily be imagined. If a book is the better the farther the author keeps away all thought of the reader, under what disadvantages does not he write whose duty it is made to think only of the reader! To be forced day by day to write upon subjects of which he knows little; to give opinions without having time to weigh arguments or to consider facts; to interpret passing events in the interests of party or in accordance with popular prejudice; to exaggerate the virtues of friends and the vices of opponents; to court applause by adapting style to the capacity and taste of the crowd; and to do all this hurriedly and in a rush, is to be an editor. When we reflect that it is to work of this kind that a very considerable part of the literary ability of the country is devoted, it is manifest that the result must be not only to withdraw useful laborers from nobler intellectual pursuits, but to lower and pervert the standard of taste. They who accustom their minds to dwell upon the picture of human life as presented in a daily newspaper, in which what is atrocious, vulgar, or startling receives greatest prominence, will hardly cultivate or retain an appreciation of elevated thoughts or the graces of composition.

As the public is content with crude and hasty writing, the crowd, who are capable of such performance, rush in, eager to carry off the prize of voluminousness, if not of excellence; and, in consequence, we surpass all other nations in the number of worthless books which we print. In fact, the great national defect is haste, and therefore a want of thoroughness in our work.

But we have no thought of entering into an extended examination

Our weakness, however it may be accounted for, is most perceptible in the highest realms of thought—philosophy and poetry. To the former our contributions are valueless. No original thinker has appeared among us; no one who has even aspired to anything higher than the office of a commentator. This, indeed, can hardly be matter for surprise, since we may be naturally supposed to inherit from the English their deficiency in power of abstract thought and metaphysical intuition. But in poetry they excel all other nations, whether ancient or modern; and as they have transmitted to us their mental defects, we might not unreasonably hope to be endowed with their peculiar gifts of mind. Deprived of the philosophic brow, we might hope for some compensation, at least, in the poet’s eye in a fine frenzy rolling. But even in this we seem not to have been highly favored. Nothing could well be more wretched than American verse-making during the colonial era. We doubt whether a single line of all that was written from the landing of the Pilgrims down to the war of Independence is worth preserving. Pope, when he wrote his Dunciad, found but one American worthy even of being damned to so unenviable an immortality.

Freneau, who was the most popular and the most gifted poet of the Revolution, is as completely unknown to this generation as though he had never written; and, indeed, Pg 436 he wrote nothing which, without great loss to the world, may not be forgotten. And to this class, whom nor gods nor columns permit to live, belong nearly all who in America have courted the Muse. In our entire poetical literature there are not more than half a dozen names which deserve even passing notice, and the greatest of these cannot be placed higher than among the third-rate poets of England.

Without adopting the crude theory of Macaulay that as civilization advances poetry necessarily declines, we shall be at no loss for reasons to account for this absence of the highest poetic gifts. Neither the character of the early settlers in this country, nor their religious faith, nor their social and political conditions of life, were of the kind from which inspiration to high thinking and flights of fancy might naturally be expected to spring. The Puritans were hard, unsympathetic, with no appreciation of beauty. In their eyes art of every kind was at best useless, even when not tending to give a dangerous softness and false polish to manners. Their religious faith intensified this feeling, and caused them to turn with aversion from what had been so long and so intimately associated, as almost to be identified, with Catholic worship. Their sour looks, their nasal twang, their affected simplicity, their contempt of literature, and their dislike of the most innocent amusements, would hardly lead the Muse, even if invited, to smile on them. Habits of thought and feeling not unlike theirs had, it is true, in Milton, been found to be not incompatible with the highest gifts of imagination and expression. But Milton had not the Puritan contempt of letters. He was, on the contrary, a man of extensive Il Penseroso prove that he had a keen perception of the beauty and grandeur of Catholic worship. He was, in fact, in many respects more a Cavalier than a Roundhead. He had, besides, in the burning passions of his age, the bitter strife of party and sect, in the scorn and contempt of the nobles for the low-born—which in the civil wars had been trodden beneath the iron heel of war, only to rise with the monarchy in more offensive form—that which fired him to the adventurous song “that with no middle flight intends to soar,” and made him deify rebellion in Satan, who, rather than be subject, would not be at all.

In the primitive and simple social organization of the American colonies there was nothing to fire the soul or kindle the indignation that makes poets. And even nature presented herself to our ancestors rather as a shrew to be conquered than as a mistress to be wooed with harmonious numbers and sweet sounds of melody. If to this we add, what few will deny, that the equality of conditions in our society, however desirable from a political or philanthropic point of view, is to the poetic eye but a flat and weary plain, without any of the inspiration of high mountains and long-withdrawing vales, of thundering cataracts that lose themselves in streams that peacefully glide all unconscious of the roar and turmoil of waters of which they are born, we will find nothing strange in the practical and unimaginative character of the American people. We know of no better example of the Pg 437 tameness of the American Muse than Whittier. He is one of our most voluminous writers of verse, and various causes, most of which are doubtless extrinsic to the literary merit of his compositions, have obtained for him very general recognition. He lacks, indeed, the culture of Longfellow, his wide acquaintance with books and the world, and his careful study of the literatures of the European nations. He lacks also his large sympathies and catholic thought, his elevation of sentiment and power of finished and polished expression.

But if Whittier’s garb is plain, his features hard, and his voice harsh, his poetry, both in subject and in style, seems native here and to spring from the soil. He has himself not inaptly described his verse in the lines which he has prefixed to the Centennial edition of his complete poetical works:

Whittier is, however, far from being a representative American or American poet. He is a Quaker. The broad-brimmed hat, the neat and simple dress, the sober gait, the slow and careful phrase with thee and thou, could not more truly denote him than his verse. Now, whatever idea we may form to ourselves of the typical American, or whether we think such a being exists at all, no one would ever imagine him to be a Quaker.

The American is eager; the Quaker is subdued. The American is loud, with a tendency to boastfulness

Whittier certainly has no fear of trivial and commonplace subjects, but in his treatment of them he rarely, if ever, rises above the level of the verse-maker.

It was the opinion of Keats that a long poem is the test of invention; and if we accept this as a canon of criticism, we shall want no other evidence of Whittier’s poverty of Pg 438 imagination. All his pieces are short, though few readers, we suppose, have ever wished them longer. He cannot give sprightliness or variety to his verse, which like a sluggish stream creeps languidly along. There is no freshness about him, none of the breeziness of nature, none of its joyousness, exuberance, and exultant strength. In his youth, even, he had all the stiffness and slowness of age with its want of graceful motion. His narrations are interrupted and halting, interspersed with commonplace reflections and wearisome details; and when we have jogged along with him to the end, we are less pleased than fatigued. He never with strong arm bears us on over flood and fell, through hair-breadth escapes, gently at times letting us down amidst smiling homes and pleasant scenes, and again, with more rapid flight, hurrying us on breathless to the goal.

Some of his descriptive pieces have been admired, but to us they seem artificial and mechanical. They are the pictures of a view-hunter. They lack life, warmth, and coloring—the individuality that comes of an informing soul. He remains external to nature, and with careful survey and deliberate purpose sketches this and that trait, till he has his landscape with sloping hills and meadows green, with flower and shrub and tree and everything that one could wish, except that indefinable something which would make the scene stand out from all the earth, familiar as the countenance of a friend or as a spot known from childhood. He has too much the air of a man who says: Come, let us make a description. In fact, he has taken the trouble to tell us that he has considered the story of Mogg Megone

Whittier is even feebler in his attempts to portray character than in his description of scenery. To Ruth Bonython he gives “the sunny eye and sunset hair.” “Sunny eye” is poor enough; but who will tell us what “sunset hair” is like? Is it purple or gold or yellow or red? She is “tall and erect,” has a “dark-brown cheek,” “a pure white brow,” “a neck and bosom as white as ever the foam-wreaths that rise on the leaping river”;

And she talks in the following style:

Pg 439 The artifice by which Ruth quiets the suspicion of Mogg Megone, roused by the sight of her tearful eye and heaving bosom, is as remarkable for shrewdness as for poetic beauty:

The same weak and unskilful hand is visible in the characters of Mogg Megone, John Bonython, and Father Rasle, the Jesuit missionary. The descriptive portions of Mogg Megone are disfigured by mere rhetoric and what critics call “nonsense-verses.” As Mogg Megone and John Bonython are stealing through the wood, they hear a sound:

The only reason for hesitating between the wolfs howl and the hooting of the owl was the poet’s want of a rhyme. But it is needless to load our page with these nonsense-verses, since Hudibras claims them to be a poet’s privilege:

Whittier’s Quaker faith inspired him early in life with an abhorrence of slavery, and drew him to the abolitionists, by whom, in 1836, he was appointed secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society. It was about this time that he began to publish his anti-slavery rhymes, which he afterwards collected in a volume entitled, Voices of Freedom. These verses are not remarkable for thought or expression. They have the dull, monotonous ring of all Whittier’s rhymes, and are hardly more poetic than a political harangue. They are partisan Uncle Tom’s Cabin the most popular novel of the day made him a popular poet. His verses found readers who cared but little for inspired thought or expression, but who were delighted with political rhymes that painted the Southern slave-owner as the most heartless and brutal of men, who “in the vile South Sodom” feasted day by day upon the sight of human suffering inflicted by his own hand. Pieces like that which begins with the words,

were at least good campaign documents in the times of anti-slavery agitation.

This is very commonplace and vulgar, we grant, but it has the merit of not being above the intellectual level of an ordinary political meeting.

And then, in the metre of Scott’s “Bride of Netherby,” we have the “Hunters of Men”:

All we maintain is that this is not poetry, fair sample though it be of Whittier’s Voices of Freedom.

Slavery undoubtedly is hateful, and to denounce it cannot but be right. A preacher, however, need not be a poet, even though he should declaim in rhymes; nor is hate of the slave-owner love of the slave, much less love of liberty. We fail to catch in these Voices the swelling sound of freedom. They are rather the echoes of the fierce words of bitter partisan strife. The lips of him who uttered them had not been touched by the burning coal snatched from the altar of liberty, however his heart may have rankled at the thought of Southern cruelty.

Whittier’s rhymes of the war are the natural sequel of his anti-slavery verses. The laureate of abolitionism could but sing, Quaker though he was, the bloody, fratricidal strife which he had helped to kindle. At first, indeed, he seemed to hesitate and to doubt whether it was well to light

Safe on freedom’s vantage-ground, he inclined rather to be the sad and helpless spectator of a suicide.

But soon he came to recognize that God may speak “in battle’s stormy voice, and his praise be in the wrath of man.”

Whittier’s war rhymes are not so numerous as his Voices of Freedom, nor are they in any way remarkable as poetical compositions.

And yet of all his poems this is probably the best known and the most popular.

The Voices of Freedom and the Songs in War Time both belong to the class of occasional poetry which more than any other kind is apt to confer a short-lived fame upon authors whose chief merit consists in being fortunate. He who sings the conqueror’s praise will never lack admirers.

We are sorry to perceive, in so amiable a man as Whittier is generally supposed to be, the many evidences which this edition of his complete poetical works affords of intense and bitter anti-Catholic prejudice. If he were content with manifesting, even with damnable iteration, his Quaker horror of creeds, we could excuse the simple mind that is capable of holding that men may believe without giving to their faith form and sensible expression; though the mental habit from which alone such a theory could proceed is the very opposite of the poetical. The Catholic Church, which is the groundwork and firm support of all Christian dogmas, cannot be understood Pg 441 by those who fail to perceive that without doctrinal religion the whole moral order would be meaningless. But Whittier’s prejudice carries him far beyond mere protest against Catholic teaching. He cannot approach any subject or person connected with the church without being thrown into mental convulsions. Let us take, for example, the character of Father Rasle, the martyr, in “Mogg Megone,” one of his earliest and longest poems. This noble and heroic missionary is represented as a heartless and senseless zealot, who “by cross and vow” had pledged Mogg Megone

When Ruth Bonython, half mad with fear and grief, comes to confess to Father Rasle that, seeing the scalp of her lover hanging to Mogg Megone’s belt, she had killed him in his drunken sleep, the Jesuit starts back—

not from horror of the crime, but because in the death of Megone he recognizes the extinction of his long-cherished hopes of revenge.

His heart is as stone to the pitiful appeal of the contrite and broken-hearted girl. “Off!” he exclaims—

And in the death-scene of the martyr, as painted by Whittier, the coward and the villain, with forces

The ode “To Pius IX.” will furnish us with another example of religious hate driving its victim to the very verge of raving madness. “Hider at Gaeta,” he exclaims—

It is some consolation to know that Whittier himself, in reading over these ravings, has been forced to acknowledge their unworthiness by a lame attempt at apology. “He is no enemy of Catholics,” he informs us in a note to this effusion; “but the severity of his language finds its ample apology in the reluctant confession of one of the most eminent Romish priests, the eloquent and devoted Father Ventura.” What is this but making calumny an ally of outrage?

In the “Dream of Pio Nono” he introduces St. Peter, who upbraids the venerable Pontiff in the following style:

In a poem on “Italy” Whittier hears the groans of nations across the sea.

Pg 442 “Rejoice, O Garibaldi!” he exclaims,

We crave the reader’s indulgence for this disfigurement of our page, and wish with all our heart it had been possible to fill it with more worthy matter.

Longfellow, breathing the same air as Whittier, the disciple of a faith commonly supposed to be less mild and sweetly loving than a Quaker’s, has found the tenderest thoughts, the noblest images, and the highest forms of character in the church which our poet cannot even think of without raving.

But possibly we should be wrong to complain that the mystic beauty which has in all ages appealed with irresistible power of fascination to the highest and most richly-gifted natures should fail to impress one all of whose thoughts are cast in a straitened and unyielding mould. Whittier has not the far-glancing eye of the poet to which all beauty appeals like the light itself. The partisan habit of an inveterate abolitionist has stiffened and hardened a disposition which was never plastic. It was so long his official duty to write anti-slavery campaign verses that, in treating subjects which should inspire higher thoughts, he is still held captive to the lash of the slave-driver, hears the clanking of chains and the groans of the fettered; and these sights and sounds drive him into mere rant and rhetoric.

We willingly bear testimony to the moral tone and purity which

What could be more harmless than the little scene between Maud Muller and the judge—though Heaven only knows what the judge, and above all the American judge, can have done that he should be condemned to play the rôle of a lover. Possibly it may have been the judicious nature of the love that induced the poet to think such a deus ex machinâ not out of place. At all events, nothing could be more inoffensive.

And how refreshing it is to find a judge making love by talking

We are less edified, however, when, in after-years, we find him a married man, sipping the golden wine but longing for the wayside well and the barefoot maiden:

In reading Whittier we seldom come upon a thought so perfectly expressed that it can never after Pg 443 occur to us except in the words in which he has clothed it. It is a poet’s privilege thus to marry thoughts to words in a union so divine that no man may put them asunder; and where this high power is wanting the mens divinior is not found. For our own part, we hardly recall a line of Whittier that we should care to remember. Nothing that he has written has been more frequently quoted than the couplet:

To our thinking, this is meaningless. “It might have been” is neither sad nor joyful, except as it is made so by that with which it is associated. He who is drowned may thus have escaped hanging—“It might have been.” The judge might have been Maud’s husband; but she might have thought of sadder things than that she was not his wife.

“Snow-Bound,” a winter idyl, is, in the opinion of several critics, Whittier’s best performance. A more hackneyed theme he would probably have found it difficult to choose; nor has he the magic charm that makes the old seem as new. It is the unmistakable snow-storm with which our school-readers made us familiar in childhood. The sun rises “cheerless” over “hills of gray”; sinks from sight before it sets; “the ocean roars on his wintry shore”; night comes on, made hoary “with the whirl-dance of the blinding storm,” and ere bedtime

and then, of course, we have the horse and cow and cock, each in turn contemplating the beautiful snow. Even the silly ram

The boys, with mittened hands, and caps drawn down over ears, sally forth to cut a pathway at their sire’s command. And when the second night is ushered in, we are quite prepared for the blazing fire of oaken logs, whose roaring draught makes the great throat of the chimney laugh; while on the clean hearth the apples sputter, the mug of cider simmers, the house-dog sleeps, and the cat meditates. The group of faces gathered round are plain and honest, just such as good, simple country folk are wont to wear, but feebly drawn. In the fitful firelight their features are dim. The father talks of rides on Memphremagog’s wooded side; of trapper’s hut and Indian camp. The mother turns her wheel or knits her stocking, and tells how the Indian came down at midnight on Cocheco town. The uncle, “innocent of books,” unravels the mysteries of moons and tides. The maiden aunt, very sweet and very unselfish, recalls her memories of

It would be unkind to leave the village schoolmaster out in the biting air, and he is therefore brought in to make us wonder how one small head could contain all he knew.

In the very thought of home there is an exhaustless well-spring of poetic feeling. The word itself is all alive with the spirit of sweet poesy which gives charm to the humblest verse; and it would be strange indeed if, in an idyl like “Snow-Bound,” there should not be found passages of real beauty, touches of nature that make the whole world kin. The subject is Pg 444 one that readily lends itself to the lowly mood and unpretending style. Fine thoughts and ambitious words would but distract us. Each one is thinking of his own dear home, and he but asks the poet not to break the spell that has made him a child again; not to darken the dewy dawn of memory, that throws the light of heaven around a world that seemed as dead, but now lives.

This is true poetry, sad and sweet as a mother’s voice when she lulls her sick babe to rest, knowing that, if he sleep, he shall live.

In Whittier’s verse we often catch the unmistakable accent of genuine feeling, and his best lyrics are so artless and simple that they almost disarm criticism. In many ways his influence has doubtless been good; and the critic, whose eye is naturally drawn to what is less worthy, finds it easy to carp at faults which he has not the ability to commit.

Pg 445

MONSIEUR GOMBARD’S MISTAKE.

M. Gombard was a short, stout, pompous man, with a flat nose, and sharp gray eyes that did their very best to look fierce through a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles. They succeeded in this attempt with very young culprits and with the female prisoners who appeared before M. Gombard in his official capacity of mayor of the town of Loisel; they succeeded in a lesser degree with functionaries, such as clerks and policemen, who were to a certain extent under the official eye of the mayor; but with the general, independent public the attempt at ferocity was a failure. M. Gombard passed for being a good man, a man with high principles, an unflinching sense of duty, and a genuine respect for law, but also a man whose heart was as dry as a last year’s nut. He was fifty years of age, and it had never been said, even as a joke, that M. Gombard had had a “sentiment”; it had never entered into the imagination of anybody who knew him to suggest that he might have a sentiment, or even that he might marry some day. He was looked upon by his fellow-townsmen as a trusty, intelligent machine—a machine that never got out of order, that was always ready when wanted, that would be seriously missed if it were removed. He settled their differences and saved them many a costly lawsuit; for M. Gombard had studied the law, and understood its practical application better than any lawyer in Loisel; he made marriages, and drew out wills, and dispensed advice to young and old with the wisdom of Solomon and the stoical M. Gombard. M. Gombard gave judgment against him; and this was more than the united magistrates in Loisel would have dared do, for Antoine would have “licked them” within an inch of their lives, if they had tried it; but he never said boo when M. Gombard pronounced the plaintiff an injured man, and ordered the defendant to pay him one hundred and fifty-three francs, ten sous, and three centimes damages. Everybody in the place held their breath when this sentence went forth. They fully expected Antoine to fly at the audacious judge, and break every bone in his body on the spot; but Antoine coolly nodded, and said civilly, “C’est bon, Monsieur le Maire,” and walked off. People made sure he was bent on some terrible vengeance, and that he would never pay a sou of the damages; but he deceived them by paying. This incident added fresh lustre to the prestige of M. Gombard, whose word henceforth was counted as good as, and better than, law, since even Antoine Grimoire gave in to it, which was more than he had ever been known to do to the law.

M. Gombard had some pressing Pg 446 business on hand just now; for he had left Loisel before daybreak in a post-chaise, and never once pulled up, except when the wheels came off and went spinning right and left into the ditch on either side, and sent him bumping on over the snow in the disabled vehicle, till at last the horses stopped and M. Gombard got out, jumped on to the back of the leader, and rode on into Cabicol. There he is now, his wig awry and pulled very low over his forehead, but otherwise looking none the worse for his adventurous ride, as he walks up and down the best room in the Jacques Bonhomme, the principal inn of Cabicol.

“You said I could have a post-chaise?” said M. Gombard to the waiter, who fussed about, on hospitable cares intent.

“I did, monsieur.”

“And it is in good condition, you say?”

“Excellent, monsieur. It would take you from Cabicol to Paris without starting a nail.”

“Good,” observed M. Gombard, sitting down and casting a glance that was unmistakably ferocious on the savory omelet. “I can count on a stout pair of horses?” he continued, helping himself with the haste of a ravenous man.

“Horses?” repeated the waiter blandly. “Monsieur said nothing about horses.”

M. Gombard dropped his knife and fork with a clatter, and looked round at the man.

“What use can the chaise be to me without horses?” he said. “Does it go by steam, or do you expect me to carry it on my head?”

“Assuredly not, monsieur; that would be of the last impossibility,” replied the waiter demurely.

“The aborigines of Cabicol are idiots, apparently,” observed M.

“Yes, monsieur,” said the waiter, with ready assent. If a traveller had declared the aborigines of Cabicol to be buffaloes, he would have assented just as readily; he did not care a dry pea for the aborigines, whoever they might be; he did not know them even by sight, so why should he stand up for them? Besides, every traveller represented a tip, and he was not a man to quarrel with his bread and butter.

“What’s to be done?” said M. Gombard. “I must have horses; where am I to get them?”

“I doubt that there is a horse in the town to-day which can be placed at monsieur’s disposal. This is the grand market day at Luxort, and everybody is gone there, and to-morrow the beasts will be too tired to start for a fresh journey; but on Friday I dare say monsieur could find a pair, if he does not mind waiting till then.”

“There is nothing at the present moment I should mind much more, nothing that could be more disagreeable to me,” said M. Gombard.

“We would do our best to make monsieur’s delay agreeable,” said the waiter; “the beds of the Jacques Bonhomme are celebrated; the food is excellent and the cooking of the best; the landlord cuts himself into little pieces for his guests.”

“Good heavens!” ejaculated M. Gombard.

“It is a figure of speech, monsieur, a figure of rhetoric,” explained the waiter, who began to heap up blocks of wood on the hearth, as if he were preparing a funeral pyre for his unwilling guest.

Pg 447 “Tell the landlord I want to speak to him,” said M. Gombard.

Before he had finished his meal the landlord knocked at the door. M. Gombard said “Come in,” and the landlord entered. He was a solemn, melancholy-looking man, who spoke in a sepulchral voice, and seemed continually struggling to withhold his tears. He loved his inn, but the weight of responsibility it laid upon him was more than he could bear with a smiling countenance. Every traveller who slept beneath his roof was, for the time being, an object of the tenderest interest to him; it was no exaggeration to say, with the rhetorical waiter, that he cut himself into little pieces for each one of them. He made out imaginary histories of them, which he related afterwards for the entertainment of their successors. He was guided as to the facts of each subject by the peculiar make and fashion of their physiognomies; but he drew his inspiration chiefly from their noses: if the traveller wore his beard long and his nose turned up, he was set down as a philosopher travelling in the pursuit of knowledge; if he wore his beard cropped and his nose hooked, he was a banker whose financial genius and fabulous wealth were a source of terror to the money-markets of Europe; if he carried his nose flat against his face and wore a wig and spectacles, he was a desperate criminal with a huge price on his head, and the police scouring the country in pursuit of him; but he was safe beneath the roof of the Jacques Bonhomme, for his host would have sworn with the patriot bard: “I know not, I care not, if guilt’s in that heart; I but know that I’ll hide thee, whatever thou art!” All the pearls of Golconda, all the gold of M. Gombard.

“By getting me a pair of good post-horses,” replied his guest. “It is of the utmost importance that I reach X—— before five o’clock to-morrow afternoon, and your people say I have no chance of finding horses until Friday.”

The landlord stifled a sigh and replied: “That is only too true, monsieur.”

M. Gombard pushed away his plate, rose, walked up and down the room, and then stood at the window and looked out. It was a bleak look out; everything was covered with snow. Snow lay deep on the ground, on the trees, on the lamp-post, on the chimneys and the house-tops; and the sky looked as if it were still full of snow.

Just opposite there was a strange, grand old house that arrested M. Gombard’s attention; it was a gabled edifice with turrets at either end, and high pointed, mullioned windows filled with diamond-paned lattices. The roof slanted rapidly from the chimneys to the windows, and looked as if the north wind that had howled over it for centuries had blown it a little to one side and battered it a good deal; for you could see by the undulations of the snow Pg 448 that it was full of dints and ruts. Close under the projecting eaves in the centre of the house there was a stone shield, on which a family coat of arms was engraved; but the ivy, which grew thick over the wall, draped the escutcheon, and, with the snow, made it impossible to read the story it set forth. There was a balcony right under it, from the floor of which an old man was now engaged sweeping the snow; on either side were set huge stone vases, in which some hardy plants grew, defying all weathers, apparently. When the old man had cleared away the snow, he brought out some pots of wintry-looking flowers, and placed them on the ledge of the balcony. M. Gombard had been watching the performance, and taking in the scene with his eyes while his thoughts were busy about these post-horses that were not to be had in the town of Cabicol. He turned round suddenly, and said in his abrupt, magisterial way: “Curious old house. Whose is it?”

“It belongs now to Mlle. Aimée Bobert,” replied the landlord; and the question seemed to affect him painfully.

“Whom did it belong to formerly?” inquired M. Gombard.

“To the brave and illustrious family of De Valbranchart. The Revolution ruined them, and the mansion was bought by a retired manufacturer, the grandfather of Mlle. Aimée, who is now the sole heiress of all his wealth.”

“Strange vicissitudes in the game of life!” muttered M. Gombard; he turned again to survey the old house, that looked as if it had been transplanted from some forest or lovely fell-side to this commonplace little town. As he looked, the window on the balcony opened, and the slight figure of a woman appeared, holding M. Gombard mechanically adjusted his spectacles, the better to inspect this new object in the picture; the same moment a gentleman, hurrying down the street, came up, and lifted his hat in a stately salutation as he passed before the balcony. M. Gombard could not see whether the greeting was returned, or how; for when he glanced again towards the latticed window, it had closed on the retreating figure of the lady. The old church clock was chiming the hour of noon. “The ancient house has its modern romance, I perceive,” observed M. Gombard superciliously; and as if this discovery must strip it at once of all interest in the eyes of a sensible man, he turned his back upon the old house, and proceeded to catechise the landlord concerning post-horses. There was clearly no chance of his procuring any that day, and a very doubtful chance of his procuring any the next. There was no help for it: he must spend at least one night at the Jacques Bonhomme. He was not a man to waste his energies in useless lamentation or invective. One exclamation of impatience escaped him, but he stifled it half way, snapped his fingers, and muttered in almost a cheerful tone, “Tantpis!” The landlord stood regarding him with a gaze of compassion mingled with a sort of cowed admiration. There was a strange fascination about these criminals, murderers or forgers, flying for dear life; the concentrated energy, the reckless daring, the heroic self-control, the calm self-possession they evinced in the face of danger and impending death, were Pg 449 wonderful. If these grand faculties had been ruled by principle, and devoted to lawful pursuits and worthy aims, what might they not have accomplished! The landlord saw the stigma of crime distinctly branded upon the countenance of this man, though the low, bad brow was almost entirely concealed at one side by the wig; and yet he could not but admire, nay, to a certain extent, sympathize, with him. M. Gombard noticed his singular air of dejection, his immovable attitude—standing there as if he were rooted to the spot when there was no longer any ostensible reason for his remaining in the room. He bent a glance of inquiry upon him, which said as plainly as words: “You have evidently something to say; so say it.”

“Monsieur,” said the landlord in a thick undertone, “I have been trusted with many secrets, and I have never been known to betray one. I ask you for no confidence; but, if you can trust me so far, answer me one question: Is it a matter of life and death that you go—that you reach your destination by a given time?”

M. Gombard hesitated for a moment, perplexed by the tone and manner of his host; then he replied, deliberately, as if weighing the value of each word: “I will not say ‘life and death,’ but as urgent as if it were life and death.”

“Ha! That is enough. I understand,” said the landlord. His voice was husky; he shook from head to foot. “Now tell me this: will you—will the situation be saved, if you can leave this to-morrow?”

“To-morrow?… Let me see,” said M. Gombard; and thrusting both hands into his pockets, he bent his head upon his breast with

“Saved!” broke in the landlord.

“I shall be saved, as you say,” repeated M. Gombard.

“Monsieur, if the thing is possible it shall be done!” protested the landlord. This coolness, this superhuman calm, at such a crisis, were magnificent; this felon, whoever he was, was a glorious man.

“Very peculiar person our host seems,” was the hero’s reflection, when the door closed behind that excited and highly sensitive individual. M. Gombard then drew a chair towards the fire, pulled a newspaper from his pocket, and poked his feet as far out on the hearth as he could without putting them right into the blaze.

When he had squeezed the newspaper dry, he threw it aside, and bethought to himself that he might as well go for a walk, and reconnoitre this extremely unprogressive town, where a traveller might wait two days and two nights for a pair of post-horses. He pulled on his big furred coat and sallied forth. The snow was deep, but the night’s sharp frost had hardened it, so that it was dry and crisp to walk on. There was little in the aspect of Cabicol that promised entertainment; it was called a town, but it was more like a village with a disproportionately fine church, and some large houses that looked out of place in the midst of the shabby ones all round though the largest was insignificant beside the imposing old pile opposite the inn. They looked quaint and picturesque enough, however, Pg 450 in their snow dress, glistening in the beams of the pale winter sun that shone out feebly from the milky-looking sky. The church was the first place to which M. Gombard bent his steps, not with any pious intentions, but because it was the only place that seemed to be open to a visitor, and was, moreover, a stately, Gothic edifice that would have done honor to a thriving, well-populated town. The front door was closed. M. Gombard was turning away with some disappointment, when an old woman who was frying chestnuts in the angle of the projecting buttress, with an umbrella tied to the back of her chair as a protest rather than a protection against the north wind that was blowing over the deserted market-place, called out to him that the side door was open, and pointed to the other side of the church. When the visitor entered it, he was struck by the solemnity and vastness of the place. It was quite empty. At least he thought so; for his eye, piercing the sombre perspective, saw no living person there. In the south aisle the rich stained glass threw delicate shadows of purple and gold and crimson on the pavement, on the stern mediæval statues, on the slim, groined pillars; but the other aisle was so dark that it was like night until your eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. M. Gombard walked slowly through the darkened aisle, peering up at the massive carving of the capitals, and into the quaint devices of the basements, and wondering what could have brought this majestic, cathedral-like church into so incongruous a frame as Cabicol. Suddenly he descried coming towards him from the farthest end of the aisle, like a dimly visible form emerging from total darkness, Mlle. Bobert. There was no reason why M. Gombard should not have accosted him just as readily as if he had been the priest he had taken him for, but something checked him at the first moment; and when the young man had passed, he was loath to call him back. He had not the kind of face M. Gombard expected; there was none of the levity or mawkishness that almost invariably characterized the countenances of men who were in love; neither was there any trace of coxcombry or conceit in his dress and general appearance; he had a fine head, well shaped, and with a breadth of forehead that announced brains; his face was thoughtful and intelligent. M. Gombard was sorry for the poor fellow, who was evidently not otherwise a fool. The sound of the lover’s footfall died away, and the great door closed behind him with a boom like low thunder. M. Gombard continued his walk round the church undisturbed. He came to the Lady Chapel behind the high altar, and stood at the entrance, filled with a new admiration and surprise. The chapel was as dimly lighted as the rest of the building; but from a deep, mullioned window there came a flood of amber light that fell full upon a kneeling figure, illuminating it with an effulgence to which the word heavenly might fitly be applied. M. Gombard’s first thought was that this new wonder was part of the whole; that it was not a real, living female form he beheld, Pg 451 but some beautiful creation of painter and sculptor, placed here to symbolize faith and worship in their loveliest aspect. But this was merely the first unreasoning impression of delight and wonder. He had not gazed more than a second on the kneeling figure when he saw that it was neither a statue nor an apparition, but a living, breathing woman. The worshipper was absorbed in her devotions, and seemed unconscious of the proximity of any spectator; so M. Gombard was free to contemplate her at his ease. It was the first time in his life that he ever stood deliberately to contemplate a woman, simply as a beautiful object; but there was something in this one totally different from all the women, beautiful or otherwise, that he had ever seen. It may have been the circumstances, the place and hour, the obscurity of all around, except for that yellow shaft of light that shot straight down upon the lovely devotee, investing her with a sort of celestial glory; but whatever it was, the spectacle stirred the fibres of his heart as they had never been stirred before. Who was this lovely creature, and why was she here in the deserted church, alone and at an hour when there was neither chant nor ceremony to call her thither? M. Gombard’s habit of mind and his semi-legal and magisterial functions led him to suspect and discover plots and sinister motives in most human actions that were at all out of the usual course; but it never for an instant occurred to seek any such here. This fair girl—she looked in the full bloom of youth—could only be engaged on some errand of duty, of mercy, or of love. Love! Strange to say, the word, as it rose to his lips, did not call up the scornful, or even the M. Gombard started; high up, on all sides, there was a noise like pebbles rattling against the windows. The lady started too, and, crossing herself, as at a signal that cut short her devotions, rose and hurried from the chapel. She took no notice of the man standing under the archway, but passed on, with a quick, light step, down the north aisle. M. Gombard turned and walked after her. He had no idea of pursuing her; he merely yielded to an impulse that anticipated thought and will.

On emerging into the daylight of the porch he saw that the rain was falling heavily, mixed with hail-stones as big as peas. The lady surveyed the scene without in blank dismay, while M. Gombard stealthily surveyed her. She struck him as more wonderful, more vision-like, now even than when she had burst upon him with her golden halo amidst the darkness; her soft brown eyes full of light, her silken brown curls, her scarlet lips parted in inarticulate despair, the small head thrown slightly back, and raised in scared interrogation to the dull gray tank above—M. Gombard saw all these charms distinctly now, and his dry, legal soul was strangely moved. Should he speak to her? What could he say? Offer her his umbrella, perhaps? That was a safe Pg 452 offer to make, and a legitimate opportunity; he blessed his stars that he had brought his umbrella.

“Madame—mademoiselle—pardon me—I shall be very happy—that is, I should esteem myself fortunate if I could—be of any service to you in this emergency—”

“Thank you; I am much obliged to you, monsieur,” replied the young lady; she saw he meant to be polite, but she did not see what help he intended.

“If you would allow me to call a cab for you?” continued M. Gombard timidly.

“Oh! thank you.” She broke into a little, childlike laugh that was perfectly delicious. “We have no cabs at Cabicol!”

The young merriment was so contagious that M. Gombard laughed too.

“Of course not! How stupid of me to have thought there could be! But how are you to get home in this rain, mademoiselle? Will you accept my umbrella? It is large; it will protect you in some degree.”

“Oh! you are too good, monsieur,” replied his companion, turning the brown eyes, darting with light, full upon him; “but I think we had better have a little patience and wait until the rain stops. It can’t last long like this; and if I ventured out in such a deluge, I think I should be drowned.”

There was nothing very original, or poetical, or preternaturally wise in this remark, but coming from those poppy lips, in that young, silvery voice, it sounded like the inspiration of genius to M. Gombard. He replied that she was right, that he was an idiot; in fact, had not his age and his business-like, dry, matter-of-fact appearance offered a guarantee for his sobriety and an excuse for his M. Gombard’s jubilant manner and ecstatic air would have led the young lady to fear he was slightly deranged or slightly inebriated. But ugly, elderly gentlemen who wear wigs are a kind of privileged persons to young ladies; they may say anything, almost, under cover of these potent credentials.

“This is a fine old church,” observed M. Gombard presently.

“Yes; we are proud of it at Cabicol. Strangers always admire it,” replied his companion.

“They are right; it is one of the best specimens of the Gothic of the Renaissance I remember to have seen,” said M. Gombard; “this portico reminds one of the cathedral of B——. Have you ever seen it, mademoiselle?”

“No; I have never travelled farther from Cabicol than Luxort.”

“Indeed! How I envy you!” exclaimed the mayor heartily. He was a new man; he was fired with enthusiasm for beauty of every description, in art, in nature, everywhere.

“It is you, rather, who are to be envied for having seen far places and beautiful things!” returned the young girl naïvely. “I wish I could see them too.”

“And why should you not?” demanded M. Gombard; he would have given half his fortune to have been able to say there and then: “Come, and I will show you these strange places, and beautiful things!”

“I am alone,” replied his companion in a low tone; the merry brightness faded from her face, the sweet eyes filled with tears.

M. Gombard could have fallen at her feet, and cried, “Forgive me! I did not mean to give you pain.” But he did not do so; he did better: he bowed gravely and murmured, Pg 453 almost under his breath: “Pauvre enfant!” He had never pitied any human being as he pitied this beautiful orphan; but then he was a man, as we know, who passed for having no heart. His young companion looked up at him through her tears, and her eyes said, “Merci!” It was like the glance of a dumb animal, so large, so pathetic, so trustful. The rain still fell in torrents, lashing the ground like whip-cords; but the hailstones had ceased. The two persons under the portico stood in solemn silence, watching the steady downpour. Presently, as when, by a sudden jerk of the string, the force of a shower-bath is slackened, it grew lighter; the sun made a slit in the tank, and gleamed down in a silver line through the lessening drops. The young girl went to the edge of the steps, and looked up, reconnoitring the sky.

“It is raining heavily still,” said M. Gombard; “but if you are in a hurry, and must go, pray take my umbrella!”

“But then you will get wet,” she replied, laughing with the childlike freedom that had marked her manner at first.

“That is of small consequence! It will do me good,” protested M. Gombard. “I entreat you, mademoiselle, accept my umbrella!”

It was hard to say “no,” and it was selfish to say “yes.” She hesitated. M. Gombard opened the umbrella, capacious as a young tent, and held it towards her. The young lady advanced and took it; but the thick handle and the weight of the outspread canopy were too much for her tiny hand and little round wrist. It swayed to and fro as she grasped it. M. Gombard caught hold of it again.

“Let me hold it for you,” he

“Across the market-place to that house with the veranda,” she replied; “but perhaps that is not your way, monsieur?”

It was not his way; but if it had been ten times more out of it, M. Gombard would have gone with delight.

“Do me the honor to take my arm, mademoiselle,” he said, without answering her inquiry. It was done in the kindest way—just as if she had been the daughter of an old friend. The young girl gathered her pretty cashmere dress well in one hand, and slipped the other into the arm of her protector. They crossed the market-place quickly, and were soon at the door of the house she had pointed out.

“Thank you! I am so much obliged to you, monsieur!”

“Mademoiselle, I am too happy—”

She smiled at him with her laughing brown eyes, and he turned away, a changed man, elated, bewildered, walking upon air. He walked on in the rain, his feet sinking ankle-deep in parts where the snow was thick and had been melted into slush by the heavy shower. He did not think now whether there was anything to visit to pass the rest of the day; his one idea was to find out the name of this beautiful creature, then to see her again, offer her his hand and fortune, if her position were not too far above his own, and be the happiest of men for the rest of his life. He was fifty years of age; but what of that? His heart was twenty; he had not worn it out in butterfly passions, “fancies, light as air,” and ephemeral as summer gnats. This was his first love, and few men half his age had that virgin gift to place in the Pg 454 bridal corbeille. Then how respected he was by his fellow-citizens! M. Gombard saw them already paying homage to his young wife; saw all the magnates congratulating him, and the fine ladies calling on Madame Gombard. When he reached the Jacques Bonhomme he was in the seventh heaven. The landlord saw him from the window of the bar, and hurried out to meet him with a countenance blanched with terror.

“Good heavens, monsieur! you have ventured out into the town. You have been abroad all this time! What mad imprudence!” he whispered.

“Eh! Imprudence? Not the least, my good sir,” replied the mayor, descending with a painful jump from his celestial altitude; “my boots are snow-proof, and behold my umbrella!” He swung it round, shut it up with a click, and held it proudly at arm’s length, while the wet streamed down its seams as from a spout.

“Marvellous man!” muttered the landlord, staring at him aghast. “But hasten in now, I entreat you. You ordered dinner at three; it will be served to you in your room.”

“Just as it pleases you,” returned M. Gombard complacently. “I don’t mind where I get it, provided it be good.”

“Monsieur, for heaven’s sake be prudent!” said the landlord; he took the umbrella from him, and hung it outside the door to drip.

“I wish to have a word with you presently, mine host,” M. Gombard called out from the top of the stairs.

“I am at your orders, monsieur,” said the host. This reckless behavior in a man flying for his life was beyond belief. “It is madness, but it is sublime!” thought the landlord. The table was ready laid when M. Gombard entered his room; the M. Gombard glanced quickly to the latticed window; it did not open, but he distinctly saw a female figure standing behind it, and retreating suddenly, as if unwilling to be observed. The little pantomime, which he had looked on so contemptuously a few hours ago, was now full of a new interest to him. He wondered what the lady was like; whether she looked with full kindness on this pensive, intellectual-looking adorer, and admitted him occasionally to her presence, or whether she starved him on these distant glimpses. What was he doing in the church just now, with that long scroll in his hand? He had not been praying out of it, certainly. “I must interrogate mine host,” thought M. Gombard, stirred to unwonted curiosity about these lovers. Great was his surprise at that very moment to behold the said host cross the street, pass the open gateway of the gabled house, ring at the narrow, arched door and presently disappear within it. What could the landlord of the Jacques Bonhomme have to do with the wealthy mistress of that house?

“Monsieur is served!” said the waiter, in a tone which announced that he had said it before.

M. Gombard started, shut the window, and sat down to his dinner. When he had finished it, he went and opened the window again, and, lo and behold! there was the landlord Pg 455 coming back from the mystifying visit. This time M. Gombard saw most distinctly the figure of a woman looking out from the latticed window, and drawing back instantly when he appeared.

There was a knock at the door. “Come in!” said M. Gombard.

The landlord looked very much excited.

“I have done my best for you, monsieur,” he began in an agitated manner; “I have left nothing undone, and all I have been able to obtain is that you shall have a good pair of post-horses to-morrow at one o’clock.”

“Capital! Excellent! Then I am—” He stopped short.

“Saved!” muttered the landlord exultingly.

“Yes, yes, my friend, saved,” repeated M. Gombard with an air of cool indifference which was nothing short of heroic; “but I am just thinking whether, as I have not been able to start this afternoon, I am not losing my time in starting at all. It might be wiser to— But, no; I had better go. You say the horses are good?”

“The best in Cabicol.”

“And I can count upon them?”

“I have the word of a noble woman for that.”

“Ha! a woman! Who may she be?”

“The mistress of that house—Mlle. Bobert.”

The landlord pronounced these words with an emphasis that might have been dispensed with, as far as regarded the effect of the announcement on M. Gombard.

“Mlle. Bobert!” he repeated in amazement.

“Yes, monsieur. She is young, but she has the mind of a man and the heart of a mother. When every

“You confound me!” said M. Gombard.

“Have no fear, monsieur; Mlle. Bobert is a woman, but—she is to be trusted. The horses will be here at one o’clock.”

“Well, well,” said M. Gombard, “I must not be ungrateful either to you or Mlle. Bobert; it is most kind of you to take so much trouble in my behalf, landlord, and most kind of her to furnish me with the horses. You say she is young; is she pretty?” (Gracious heavens! If the citizens of Loisel had heard this stony-hearted mayor putting such questions!)

“No, monsieur, she is not pretty,” replied the landlord; “she is beautiful.”

“Diable!” exclaimed M. Gombard facetiously.

“Beautiful as an angel,” remarked the landlord, with an accent that seemed to rebuke his guest’s exclamation.

“You appear to have a spécialité for beautiful persons in Cabicol,” said M. Gombard, pouncing on his opportunity; “I met one in the church just now, taking shelter from the rain—the most remarkably beautiful person I ever saw in my life. Who can she be? She lives in the house to the right of the market-place.”

“Excuse me, monsieur, she does not,” said the landlord sadly.

“No? How do you know? Did you see me—did you see her in the church?”

“No, monsieur, I did not,” answered the landlord.

M. Gombard was mystified again. Pg 456 What a droll fellow mine host was altogether!

“You evidently know something about her,” he resumed; “can you tell me her name and where she lives?”

“Her name is Mlle. Bobert; she lives yonder.” He stretched out his arm, and held a finger pointed toward the old house. The effect on M. Gombard was electric. He started as if the landlord’s finger had pulled the trigger of a pistol; he grew pale; he could not utter a word. The landlord pitied him sincerely.

“When I told her who it was I wanted the horses for,” he continued, “she asked me to describe you. I did so, and she recognized you at once as the person to whom she had spoken in the church. She said immediately it would be a great pleasure to her to do you this service, you had been so very courteous to her.”

“Pray convey my best thanks to Mlle. Bobert,” said M. Gombard, making a strong effort to control his emotions; “I am profoundly sensible of her goodness.”

The landlord cast one deeply tragic look upon his unfortunate guest, bowed and withdrew. As he turned away, he bethought to himself how, as the wisest men had been fooled by lovely woman, it was not to be wondered at that the bravest should be made cowards by her; here was a man who could carry a bold heart and a smiling face into the very teeth of danger, but no sooner did he find that a woman had got hold of even a suspicion of his secret than his courage deserted him, and he was incapable of keeping up even a semblance of bravery. Unhappy man! But he was safe; he had nothing to fear from Mlle. Bobert.

M. Gombard understood all now; the joyous expression of her lovely face, her unconstrained manner to him, her presence in the deserted church—it was all explained: her lover had been there, praying with her, and she had lingered on praying for him. Happy, happy man! Miserable Gombard! He spent the evening drearily over his lonely fire. How lonely it seemed since he had lost the dream that had beautified it, filling the future with sweet visions of fireside joys, of bright companionship by the winter blaze! He went to bed, nevertheless, and slept soundly. The wound was not so deep as he imagined, this middle-aged man, who had no memories of young love, with its kindling hopes and passionate despairs, by which to measure his present suffering. He was very miserable, sincerely unhappy, but, all the same, he slept his seven hours without awaking. When at last he did awake, and bethought him of his sorrow, he took it up where he had left it the night before, and moaned and pitied himself with all his heart. He was to start at one o’clock, but he must make an effort to see Mlle. Bobert again before leaving Cabicol for ever. He ordered his breakfast, ate heartily, and then sallied forth in the direction of the church. He knew of no other place where he was at all likely to meet her; he had not seen her leave the house, but she might have done so while he was breakfasting. As well try to time the coming in and out of the sunbeams as the ways and movements of this fairy châtelaine. She would sit by her latticed window immovable for an hour, then Pg 457 disappear, then return, flitting to and fro like a shadow. M. Gombard watched his opportunity, when the landlord was busy in the crowded bar, to slip out of the house. He felt as if he were performing some guilty action in stealing away on such a foolish errand; how men would laugh at him if they knew, if they could see the revolution that had taken place in him within the last four-and-twenty hours! He tried to laugh at himself, but it was more than his philosophy could accomplish. The great doors of the church were open to-day. They were open every morning up to noon; the good folks of Cabicol went in and out to their devotions, from daybreak until then, not in crowds, but in groups of twos and threes, trickling in and out at leisure. The grand old church looked less gloomy than yesterday; the sunlight poured in, illuminating the nave fully, and scattering the oppressive darkness of the lofty aisles; but to M. Gombard the sunshine brought no brightness. He stood at the entrance of the nave, and looked up the long vista and on every side, but no trace of the luminary he sought was visible. The few worshippers who knelt at the various shrines disappeared one by one, going forth to the day’s labor, its troubles and its interests, till the church was nearly empty. M. Gombard turned into the north aisle, and sauntered slowly on. Presently he saw a tall figure advancing, as yesterday, with the same quick step, from out the same side chapel. It was his hated rival! Here he was again, with the same scroll of paper in his hand; he rolled it up carefully, and put it in his pocket as he walked on, calm, pensive, unconcerned, as if nobody had been by, nobody scowling fiercely upon him M. Gombard was now certain that Mlle. Bobert was in the Lady Chapel; he quickened his step in that direction. Great was his surprise to find it almost filled with people. The first Mass was at six, the second at ten; the second was just finished. People were rising to come away; soon there were only a few, more fervent than the rest, who lingered on at their devotions. M. Gombard looked eagerly all round. There was a group of several persons going out together. Descrying Mlle. Bobert amongst them, he turned and followed quickly, taking the south aisle so as to reach the portico before her, and have a chance of saluting, perhaps speaking to, her; for might he not, ought he not, lawfully seize this opportunity of thanking her? He stationed himself in the open door-way, standing so that she could not pass without seeing him. The common herd passed out. M. Gombard turned as a light step drew close. He bowed low. “Mademoiselle, I have many thanks to offer you,” he said in a subdued voice, as became the solemn neighborhood. “You have done a great kindness to a perfect stranger. I shall never see you again; but if ever, by chance, by some unspeakable good fortune, it were—in my power, if I could do anything to serve you, I should count it a great hap … I should be only too happy!”

Poor man! How confused he was! He could hardly get the words out. It was pitiable to see his emotion. Mlle. Bobert’s gentle heart was touched.

“Don’t think of it!” she answered Pg 458 kindly, but with a nervous, timid manner that he was not too absorbed to notice and to wonder at, remembering her unrestrained frankness of yesterday. “It is I who am glad. I wish I had known it sooner, before the market-day. I should have done my best; but I hope it is not too late, that you will esca—that you will get where you want in good time.”

“It is of little consequence, mademoiselle. I care not whether I get there late or early now,” replied M. Gombard.

“Don’t say that! Pray don’t!” said the young girl with great feeling. “I should be so sorry! Good-by, monsieur, good-by.”

She hurried away. Did his eyes deceive him, or were there tears in hers? She was strangely agitated; her voice trembled; there was a choking sound in it when she said that “Good-by, monsieur, good-by!” Did she read his secret on his face, in his manner, his tone, and was she sorry for him? It was not improbable. He hoped it was so. It was something to have her pity, since she could give him nothing more. He watched the slight figure drifting out of sight; the step was less elastic than yesterday; she was depressed, unnerved. What a treasure that odious man had conquered in this tender, loving heart!

The post-chaise was at the door punctually at one. M. Gombard was ready waiting for it when the landlord knocked at his door. The traveller’s air of deep dejection struck a new pang at his feeling heart.

“Monsieur, I trust sincerely you may not be too late,” he said in the quick undertone of strong emotion, as he closed the door of the chaise and leaned forward confidentially.

“Don’t say that, monsieur, don’t, I entreat you!” said the landlord, lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper. “It would grieve me to the very soul! I swear to you it would! Will you do me one favor?—just to prove that you trust me and believe that I have done my best to forward your es—your wishes: will you send me word by the postilion if you arrive in time?”

“Really, landlord, your interest in my welfare is beyond my comprehension,” said M. Gombard; he had had enough of this effusive sympathy, and at the moment it irritated him.

“Don’t say so, sir! But I understand—you don’t know me; you are afraid to trust me. Well, I will not persist; but if you consent to send me back one word, I shall be the happier for it. And Mlle. Bobert—think of her!”

“Mlle. Bobert! Do you suppose she cares to hear of me again? To know what becomes of me?” asked M. Gombard breathlessly.

“Care, monsieur? She will know no peace until she hears from you; she will reproach herself, as if it had been her fault. You little know what a sensitive heart hers is.”

The postilion gave a preliminary flourish of his whip. Crack! crack! it went with a noise that roused all the population of the Jacques Bonhomme, the inmates of the house, of the back yard and the front; boys, dogs, pigs, ducks, turkeys, geese—all came hurrying to the fore, barking, grumbling, cackling, screaming, and pushing, terrified lest they should be late for the fun.

“I will send you word,” said M. Gombard, pressing mine host’s Pg 459 hand with an impulse of gratitude and joy too strong for pride. “Adieu! Merci!”

Crack! crack! and away went the post-chaise amidst such a noise and confusion of men and animals as is not to be described. As the horses dashed down the street, M. Gombard beheld the man with the scroll turn the corner. Curiosity was too much for dignity; he looked back: the hat was raised, and the happy rival passed on.

TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.

WHAT IS DR. NEVIN’S POSITION?

The leading article[135] in the Mercersburg Review for October last is from the celebrated pen of J. Williamson Nevin, D.D. Dr. Nevin is a member of the German Reformed Church, and at one period he was president of Marshall College, the leader of a school of theologians, and editor of the Mercersburg Review, to which magazine he is now the ablest contributor. During his editorship he wrote several remarkable articles for its pages, especially those on St. Cyprian, which attracted considerable attention.

Dr. Nevin’s writings are characterized by an earnest religious spirit, a freedom from bigotry, and they always aim at conveying some important Christian verity; which, although he scarcely can be said to know it, finds its true home only in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Hence Catholics can but take an interest in whatever Dr. Nevin writes, and we intend to lay before our readers, with some remarks of our own, the purport of his present article, entitled “The Spiritual World.”

In this article Dr. Nevin tries to show and prove that the work of salvation includes not only the resistance

“Flesh and blood, self, the world, and the things of the world around us here in the body, are indeed part of the hostile force we are called to encounter in our way to heaven; they are not the whole of this force, however, nor are they the main part of it, by any means. That belongs always to a more inward and far deeper realm of being, where the powers of the spiritual world are found to go immeasurably beyond all the powers of nature, and to be, at the same time, in truth, the continual source and spring of all that is in these last, whether for good or for evil. The Christian conflict thus, even where it regards things simply of the present life, looks through what is thus mundane, constantly to things which are unseen and eternal; and in this way it becomes in very fact throughout a wrestling, not with flesh and blood, but with the universal powers of evil brought to bear upon us from the other world.”

This he proceeds to prove by the vows of baptism:

“So much we are taught in the form of our Christian baptism itself, by which we are engaged to ‘renounce the devil with all his ways and works, the world with its vain pomp and glory, and the flesh with all its sinful desires.’ In one view these may be regarded as separate enemies; but we know, at the same time, that they form together but one and the Pg 460 same grand power of evil, no one part of which can be effectually withstood asunder from the diabolical life that animates and actuates the whole. To wrestle with the world or with the flesh really, is to wrestle at the same time really with the full power of hell. If the struggle reach not to this, it may issue in stoic morality or respectable prudence, but it can never come to true self-mastery or victory over the world in the Christian sense. The field for any such conquest lies wholly beyond the realm of mere flesh and blood. The conquest, if gained at all, must be won from the hosts of hell, and then, of course, by the aid only of corresponding heavenly hosts and heavenly armor; which is, in truth, just what our baptism means.”

He calls in philosophy to confirm his thesis, thus:

“The conception of any such comprehension of our life here in the general spiritual order of the universe can be no better than foolishness, we know, for the reigning materialistic thinking of the present time. But it is, in truth, the only rational view of the world’s existence. Philosophy, no less than religion, postulates the idea that the entire creation of God is one thought, in the power of which all things are held together as a single system from alpha to omega, from origin to end; and all modern science is serving continually more and more to confirm this view by showing that all things everywhere look to all things, and that everything everywhere is and can be what it is only through its relations to other things universally. So it is in the world of nature; so it is in the spiritual world; and so it must be also in the union of these two worlds one with the other. It is to be considered a settled maxim now, a mere truism indeed for all true thinkers, that there is no such thing as insulated existence anywhere—such an inconnexum must at once perish, sink into nonentity. It is no weakness of mind, therefore, to think of the spiritual world as a vast nexus of affection and thought (like the waves of the sea, endlessly various and yet multitudinously one), viewed either as heaven or as hell. Without doing so, indeed, no man can believe really in any such world at all. It will be for him simply an abstraction, a notion, a phantom.

These views, so strongly put forth by Dr. Nevin, we hardly need remark, are familiar to all Catholics, agree with the doctrines of all Catholic spiritual authors, especially the mystics, who have written professedly on this subject, and their truth is abundantly illustrated on almost every page of the lives of the saints. The Catholic mystical authors, many of whom were saints, have gone over the entire ground of our relations with the supernatural world, and, both by their learning and personal experience, have conveyed, in their writings on this subject, important knowledge, laid down wise regulations, and given in detail safe, wholesome, practical directions. They seem to breathe in the same atmosphere as that in which the Holy Scriptures were written, and in passing from the reading of the Holy Scriptures to the lives of the saints there is no feeling of any break. They lived in the habitual and conscious presence, and in some cases in sight, of the inhabitants of the supernatural world; and so familiar was their intercourse with the angelical side, and at times so dreadful were the combats to which they were delivered Pg 461 on the diabolical side, that their lives, for this very reason, become a stumbling-block to worldly Catholics and to Protestants generally. In the lives of her saints the Catholic Church proves that she is not only the teacher of Christianity, but also the inheritor and channel of its life and spirit. How far Dr. Nevin himself would agree with this intense realism of the church in connection with the supernatural world, as seen in the lives of her saints, we have no special means of knowing; but if we may judge from the spirit and drift of the article under consideration, he goes much farther in this direction than is usual for Protestants. Be his opinion what it may, their lives form a concrete evidence of the truth of his thesis. It is the sense of nearness of the spiritual world, and its bearing on the Christian life, pervading as it does the public worship, the private devotions, and the general tone of Catholics, that characterizes them from those who went out from the fold of the Catholic Church in the religious revolution of three centuries ago. This whole field has become to Protestants, in the process of time, a terra incognita; and if Dr. Nevin can bring them again to its knowledge, and in “constant, living union” with it, he will have done a most extraordinary work.

Efforts of this kind and of a similar nature have not been wanting in one way or another, and are not now wanting, among Protestants. There are those who show a decided interest in the works of the spiritual writers of the Catholic Church. Strange to say—and yet it is not strange; for in this they follow the law of similia similibus—they are particularly fond of those authors whose writings are not altogether The Maxims of the Saints, by Fénelon; and to another class there is a peculiar charm in the history of the Jansenistic movement of Port Royal; others, again, moved by the same instinct, will not hesitate to acknowledge with Dr. Mahan that “such individuals as Thomas à Kempis, Catherine Adorno [he means St. Catherine of Genoa], and many others were not only Christians, but believers who had a knowledge of all the mysteries of the higher life, and who, through all coming time, will shine as stars of the first magnitude in the firmament of the Church. In their inward experiences, holy walk, and ‘power with God and with men,’ they had few, if any, superiors in any preceding era of church history. ‘The unction of the Spirit’ was as manifest in them as in the apostles and primitive believers”;[136] while many of this class in the Episcopal Church translate from foreign languages into English the works of Catholic ascetic writers, and books of devotion, for the use of pious members of their persuasion. The Rev. S. Baring-Gould will give you in English, in many volumes, the complete lives of the saints. They even go so far, both in England and the United States, as to found religious orders of both sexes as schools for the better attainment of Christian perfection, and venture to take the name of a Catholic saint as their patron.

It is evident that, among a class of souls upon whom the church can be said to exert no direct influence, Pg 462 there is a movement towards seeking nearer relations with the unseen spiritual world, accompanied with a desire for closer union with God. It finds expression among all Protestant denominations. With the Methodists and Presbyterians it is known by the name of “perfectionism,” or “the higher life,” or “the baptism of the Holy Ghost.” It is also manifested by the efforts made now and again for union among all the Protestant sects. It is the same craving of this mystical instinct for satisfaction that lies at the root of spiritism, which has spread so rapidly and extensively outside of the Catholic Church, not only among sceptics and unbelievers, but even among all classes of Protestants, and entered largely into their pulpits.

The former movement assumes a religious aspect; but lacking the scientific knowledge of spiritual life, and the practical discipline necessary to its true development and perfection, it gradually dies out or runs into every kind of vagary and exaggeration. Recently, after having made not a little commotion among different denominations in England and Germany, it came, in the person of its American apostle, Mr. Pearsall Smith, to a sudden and disgraceful collapse. “If the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch.” The latter movement—spiritism—leads directly to the entire emancipation of the flesh, resulting in free-lovism, and sometimes ending in possession and diabolism. Spiritism is Satan’s master-stroke, in which he obtains from his adepts the denial of his own existence. These are some of the bitter fruits of the separation from Catholic unity: those who took this step under the pretence of seeking a higher spiritual life are afflicted

Suppose for a moment that Dr. Nevin should succeed in the task which he has undertaken, and by his efforts raise those around him, and the whole Protestant world, to a sense of their relation to the supernatural world. What then? Why, he has only brought souls to a state which many Protestants have reached before; and when they sought for the light, aid, and sympathy which these new conditions required, in those around them, they found none.

By quickening their spiritual sensibilities you have opened the door to wilder fancies, more dangerous illusions, and thereby exposed the salvation of their souls to greater perils. For, as St. Gregory tells us: “Ars artium est regimen animarum”—the art of arts is the guidance of souls; and where is this art, this science, this discipline, to be found? Not in Protestantism. What then? Why, either these souls have to renounce their holiest convictions, their newly-awakened spiritual life, and sink into their former insensibility; or go where they can find true guidance, certain peace, and spiritual progress—enter into the bosom of the holy Catholic Church, where alone the cravings of that spiritual hunger can be appeased which nowhere else upon earth found food, and the soul can at last breathe freely.

But there is another point involved Pg 463 in Dr. Nevin’s article; and however so much, as Catholics, we may sympathize with his endeavors to awaken Protestants to their relations with the supernatural world, this point in question will come up, and we cannot help putting it: What is Dr. Nevin’s criterion of revealed truth? The rule of interpretation of the written Word? Dr. Nevin has one; for neither he nor any one else can move a single step without employing and applying, implicitly or explicitly, a rule of faith. He criticises, judges, condemns others, but on what ground? Does his own position, at bottom, differ from that of those whom he condemns? He lacks neither the ability nor the learning to make a consistent statement on this point. Truth is consistent. God is not the author of confusion.

Where does Dr. Nevin find or put the rule of faith? If it be placed in simple human reason, then we have as the result, in religion, pure rationalism. If it be placed in human reason illuminated by grace, then we have illuminism. If it be placed in both of these, with the written Word—that is, the Bible as interpreted by each individual with the assistance of divine grace—then we have the common rule of faith of all Protestants, so fruitful in breeding sects and schisms, and inevitably tending to the entire negation of Christianity.

This last appears to be Dr. Nevin’s rule of faith; for what else does he mean when in the beginning of his article, its second sentence, he makes the following surprising statement: “Christianity is a theory of salvation”? Did God descend from heaven and become man upon earth, live, suffer, and die, and for what? “A theory”! Is this the whole issue

That this is so is evident; for while he says, “Christianity is a theory,” he adds in the same sentence, “and is made known to us by divine revelation.” Now, the separation, even in idea, between the church and Christianity, is the fountain, source, and origin of all the illusions and errors uttered or written, since the beginning, concerning the Christian religion. The attempt to get at and set up a Christianity independently of the Christian Church is the very essence and nature of all heresies. The church and Christianity are distinguishable, but not separable; and in assuming their separability, as a primary position, lies all the confusion of ideas and Pg 464 misapprehensions of Christianity in the author of the article under present consideration. This point needs further explanation, as it is all-important, and forms, indeed, the very root of the matter. “Christianity is a theory,” says Dr. Nevin, “and is made known to us by divine revelation.” But what does Dr. Nevin mean by “divine revelation”? Here are his own words in explanation:

“When the question arises, How are we to be made in this way partakers of the living Christ, so that our religion shall be in very deed—not a name only, not a doctrinal or ritualistic fetich merely, nor a fond sentiment simply of our own fancy?” “All turns in this case on our standing in the divine order as it reaches us from the Father through the Son. That meets us in the written Word of God, which, in the way we have before seen, is nothing less in its interior life than the presence of the Lord of life and glory himself in the world.”

Again:

“We cannot now follow out the subject with any sort of adequate discussion. We will simply say, therefore, that what our Lord says here of his words or commandments is just what the Scriptures everywhere attribute to themselves in the same respect and view. They claim to be spirit and life, to have in them supernatural and heavenly power, to be able to make men wise unto everlasting life, to be the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever—not the memory or report simply of such word spoken in time past, but the always present energy of it reaching through the ages. The Scriptures—God’s law, testimonies, commandments, statutes, judgments, his word in form of history, ritual, psalmody, and prophecy—are all this through what they are as the ‘testimony of Jesus’; and therefore it is that they are, in truth, what the ark of God’s covenant represented of old, the conjunction of heaven and earth, and in this way a real place of meeting or convention between men and God. To know this, to own it, to acknowledge inwardly the presence of Christ in his Word, as the same Jehovah are his commandments, and not for any lower reason—this is the whole duty of man, and of itself the bringing of man into union with God; the full verification of which is reached at last only in and by the Word made glorious through the glorification of the Lord himself; as when, in the passage before us he makes the keeping of his commandments the one simple condition of all that is comprehended in the idea of the mystical union between himself and his people.”