Volume 7 — Translated From The French. An Italian Girl Of Our Day. [Footnote 155]

Continued From Page 372.

I here interrupt, for a moment, the order of these Letters, to introduce a fragment from one of the writings of Signorina Ferrucci, in which is found, eloquently developed, the idea with which the last letter closes. Need we wonder that, to so a pure a soul, Christianity was all mercy and all love? Certainly not. The passions of men have so often disfigured the sweet countenance of the gospel that those outside the household of faith form a false idea of it, and, in their inability to distinguish what is divine from what is human, they reject all. But, if they would only learn to leave men and draw near to God, to flee vain disputes and go to the centre where all is calm, they would soon know that the genius of Christianity is indeed love. Pure souls, whom anger and dispute have not marred, know this well. The young author whom I am about to cite understood it, and it is with a feeling of respect that I transcribe these beautiful pages, which breathe so strong a perfume of the gospel:

The love of God, which inflames the heart of man and infuses into it a holy zeal, has assuredly nothing in common with that implacable fanaticism with which infidelity so unjustly charges the religion of Jesus Christ. And yet it is but too true that the sons of one Heavenly Father, the inhabitants of a world watered by the Redeemer's blood, have more than once, while waging cruel war upon each other, ranged themselves under the standard of the cross. But because such horrors darken the page of history, are we to conclude that the love of God banishes all toleration from the human heart, or can we deny that the Catholic religion is all love? And shall the blind fury of men make the world forget the numberless benefits which, for nineteen centuries, the gospel has bestowed upon all nations and upon its most cruel enemies? O church of the Redeemer! who dost pray for thine enemies, and dost show thyself ever ready to succor them, even as our Heavenly Father maketh his sun to shine upon the most ungrateful of mankind, who was it that filled thy heart with that holy and ever active love of all the virtues? Who gave thee the strength to oppose at all times a tranquil front to the masters of the world? Whence have thy martyrs derived that courage which made them joyfully bend their heads under the axe of the executioner? Who taught thee to confound the subtle contradictions of the philosophers, and, with the same hands, to break the chains of the slave? How is it that, ever firm and immovable, thou alone hast survived the vicissitudes of all things and the overthrow of so many thrones? Who has given thee such power of persuasion that by its prodigies "from the very stones are raised up children to Abraham"? In fine, whence hast thou received that inviolable authority which resolves all doubts, dissipates our errors, humbles the mighty, sustains the weak, enlightens the world, pardons all faults, and consoles in every affliction and in every distress?

Ah! who does not see that so many miracles have been wrought by the sole power of that divine love kindled in thee by Jesus Christ? For just as thou lovest Jesus in fatigue and in repose, in tears and in joy, in persecution and in peace, in combat and in victory, so also thou lovest in him and for him the humble and the great, the faithful and the unbelieving, the poor and the rich. There is not on this earth a human being for whom thou dost not pray, and whom thou wouldst not, at any price, bring back to the bosom of him who suffered for all men because he loved all. Oh! may thy desires soon be fulfilled, holy church of the living God! How, then, can that man call himself the friend of God and the true son of the church of Jesus Christ, who would oppose arms to arms, violence to violence, forgetting these words of Christ, "Love your enemies," "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"? The blind apostles of intolerance show well that they have never penetrated in its true sense the life of the Redeemer, who, suffering every injury, and even the death of the cross, drew the whole world to himself by the irresistible power of pardon and of love. He who would be willing to forget his prejudices, and, retiring into the solitude of his own heart, would plant there the sweet image of Jesus Christ, such a one would soon learn how far the power of Christian meekness transcends that of the sword, and he would shudder at the thought of pursuing with fire and steel them whom the cross alone may vanquish. Ah! if Jesus crucified entered truly into our hearts, how many things would he not make them understand! [Footnote 156]

Again, I find, in the same paper, this beautiful sentiment:

I believe that charity consists not solely in compassionating the sufferings of the poor and relieving them. Its character is more general: it must be the soul of all our sentiments. For my part, I see charity in patience, in humility, in faith, in docile submission to superiors, in justice, in courage, in fortitude, in contempt of the world, in the desire of heaven. Charity is, indeed, the light of God, infinite as himself. Whoever has received into his heart a ray of this divine light is bound, if I may so speak, to communicate its warmth to the whole world.

We return to the letters.

July 15.

Sweet were the impressions, Gaetano, which our walk yesterday in that beautiful garden left on my mind. Is it not true that the flowers, the trees, the blue sky, the pure soft air, the song of the birds, the hum of the insects—all conspired to speak to our hearts of God? I feel, too, that all these beautiful things seemed more joyous to me because you were there, for to me they all seemed to reflect the feelings of your heart. Then those beautiful verses of my mother's which Uncle G—— read to us affected me powerfully. Earth and heaven, flowers and songs, all borrowed a new charm from the harmony of those beautiful stanzas.

July 22.

I do not know the places you speak of, unless you mean Romito and Antignano. I went as far as La Torre on foot, one beautiful August morning, without suffering much from the heat, which was tempered by the sea-breeze. After having traversed that long, steep road, which becomes at every step more solitary and more closely shut in between the hills and the sea, I went up to the top of the little fortress, and thence for a long time I gazed on the neighboring islands and the vast horizon where sea and sky seemed to unite, and I even discerned some of the lands of the Maremma. Another time, with the Plezza, the Gabrini, and other friends, we went as far as Romito. The sun had already sunk below the horizon. Every moment the last glimmering of twilight was becoming more faint, and soon the moon rose behind the hills. Her pale rays were reflected in the sea, where nothing was seen save a solitary fishing-boat; and the gentle murmur of the waves, as they came slowly to die on the rocky shore, was the only sound that broke the stillness of the night. We crossed from time to time the dry bed of one of those torrents which fall from the mountains into the sea; and thus, now talking, now silent, gazing, admiring, we passed the two little towers, and, arrived at the limits of the two communes, we stopped and turned back, as if we had reached the Columns of Hercules, There is a comparison that would please my good friend Louisa V——. Would you believe it, in her last letter she gravely compares me to a navigator steering toward a new world. "Yet no," she says, "love is a world as old as the earth." That may be, my good Louisa; but to me it is new, all new, Gaetano, and I believe, even, that it will never grow old, like everything that comes directly from God, who is endless duration in eternal youth! On this is grounded my sure hope that, after having united us here on earth, he will unite us again in the life to come; and this thought alone raises me from earth to heaven!

This was not the first time that Rosa had visited Antignano. That calm and lovely shore had witnessed the sports of her childhood. Three or four years before the date of the last letter we have given, she wrote from that place to one of her young friends the following pretty letter:

Antignano, July, 1853.

In spite of our joy at being here, believe me, my dear Maria, we feel your absence sadly. It turns to melancholy the joyous memories of last year. This is from my heart, Maria; how happy I should be to have you at this moment by my side! Come back to us then, dear friend, come back! The little wood where we spent so many happy hours, the great shady trees, the smiling country, and the sea—all call you back. Why, it is but two days since I heard a wave which came bounding over the sea say to you, "Come down, young girl, from the flowery bank into this calm sea, and yield to the invitation of the sun, who with his brilliant rays is brightening air and earth and water." But this pretty song of the naiad was suddenly interrupted, for my poor wave broke and expired on a rock. All its sister wavelets murmured the same prayer to you, but all, like the first, soon broke upon the shore; and I grew pensive at the sight, for those poor waves, vanishing so quickly, seemed to me a true image of our shattered hopes, which cause us so many tears. Meanwhile a little interior voice remained with me, and murmured sweetly in my ear, "Courage, courage! Why are you sad? Cannot Maria come back? I am your good friend Hope, listen to me and believe me: I promise you that next year Maria shall be here." This consoled me a little, for I always believe what my good friend Hope tells me. Courage, then, and patience, and I am sure of having you yet at Antignano. Dear Maria, pardon this letter, which is as long as it is foolish, and, if you do not understand it, seek in it only a new proof of my tender affection for you. Meanwhile, let us leave the world of dreams and enter that of news. ...

To Gaetano.

July 28.

This day brings to us a mournful anniversary. Poor Charles Albert! on this day, and at the very hour in which I write, he yielded up to God his soul, oppressed with grief, but still full of an unshaken confidence in the justice of his cause and the imprescriptibility of his rights. Doubtless the saints have welcomed into heaven him who on earth loved God and suffered for justice' sake. It is with feelings of compassion that I think of the king, his son, surviving all his family, who have, one after the other, gone before him to the grave.

This enthusiastic remembrance of the house of Savoy is not the only one to be found in the letters of Rosa Ferrucci. The misfortunes of the king, Charles Albert; the death of the Duke of Genoa, his son; the ruin of so many hopes, for a moment triumphant—all these often call forth in her correspondence plaints and regrets. I like to see this love of national independence in so pure a soul. She says somewhere:

"In considering the history of nations, we discover at every step new and infallible proofs of the wisdom and omnipotence of him who directs the affairs of the world; of that mysterious justice which surpasses all human understanding as the heavens surpass the earth. Hope, then, in the Lord, ye victims of oppression! Acknowledge the hand which alone can give you deliverance! And you, usurpers of the rights of the vanquished, triumph not without trembling at the tears which you have caused to flow. He lives, he will live for ever, who will never remain deaf to the lamentations of his people Israel. If he defers his justice, are you to cease to believe in him? Because he can wait, will your presumption know no bounds? Do you forget that God is patient because he is eternal?" [Footnote 157]

Patriotism was, however, a family tradition with Rosa Ferrucci. At the time of the memorable events which, in 1848, threatened the speedy overthrow of Austrian rule in Italy, Signer Ferrucci, with his colleagues in the University of Pisa, quitted his chair, and, at the head of the students, who had formed themselves into a body, set out for the army, accompanied by his young son. They took part in all the battles of that unfortunate campaign—at first in its victories, then in its reverses—and returned to Pisa only after the ruin of the last hope. These are facts too little known in the contemporary history of that unhappy Italy whose faults are the theme of every tongue, while few know how many noble hearts she can still produce.

We resume the correspondence:

August 4.

May I tell you, Gaetano, what I have been thinking about our future life? We must first, as we have so often said, have continually present to our minds the will of God, endeavor to accomplish it in all things, and be ever submissive to it from our inmost hearts. Then we must have but one heart and one soul in serving God, and I hope that we shall have but one heart also in loving our dear parents. What ingratitude would be ours if in our happiness we forgot them to whom we owe so much, and who loved us before we knew what love was! [Footnote 158]

Let us endeavor so to regulate the affections of our hearts that one shall not be stifled by the other, but that all, forming a sweet harmony, may rise toward him who created us, and for whom alone we must live. May he alone be the end of all our actions and of all our thoughts! Then fatigue will never overcome our courage, our duties will never seem too heavy, our life will be calm, our intentions pure, and we shall taste even here below that interior peace,

"Which no one knows but he who feels it."

Such is the plan of our life. I have but lightly sketched it, fearing that I might seem to be giving counsels and prescribing rules to you. All this is possible only by the grace of God. Let us beg it through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin at the approaching festival of the Assumption; we have so great need of her protection and guidance.

"We pray for grace and it obtain From her who is its mother."

September 15.

To-day I am as sad as I was joyous yesterday. Your departure, the thought of an inevitable separation from my father and mother, a thousand conflicting feelings in my heart, undefinable to myself, have made me weep. Alas for us women! we are weaker than the leaves which are stripped from the trees and scattered by the first wind of autumn; and, childhood scarce passed, our hearts, capable only of loving and suffering, are torn by a thousand contrary emotions of joy and sadness. Pardon me these murmurs, O my God! No, I ought not to weep, but ought rather to pour out my soul in thanksgiving.

I open my whole heart to you, Gaetano, because it is you who are to be the support of my life; to share all my thoughts, dispel my fears, and be my counsellor and guide. Singular thing! my new hopes have made all my feelings more keen and ardent. Hence those alternations of joy and sadness, to whose deepest emotions I was till lately a stranger. As it is, I do not know how I am to tear myself from the arms of those who watched over my childhood and who love me so much. But let us forget all this to-day. I can no longer speak of my mother without my eyes filling with tears. It is drawing near that dear October. If I cannot enjoy your ruralizing, I can, at least, be happy in thinking of the pleasure you will find in it. You are going to see your mountains again, and those pine-groves, which from my childhood I have ever loved and admired. In the midst of the flowers, the plants, the trees, you will think often of him who created us with souls capable of loving the beautiful and good; of him who this year has opened to you the horizon of a new life, in which I hope you will never find either regrets or thorns. Oh! how easy, as it seems to me, does the beauty of the country make the love of God. How sweet it is to think that the same God who gives the dews and the fertilizing rains to the earth, foliage to the trees, flowers and harvests to the fields, is also that loving Father who supports us in all our trials and so sweetly invites our souls to repose in himself! Let me speak to you of the good God, Gaetano; I love so much to think of him.

September 25.

I cannot express the pleasure it is to me to gaze into the deep azure of the beautiful mornings of which

"The air is sweet and changeless,"

and of the lovely evenings when the stars seem to speak, and tell in a sacred language the wisdom of God. The country does good to our souls. In admiring its beauties and its treasures ever new, we are led more easily to think that, if earth was made for man, man was created to love God. I often say to myself, What, then, will heaven be, if there is so much of beauty on this poor earth, where we are not so much dwellers as pilgrims? ... On the eve of St. John's day, all Florence was illuminated. There was nothing to be heard but games and noisy laughter among the people. Every one was gazing eagerly at the fireworks and the illuminations; but no one thought of admiring the most beautiful ornament of the feast—I mean the moon, whose tremulous rays were reflected in the Arno, lengthening the shadows of the trees.

September 28.

Next year we will go to the country together. If you knew how I love your mountains, with their tall pines, their flowers, their streams, and their green summits. I still remember the moment I left them. It was a November morning. The faint rays of a cloud-veiled sun shed a pale light on the horizon, the leaves were falling from the trees, and the snow of the day before still covered the summits. All nature was solitary and sad. Who could have told me then, that to this melancholy spot which I was leaving as a child, I should return with you a happy bride?

October 23.

Enjoy well your ruralizing; its pleasures are a thousand times sweeter than those of our towns. How pleasant it is of an evening to climb the heights, and thence behold the vast expanse of heaven still purpled by the sun's last rays; to see at one's feet the fields, the pine groves, the pale olives, the elms, yellow-tinted by autumn, the little, scattered cottages of the peasants, with the smoke of the evening fire rising from the roof, and the village church, which seems by the tolling of its bell "to mourn the dying day,"

"Il giorno pianger che si muore!" [Transcriber's note: This sentence is blurred.]

I am far from all this now, but I often think of it. Again I see our happy day at Cuccigliana, our mountain walk, and that beautiful horizon, with its luminous depths, which promised me a joyous future. How many things nature can say! How she can speak to the heart! How, above all, she can speak to it of God! Flowers, hills, forests, earth, and sky—all are more beautiful when we have learned to discern in them the beauty of God. How many times already, Gaetano, have I gone over again our walk on the Serchio, where the rustling of the leaves was the only accompaniment to our long conversations! Ah! may God bless thee, may he render thee happy, and all my desires will be satisfied.

Eve of All Saints' Day.

Oh! if the feast of to-morrow should one day be our feast! Do not suppose, however, that I am presumptuous enough to hope that we shall ever be like the saints of our altars. No; but I believe that not only those great saints, but also all the souls of the just who are admitted to the beatific vision of God, are invoked on this great day by the church. This it is that emboldens my desires. ...

If you are sad, recollect that it has pleased God thus to alternate in this world our joys and sorrows, in order to implant more deeply in our souls the desire of that life in which weeping shall be no more. Then shall we be united I hope, in the love and blissful contemplation of that God whom we now adore under the veil of faith.

Meanwhile it is sweet to say to one's self: God loves me infinitely more than I can love myself. He thinks of me and watches over me with a tenderness surpassing all the tenderness of a mother. What, then, should I fear? And besides, how be Christians and not be willing to suffer for love of a God who has suffered so much for us? I would share these thoughts with you, Gaetano, because I find in them my strength and consolation every day. Treasure them in your heart, call them often to mind, and your sadness will disappear as

"La neve al sol si disigilla." [Footnote 159]

I do not think we shall lose by the exchange when, having finished Milton, we read Virgil together. That great man seems to me indeed

"The light and honor of the other poets,"

as our Dante says. We shall reap from this reading the great advantage of being able to compare the principal episodes of the AEneid with the best passages of other poems. I assure you I do not regret the time I give to my little studies; if I had to commence them again, I should apply myself only with more diligence and attention. I owe to them the best pleasures that I have known; above all, I owe to them community of intellectual life with you. [Footnote 160]

Now that I do not take lessons, and that, consequently, I have no more leisure, I know no more lively pleasure than to shut myself up in my little room with my books and my pen; and even during those hours which I ought and which I am determined to devote to needlework, I love still to think of what I have read and to beguile the time by these pleasant memories. Having had some time for study to-day, I resumed the reading of Muratori, taking the history of the wars of Odoacer and Theodoric. The subject is a familiar one, but I return to it always willingly, because I think the history of the middle ages even more important for us to know than ancient history. And then what joy of soul to see the church, in all places and in the most barbarous ages, the mother and guardian of civilization, the friend and consoler of the vanquished, the last bulwark of the oppressed against the unbridled pretensions of power!

Poor Italy! how she has suffered! What carnage! How much blood shed in vain! How many tears!

January 1, 1857.

Let us pray God, let us pray him with our whole heart to-day, Gaetano, to bless our union, our souls, our actions, our thoughts, our life. May he deign to preserve long those who are dear to us, to shield us from great misfortunes, and, above all, never to withdraw his grace from us! Such are the prayers that we will offer together, united in heart, though separated by distance. God will see the sincerity of our desires, and he will grant them.

The serenity of the heavens gladdens all nature, and rejoices also our souls, which in the light of the sun seem, as it were, a reflection of the Increated Light. I do not think I am superstitious, Gaetano; and if the new year had commenced in the midst of lightning, thunder, and dismal rains, I should certainly not, on that account, have augured ill for our future. But now, contemplating the calmness and pureness of the sky and of the whole horizon, I ask of God to give us a life like to this beautiful day, that is to say, such a life that nothing may ever be able to disturb in our souls that peace whose source is in God, its eternal fount.

January 4.

After some cold days, the weather has again become very mild, and the air is balmy as with the first perfumes of spring. How brightly the sun shines to-day! Its warm beams inundate my little room. Seated at my table, at some distance from the window, my eye wanders involuntarily to what I can see of the sky. I fancy I see a great blue eye looking down lovingly on me. Ah Gaetano! how good is God!

I have just learned the death of a very dear friend. Young, beautiful, brought up in opulence, the only daughter of a mother who idolized her, she wished to become a Sister of Charity in order to serve God in his poor. For ten years she has been a tender mother to the orphan, and she has just died in the bloom of her days. Dear and good Sister Maria! how happy I should have been to see her again! I do not cease thinking of her! Schiller would say here: "Cease to weep: tears do not resuscitate the dead." Ah! with what a far different power do the words addressed by the Redeemer to the afflicted come home to our hearts: "Blessed are they that weep, for they shall be comforted!" The more I meditate on these words, and then look on earth in its renewal, the pure light and deep azure of the sky, the more I am impressed, death notwithstanding, with the infinite goodness of God and the ineffable bliss of a future life. I hear sometimes of the good being oppressed by the wicked; I often see virtuous persons in misfortune; will not, then, the just also have their day and their recompense? Ah! often, when at night I raise my eyes toward the twinkling stars, I think of those happy souls who are there on high, higher than the stars, in the eternal enjoyment of the beatific vision, of adoration and love without end. If man would only fix his soul on such thoughts, what is there on earth that could discourage him?

I received your dear letter this morning, Gaetano, and lest you should suppose I thought it too gloomy, I must tell you that I, too, have been thinking of death the whole day, and that I even offered a special prayer to our Lord to be merciful to me when the hour shall have come for me to pass from time to eternity, and, as I hope, "from the human to the divine." We have need of abandoning ourselves with a child-like confidence into the arms of God, if we wish to keep alive in our hearts the hope of seeing in heaven him whom we adore on earth. For my part, if, instead of thinking of him alone, I turned to think of myself, I really know not whither my reflections might lead me. But hope, which is a Christian virtue, is a firm expectation of future glory, I will, then, forget my fears and believe that, despite our imperfections, we may one day taste in the bosom of God a happiness even of the shadow of which we cannot catch a glimpse on this earth. We shall then know in what overflowing measure the Lord rewards even the feeblest efforts of his friends. We shall know how everything here below was inevitably passing away with ourselves, how this earthly life vanished more lightly than a dream, and that there remains nothing to man after death but love, that ethereal part of the soul which God claims all for himself. Yet more: I believe that the love which shall unite and commingle our souls on high will not be absorbed in the contemplation of the divine essence in such a manner that the sweetness of loving each other still shall escape our perception. I believe, on the contrary, that it will be the triumph of love to exist and to endure in God, and to unite in one canticle of praise the souls which God made to love one another.

More sorrow—Matilda is dead! [Footnote 161] Oh! how we loved her. She was an angel! It is we only who suffer, for to her it is pure happiness to have quitted earth. Not a murmur was ever heard from her lips. She found all peace and all strength in the love of God. Her soul so easily opened itself to joy. The day before her death, seeing some flowers, "What beautiful things our God has made!" she exclaimed. Her friends wished to inform her father of her imminent danger. This she constantly opposed, wishing to spare that poor father the agony of a last farewell. Here are examples.

I do not know the introduction you speak of; but my mother has read to me the admirable verses of Manzoni which are prefixed to it. How many things these verses recall to me. They have affected me powerfully. Returning in memory to the times that are past, I fancied as I listened to them that I heard the sweet voice of my poor Matilda, who, in reciting this beautiful poetry, evinced so tender an admiration for her father's genius. We were at Viareggio. It was a beautiful summer evening, and the peace of a starlit sky penetrated deep into our souls. Matilda said to me: "Rosa, if you could only tell me the first verse of those stanzas, I am sure I could recite the whole." For some time I ransacked my poor memory in vain. Suddenly came the word, "Pause awhile." That word was enough. Matilda recited without failing in a word—and oh! with what feeling—the whole piece of poetry. Dear friend! she is with us no longer, and we shall see her no more on earth. When I parted with her last, I said to her: "Farewell till we meet again." I ought to have said: "Farewell till we meet in heaven."

When the storm came upon us, [Footnote 162] two terrific peals of thunder were heard at once. I confess, Gaetano, I did not expect to reach Pisa. And oh! how terrible is the thought of death, when all around reminds one of the almighty power of God. I trembled as I thought of eternity. I saw my own nothingness, and that my only refuge was in the bosom of God. There did I cast myself with all the confidence of my soul. Unperceived by any one, I drew from my bosom my crucifix, and, concealing it in my hand, I pressed it to my lips. I felt then what help religion will give us in our last moments, for I immediately regained courage, and all my fears vanished.

To Signorina Louisa B——.

I received your sad and tender letter yesterday, my dear Louisa, and I answer it without delay, to prove to you that your sorrows are mine. Poor Antonietta! Yet, why weep for her? Her soul has winged its flight to the celestial regions, where, as she said in her delirium, all was ready to receive her. It is not to her, then—it is to you, to your family, to ourselves, that our tears belong. As soon as I heard the sad tidings, I raised my heart to God, and offered him a fervent prayer for your mother and yourself. As to Antonietta, I could not pray for her, because I saw her truly in the midst of the angelic choirs.

Dear friend, would that I could console you; but I feel with sadness my utter inability. It is God alone who has the secret of true consolation. Is not he our good Father? Does not he await us in that blessed abode where there are neither sorrows nor tears, but where reign eternal peace and happiness? And then, my poor Louisa, if life seemed to promise your dear sister happiness and joy, has not death put her in possession of joys more pure, happiness more profound, than she could ever have desired? Oh! how enviable is her lot. She will never know the troubles, the disappointments, the disenchantments of this life. She will be spared all the suffering which is inseparable from a long existence. Death has been to her a beautiful angel, come from heaven to crown her with flowers. Dry your tears, Louisa: your sister is happier than we.

To Gaetano,

Each day is bringing you nearer the mournful anniversary you spoke of in your last letter. I beg, I conjure you, Gaetano, to allow to your heart no sentiment but that of resignation. Remember that we shall see in heaven those who are taken from us on earth; and that the sufferings of this life are the means by which we are to attain endless beatitude. I speak thus, not to preach patience to you, which it would ill become me to do, but to give you a word of consolation; for I know all that you have suffered, all that you still suffer in secret. The cares of business and the multiplicity of exterior duties will not prevent sorrowful memories from taking possession of your soul. You can, then, but offer your sufferings as a sacrifice, believing that they will render us more worthy of the divine love. If I already shared your life, I would do everything in my power to console and encourage you on these sad days. Meanwhile let us both strive each day to lessen our imperfections, and to let the love of God have fuller scope in our hearts. Thus shall we, if not without fear, at least without remorse, reach that solemn moment of our life, the one that will end it. May God, who, we hope, will one day unite us on earth by holy ties, deign to unite us also in heaven!

January 21. (Three days before the commencement of her illness.)

Truly we must be always ready to die when and as God wills, and to love him infinitely more than all the things of this world which are passing away with our frail lives. Our immortal soul is not made for this world, where all is fleeting, dissolving, changing. By the very nature of its being, it yearns for heaven. For me, living or dead, in this world or the next, I will be ever thine, my Gaetano, in the love that God knows and blesses.

This letter is the last that Rosa Ferrucci wrote.

Concluded In Next Number.