the bishops and the doctors who equally sought the exalted privilege of
its courtesies and its kindness. And the friendship, based on sympathy
with Christian labors, became strengthened every day by mutual
appreciation, and by that frank and genial intercourse which can exist
only with cultivated and honest people. Those high-born ladies listened
to his teachings with enthusiasm, entered into all his schemes, and gave
him most generous co-operation; not because his literary successes had
been blazed throughout the world, but because, like them, he concealed
under his coarse garments and his austere habits an ardent, earnest,
eloquent soul, with intense longings after truth, and with noble
aspirations to extend that religion which was the only hope of the
decaying empire. Like them, he had a boundless contempt for empty and
passing pleasures, for all the plaudits of the devotees to fashion; and
he appreciated their trials and temptations, and pointed out, with more
than fraternal tenderness, those insidious enemies that came in the
disguise of angels of light. Only a man of his intuitions could have
understood the disinterested generosity of those noble women, and the
passionless serenity with which they contemplated the demons they had by
grace exorcised; and it was only they, with their more delicate
organization and their innate insight, who could have entered upon his
sorrows, and penetrated the secrets he did not seek to reveal. He gave
to them his choicest hours, explained to them the mysteries, revealed
his own experiences, animated their hopes, removed their
stumbling-blocks, encouraged them in missions of charity, ignored their
mistakes, gloried in their sacrifices, and held out to them the promised
joys of the endless future. In return, they consoled him in
disappointment, shared his resentments, exulted in his triumphs, soothed
him in his toils, administered to his wants, guarded his infirmities,
relieved him from irksome details, and inspired him to exalted labors by
increasing his self-respect. Not with empty flatteries, nor idle
dalliances, nor frivolous arts did they mutually encourage and assist
each other. Sincerity and truthfulness were the first conditions of
their holy intercourse,--"the communion of saints," in which they
believed, the sympathies of earth purified by the aspirations of heaven;
and neither he nor they were ashamed to feel that such a friendship was
more precious than rubies, being sanctioned by apostles and martyrs;
nay, without which a Bethany would have been as dreary as the stalls and
tables of money-changers in the precincts of the Temple.
A mere worldly life could not have produced such a friendship, for it
would have been ostentatious, or prodigal, or vain; allied with
sumptuous banquets, with intellectual tournaments, with selfish aims,
with foolish presents, with emotions which degenerate into passions
_Ennui_, disappointment, burdensome obligation, ultimate disgust, are
the result of what is based on the finite and the worldly, allied with
the gifts which come from a selfish heart, with the urbanities which are
equally showered on the evil and on the good, with the graces which
sometimes conceal the poison of asps. How unsatisfactory and mournful
the friendship between Voltaire and Frederic the Great, with all their
brilliant qualities and mutual flatteries! How unmeaning would have been
a friendship between Chesterfield and Dr. Johnson, even had the latter
stooped to all the arts of sycophancy! The world can only inspire its
votaries with its own idolatries. Whatever is born of vanity will end in
vanity. "Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that
mirth is heaviness." But when we seek in friends that which can
perpetually refresh and never satiate,--the counsel which maketh wise,
the voice of truth and not the voice of flattery; that which will
instruct and never degrade, the influences which banish envy and
mistrust,--then there is a precious life in it which survives all
change. In the atmosphere of admiration, respect, and sympathy suspicion
dies, and base desires pass away for lack of their accustomed
nourishment; we see defects through the glass of our own charity, with
eyes of love and pity, while all that is beautiful is rendered radiant;
a halo surrounds the mortal form, like the glory which mediaeval
artists aspired to paint in the faces of Madonnas; and adoration
succeeds to sympathy, since the excellences we admire are akin to the
perfections we adore. "The occult elements" and "latent affinities," of
which material pursuits never take cognizance, are "influences as potent
in adding a charm to labor or repose as dew or air, in the natural
world, in giving a tint to flowers or sap to vegetation."
In that charmed circle, in which it would be difficult to say whether
Jerome or Paula presided, the aesthetic mission of woman was seen
fully,--perhaps for the first time,--which is never recognized when love
of admiration, or intellectual hardihood, or frivolous employments, or
usurped prerogatives blunt original sensibilities and sap the elements
of inward life. Sentiment proved its superiority over all the claims of
intellect,--as when Flora Macdonald effected the escape of Charles
Stuart after the fatal battle of Culloden, or when Mary poured the
spikenard on Jesus' head, and wiped his feet with the hairs of her head.
The glory of the mind yielded to the superior radiance of an admiring
soul, and equals stood out in each other's eyes as gifted superiors whom
it was no sin to venerate. Radiant in the innocence of conscious virtue,
capable of appreciating any flights of genius, holding their riches of
no account except to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, these friends
lived only to repair the evils which unbridled sin inflicted on
mankind,--glorious examples of the support which our frail nature needs,
the sun and joy of social life, perpetual benedictions, the sweet rest
of a harassed soul.
Strange it is that such a friendship was found in the most corrupt,
conventional, luxurious city of the empire. It is not in cities that
friendships are supposed to thrive. People in great towns are too
preoccupied, too busy, too distracted to shine in those amenities which
require peace and rest and leisure. Bacon quotes the Latin adage, _Magna
civitas, magna solitudo_. It is in cities where real solitude dwells,
since friends are scattered, "and crowds are not company, and faces are
only as a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where
there is no love."
The history of Jerome and Paula suggests another reflection,--that the
friendship which would have immortalized them, had they not other and
higher claims to the remembrance and gratitude of mankind, rarely exists
except with equals. There must be sympathy in the outward relations of
life, as we are constituted, in order for men and women to understand
each other. Friendship is not philanthropy: it is a refined and subtile
sentiment which binds hearts together in similar labors and experiences.
It must be confessed it is exclusive, esoteric,--a sort of moral
freemasonry. Jerome, and the great bishops, and the illustrious ladies
to whom I allude, all belonged to the same social ranks. They spent
their leisure hours together, read the same books, and kindled at the
same sentiments. In their charmed circle they unbent; indulged,
perchance, in ironical sallies on the follies they alike despised. They
freed their minds, as Cicero did to Atticus; they said things to each
other which they might have hesitated to say in public, or among fools
and dunces. I can conceive that those austere people were sometimes even
merry and jocose. The ignorant would not have understood their learned
allusions; the narrow-minded might have been shocked at the treatment of
their shibboleths; the vulgar would have repelled them by coarseness;
the sensual would have disgusted them by their lower tastes.
There can be no true harmony among friends when their sensibilities are
shocked, or their views are discrepant. How could Jerome or Paula have
discoursed with enthusiasm of the fascinations of Eastern travel to
those who had no desire to see the sacred places; or of the charms of
Grecian literature to those who could talk only in Latin; or of the
corrupting music of the poets to people of perverted taste; or of the
sublimity of the Hebrew prophets to those who despised the Jews; or of
the luxury of charity to those who had no superfluities; or of the
beatitudes of the passive virtues to soldiers; or of the mysteries of
faith to speculating rationalists; or of the greatness of the infinite
to those who lived in passing events? A Jewish prophet must have seemed
a rhapsodist to Athenian critics, and a Grecian philosopher a conceited
cynic to a converted fisherman of Galilee,--even as a boastful Darwinite
would be repulsive to a believer in the active interference of the moral
Governor of the universe. Even Luther might not have admired Michael
Angelo, any more than the great artist did the courtiers of Julius II.;
and John Knox might have denounced Lord Bacon as a Gallio for advocating
moderate measures of reform. The courtly Bossuet would not probably have
sympathized with Baxter, even when both discoursed on the eternal gulf
between reason and faith. Jesus--the wandering, weary Man of
Sorrows--loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus; but Jesus, in the hour of
supreme grief, allowed the most spiritual and intellectual of his
disciples to lean on his bosom. It was the son of a king whom David
cherished with a love surpassing the love of woman. It was to Plato that
Socrates communicated his moral wisdom; it was with cultivated youth
that Augustine surrounded himself in the gardens of Como; Caesar walked
with Antony, and Cassius with Brutus; it was to Madame de Maintenon that
Fénelon poured out the riches of his intellect, and the lofty Saint
Cyran opened to Mère Angelique the sorrows of his soul. We associate
Aspasia with Pericles; Cicero with Atticus; Héloïse with Abélard;
Hildebrand with the Countess Matilda; Michael Angelo with Vittoria
Colonna; Cardinal de Retz with the Duchess de Longueville; Dr. Johnson
with Hannah More.
Those who have no friends delight most in the plaudits of a plebeian
crowd. A philosopher who associates with the vulgar is neither an oracle
nor a guide. A rich man's son who fraternizes with hostlers will not
long grace a party of ladies and gentlemen. A politician who shakes
hands with the rabble will lose as much in influence as he gains in
power. In spite of envy, poets cling to poets and artists to artists.
Genius, like a magnet, draws only congenial natures to itself. Had a
well-bred and titled fool been admitted into the Turk's-Head Club, he
might have been the butt of good-natured irony; but he would have been
endured, since gentlemen must live with gentlemen and scholars with
scholars, and the rivalries which alienate are not so destructive as the
grossness which repels. More genial were the festivities of a feudal
castle than any banquet between Jews and Samaritans. Had not Mrs. Thrale
been a woman of intellect and sensibility, the hospitalities she
extended to Johnson would have been as irksome as the dinners given to
Robert Hall by his plebeian parishioners; and had not Mrs. Unwin been as
refined as she was sympathetic, she would never have soothed the morbid
melancholy of Cowper, while the attentions of a fussy, fidgety,
talkative, busy wife of a London shopkeeper would have driven him
absolutely mad, even if her disposition had been as kind as that of
Dorcas, and her piety as warm as that of Phoebe. Paula was to Jerome
what Arbella Johnson was to John Winthrop, because their tastes, their
habits, their associations, and their studies were the same,--they were
equals in rank, in culture, and perhaps in intellect.
But I would not give the impression that congenial tastes and habits and
associations formed the basis of the holy friendship between Paula and
Jerome. The fountain and life of it was that love which radiated from
the Cross,--an absorbing desire to extend the religion which saves the
world. Without this foundation, their friendship might have been
transient, subject to caprice and circumstances,--like the gay
intercourse between the wits who assembled at the Hôtel de Rambouillet,
or the sentimental affinities which bind together young men at college
or young girls at school, when their vows of undying attachment are so
often forgotten in the hard struggles or empty vanities of subsequent
life. Circumstances and affinities produced those friendships, and
circumstances or time dissolved them,--like the merry meetings of Prince
Hal and Falstaff; like the companionship of curious or _ennuied_
travellers on the heights of Righi or in the galleries of Florence. The
cord which binds together the selfish and the worldly in the quest for
pleasure, in the search for gain, in the toil for honors, at a
bacchanalian feast, in a Presidential canvass, on a journey to
Niagara,--is a rope of sand; a truth which the experienced know, yet
which is so bitter to learn. It is profound philosophy, as well as
religious experience, which confirms this solemn truth. The soul can
repose only on the certitudes of heaven; those who are joined together
by the gospel feel alike the misery of the fall and the glory of the
restoration. The impressive earnestness which overpowers the mind when
eternal and momentous truths are the subjects of discourse binds people
together with a force of sympathy which cannot be produced by the
sublimity of a mountain or the beauty of a picture. And this enables
them to bear each other's burdens, and hide each other's faults, and
soothe each other's resentments; to praise without hypocrisy, rebuke
without malice, rejoice without envy, and assist without ostentation.
This divine sympathy alone can break up selfishness, vanity, and pride.
It produces sincerity, truthfulness, disinterestedness,--without which
any friendship will die. It is not the remembrance of pleasure which
keeps alive a friendship, but the perception of virtues. How can that
live which is based on corruption or a falsehood? Anything sensual in
friendship passes away, and leaves a residuum of self-reproach, or
undermines esteem. That which preserves undying beauty and sacred
harmony and celestial glory is wholly based on the spiritual in man, on
moral excellence, on the joys of an emancipated soul. It is not easy, in
the giddy hours of temptation or folly, to keep this truth in mind, but
it can be demonstrated by the experience of every struggling character.
The soul that seeks the infinite and imperishable can be firmly knit
only to those who live in the realm of adoration,--the adoration of
beauty, or truth, or love; and unless a man or woman _does_ prefer the
infinite to the finite, the permanent to the transient, the true to the
false, the incorruptible to the corruptible there is not even the
capacity of friendship, unless a low view be taken of it to advance our
interests, or enjoy passing pleasures which finally end in bitter
disappointments and deep disgusts.
Moreover, there must be in lofty friendship not only congenial tastes,
and an aspiration after the imperishable and true, but some common end
which both parties strive to secure, and which they love better than
they love themselves. Without this common end, friendship might wear
itself out, or expend itself in things unworthy of an exalted purpose.
Neither brilliant conversation, nor mutual courtesies, nor active
sympathies will make social intercourse a perpetual charm. We tire of
everything, at times, except the felicities of a pure and fervid love.
But even husband and wife might tire without the common guardianship of
children, or kindred zeal in some practical aims which both alike seek
to secure; for they are helpmates as well as companions. Much more is it
necessary for those who are not tied together in connubial bonds to have
some common purpose in education, in philanthropy, in art, in religion.
Such was pre-eminently the case with Paula and Jerome. They were equally
devoted to a cause which was greater than themselves.
And this was the extension of monastic life, which in their day was the
object of boundless veneration,--the darling scheme of the Church,
indorsed by the authority of sainted doctors and martyrs, and
resplendent in the glories of self-sacrifice and religious
contemplation. At that time its subtile contradictions were not
perceived, nor its practical evils developed. It was not a withered and
cunning hag, but a chaste and enthusiastic virgin, rejoicing in poverty
and self-denial, jubilant with songs of adoration, seeking the solution
of mysteries, wrapt in celestial reveries, yet going forth from dreary
cells to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and still more, to give
spiritual consolations to the poor and miserable. It was a great scheme
of philanthropy, as well as a haven of rest. It was always sombre in its
attire, ascetic in its habits, intolerant in its dogmas, secluded in
its life, narrow in its views, and repulsive in its austerities; but its
leaders and dignitaries did not then conceal under their coarse raiments
either ambition, or avarice, or gluttony. They did not live in stately
abbeys, nor ride on mules with gilded bridles, nor entertain people of
rank and fashion, nor hunt heretics with fire and sword, nor dictate to
princes in affairs of state, nor fill the world with spies, nor extort
from wives the secrets of their husbands, nor peddle indulgences for
sin, nor undermine morality by a specious casuistry, nor incite to
massacres, insurrections, and wars. This complicated system of
despotism, this Protean diversified institution of beggars and
tyrants, this strange contradiction of glory in debasement and
debasement in glory (type of the greatness and littleness of man),
was not then matured, but was resplendent with virtues which extort
esteem,--chastity, poverty, and obedience, devotion to the miserable, a
lofty faith which spurned the finite, an unbounded charity amid the
wreck of the dissolving world. As I have before said, it was a protest
which perhaps the age demanded. The vow of poverty was a rebuke to that
venal and grasping spirit which made riches the end of life; the vow of
chastity was the resolution to escape that degrading sensuality which
was one of the greatest evils of the times; and the vow of obedience was
the recognition of authority amid the disintegrations of society. The
monks would show that a cell could be the blessed retreat of learning
and philosophy, and that even in a desert the soul could rise triumphant
above the privations of the body, to the contemplation of immortal
interests.
For this exalted life, as it seemed to the saints of the fourth
century,--seclusion from a wicked world, leisure for study and repose,
and a state favorable to Christian perfection,--both Paula and Jerome
panted: he, that he might be more free to translate the Scriptures and
write his commentaries, and to commune with God; she, to minister to his
wants, stimulate his labors, enjoy the beatific visions, and set a proud
example of the happiness to be enjoyed amid barren rocks or scorching
sands. At Rome, Jerome was interrupted, diverted, disgusted. What was a
Vanity Fair, a Babel of jargons, a school for scandals, a mart of lies,
an arena of passions, an atmosphere of poisons, such as that city was,
in spite of wonders of art and trophies of victory and contributions of
genius, to a man who loved the certitudes of heaven, and sought to
escape from the entangling influences which were a hindrance to his
studies and his friendships? And what was Rome to an emancipated woman,
who scorned luxuries and demoralizing pleasure, and who was perpetually
shocked by the degradation of her sex even amid intoxicating social
triumphs, by their devotion to frivolous pleasures, love of dress and
ornament, elaborate hair-dressings, idle gossipings, dangerous
dalliances, inglorious pursuits, silly trifles, emptiness, vanity, and
sin? "But in the country," writes Jerome, "it is true our bread will be
coarse, our drink water, and our vegetables we must raise with our own
hands; but sleep will not snatch us from agreeable discourse, nor
satiety from the pleasures of study. In the summer the shade of the
trees will give us shelter, and in the autumn the falling leaves a place
of repose. The fields will be painted with flowers, and amid the
warbling of birds we will more cheerfully chant our songs of praise."
So, filled with such desires, and possessing such simplicity of
tastes,--an enigma, I grant, to an age like ours, as indeed it may have
been to his,--Jerome bade adieu to the honors and luxuries and
excitements of the great city (without which even a Cicero languished),
and embarked at Ostia, A.D. 385, for those regions consecrated by the
sufferings of Christ. Two years afterwards, Paula, with her daughter,
joined him at Antioch, and with a numerous party of friends made an
extensive tour in the East, previous to a final settlement in Bethlehem.
They were everywhere received with the honors usually bestowed on
princes and conquerors. At Cyprus, Sidon, Ptolemais, Caesarea, and
Jerusalem these distinguished travellers were entertained by Christian
bishops, and crowds pressed forward to receive their benediction. The
Proconsul of Palestine prepared his palace for their reception, and the
rulers of every great city besought the honor of a visit. But they did
not tarry until they reached the Holy Sepulchre, until they had kissed
the stone which covered the remains of the Saviour of the world. Then
they continued their journey, ascending the heights of Hebron, visiting
the house of Mary and Martha, passing through Samaria, sailing on the
lake Tiberias, crossing the brook Cedron, and ascending the Mount of
Transfiguration. Nor did they rest with a visit to the sacred places
hallowed by associations with kings and prophets and patriarchs. They
journeyed into Egypt, and, by the route taken by Joseph and Mary in
their flight, entered the sacred schools of Alexandria, visited the
cells of Nitria, and stood beside the ruins of the temples of
the Pharaohs.
A whole year was thus consumed by this illustrious party,--learning more
than they could in ten years from books, since every monument and relic
was explained to them by the most learned men on earth. Finally they
returned to Bethlehem, the spot which Jerome had selected for his final
resting-place, and there Paula built a convent near to the cell of her
friend, which she caused to be excavated from the solid rock. It was
there that he performed his mighty literary labors, and it was there
that his happiest days were spent. Paula was near, to supply _his_
simple wants, and give, with other pious recluses, all the society he
required. He lived in a cave, it is true, but in a way afterwards
imitated by the penitent heroes of the Fronde in the vale of Chevreuse;
and it was not disagreeable to a man sickened with the world, absorbed
in literary labors, and whose solitude was relieved by visits from
accomplished women and illustrious bishops and scholars. Fabiola, with a
splendid train, came from Rome to listen to his wisdom. Not only did he
translate the Bible and write commentaries, but he resumed his pious and
learned correspondence with devout scholars throughout the Christian
world. Nor was he too busy to find time to superintend the studies of
Paula in Greek and Hebrew, and read to her his most precious
compositions; while she, on her part, controlled a convent, entertained
travellers from all parts of the world, and diffused a boundless
charity,--for it does not seem that she had parted with the means of
benefiting both the poor and the rich.
Nor was this life at Bethlehem without its charms. That beautiful and
fertile town,--as it then seems to have been,--shaded with sycamores and
olives, luxurious with grapes and figs, abounding in wells of the purest
water, enriched with the splendid church that Helena had built, and
consecrated by so many associations, from David to the destruction of
Jerusalem, was no dull retreat, and presented far more attractions than
did the vale of Port Royal, where Saint Cyran and Arnauld discoursed
with the Mère Angelique on the greatness and misery of man; or the sunny
slopes of Cluny, where Peter the Venerable sheltered and consoled the
persecuted Abélard. No man can be dull when his faculties are stimulated
to their utmost stretch, if he does live in a cell; but many a man is
bored and _ennuied_ in a palace, when he abandons himself to luxury and
frivolities. It is not to animals, but to angels, that the higher
life is given.
Nor during those eighteen years which Paula passed in Bethlehem, or the
previous sixteen years at Rome, did ever a scandal rise or a base
suspicion exist in reference to the friendship which has made her
immortal. There was nothing in it of that Platonic sentimentality which
marked the mediaeval courts of love; nor was it like the chivalrous
idolatry of flesh and blood bestowed on queens of beauty at a
tournament or tilt; nor was it poetic adoration kindled by the
contemplation of ideal excellence, such as Dante saw in his lamented and
departed Beatrice; nor was it mere intellectual admiration which bright
and enthusiastic women sometimes feel for those who dazzle their brains,
or who enjoy a great _éclat_; still less was it that impassioned ardor,
that wild infatuation, that tempestuous frenzy, that dire unrest, that
mad conflict between sense and reason, that sad forgetfulness sometimes
of fame and duty, that reckless defiance of the future, that selfish,
exacting, ungovernable, transient impulse which ignores God and law and
punishment, treading happiness and heaven beneath the feet,--such as
doomed the greatest genius of the Middle Ages to agonies more bitter
than scorpions' stings, and shame that made the light of heaven a
burden; to futile expiations and undying ignominies. No, it was none of
these things,--not even the consecrated endearments of a plighted troth,
the sweet rest of trust and hope, in the bliss of which we defy poverty,
neglect, and hardship; it was not even this, the highest bliss of earth,
but a sentiment perhaps more rare and scarcely less exalted,--that which
the apostle recognized in the holy salutation, and which the Gospel
chronicles as the highest grace of those who believed in Jesus, the
blessed balm of Bethany, the courageous vigilance which watched
beside the tomb.