"Far from being the morose set of savages that I had hitherto seen,

they are excessively merry, and always ready for either a laugh or a

fight. The town of Tarrangotté contained about three thousand

houses, and was not only surrounded by iron-wood palisades, but

every house was individually fortified by a little stockaded

courtyard. The cattle were kept in large kraals in various parts of

the town, and were most carefully attended to, fires being lit every

night to protect them from flies, and high platforms in three tiers

were erected in many places, upon which sentinels watched both day

and night, to give the alarm in case of danger. The cattle are the

wealth of the country, and so rich are the Latookas in oxen, that

ten or twelve thousand head are housed in every large town. . . .

The houses of the Latookas are bell-shaped. The doorway is only two

feet and two inches high, and thus an entrance must be effected on

all-fours. The interior is remarkably clean, but dark, as the

architects have no idea of windows."

Mr. Baker notices the fact that the circular form of hut is the only

style of architecture adopted among all the tribes of Central Africa,

and also among the Arabs of Upper Egypt; and that although there are

variations in the form of the roof, no tribe has ever yet dreamt of

constructing a window. The Latookas are obliged constantly to watch

for their enemy, a neighboring race of mule-riders, whose cavalry

attacks they can hardly withstand, although of war-like habits, and

accordingly--

"The town of Tarrangotté is arranged with several entrances in the

shape of low archways through the palisades: these are closed at

night by large branches of the hooked thorn of the bitter bush, (a

species of mimosa.) The main street is broad, but all others are

studiously arranged to admit only of one cow, single file, between

high stockades. Thus, in the event of an attack, these narrow

passages can be easily defended, and it would be impossible to drive

off their vast herds of cattle unless by the main street. The large

cattle kraals are accordingly arranged in various quarters in

connection with the great road, and the entrance of each kraal is a

small archway in the strong iron-wood fence, sufficiently wide to

admit one ox at a time. Suspended from the arch is a bell, formed of

the shell of the Dolape palm-nut, against which every animal must

strike either its horns or back on entrance. Every tinkle of the

bell announces the passage of an ox into the kraal, and they are

thus counted every evening when brought home from pasture."

The toilet of the natives is of the simplest, except in one

particular. The Latooka savage is content that his whole body should

be naked, but expends the most elaborate care on his headdress. Every

tribe in this district has a distinct fashion of arranging it, but the

Latookas reduce it to a science. Mr. Baker describes the process and

the result:

"European ladies would be startled at the fact, that to perfect the

_coiffure_ of a man requires a period of from eight to ten years!

However tedious the operation the result is extraordinary. The

Latookas wear most exquisite helmets, all of which are formed of

their own hair, and are, of course, fixtures. At first sight it

appears incredible; but a minute examination shows the wonderful

perseverance of years in producing what must be highly inconvenient.

The thick crisp wool is woven with fine twine, formed from the bark

of a tree, until it presents a thick network of felt. As the hair

grows through this matted substance it is subjected to the same

process, until, in the course of years, a compact substance is

formed, like a strong felt, about an inch and a half thick, that has

been trained into the shape of a helmet. A strong rim of about two

inches deep is formed by drawing it together with thread, and the

front part of the helmet is protected by a piece of polished copper,

while a piece of the same metal, shaped like the half of a bishop's

mitre, and about a foot in length, forms the crest. The framework of

the helmet being at length completed, it must be perfected by an

arrangement of beads, should the owner of the head be sufficiently

rich to indulge in the coveted distinction. The beads most in

fashion are the red and the blue porcelain, about the size of small

peas. These are sewn on the surface of the felt, and so beautifully

arranged in sections of blue and red, that the entire helmet appears

to be formed of beads, and the handsome crest of polished copper,

surmounted by ostrich plumes, gives a most dignified and martial

appearance to this elaborate head-dress."

{832}

With Commoro, chief of the Latookas, Mr. Baker had a religious

conversation. The savage was clever, even subtile. He does not appear,

however to have shaken the faith of the traveller. Probably had Mr.

Baker been a Bishop (Colenso) trained in the theology of the schools,

he might have been driven crazy by this mid-African counterpart of the

famous Zulu. The natives exhume the bones of their dead, and celebrate

a sort of dance round them; and Mr. Baker asked his Latookan friend--

"Have you no belief in a future existence after death? Is not some

idea expressed in the act of exhuming the bones after the flesh is

decayed?"

_Commoro (loq.)_--"Existence after death! How can that be? Can a

dead man get out of his grave unless we dig him out?"

"Do you think a man is like a beast that dies and is ended?"

_Commoro._--"Certainly. An ox is stronger than a man, but he dies,

and his bones last longer; they are bigger. A man's bones break

quickly; he is weak."

"Is not a man superior in sense to an ox? Has he not a mind to

direct his actions?"

_Commoro._--"Some men are not so clever as an ox. Men must sow corn

to obtain food, but the ox and wild animals can procure it without

sowing."

"Do you not know that there is a spirit within you more than flesh?

Do you not dream and wander in thought to distant places in your

sleep? Nevertheless, your body rests in one spot. How do you account

for this?"

_Commoro_ (laughing.)--"Well, how do you account for it?"

. . .

"If you have no belief in a future state, why should a man be good?

Why should he not be bad, if he can prosper by wickedness?"

_Commoro_.--"Most people are bad; if they are strong, they take from

the weak. The good people are all weak; they are good because they are

not strong enough to be bad."

Extremes meet; there are sages of modern days whose much learning has

brought them up to the intellectual pitch of the savage's materialism.

They might, ingenious as they are, even take a lesson in sophistry

from the Latookan. When driven into a corner by the use of St. Paul's

metaphor, the astute Commoro answered:

"Exactly so; that I understand. But the original grain does not rise

again; it rots, like the dead man, and is ended. The fruit produced

is not the same grain that was buried, but the _production_ of that

grain. So it is with man. I die, and decay, and am ended; but my

children grow up, like the fruit of the grain. Some men have no

children, and some grains perish without fruit; then all are ended."

Nevertheless, the Latookans continue to dig out the bones of their

kindred, and to perform a rite around them which is manifestly a

tradition from the time when a belief in the immortality of the soul

existed among them.

It was impossible for Mr. Baker to reach the Lake toward which he

pressed without appeasing Kamrasi, King of the Unyoros. But to do this

was not easy when his stock of presents was getting low, and his men

were so few and weak as to inspire no barbarian prince with the

slightest fear. Yet, though debilitated with fever, his quinine

exhausted, and Mrs. Baker stricken down in the disease, he pressed on

with an unquenchable zeal--one would almost write worthy of a better

cause. Finally, he was abundantly rewarded. Hurrying on in advance of

his escort he reached at last, ere the sun had risen on what proved

afterward a brilliant day, the summit of the hills that hem the great

valley occupied by the vast Nile Source. There it lay "a sea of

quicksilver" far beneath, stretching boundlessly off to the vast Blue

Mountains which, on the opposite side towered upward from its bosom,

and over whose breasts cascades could be discerned by the telescope

tumbling down in numerous torrents. Standing 1500 feet above the level

of the Lake, Mr. Baker shouted for joy that "England had won the

Sources of the Nile!" and called the gigantic reservoir the Albert

N'Yanza. The Victoria and Albert Lakes, then, are the {833} Nile

Sources. Clambering down the steep--his wife, just recovered from

fever, and intensely weak, leaning upon him--Mr. Baker reached the

shore at length of the great expanse of water, and rushing into it,

drank eagerly, with an enthusiasm almost reaching the ancient Egyptian

point of Nile-worship.

Mr. Baker describes the Albert Lake as the grand reservoir, and the

Victoria as the Eastern source.

"The Nile, cleared of its mystery, resolves itself into comparative

simplicity. The actual basin of the Nile is included between about

the 22° and 39° east longitude, and from 3° south to 18° north

latitude. The drainage of that vast area is monopolized by the

Egyptian river. . . The Albert N'Yanza is the great basin of the

Nile: the distinction between it and the Victoria N'Yanza is, that

the Victoria is a reservoir receiving the eastern affluents, and it

becomes the starting-point or the most elevated _source_ at the

point where the river issues from it at the Ripon Falls; the Albert

is a reservoir not only receiving the western and southern affluents

direct from the Blue Mountains, but it also receives the supply from

the Victoria and from the entire equatorial Nile basin. The Nile, as

it issues from the Albert N'Yanza is the entire Nile; prior to its

birth from the Albert Lake it is _not_ the entire Nile."

". . . Ptolemy had described the Nile sources as emanating from two

great lakes that received the snows of the mountains in Ethiopia.

There are many ancient maps existing upon which these lakes are

marked as positive. There can be little doubt that trade had been

carried on between the Arabs from the Red Sea and the coast opposite

Zanzitan in ancient times, and that the people engaged in such

enterprises had penetrated so far as to have gained a knowledge of

the existence of the two reservoirs."

The interest of Mr. Baker's volumes of course culminates with his

account of the Great Lake. He embarked in a canoe of the country, and

with his party in another, navigated it for a long distance,

encountering storms and weathering them with a skill and courage which

show him as cool and experienced a traveller on _sea_ as on land. On

his return overland he was again in perils oft. But the same undying

spirit which supported him through a dozen fevers carried him through

every danger triumphantly. The English nation has reason to be proud

of such men, and of such women as Mrs. Baker still more. Devotion like

hers honors the sex. There is an end, however, of Nile voyaging with

the old object. If the Victoria and Albert Lakes are revisited it will

be in pursuit of other ends than mere geographical inquiry or

curiosity. Mr. Baker seems to think that missionaries may be the first

to follow in the track he has made, and it is a fact that next to

professional explorers (if even second to them) those influenced by

religious zeal have made the most daring expeditions into unknown

regions. Livingstone has done even more in another part of Africa than

Baker did on the great level, which, as he thinks, from its altitude,

escaped being submerged at any previous part of the world's history,

and may contain at this moment the descendants of a pre-Adamite race.

On the ethnology of the central Africans he can throw no light, and

his mere speculations are worthless, but he is doubtless right in

considering that commerce must precede religious propagandism among

those races, if anything is really to be done for their benefit. For

commerce there are large opportunities, if only the abominable

slave-trade, which makes fiends of the natives, were effectually

suppressed. Mr. Baker writes warmly on this point, and none knows

better the character and extent of the evil. A more interesting book

of travel was never written than his Albert N'Yanza: in every page

there is fresh and vivid interest. The author, who is admirable in

many things, is a model narrator, and there is no romance at all equal

in attraction to the simple and unvarnished, but full and picturesque,

account of his protracted and exciting travels.

--------

{834}

Translated from the French.

THREE WOMEN OF OUR TIME.

EUGÉNIE DE GUÉRIN--CHARLOTTE BRONTË--RAHEL LEVIN.

BY GABRIEL CERNY.

It is now quite a number of years since it became the fashion to study

women, and writers of note have called to life more than one who would

have preferred being left to oblivion under her cold tombstone. Is it

not enough to have lived once even if we have lived wisely? "No one

would accept an existence that was to last forever," said a

philosopher who had suffered from the injustice of mankind.

It seems, for example, as if the heroines of the seventeenth century

must smile in pity to see the pettiest actions of their lives as well

as the deepest inspirations of their hearts given up for food to the

indiscreet curiosity and vivid imagination of the eminent philosopher

who had so lovingly resuscitated them. And the intellectual women who

came after them, are not they not often wounded by the judgments

passed upon them by the most inquisitive and fertile of critics?

In two works entirely devoted to woman, a _fantaisiste_ who was once

an historian, has tried to explain the best means to insure happiness

to the fairer half of the human race, with a minuteness very tender in

intention but often quite repugnant to our taste. He states in detail

the hygienic care indispensable to creatures weak in body, feeble in

mind, and so helpless when left to themselves that in truth there are

but two conditions in the world suitable for them--to be courtesans if

they are beautiful, and maid-servants if they are destitute of

physical charms; nay, such is the arrogance of this literary _Céladon_

that he would assign to the wife an inferior position and leave the

husband to superintend not only business affairs but household

matters. In short, when we read these books we seem to be attending a

session of the Naturalization Society, teaching the public to rear and

domesticate some valuable animal much to be distrusted.

Not even the toilettes of the eighteenth century have failed to arouse

the interest of two authors of our day, who, displeased perhaps with

the slight success of their book, have now abandoned the range of

realities for the dreary delusions of a lawless realism. In a work as

long as it is tiresome, they have described with feminine lucidity the

various costumes of the ladies of the court of Louis XV., of the

Revolution, and the Empire.

A book has now appeared which, according to its title, promises to

show us the "Intellect of Women of our own Time," but in reality

confines itself to giving three interesting biographies. The author

was already known to the public through a romance which reveals true

talent "Daniel Blady," the story of a musician, is written in the

German style, and shows an elevation of sentiment, a straightforward

honesty of principle, and above all a simplicity of devotion rarely to

be met with in the world. M. Camille Selden admires modest women,

incapable of personal ambition or vanity, who consecrate all the

tender and enlivening faculties of soul and reason to the service of a

husband, father, or brother, and such a woman he portrays in "Daniel

Blady."

{835}

In order to represent fairly the women of our day M. Selden has

selected three different characters; three names worn modestly,

usefully, and honorably; three contrasts of position, race, doctrine,

and education: a French Catholic, an English Protestant, a German

Jewess: Eugénie de Guérin, Charlotte Brontë, and Rachel Varnhagen von

Ense. They were all affectionate, devoted, and self-forgetful; two of

them married, and the French-woman alone had the happy privilege of

restoring to God a heart and soul that had belonged to no one.

I.

Eugénie de Guérin du Cayla was born and bred _en province_, although

of a truly noble family, of Venetian origin it is said. Her mode of

life was that of a woman of the middle class (_bourgeoise_) enjoying

that comparative ease which we see in the country; a large house

scantily furnished, a garden less cultivated than the fields, and

servants of little or no training, who seem to form a part of the

family.

Mlle. de Guérin lost her mother early, and having two brothers and a

sister younger than herself, became burthened with the care of a

household and family. Her letters and journal show her to us as she

was at twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of age, not one of those

persons of morose and frigid virtue who are good for nothing but to

mend linen and take care of birds, but a woman of intelligent and

unembarrassed activity. She made fires, visited the poultry-yard,

prepared breakfast for the reapers, and when her work was done, betook

herself in all haste to a little retreat which she dignified with the

name of _study_, where she ran through some book or wrote a few

pages--always charming, always strong--of a sort of journal of the

actions of her life. Eugénie's especial favorite was her brother

Maurice, who was five years younger than herself, and it would be

impossible to speak of her without recalling the passionate maternal

tenderness with which from her earliest youth she regarded this

brother whom she had loved to rock and nurse in infancy.

"I remember that you sometimes made me jealous," she wrote to him one

day, "it was because I was a little older than you, and I did not know

that tenderness and caresses, _the hearts milk_, are lavished on the

little ones."

Devotion was the principle motive-power of Eugénie's actions; ardent

prayer and charity profoundly moved her; wind, snow, rain-storms,

nothing checked her when she knew that in some corner of the village

there were miseries to be relieved, tears to be wiped away. She felt

sympathy with all living creatures, even if they were inanimate like

trees and flowers; she sighed when the wind bowed them down; "she

pitied them, comparing them to unhappy human beings bending beneath

misfortune," and imitating the example of the great saint, Francis of

Assisi, she would gladly have conversed with lambs and turtle-doves.

Mlle. de Guérin pitied the educated peasants who knew how to read and

yet could not pray. "Prayer to God," she said, "is the only fit manner

to celebrate any thing in this world." And again, "Nothing is easier

than to speak to the neglected ones of this world; they are not like

us, full of tumultuous or perverse thoughts that prevent them from

hearing."

She loved religion with its festivals and splendors; and breathed in

God with the incense and flowers on the altar, nor could she ever have

understood an invisible, abstract God, a God simply the guardian of

morality as Protestants believe him to be.

Most women become useful only through some being whom they love and to

whom they refer the actions of their lives; it is their noblest and

most natural instinct to efface and lose themselves in another's

glory. Having no husband or children, Mlle. de Guérin attached herself

to her brother Maurice, a delicate nature, a sad {836} and suffering

soul, destined to self-destruction, a lofty but unquiet spirit that

was never to find on earth the satisfaction and realization of his

hopes. "You are the one of all the family," he wrote to her, "whose

disposition is most in sympathy with my own, so far as I can judge by

the verses that you send me, in all of which there is a gentle

reverie, a tinge of melancholy, in short, which forms, I believe, the

basis of my character." Mlle. de Guérin's letters to her brother were

not only tender and consoling, but strong and healthy in their tone.

Indeed, he needed them, for terrible were his sufferings from the

ill-will and indifference of others. He wrote and tried to establish

himself as a critic; but some publishers rejected him and others

evaded his proposals with vague promises, until with despair he saw

every issue closed to him, and knew not what answer to make to his

father, who grew impatient at the constant failure of his

expectations.

Though ignorant of the world, Mlle, de Guérin did not the less suspect

the dangers that Christian faith may encounter. One day, a voice that

seemed to come from heaven told her that Maurice no longer prayed; and

then we find her trembling and uneasy. "I have received your letter,"

she says, "and I see you in it, but I do not recognize you; for you

only open your mind to me, and it is your heart, your soul, your

inmost being that I long to see. Return to prayer, your soul is full

of love and craves expansion; believe, hope, love, and all the rest

shall be added. If I could only see you a Christian! Oh! I would give

my life and everything else for that." . . . Like all persons who try

to dispense with the divine restraints of the precepts of the gospel,

poor Maurice struggled in a dreary world; his sensitive and poetic

soul saw God everywhere except in his own heart; he longed sometimes

to be a flower, or a bird, or verdure; his brain and imagination ran

away with him, and his soul poured itself forth without restraint, and

lost its way through wandering from the veritable Source of life.

This passion for nature led him to write a work which shows genuine

power even if it be unproductive; a prose poem in which Christianity

is forgotten for the sake of fable and antiquity. But thanks to his

sister's prayers, Maurice was one of those who return to God. He

passed away without agitation or suffering, smiling on all, and

begging his sister Eugénie to read him some spiritual book. At the

bottom of his heart he had never ceased to love God, and he returned

to him as a little child returns to its mother.

Eugénie did not give herself up to vain despair after Maurice's death.

Thinking perpetually of him whom she had loved so deeply, she busied

herself with the writings which he had left behind him, and prayed for

his soul, recommending him also to the prayers of her friends. She

still addressed herself to him, and oppressed with sadness unto death,

communed with his absent soul, imploring him to come to her. "Maurice,

my friend, what is heaven, that home of friends? Will you never give

me any sign of life? Shall I never hear you, as the dead are sometimes

said to make themselves heard? Oh! if it be possible, if there exist

any communication between this world and the other, return to me!"

But one day she grew weary of this unanswered correspondence, and a

moral exhaustion took possession of her. "_Let us cast our hearts into

eternity_," she cried. These were her last words, and she died, glad

to see her life accomplished, confiding in the mercy of God, in his

goodness who reunites the soul which he has severed here below, but

never has forgotten in their bereavement.

{837}

II.

Charlotte Brontë, (Currer Bell,) whom M. Camille Selden offers to us

as a type of energy and virtue, was the daughter of a country

clergyman. Sad was the childhood and sad the youth of the poor English

girl. Her mother was an invalid, her father a man of gloomy and almost

fierce disposition, their means were so limited as to border upon

poverty, and as if to complete the dreary picture, the scenery about

the parsonage was "austere and lugubrious to contemplate, like the sea

beneath an impending tempest."

In England the clerical profession is totally unlike the holy mission

of a Catholic clergyman. The ecclesiastical life there is a career,

not a vocation. "Mr. Brontë never left home unarmed," a singular

method of preaching peace to the world and reconciliation among

brethren. He was a good father, no doubt--almost all Englishmen are

so. But he kept his family at a distance, and spoke to them seldom,

and then in a curt and supercilious manner. His morose spirit did not

relish the society of children, and if he became the preceptor of his

little family, it was rather in order to fulfil a duty and conform

himself to custom, than from a feeling of tenderness or even

solicitude for their future welfare. Thus the minister's children

lived amid influences which were cold and serious, but upright, and in

a certain sense strengthening. There are so many children in every

English family that parents of the middle class are obliged to treat

them less as subordinates than as auxiliaries. The children are less

familiar with their parents but more respectful than among us; life is

not so easy and gentle, education more masculine.

Independence is the goal toward which all young English people tend,

and both girls and boys are early taught that labor alone can lead

them to it. In France we long impatiently for the time to shut up our

children in the high-walled barracks which we dignify with the name of

boarding-schools; for it is extremely necessary, we say, to be rid of

idle, noisy boys. Girls are generally educated at home, but either

through weakness or indifference, they are treated with far too much

indulgence. "Poor little things!" we say pathetically; "who can tell

what fate awaits them in married life?" for in this country we so far

forget Christian duty as to make marriage a necessity, an obligation,

a matter of business, instead of seeking therein, as the English do, a

basis of true happiness.

Children, educated as they are in England, early acquire habits of

observation and reflection; sitting around the tea-table in the

evening, they listen to the conversation of their grandparents, and

are often questioned upon the most serious subjects. This is

Protestantism, you say. Not at all: it is the remains of the Christian

spirit anterior to the Reformation. This spirit is exhibited in habits

as in laws. If family life among us were truly catholic, we should

possess all this and in greater perfection.

There is another practice in England which is often beneficial, and

which we do not dare to adopt openly in France. I mean the habit of

writing out one's impressions. This seems to be as natural in England

as thought; and mothers, young girls, and men consider it a duty to

keep an account of the good ideas that occur to them or of the

interesting facts they may observe.

In France, on the contrary, true literary culture is closed to women,

and there is a general outcry whenever any woman takes the liberty of

publishing a work under her own name. It is thought quite natural that

a young girl, with a dress outrageously _decolletée_ and her head

covered with flowers, should appear upon a stage and sing a _bravura_;

but let her venture to write, and the world accuses her of want of

reserve.

A Frenchman has such a horror of anything methodical and serious that

he prefers to educate his daughters without thought or reflection, at

hap-hazard and with no provision for {838} the future. Frenchwomen

understand everything without study, it is said; this may be true, and

the merit is not so great as to make it worth while to deny the

assertion. What a superficial method! what an incredible way to

acquire knowledge and judgment!

Englishwomen on the contrary, devote themselves to a regular course of

instruction; they read a great deal, making extracts and critical

notes, and thus avoid idleness and _ennui_, those two terrible

diseases that affect womankind. Unfortunately abuses glide into their

reading, and novels or even newspapers hold a place there which they

ought not to occupy. This is a fruit of Protestantism, of free

inquiry, and if our faith were firm and practical, we should know how

to avoid the abuse and accept the useful side of this custom.

But there is again a situation which Englishwomen meet with a better

grace than Frenchwomen--we mean the _misfortune_ of remaining

unmarried at twenty-eight or thirty years of age--of becoming _old

maids_. With us, as soon as a daughter comes into the world we begin

to think of amassing her dower; for it is the value of this dower

which is to secure a good or bad marriage for her. We persuade her

that it is almost a disgrace to remain unmarried, but by a tacit

agreement we conceal from her the fact that marriage, as the Church

instituted it, is the union of two souls equal in the sight of God,

and that in giving her hand to a man, she becomes half of himself and

flesh of his flesh. No, it is not a question of heart or of duty; she

marries a man whom she has known scarcely two months, and her family

triumphantly congratulate themselves on being freed from the

unpleasant possibility of harboring _an old maid_. To avoid this, some

marriages are a mere _sale_, a present shame, a future misery, and a

final sin.

As in England daughters have no dower, and sons are valued much more

highly, young women are early prepared not to marry, and are neither

sadder nor more unfortunate on that account. Care of the little ones

in the family; that pleasant occupation belonging by right to maiden

aunts, (_tantes berceuses,_) study, attentive observation of men and

things, and the consciousness of intellectual worth, sustain the

Englishwomen until the moment, often distant, and never to arrive for

many a one, when a good, sincere, and intelligent man shall unite her

lot to his; but as she has self-respect and does not consider loss of

youth as loss of caste, she does not accept the suitor unless she

knows him well and is certain that he does not wish to take her or buy

her _pour faire une fin_.

Charlotte, like Eugénie and like Rahel, of whom we shall speak in her

turn, was rather insignificant in appearance; her features were

irregular, her forehead prominent, and her eyes small but deep and

piercing in expression. She was educated with two of her sisters in a

boarding-school, where the regimen was hard and unhealthy, the uniform

coarse, and the food insufficient and ill cooked. Mr. Brontë turned a

deaf ear to his eldest daughter's complaints for a long time, and did

not decide to take his children home until one of them had already

sunk under the injudicious treatment. Charlotte was then placed with

Miss W----, with whom she lived eight years as pupil and second

teacher. And here M. Camille Selden gives us some excellent remarks

upon the difference existing between the French lay _pension_ with its

supplementary course, and the English boarding-school.

"In the former, as in a well-disciplined army, every movement, every

manoeuvre must be executed in union, even the recess is subject to

rules. In the midst of her battalion of teachers and sub-mistresses,

the French directress, _en grande tenue_, resembles a brilliant

colonel marching proudly at the head of his squadron in a review."

{839}

"The object of education in England is at once simpler and gentler. It

is thought there to be the duty of a woman, as of a man, to develop

the judgment by study; that reflection and observation are equally

necessary to teach both sexes how to live wisely and think justly.

Therefore we never hear of courses of study where under the pretext of

maternal education, gentlemen in black coats give out _bribes_ for

history, geography--nay, even philosophy, to little girls who come

there apparently to study under maternal supervision, but in reality

to learn to receive company and dress tastefully; in one word, to

rehearse the worldly comedy which a little later they will be

condemned to enact."

The author should have completed his picture by giving an exact

account of our houses of religious education; but I think he knows

little about them, and cares little to get information concerning

them, which accounts for certain wants in his book.

Poor Charlotte Brontë was never young, partly because of her childish

sufferings, but chiefly because of her serious and inquiring nature,

which applied its powers to investigating and analyzing the sources of

everything. She did not indulge in the childish ideas of a school

girl, and being free from the dangerous enthusiasm that imagination

engenders, she understood the full extent of human misery without

exaggerating it, and if she was deprived of illusions at least she was

spared disappointment. And yet she suffered; her vigorous soul, her

fertile intellect imprisoned in this common-place situation, were

stifled as in a cage; and to complete her misery came religious

terrors, frightful visions of "failing grace and impossible

salvation," until her awe-struck heart recoiled in affright.

Like all souls ardently loving goodness and thirsting from the true

love, she sighed after the bliss of heaven: "I would be willing," she

exclaimed, "I would be willing to exchange my eighteen years for gray

hairs--or even to stand on the verge of the grave, if by that means I

could be assured of the divine mercy;" but alas! in the practices of

that dry and personal religion in which each one answers to himself

for himself, and whence confidence is banished as a weakness, where

should she look for help?

Meanwhile the circle of poverty was drawing closer and closer about

Charlotte and her sisters, and a thousand thoughts sprang up in the

brain of the courageous girl: "I wish to make money, no matter how--if

only the means be honest! nothing would discourage me," said she; "but

I should not care to be a cook--I should prefer being housemaid." In

the evening, when every one else was in bed, she used to meet her

sisters in the little parlor, and they would read to each other their

literary efforts in a low voice. They decided with one accord that

Charlotte must write to Southey and send him a book of her poems. The

poet saw no great merit in these effusions and tried to discourage

Charlotte, giving her at the same time excellent moral advice upon the

nothingness of celebrity and the dangers of ambition.

She decided then to make a journey to Belgium in order to study

French, but she was almost immediately recalled home. The old aunt who

had kept house during her absence was dead, her father was becoming

blind, and her brother was subject to attacks of delirium in which he

threatened his father's life. It was amid these terrible calamities

that Miss Brontë wrote "Jane Eyre," the most powerful of her novels.

The next plan was that she and her sisters should all write together

and get a volume printed at their own expense under the names of

Ellis, Acton, and Currer Bell. It may well be imagined that this

unfortunate book, sent out like a foundling into the literary world,

met with no success, for if the beginnings of any career are

precarious, the obstacles presented by literature are insurmountable

to any one {840} not possessed of immense energy. We know Charlotte

well enough to feel sure that she was not a woman to waste away in the

dejection of sterile discouragement; she began to write again, and

composed "The Professor." Alas! the poor little book travelled about

from publisher to publisher without finding rest anywhere; and such

was the naïveté of its author, that in her eagerness to send her

rejected book to each new bookseller, she forgot to remove the old

postage stamps from the package--not an encouraging recommendation to

any editor to accept the _leavings_ of his _confrères!_

It was at Manchester, during six weeks that she passed there with her

father, who was forced to undergo an operation for cataract, that Miss

Brontë finished "Jane Eyre." Messrs. Smith and Elder of London

accepted the manuscript without hesitation, and from that time the

obscure young girl was a celebrity whom every one longed to know and

to receive.

Charlotte's literary success brought a ray of joy into Mr. Brontë's

melancholy household, but it was of short duration. Twice within two

months the inhabitants of Haworth saw the window-blinds of the

parsonage closed, and heard the bell toll a death-knell. Charlotte's

brother, prostrated by excesses, and consumed internally, died in the

course of fifteen minutes; but they were minutes of awful anguish; in

the grasp of the death-agony the dying man started to his feet, crying

out that he would die standing, and that his will should give way only

with his breath. Her elder sister, Emily, left home for the last time

when she followed his bier to the grave; and another sister, the

youngest and Charlotte's well-beloved, Anna Brontë, sustained herself

awhile by dint of care and tenderness, but her lungs were affected and

she soon began to languish; she too declined and died.

Poor Charlotte now found herself alone with her father who had lost

five of his six children. She devoted herself to writing, as much to

distract her grief as to deceive the long hours of the day; and

henceforth her personality presented two distinct faces. She was a

conscientious Englishwoman, a clergyman's daughter attached to her

duties, and an authoress, ardent and active in defence of her

convictions, and not without a certain obstinacy. "Her success

continued, and she was obliged to submit to the exhibition to which

English enthusiasm and bad taste subject their favorites. Miss Brontë

had to go to dinner-parties, and to reunions of unlooked-for luxury

and splendor; but the distinction that flattered her most was being

placed by Thackeray in the seat of honor to hear the first lecture of

this celebrated author at Willis's Rooms."

But solitude which had been the foundation and habit of her life,

rendered her unfit for the world. Miss Brontë had suffered too much to

preserve that serenity of temper and freedom of spirit necessary to

enable one to talk easily and agreeably, and often would she sit

silent amid a cross-fire of conversation all around her "I was forced

to explain," she said, "that I was silent because I could talk no

more."

Charlotte Brontë had arrived at the age of thirty-eight years without

having had her heart touched with any emotion stronger than dutiful

affection for her family. But--and here prose intrudes itself a

little--her father had a vicar, and what could an English vicar do but

be married? He loved Charlotte, and moreover, she had become a good

match; but on one hand the fear of a refusal, and on the other the

dread of the embarrassment for a clergyman of sharing the existence of

a literary woman, prevented him from declaring his affections. At

last, however, he took courage, and I ask myself if this courage was

not rendered more attainable by Charlotte herself. At all events she

accepted his offer without hesitation; but her father, who was too

selfish to allow his daughter to occupy herself with any one but

himself, opposed the marriage, and the enamored vicar left Haworth.

{841}

The privation that Mr. Brontë experienced after his vicar's

departure--a privation that Miss Brontë's temperament must have made

him feel more sensibly--was such that he recalled the suitor, and the

marriage took place. It was a dreary ceremony: no relations, no

friends, so that the bride positively had no one to lead her to the

altar; for her father had refused to be present at the marriage for

fear of feeling agitated, faithful to the end to the dry and

egotistical line of conduct he had marked out for himself.

The wife devoted herself bravely to seconding her husband in the

duties of his ministry. She visited the poor, had a Sunday-school,

improvised prayers and knew the Bible by heart. She was happy--but her

happiness was of short duration, for physical and moral sufferings had

exhausted her, and she died just as life had become harmonized

according to her wishes.

A celebrated author, a strong and courageous woman, aspiring after a

Christian life, she gave all that a heart can give which is not

possessed of the true light; and M. Selden is right in saying at the

close: "Charlotte is better than her heroines." There are few authors

of whom one could say as much.

III.

From England _with its maintien compassé_, and cold religious tenets,

M. Camille Selden takes us to Germany, the land of sentiment and

intellectual research, and introduces us to a Jewess in Berlin, that

we may see what a German _salon_ was at the end of the eighteenth

century.

Rahel Levin was only twenty years old when she lost her father, a

wealthy Israelite, gloomy and violent in his bearing at home, but

amiable and attractive in society.

The young Rahel, endowed with great intelligence and unerring tact,

united to a truly kind heart, was valued and sought by every one as

soon as she appeared in society. She was exceedingly amiable, full of

an obliging good temper that made her anticipate wishes, divine

annoyances in order to relieve them, and forget herself in seeking to

make others happy. Rare too was her loyalty; not only was her soul

incapable of falsehood, but of any want of sincerity. Her husband who

had the good taste not to be jealous of his wife's superiority and

success, said of her "that she did not think to lose by showing

herself as God had made her, or gain by hiding anything." "Natural

candor, absolute purity of soul, and sincerity of heart are the only

things worthy of respect--the rest is only external regularity and

conventionality," she often said to those who lavished upon her

expressions of respect and admiration.

Unhappily for Mlle. Levin, circumstances concurred in alienating her

from her family. Her mother and brothers, notwithstanding their ample

fortune, showed a rapacity worthy of their race, and most unlike

Rahel's broad and generous ideas; and her position would have been

pitiable, but for the illustrious friends who frequented her mother's

house. Among them the young girl forgot the petty meanness of her home

life; and inexhaustible in ideas, perceptive faculty, and wit, she

handled the gravest subjects with delicate skill, and almost as if she

were playing with them. Full of unfailing good temper, she could

discuss the most varied, the most opposite subjects, without dogmatism

or eccentricity.

But this want of union with her family, which had deprived her of the

domestic happiness so indispensable to every affectionate woman had

rendered her paradoxical and even a little sceptical. See, for

example, what she wrote to her youngest sister, who had consulted her

about a proposal of marriage: "The want of durability in everything,

and the inevitable separation between an object and its {842} motive,

afford, you see, the final explanation of all that is human. You do

not wish to belong to humanity; very well, destroy yourself. I feel

quite differently: only transitory things, only what is human can

tranquillize and console me." How at variance is this bitterness with

the ardent hopefulness of the spiritual Eugénie de Guérin! and how

excellent a proof, if we needed any new one, that true happiness is

unattainable without that deep religious feeling which raises us above

all passing things! Charlotte Brontë had at least that Protestant

severity which stifles all tender quailing of the heart and soul, like

a miser trembling lest he should lose a farthing of the merits of his

sacrifice; but poor Rahel possessed only the intellectual resources of

the mind, and they can do little for us.

Goethe, whose countrywoman she was so proud of being; Goethe, little

inclined to exaggerate the value of a woman's mind, took pleasure in

calling her a generous girl. "She has powerful emotions and a careless

way of expressing them," he said: "the better you know her, the more

you feel yourself attracted and gently enthralled."

But it was a long time before she enthralled any one. At last one of

her friends, Varnhagen von Ense, a young man twenty-six years old,

offered her his hand. Let him describe to us the charm of his first

interview with Rahel.

"From the first, I must say that she made me experience a very rare

happiness, that of contemplating for the first time a complete

being--complete in intelligence and heart, a perfect union of nature

and cultivation. Everywhere I saw harmony, equilibrium, views as

naïve as they were original, striking in their grandeur as in their

novelty, and always in accordance with her slightest actions. And

all was pervaded with a sentiment of the purest humanity, guided by

an energetic sense of duty, and heightened by a noble

self-forgetfulness in the presence, of the joys and griefs of

others."

Rahel was then thirty-six years old, and this great disparity of age,

added to her want of beauty and fortune, must have inspired her with

doubts of the duration of a feeling, which perhaps her heart,

accustomed to independence, did not at first reciprocate. But in

Germany marriages are not made as they are in France; people do not

marry without knowing each other, or with a precipitation which might

lead one to suppose that on both sides there was something to conceal,

or that the intention was to make a good bargain of duty. According to

the fashion of their country the two friends were betrothed, and were

then forced to separate.

"I am not afraid; I will wait for you; I know you will never forsake

me," wrote the indulgent Rahel eight years later, when a Frenchwoman

would have lost patience a thousand times over.

In France, where dower, beauty, name, or position, rank before

affection, such a separation would certainly have proved fatal. Had he

no cause to fear that some one else might supplant him with Rahel? Was

she untroubled by dread of the cruel dangers that threaten and disturb

the affections? Might not her heart, naturally sceptical, and shaken

by contact with the world, distrust the effect of opinion upon so

young a man? "But true love has nothing to fear from worldly talk or

material considerations; a whiff of a passing breeze cannot destroy

strongly rooted affections, whose living germ lies sheltered in the

depths of the heart." Such love can wait, for it does not know how to

change. Such love was Rahel's; was it Varnhagen's? We shall see.

{843}

Rahel was not an author, and had no thought of publication; it was

only after her death that her husband sought some slight consolation

in publishing her letters. These letters which make three volumes,

were written in the course of forty years, and therefore they reveal

the different phases of development in the young girl, the independent

woman, and the matron. Through the generous feelings which she

expresses, with a soul sympathizing with all sorts of interests, there

pierces a certain delicate irony which seems to find pleasure in

following out to the end any singular or original idea: We feel

painfully that this woman has lost much, suffered deeply. In the life

of Rahel the Jewess, as in that of Charlotte the Protestant, we

discern the absence of our Saviour's cross; we see nowhere the gentle

vision of the Virgin Mother.

In one of her letters, Mlle. Levin describes the impression which a

visit to a Catholic convent had made upon her mind. She had entered

into the services in the chapel like an artist: "I would gladly go

there again, if it were only to hear the music, and breathe in the

odor of the incense," said she. But the mortifications of the

religious seemed to her more eccentric than touching; she pitied them

for having to fulfil the functions of gardener and cook, to prepare

medicines and feel the pulse of their patients. "Without exception

their hands looked coarse," she said, "and their masculine tread

sounded like the tramp of a patrol." And yet later in life Rahel was

to perform, voluntarily, the same work as these nuns, and moreover she

had a true sentiment of piety, which sometimes rose to an expression

of faith.

"In moments of suffering," she wrote, "how happy faith makes me feel!

I love to rest upon it as on a downy pillow."

We read these words so full of simple piety, with a full heart,

thinking sadly how little assistance this woman would have needed to

become an ardent convert to the true religion. It is really surprising

that she should not have sought out Christianity.

"Never try to suppress a generous impulse, or to crowd out a genuine

feeling," she wrote to a friend: "despair or discouragement are the

only fruits of dry reasoning; examine yourself carefully, and dread

above all things the decisions of wisdom unenlightened by the heart."

Rahel and Varnhagen had agreed to meet again one day; but absence is

often fatal to the strongest ties, and more than once this one was on

the point of snapping.

"A woman who has passed thirty," says our author, "may well fear lest

youth, proved by the parish register, should win the day against youth

of mind and soul."

It would have been very hard to find a rival to a woman so gifted as

Rahel; but the first moment of enthusiasm over, Varnhagen began to

think that his betrothed had been very prompt in her acceptance of the

promises by which he had bound himself when a young and inexperienced

man; and perhaps his memory recalled certain confidences of

ill-matched pairs, who had assured him that generosity is a snare.

"For nothing in the world, of course, would he have renounced this

affection of which he was proud; but he thought that she would accept

his fidelity without his name, and he presumed to offer his devotion

in lieu of the projected union."

Rahel could not accept a compromise as humiliating to her heart as

dangerous to her reputation. She refused it, but--and this was less

dignified--she refused sadly and plainly to free Varnhagen from his

engagement. This was what she wrote:

"Bitterness at least equals suffering, when you, the single, solitary

soul who knows me thoroughly, would turn away from me, or what is the

same thing, when you would be false to yourself, and forsake me: hard

words, my friend, but none the less true. I must be severe to the only

being who has given me a right to expect anything from him. In you

alone had I hoped, and I think I should insult you in saying that I

had ceased to hope."

{844}

To this bitter trial was added another one, which was very severe,

though merely connected with material matters, especially for a person

who was no longer young. Half abandoned, and half _exploitée_ by her

family, Rahel had become poor. Valiant and strong, she had long

succeeded in hiding from her friends the privations which she imposed

upon herself, in order to maintain her household properly. She had

just lost her mother, and one of her brothers, who died blessing her

for her devotion, and these afflictions must be added to the money

troubles, which increased every day. Alas! there was no consolation in

this distress, for Rahel could not say like the august daughter of a

great king, "I thank God for two things; first, for having made me a

Christian, and next, for having made me unhappy."

Economy was not her chief virtue, and kindness, that luxury which she

could not live without, led her to deprive herself of the necessaries

of life, in order that her servants might want for nothing. "It is

mere selfishness," she said, laughing; "I prefer spoiling them to

spoiling myself."

The misfortunes of war completed the ruin of her purse and her health.

She assisted her countrymen by collecting contributions, and when

money failed, she paid with personal exertions, fulfilling the

admirable precept, "When you have given everything, give yourself."

The vehemence of her feelings exhausted her strength, and her frail

health gave way beneath the excess of privation and fatigue. She fell

ill, and was forced to keep her bed for three months.

Her resources were exhausted, and poverty approached with great

strides. She decided to ask one of her brothers, who was rich, to send

her a little money; but he not only refused, but took a cruel pleasure

in taunting the poor girl, with what he called her crazy liberality.

For six months the war intercepted all communications, so that she

could receive no tidings of him whom she still called her betrothed.

But this anxiety was the last. On waking one morning Rahel saw a

letter which had just been brought in, and by a sudden inspiration,

worthy of one who had never despaired, she guessed what this note

contained: "a living hope, which never dies out in valiant souls,

cried out that at last she had grasped happiness;" and the hope proved

true: ten days later she married August Varnhagen, who having

recovered from his hesitation, fulfilled his vows with a good will.

"You will never repent marrying me," she wrote to him, with naïveté, a

little while before her marriage; "Love me, or love me not, as God

wills; whatever happens I shall be yours for ever, you can rely on me:

I am constant, as you have been constant. Rahel shall never fail you."

Her husband was afterward made Prussian minister, and Rahel as

ambassadress was once more surrounded as in the pleasantest days of

her youth.

She was sixty-two years old when the disease attacked her of which she

died. Varnhagen never left her, or ceased trying to make her forget

her sufferings by reading the books to her which she loved best; and

Heinrich Heine, learning that she was ordered to apply fresh

rose-leaves to her inflamed eyes, sent her his first poems, lying at

the bottom of a basket of exquisite roses.

Madame von Varnhagen had always loved the Bible, and, especially,

Jewess though she was, the New Testament. She was never tired of

listening to the history of the sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus

Christ. One day finding herself more feeble, she said, taking her

husband's hand and pressing it on her heart: "I feel better, my

friend. I have been thinking a long time of Jesus, and it seems as if

I had never felt as at this moment how truly He is my brother, and the

brother of all men. It has comforted me." . . . These were her last

words.

{845}

Do these women explain _the women of our times_? It is at least

disputable; but we must recognize in them three interesting

characters. We will not try to compare them; the differences between

them are self-evident; and certainly though Eugénie de Guérin, the

Frenchwoman and the Catholic, played in a worldly sense the most

obscure part, no person of elevated views can contest the fact that

hers was the most beautiful life of the three.

--------

From The Lamp.

HENRI PERREYVE.

The Church of France sustained a great loss when, in the flower of his

age, Henri Perreyve was cut off. Had his life been prolonged he would

doubtless have attained a high position in the diocese of Paris, and

done a very great work. A memorial of him--for it can hardly be called

a "Life"--has been recently given to the world by his friend and

confidant, Pére Gratry of the French Oratory; and thus the record of

this young priest is now made immortal by the eloquent pen of one of

the greatest spiritual writers in France. Henri Perreyve was born in

April, 1831, and died June, 1865. His was, therefore, but a brief

life--brief, but brilliant, like a short, bright summer-day.

The comparison is not an inapt one. The life of this young man was,

compared to that of the minority of his fellow-creatures, a bright and

happy one. No great exterior sorrows met him during his earthly

career; and for the interior, there could not be much real suffering

for one who from his early childhood had given himself to God, and who

followed the standard of his Divine Master with a courage that could

not be dismayed, with an ardor which was never cooled. He was a son of

Christian parents, who early discerned his genius, and gave no

opposition to the workings of God's grace in him. He was educated at

the Lycée St. Louis; but he did not distinguish himself there. He was,

however, at the head of the catechism-class in St. Sulpice; for the

child's heart was given to God, and he could not devote himself

ardently to secular studies until he had learnt to consecrate even

them to the service of God. At twelve years old he made his first

communion. This act, which is the turning-point in the life of so

many, proved such to him. In after-years he thus described it:

"May 29, 1859.

"You know that I always date from my first communion the first call

from God to the ecclesiastical state. This thought gives me

happiness. I can recall now, as if it were yesterday, the blessed

moment when, having received our Lord at the holy table, I returned

to my place, and there kneeling on that red-velvet bench, which I

can see now, I promised our Lord, with a movement of sincere

affection to belong to him always, and to him only. I feel still the

kind of certainty I had from that moment of being accepted. I feel

the warmth of those first tears for the love of Jesus, which fell

from my childish eyes; and the ineffable shrinking of a soul, which

for the first time had spoken to God, had seen him and heard him.

Intimate and profound joy of the sacerdotal espousals!"

As years passed on, he kept his faith with his Lord. Naturally seeking

his friends from among those like-minded with himself, he became soon

surrounded by and closely bound to some of the most remarkable and

{846} devoted men of the day. The Père Gratry was the guide of his

youth; and among those who followed his direction were a group of

young ardent men, burning to devote themselves to the cause of God and

his Church. Meeting a little later on with the Père Pététot, they

became the foundation-stones of the newly-revived French Oratory of

St. Philip Neri. Henri Perreyve was obliged, however, before long, by

the feebleness of his health, to withdraw from the congregation; but

he was ever linked to it by the ties of the closest affection. Père

Charles Perraud, one of the Oratorians, was throughout life his bosom

friend. They learnt together and prayed together, and were called

together to serve God in the priesthood. Charles Perraud was the first

to attain this dignity; and on the occasion of his saying his first

mass, Henri thus wrote to him.

"Hyères, Dec. 16, 1857.

"May the Lord be with thee! These are the sacramental words of the

deacon, the only ones I have the right of addressing to you, my dear

friend and brother, before the holy altar. I address them to you

with all the fulness of my heart, and with all the deep meaning that

befits these holy words. Yes, may the Lord be with you, dear

brother!

"With you this morning at the altar of your first mass, to accept

your bridal promise, and reply to your perpetual vow by that

reciprocal love which passes all other love. With you during the

whole of this great day, to maintain the perfume of celestial

incense in your soul, and the odor of the sacrifice which has begun,

but which--thanks be to God!--has no ending. With you to-morrow, to

make you feel that joy in God has somewhat of eternity in it, and

that it differs from the joys of earth because we can taste it

constantly without ever exhausting it. With you when, soon after

your holy ecstasy of joy, you will feel that you must be a priest

for men; and you will go down from Mount Tabor to go to those who

suffer, to those who are ignorant, to those who are hungering and

thirsting for the true light and the true life. With you in your

sorrows to console you; with you in your joys to sanctify them; with

you in your desires to make them fruitful.

"'_Memor sit omnis sacrificii tui,

et holocaustum tuum pingue fiat_.'

"With you, my Charles, if you are alone in life, if our friendship

be taken from you, if you have to walk on leaning only on the arm of

a Divine Friend.

"With you, young priest, with you growing old in the conflicts of

the priesthood, and in the service of God and men. With you on the

day of your death, which shall bring to your lips, by the hands of

another, that same Jesus who has so often been carried to others by

your trembling hands.

"O my friend! I gather up all that my heart can contain of happy

desires, wishes, and hopes for you. I gather them all up in one

single wish: May the Lord be with thee always!

"It will be the life of a holy priest on earth; one day it will be

heaven.

"The Lord be with thee!

"My Charles, bless me! I embrace yon tenderly, and feel myself with

you pressed against the Heart of the Divine Master, beloved for

ever.

"Henri Perreyve."

Henri Perreyve was advancing rapidly toward manhood when the

Providence of God threw him in the path of one who was to exercise a

powerful influence over his future. While Henri was a boy at school.

Father Lacordaire held the pulpit of Notre Dame; and it might truly be

said, "All Paris was moved." What those wonderful conferences did

toward undoing the fatal spiritual havoc wrought at the Revolution,

and in subsequent years, cannot be recorded in any mortal history. It

was given to men to see somewhat of the result of the labor; but the

seeds of eternal life are scattered broadcast by a preacher's hand,

and fall hither and thither unknown to any but God.

Henri Perreyve, as a boy of thirteen, found his delight in listening

to the conferences. Six years passed by, and found him still the

attentive disciple at the feet of the great master of minds at that

period; but he was too diffident and retiring to seek a personal

acquaintance. One day, however, a friend insisted on introducing him.

Father Lacordaire was busy, and the interview lasted but a moment; but

Henri Perreyve resembled the ideal we may not unreasonably form of the

young man on whom our Lord looked and loved. Nature had been prodigal

of her gifts, and genius and innocence lent additional charm to his

exterior beauty. Lacordaire's keen eye had discerned the treasures

that could be developed in that ardent soul.

{847}

A few days after this hasty introduction, Henri was astonished by the

entrance of the great Dominican into his room.

"I received you very ill the other day," he said; "I come to ask your

pardon, and talk with you."

From that day began the closest friendship and intimacy between them.

They were literally like father and son; and at the death of

Lacordaire he bequeathed to his dear friend all that a poor monk had

to leave--his letters and papers. Henri Perreyve is said to have been

the being on earth best loved by Lacordaire. "You shall be," wrote the

latter to him, "forever in my heart as a son and as a friend." Henri,

by the pure devotion of his early youth to God, had deserved some

great gift, and it was given to him in the friendship of Lacordaire.

That the rest of his life was spent in an earnest endeavor to imitate

his friend, we can scarcely wonder at Had he lived, no doubt he would

have been a second Lacordaire; but the "sword wore out the sheath,"

the frail body could not sustain the burning soul within. Lacordaire

died in the prime of life, Perreyve in the flower of his youth.

A few more years from the time we are speaking of and he was made

priest. Work poured in on him. "The work of ten priests was offered to

him day by day." He refused a good deal; but what he reserved would

have been enough for three, and he had most feeble health.

He was preacher at the Sorbonne, director of the Conferences of St.

Barbe, "sermons everywhere, special works on all sides, endless

correspondence, confessions, directions, reunions of young people,

incessant visits."

Frequent illness attacked him, and obliged him to withdraw for a time

from his labors; but he returned to them with new zest. Of his

literary works the one most generally admired is the "Journée des

Malades." Here his genius was aided by that personal experience of

illness which enables a person so readily to enter into the feelings

of another. But many can know and feel the weariness and temptations

which beset a sick person, and be very incapable of putting it into

words, while M. Perreyve's "Journée des Malades" will comfort many a

heart.

His "Rosa Ferrucci," an exquisitely written little biography, is

already to some extent known to our readers. He likewise published

"Méditations sur le Chemin de la Croix; Entretiens sur l'Eglise

Catholique;" and he edited with the greatest care, and wrote an

introduction for, the celebrated Letters from Father Lacordaire to

young people. He also wrote a "Station at the Sorbonne," and "Poland,"

besides various little _brochures_.

The chief work of the Abbé Perreyve was the guidance and influence

over young men and boys.

The Conferences at St. Barbe were listened to by a most attentive

auditory of this class, and his power over his hearers was large and

increasing.

"He possessed in a rare degree," says Père Gratry, "that sacred art of

speaking to men, of speaking to each one, and yet speaking to all.

Hence the universal success of his discourses."

One of the great orators of the day, after hearing him preach at the

Sorbonne, exclaimed, "He who has not heard that, does not know how far

human eloquence can go."

The Count de Montalembert was one day among the audience. He wrote

afterward: "I have been touched and delighted in a way I have not been

for twenty years; since the time when he of whom you are the worthy

successor enchanted my youth at Nôtre Dame."

But as the Père Gratry justly observes, his success in colleges such

as the Lycée St. Louis and St. Barbe is still more remarkable than

that at the Sorbonne. One secret of it might be found in an

acknowledgment that he made to his friend. He had for these {848}

young people such a love, such a respect, such an idea of the

_possible future_ of each soul, such an esteem of the hidden treasures

in each heart, that he seemed to hold the key of their souls, and to

come before them as the friend of each.

On one occasion he had to speak on the most delicate and difficult

topic it was possible a priest could have to deal with before such an

assembly. He told a story: he spoke of a death which he had witnessed,

and of the crime which had caused that death; a crime which is not

punished by human laws, but which works ruin and death on all sides.

"And this man," said he, with that voice of his which thrilled to the

hearts of his hearers--"and this man is in society honorable and

refined; perhaps even not without religion. Gentlemen, is this the

honor that shall be yours, and is this the religion which you will

have?"

Never can those who heard him that day forget it; they were moved to

the very depths of their souls, and tears flowed from the eyes of

those who are not easily made to weep. When he had concluded, many of

his auditors gathered around him said: "Thanks, sir; you have opened

our eyes for ever."

The popularity of M. Perreyve survived even the severe trial of having

to address the boys of the preparatory school and the students of St.

Barbe at an hour on Sunday which would otherwise have been at their

own disposal. The sermon was to be given every fortnight, and the

audience the first time were in anything but an amiable mood. The next

day a petition was sent up by them that the sermons might be given

every week.

Thus his life passed away; and the end hurried on all too rapidly for

those who loved him and hung upon his words. His lungs were again

affected, and he passed the last winter of his life m the south of

France. There he thought he had improved, and wrote flattering

accounts of himself; so that when he returned to Paris on Palm Sunday,

April the 9th, his family and friends were in consternation at his

altered looks. Doctors could not reassure them, and the complaint made

rapid progress. It was a terrible confirmation of his relatives' fears

when they found he was unconscious of his danger, and, like all those

in the same fatal disease, busy in making plans for the future. He

planned how he should resume his sermons at the Sorbonne, even while

he was too weak to bear the fasting necessary for his Easter

Communion; and it was with great difficulty, and leaning on the arm of

his friend the Abbé Bernard, that he communicated on May 1st in the

little chapel of our Lady of Sion, close to his home. He then went

into the country, where he rallied for a short time, and then grew

rapidly worse. The news of his change spread amongst those who loved

him because they knew him, and those who loved him because they knew

his worth in the Church.

A "league" of prayers was organized for his recovery, and Henri began

to realize his state. He looked the prospect calmly in the face. Fame,

opportunities for doing good, the love and esteem of friends, were

instantly and willingly resigned.

"I think of death, and accept it without regret or fear. I am grateful

for all these prayers for me; but I do not desire life. I cannot pray

with that intention."

Then he thought of his sins, and his unworthiness, and of the Divine

Face he was about to behold; and he shrank back. He was reminded of

the mercy of God. "Truly," he said, "I who have so often preached to

others the mercy of God ought to trust in it myself."

His greatest grief was the rarity of his communions. He consoled

himself by saying: "Missionaries are often obliged to pass a long time

without communion, and then one feels God _also_ by privation."

{849}

A love of solitude began to grow on him, for he was preparing himself

to be alone with God. When begged to try a new treatment, he

consented, saying, "I ask myself, as I often do, what would Père

Lacordaire have done in my place? It seems to me he would have thought

it an indication of Providence."

He returned to Paris; and every effort of medical science was made to

arrest the malady, but all in vain. An alarming fainting fit on the

14th of June made his friends fear death was nearer to him than they

had imagined, and the Abbé Bernard thought it right to warn him.

"You surprise me," he said quietly. "I thought myself very ill, but

not so near death; but it is so much the better; you must give me the

holy viaticum and extreme unction."

The abbé went to fetch the blessed sacrament and holy oils from St.

Sulpice, the parish church of their childhood, of their first

communion, where they had prayed and wept together, where they had

asked many things from God, where they had together been consecrated

priests. There their whole Christian life had run by; and now one had

come to fetch for the other divine succor for his last hours.

The invalid insisted on rising, and was dressed in his cassock to

receive the holy sacraments. Père Gratry and other friends were

present. "I can see him now," says the former, "as full of grace and

energy as ever, smiling as usual, and saying, 'I am in perfect peace,

dear father--in perfect peace.' I shall remember that sight all my

life, thank God; that noble bearing, that face pale as marble, those

large speaking eyes, his tender glance, and his last words, 'in

perfect peace.'" He made his profession of faith, begged pardon of all

whom he had offended or scandalized, thanked all for the kindness they

had shown him; and implored them "not to say, as was too often done,

'he is in heaven;' but to pray much for him after his death." Then he

said the "Te Deum" in thanksgiving for all the mercies of his life;

and at last he said to his friend, "You cannot think what interior joy

I feel since you told me I was going to die."

The next day the Archbishop of Paris came to see him. He would be

dressed in his cassock to receive the visit, and would kneel for the

bishop's blessing. He then had a long private conversation with him.

To this dying chamber came some of the most celebrated names in Paris:

Père Pététot, the Count do Montalembert, the Prince de Broglie,

Augustin Cochin, Mgr. Buguet, the Vicar-general, the curé of St.

Sulpice, General Zamoiski, and a hundred others. One of them said, "We

are a long way off from knowing now what he is. We shall know it one

day." "Dear friend," said he to Father Adolphe Perreud of the Oratory,

"we shall not cease to work _together_ for the cause of God and his

church. Before you leave me, give me your blessing." "On condition you

give me yours," said the Oratorian; and blessing each other, the

friends parted for ever on earth. His bodily sufferings were severe.

His bones were nearly through his skin, and his cough shook him to

pieces. He grew weaker and weaker, and at last the end came. "Give me

the crucifix, sister," said he to the nursing sister who attended on

him; "not mine, but yours, that has so often rested on dying lips. If

I die to-morrow, mother, it will be my first communion anniversary."

"Dear child," she answered, weeping, "we were both happy that day."

"Well," he answered, "we must be still happier to-morrow."

The agony came on; he kissed the crucifix again and again, murmuring,

"Lord, have pity on me; Jesus, take me soon; Jesus, soon." Suddenly a

great terror seized him; his eyes were dilated with fear, gazing at

something invisible to all around; and he cried out, "I am afraid, I

am afraid."

{850}

The Abbé Bernard said, "You most not fear God; abandon yourself to his

mercy, and say, In thee, Lord, have I hoped; let me not be confounded

for ever."

He looked at him and said, "It is not God whom I fear; oh! no. I fear

that they will prevent my dying." Then he grew calm.

The abbé brought him the cross of Père Lacordaire, and said, "My God,

I love thee with all my heart in time and in eternity."

"Oh! yes, with all my heart," he said, kissing the image of his Lord.

It was his last act and his last words.

"Depart, O Christian soul!" prayed his friends Charles and Adolphe

Perreud.

"I absolve thee from all thy sins," said the Abbé Bernard; and in a

few minutes the last struggle was over, and his soul was set free.

Among his papers was found the following:

"In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I die in the faith of

the Catholic Church, to whose service since I was twelve years old I

have had the happiness of consecrating my life.

"I tenderly bless my relations and friends; I implore all those who

remember me to pray for a long time for my soul, that God, turning

away from the sight of my sins, may deign to receive me into the place

of eternal rest and happiness. I bless once again all those who are

dear to me--my relations, my benefactors, my masters, my fathers and

brothers in the priesthood, my spiritual sons, the number of dear

young people who have loved me, all the souls to whom I have been

united on earth by the tie of the same faith and the same love in

Jesus Christ."

The inscription on his tomb was chosen by himself:

"Lord, when I have seen thy glory, I shall be satisfied with it."

These words were as a key to his life. An insatiable, ardent desire

for God had possessed him, animated his actions; and at last the very

ardor of his longings wore out the feeble body that enclosed so grand

and beautiful a soul.

--------

From The Dublin University Magazine.

SONNET.

Upon a rose-tree bending o'er a river

A bird from spring to summer gaily sang;

For love of its sweet friend, the rose, for ever

Its beating heart with happy music rang,

In sunshine warm and moonlight by the shore,

Whose waves afar its voice melodious bore,

Blent with its own. But when, alas! the sere

Grey autumn came, withering those blooms so dear,

Still full of love but full of sadness too,

Changed the sweet song as changed the rose's hue

Mourning each day some rich leaf disappear

Until the last had dropped into the stream,

Anguished by wintry breezes blowing keen.

Then, on the bough forlorn, mute as a dream.

Awhile the poor bird clung, and soon was seen no more.

----------

{851}

From Once a Week.

CARDINAL TOSTI.

BY BESSIE RAYNOR PARKER.

It was in the afternoon of Friday, the 23d of March, that Rome heard

of the death of the "learned and venerable Tosti." This aged cardinal,

long the director of the great establishment of San Michele, (which is

a hospital and school combined,) had attained to nearly ninety years.

Now he was dead, and laid out in state in his own room at San Michele,

whither we went about five o'clock, and, threading the vast corridors,

which run round a court blossoming with oranges and lemons, ascending

a long flight of stone stairs, got into upper regions filled with a

perceptible hum, soldier sentinels stationed by the opened doors, who

motioned us on from room to room till we came to the last of all.

These rooms were perfectly empty of all furniture, save a few

book-cases under glass; but the yellow satin walls of one, and the

delicately-tinted panels of another, showed that they had but lately

formed the private apartments of him who was gone. Three or four

temporary altars were erected in the empty space, adorned by tall

unlighted candles. A thrill crept over us as we neared that last open

door, a silent sentinel at either side; as we crossed the antechamber,

and came in a direct line with the aperture, we saw a figure,

splendidly attired, reposing on a great sloping couch of cloth of

gold. The face of this figure indicated extreme age; the brow was

surmounted by the bright scarlet berretta, which caught the light from

the setting sun. The shrunken frame was clothed in the soft purple of

its ecclesiastical rank. The hands were crossed and held a crucifix;

the feet were turned up in new and pointed shoes. There he lay,

Cardinal Tosti, who for five-and-twenty years was the handsomest of

all the Sacred Conclave, and towered above his brethren when they

walked in procession, drawing the admiration of beholders.

There was no sound, as we knelt by the dead man's couch; through the

window could be seen the swift Tiber, swollen by the recent rains, and

on the other side of the river rose the green slopes of the

half-deserted Aventine, with its few solitary churches, Santa Sabina,

Santa Alessio, and its gracious crown of trees. Here had Tosti dwelt

for many a year, in rooms which looked to the golden west. Here he

occupied himself with his books, and with the school for industrial

and artistic pursuits which was due to his efforts at San Michele. I

have never seen anything so marvellously picturesque and impressive as

that dead man, lying on his couch of cloth of gold, the closing scene

of a long life, which stretched back far beyond the wars of the first

Napoleon, even to the period when Papal Rome received the royal

refugees of the French Revolution.

Presently, a group of white-robed priests entered, and began reciting

the office for the dead. This was the signal for the gathering of a

little crowd of Romans. Brown-cowled monks, peasant women with their

children in arms, boys and girls with large wondering dark eyes.

Together they crowded to the door of the dead man's chamber, and knelt

upon the floor, so that above and {852} beyond their bowed heads could

be seen that pale splendor upon its shining couch. We left with

reluctant footsteps, feeling a fascination in the picture which it is

hard to describe.

Late in the evening, an hour after the _Ave_, the corpse was to be

conveyed by torch-light to Santa Cecilia, the cardinal's titular

church; and at Santa Cecilia we found ourselves in the starry night.

The torches were just entering the church as we drove up; and for some

minutes the doors were inexorably shut, and we feared we had lost all

chance of an entrance. But we were presently admitted, and saw indeed

a striking scene! The small church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere,

famous as being built upon the site of the young martyr's dwelling,

was draped in black and gold from ceiling to pavement, and where the

altar-piece is generally to be seen was a great flat gold cross on a

black ground. The sanctuary was greatly enlarged for the morrow's

service, and hung with black; and in the nave, not very far from the

great portal, rose a large empty couch, exactly resembling that which

we had seen in the cardinal's private chamber. At its foot was a low

bier, whereon now lay the same white image of a man in its purple

robes, and a group of attendants crowded reverentially around it,

flashing torches in their hands, which formed a centre of light in the

dark church, reminding one of the famous Correggio; only, instead of

the new-born Babe, the illumination of humanity for all time to come,

was the aged dead, no longer capable of communicating the living light

of intelligence or of faith, but lying in a pale reflection under the

torches, and gathering into itself all the meaning of the whole scene.

We perceived that something remarkable was about to take place, and

retired discreetly behind a pillar, that our accidental presence might

attract no notice. The truth was, that the cardinal was about to be

laid out for the great funeral service of the morrow; and by chance we

had gained admission at this purely private hour. The body was taken

on the little bier into the sacristy, and there we supposed that some

change was made in the raiment; when it was brought back the hands

were gloved, and instead of the scarlet berretta was a plain

skull-cap. Then, with difficulty and much consultation, but with

perfect reverence of intention, the straight image was lifted on to

the great couch; the assistant men being grouped on ladders, and an

eager voluble monsignore directing the whole. The ladders, the

torch-light, the mechanical difficulty of the operation, again

reminded me of one of those great depositions in which the actual

scene of the Cross is so vividly brought out by art. At length the

dead cardinal lay placidly upon his cloth of gold, and they fetched

his ring to put upon his hand, and his white mitre wherewith to clothe

his gray hairs. We left them performing the last careful offices,

making the strangest, the most gorgeous torch-light group in the

middle of that dark church that poet or artist could conceive.

The next morning the Pope and the College of Cardinals came to

officiate at the funeral mass. The square court in front of Santa

Cecilia was filled with an eager crowd of Romans and _Forestieri_,

with the splendid costumes of the Papal Guard, with prancing horses

and old-fashioned chariots, gorgeous with gilding and color. They were

much such a company of equipages as may be seen in our Kensington

Museum, but so fresh and well-appointed in spite of the extreme

antiquity of their design, that one felt as if carried back to the

days of Whittington, Lord Mayor of London. Into Santa Cecilia itself

we could not penetrate, by reason of the crowd and the stern vigilance

of the soldiers, who, attired in the red-and-yellow costume designed

by Michael Angelo, kept a considerable space in the nave empty for the

moment when the Pope should walk from the altar to the bier. But {853}

through the open door we saw the lights upon the black-draped altar

and in front of that gorgeous couch, with its motionless occupant, his

white mitre being now the conspicuous point in the picture. And when

the Pope left the dim church and came out into the sunshine, the

brilliant rays fell upon his venerable white hair and scarlet cap,

while the weapons flashed and the crowd shouted, as he ascended his

wonderful chariot with the black horses, and drove away.

--------

MISCELLANY.

_Microscopic Plants the Cause of Ague_.--Owing to the prevalence of

ague in the malarial district of Ohio and Mississippi, Dr. Salisbury

undertook a series of experiments in 1862, with a view to determine

the microscopic characters of the expectorations of his patients. He

commenced his experiments by examining the mucous secretions of those

patients who had been most submitted to the malaria, and in these he

detected a large amount of low forms of life, such as algae, fungi,

diatomaceae, and desmidiae. At first he imagined that the presence of

these organisms might be accidental, but repeated experiments

convinced him that some of them were invariably associated with ague.

The bodies which are constantly present in such cases he describes as

being "minute oblong cells, either single or aggregated, consisting of

a distinct nucleus, surrounded with a smooth cell-wall, with a highly

clear, apparently empty space between the outer cell-wall and the

nucleus." From these characters Dr. Salisbury concludes that the

bodies are not fungi, but belong properly to the algae, in all

probability being species of the genus _Palmella_. Whilst the

diatomaceae and other organisms were found to be generally present the

bodies just described were not found above the level at which the ague

was observed. In order to ascertain exactly their source, he suspended

plates of glass over the water in a certain marsh which was regarded

as unhealthy. In the water which condensed upon the under surface of

these plates, he found numerous palmella-like structures, and on

examining the mould of the bog, he found it full of similar organisms.

From repeated researches Dr. Salisbury concludes: (1.) Cryptogamic

spores are carried aloft above the surface at night, in the damp

exhalations which appear after sunset (2.) These bodies rise from

thirty to sixty feet, never above the summit of the damp

night-exhalations, and ague is similarly limited. (3.) The day-air of

ague districts is free from these bodies.

_Use of Lime in Extracting Sugar_.--Peligot long ago demonstrated

that owing to the insoluble nature of the compound formed of lime with

sugar, the former substance would be a most valuable agent in the

manufacture of the latter. Peligot's suggestion is now being carried

out on a large scale in MM. Schrötter and Wellman's sugar-factory at

Berlin. The molasses is mixed with the requisite quantity of hydrate

of lime and alcohol in a large vat, and intimately stirred for more

than half an hour. The lime compound of sugar which separates is then

strained off, pressed, and washed with spirit. All the alcohol used in

the process is afterward recovered by distillation. The mud-like

precipitate thus produced is mixed with water and decomposed with a

current of carbonic acid, which is effected in somewhat less than half

an hour. The carbonate of lime is removed by filtration, and the clear

liquid, containing the sugar, evaporated, decolorized with animal

charcoal, and crystallized in the usual manner. The sugar furnished by

this method has a very clear appearance, and is perfectly crystalline.

It contains, according to polarization analysis, sixty-six per cent of

sugar, twelve per cent of water, the remainder being uncrystallizable

organic matter and salts. The yield, of course, varies with the

richness and degree of concentration of the raw material; on an

average, thirty pounds of sugar were obtained from one hundred pounds

of molasses.

{854}

_Russian Coal Resources_.--Recent explorations and surveys appear to

show that the Russian coal resources are much vaster even than those

of the United States of America. In the Oural district coal has been

found in various places, both in the east and west sides of the

mountain-chain; its value being greatly enhanced by the fact that an

abundance of iron is found in the vicinity. There is an immense basin

in the district of which Moscow is the centre, which covers an area of

one hundred and twenty thousand square miles, which is therefore

nearly as large as the entire bituminous coal area of the United

States. The coal region of the Don is more than half as large as all

of our coal measures. Besides these sources, coal has lately been

discovered in the Caucasus, Crimea, Simbirsk, the Kherson, and in

Poland.

--------

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Medical Recollections Of The Army Of The Potomac.

By Jonathan Letterman, M.D., late Surgeon U.S.A., and Medical Director

of the Army of the Potomac. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 8vo, pp. 194.

The preface to this volume announces the intention of its author: "It

is written in the hope that the labors of the medical officers of the

army may be known to an intelligent people, with whom to know is to

appreciate; and as an affectionate tribute to many, long my zealous

and efficient colleagues, who, in days of trial and danger which have

passed, let us hope never to return, evinced their devotion to their

country and the cause of humanity without hope of promotion or

expectation of reward." It is a sketch of the Medical Department of

the army of the Potomac under Dr. Letterman's administration, from

July, 1862, to January, 1864, and affords a concurrent view of the

military movements of that army during the period specified.

Without infringing upon military details properly so called, an

excellent general idea is given of the battles fought, and the

strategic value of the great changes of position which were executed

with such remarkable promptitude and precision.

Dr. Letterman confines himself strictly to the period of his own

administration, and the account of the alterations and improvements

introduced under his direction, and chiefly through his means, in the

working of the medical department.

The system which he adopted became the system substantially of all the

armies of the United States, and with occasional modifications to suit

particular occasions has proved to be the best and most efficient as

well as manageable that could have been devised. To Dr. Letterman

belongs the great praise of having studiously and laboriously

perfected the principles and details of these changes, and succeeded

in securing their recognition and enforcement.

The total inadequacy of the old system was painfully obvious to all

competent and thoughtful observers at the breaking out of the war. It

was especially so to those who were placed in responsible executive

positions at the front, while the authority in the rear remained bound

to its old ideas, and incapable of understanding the great issues

involved, and the expenditure of independent intelligence and

_matérial_ necessary to accomplish any adequate result. The immediate

consequence was an unnecessary waste of life, of national strength and

resources, and an amount of misery inflicted and suffering endured

which can never be computed and had best now be dismissed for ever.

These causes led early in the war to the appointment of a young,

vigorous, bold, and undeniably able man as Surgeon-General. He made a

complete reformation in the department, and shared the fate of

reformers. He was sacrificed as a victim to the genius of

indifference, neglect, parsimony, and cruelty, which had hitherto held

undisputed or but feebly disputed sway over the fallen on battlefields

and the sick of armies. {855} This is not the time or place to discuss

ex-Surgeon-General Hammond; but it is due to him at all hands, that he

has probably been the means of mitigating the horrors of war as

respects the sick and wounded, and promoting the sacred cause of

humanity in these particulars to a greater degree than any man who

ever lived. The magnitude of the reforms accomplished, the magnificent

scale on which preparation was made, and the courage to order the

necessary expenditures in the face of the time-honored but mean and

timid traditions of the Surgeon-General's office, and the habits of

thought and action engendered thereby in the bureaus of administration

and supply, cannot be appreciated until some learned and philosophical

physician shall write the medical history of the war from its humane

and social points of view.

We are disposed to give Dr. Letterman all the merit which his book

would seem to claim, and a much higher degree of praise than his

well-known modesty would expect, but we cannot pass over in silence

the gigantic and unrequited labors of his predecessor, Colonel Chas.

S. Tripler, Surgeon U.S.A., the first Medical Director of the army of

the Potomac, which paved the way for the improved methods Dr.

Letterman had the honor of introducing. We are aware that many of the

most important were in contemplation, and if we mistake not, the

ambulance system originated with Dr. Tripler. The terrible experiences

of the Seven Days and the Chickahominy opened the eyes of the military

authorities to the tremendous necessities of the case, and made the

work of medical reform comparatively easy. There is no teacher like

suffering, for Generals as well as _mortals_.

The military mind is to a great degree governed by the traditions of

the middle ages, when surgery was an ignoble because ignorant and

consequently cruel craft. The rights and privileges of rank have been

slowly and reluctantly conceded, and every effort has been made to

deprive the surgeon of the dignity which belongs to the combatant and

a participation in common toils and dangers. These prejudices have

given way rapidly during the late war, where the courage, skill, and

self-sacrificing charity of medical officers have been most

conspicuous. Many surgeons have proved their manhood in most trying

scenes, and have certainly stood fire as well as the line and staff.

The record of killed and wounded places them on a level with any staff

corps in these respects.

Military prejudice in the regular army, and the ignorance, stupidity,

and arrogance of many volunteer officers, were an obstacle to the

medical department in the beginning. They gradually gave way under the

steady pressure of intelligence, courage, and determination, till in

the end ambulances became as much respected as battery wagons, and

every able and good officer the friend, supporter, and defender of the

medical department.

Dr. Letterman has done an excellent service to his profession at large

by his book, which is another vindication of the claims of legitimate

medicine upon the respect, confidence, and gratitude of the public.

The work is well written and handsomely issued. It is a great subject,

and capable of being developed to a much, higher degree in extent and

scope, which we hope Dr. Letterman will have time and opportunity to

do.

THE NEW-ENGLANDER, July, 1866.

This periodical emanates from the venerable and classic shades of Yale

University, and is edited by some of the younger professors, two of

whom are inheritors of the distinguished names of Dwight and Kingsley.

It is marked by the refined literary taste, polished style, and

amenity of spirit which are characteristic of the New Haven circle of

scientific and clerical gentlemen. There is very much in the general

tone of its principles and tendencies which gives us pleasure and

awakens our hope for the future. We may indicate particularly, as

illustrations of our meaning, the principle of the divine institution

and authority of government; the sympathy manifested with an ideal and

spiritual system of philosophy, and the decided opposition to the new

English school of anti-biblical rationalism.

There are several notices of recent Catholic publications which are

written in a courteous style, contrasting very favorably with that

employed by most Protestant periodicals. Dr. Brownson's "American

Republic" receives a respectful and moderately appreciative notice.

The "Memoir and Sermons of F. Baker" is also honored with one which is

very {856} kind and sympathetic, expressing the "intense and mournful

interest" of the writer in the book, and still more in its author, for

which no doubt he will be duly grateful, although we know of no reason

why his friends should go into mourning for him during his lifetime.

The writer, after remarking that the arguments contained in the book

are chiefly addressed to Episcopalians, and therefore need not trouble

any other Protestants, throws out a couple of rejoinders to what he

supposes the author might say to these last, if he were disposed. One

of these remarks is an assertion that the Paulists and their brethren

of the Catholic clergy do not preach Christ. Does the writer really

know nothing of the Catholic system of practical religion except what

he has read in D'Aubigné and the "Schönberg-Cotta" romance? If not, we

recommend him to acquire more correct information from our best

writers. If he has it already, we cannot understand how he could make

such a statement. His winding-up apostrophe to the Paulists, "O

foolish Paulists, who hath bewitched you? you observe days and months

and times and years," is more witty than wise. The Paulists observe,

in common with other Catholics, sixty days in the year as obligatory,

and of these fifty-two are observed with much greater rigor than we

insist upon by the Congregationalists of New Haven. When the writer

gives us a good explanation of his doctrine of the Christian Sabbath

in harmony with St. Paul's teaching to the Galatians, we will

cheerfully undertake the vindication of the other eight holidays, and

will endeavor to convince him that it is just as reasonable to have

handsome altars, statues, pictures, and flowers, in churches, as it is

to have fine churches, marble pulpits, frescoed ceilings, well-dressed

clergymen, and handsome houses with pretty flower-gardens for these

clergymen.

In our view, there is better work for the learned scholars of New

Haven to do than to indulge in light skirmishing with Catholics and

Episcopalians. They have all the treasures of science and learning at

command, with leisure and ability to use them. There are great

questions respecting the agreement between science and revelation, the

authenticity and credibility of the sacred books, the fundamental

doctrines of philosophy and religion, pressing on the attention of

every man who thinks and cares about God and his fellow-men. The

people around us are drifting rapidly into infidelity and sin. There

is no remedy for this but a reëstablishment of first principles; and

we would like to see our learned friends apply themselves to this

work. It may justly be expected from such an old and world-renowned

university as Yale College, that it should produce the most solid

works, not merely in classic lore and physical science, but in the

higher branches of metaphysics and theology. Dr. Dwight was a great

theologian, and is so styled by Döllinger. Drs. Taylor and Fitch were,

both, able and acute metaphysicians. Since their day, we are afraid

that our friends have fallen asleep in these departments. They set out

to reform Calvinism, to reconcile orthodox Protestantism with reason,

and to find a method of bringing the practical truths of Christianity

to bear on men universally. In spite of their able and zealous efforts

in this direction, religious belief and practice have been steadily on

the wane around them. As for morality, the article on "Divorce," which

we shall make the topic of a separate article hereafter, makes

disclosures which are indeed startling. We would like to have them

resume their work, therefore, once more, from the beginning, and go

back to the most ultimate principles. In what state was man originally

created? What is the relation of the race to Adam? What is original

sin? Whence the need of a Divine Redeemer and a revelation? What are

the means established by Jesus Christ for the regeneration and

salvation of mankind? What is the remedy for the present deplorable

condition of both Christendom and heathendom? Of course, the

discussion of these fundamental questions will involve a thorough

sifting of the Catholic doctrines. We are anxious to have it made, and

when the discussion is carried on upon fundamental grounds, a result

may be hoped for which cannot be gained by skirmishing around the

outposts.

The clergy and people of New Haven, and of Connecticut generally, have

always been remarkable for their friendly behavior toward Catholics.

There has never been any disposition to persecute them, and, at

present, the relations between the Catholic and non-Catholic sections

of the population are just what they should be in a land of religious

freedom. A judge in New Haven has recently pronounced, in open court,

his decision that the Catholic religion is just {857} as much the

religion of the state as the Protestant; and the last Legislature has

passed the most just and favorable law regulating the tenure of church

property that exists in the United States. The conductors of the

"New-Englander" will surely join us in the wish that all the people of

the state may ere long become one in the belief and practice of the

pure and complete Christian faith as Christ revealed it.

A PLEA FOR THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH.

Stray Notes on Speaking and Spelling, by Henry Alvord, D.D., Dean of

Canterbury. Tenth thousand. Alexander Strahan.--THE DEAN'S ENGLISH. A

Criticism on the Dean of Canterbury's Essays on the Queen's English.

By G. Washington Moon, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Fourth edition. Alexander Strahan.

Among the critics of the English press there seems to be but one

opinion concerning the merits of the two combatants in this literary

joust; that the Dean is deservedly castigated, and that Mr. Moon is an

unapproachable paragon of literary effulgence. However, this is not to

be wondered at. These same critics, and the English press to which

they contribute, sadly need a champion, if we may believe his

reverence of Canterbury. Gross inaccuracies in syntax, unpardonable

faults in style, and frequently occurring examples of slip-shod

sentences would appear, from the "Plea for the Queen's English," to

be, on the whole, characteristic of the modern English press.

We, transatlantic barbarians that we are, of course know nothing of

the English language, and have not the presumption, we hope, to think

that we can either speak or write one faultless sentence of the

language which we inherit as a means of intercommunion with our

fellows. It is our duty to feel "umble," and we do feel "umble." But,

while perusing these two books, we have had an 'umble and an 'arty

laugh in the depths of our 'umiliation. It may have been very sinful

in us, we know, but we could not help it. As the youthful culprit

replied, when caught laughing in church, we say, 'umbly of course, "We

didn't laugh, it laughed itself!" At the risk of not being believed by

those who have not yet read these, two books, we give the astounding

information that even an Englishman, an educated Englishman, a

dignitary of the English church, a poet, whose verses we republished

in America, (and, confound us, left out the u's,) not only speaks and

writes bad English, but also on his own showing, by the light of Mr.

Moon's volume, presumes to teach others to do the same. Yes, these

published lessons of the Very Rev. Dean, in speaking and spelling, are

so outrageously ungrammatical, and so faulty in style, that we should

not be surprised if the prediction of his antagonist would come true,

that henceforth people will speak of bad English as Dean's English.

Yet with all its faults it is a useful book; and we think that neither

Mr. Moon nor the newspaper critics have done the author justice. We do

not like "Dean's English," and it is humiliating, even to an American,

to discover that he has carelessly spoken or written it; but we like

the Dean's book better than we do Mr. Moon's. We like the schoolboy's

walk better than the schoolmarm's. Mr. Moon's style is faultlessly

prim and precise, and defies literary criticism; but we have felt,

more than once, a wish to take up some of his exact sentences and give

them a good shaking, so as to get a little of the stiffness out of

them. The Dean has written as most people speak; Mr. Moon writes as

nobody ever did or ever will speak. We should write correctly, it is

true, but there is a comparison (however paradoxical it may appear)

even in correctness. Mr. Moon aims to write "most correctly," and we

think that his style is far less pleasing than it would have been if

he had simply written correctly. There is such a thing as

"punctiliousness in all its stolidity, without any application of the

sound or effect of one's sentences." As is his style, so is his

criticism. Nothing escapes his eye; the want of a comma, a sentence a

trifle too elliptical, a careless tautology, (Mr. Moon would have us

say--a carelessly written tautological expression,) are blemishes at

which he turns away his face in rhetorical disgust. Nevertheless, we

say again, we like the Dean's book. It deserves to be studied by all

our young writers, who need to be warned against the use of many

popular phrases, and have their attention directed to common faults in

construction. It is a lively, chatty book, and keeps us in a good

humor from the first to the last page.

{858}

The sharp criticism of Mr. Mood is well worth reading. It furnishes us

with an index to the blunders of the Very Rev. Dean. So closely has he

examined these faults and calculated their guilt, that he actually

sums up for us, in one instance, the number of possible readings of

one unfortunate sentence. It contains only ten lines, and may be read

ten thousand two hundred and forty different ways, as Mr. Moon shows

us. Severely as he was attacked, and despite certain personal

innuendos, not by any means creditable to his adversary, the

good-natured Dean (we are sure of his good nature, from his book)

comes off victor, in our opinion, by inviting his enemy to dinner.

When a little time shall have healed the bruises of the literary

castigation he has received, he will doubtless re-write his book, and

give us under another form the profitable hints and helps which at

present need a more exact classification.

COSAS DE ESPAÑA.

Illustrative of Spain and the Spaniards as they are. By Mrs. Wm. Pitt

Byrne, author of "Flemish Interiors," etc. 2 vols. 12mo. Alexander

Strahan, London and New York. 1866.

The publications of Mr. Strahan are well known for the taste and

elegance displayed in their exterior dress. The book before us merits

a full meed of praise in this respect; but it is one of the most

wretched pieces of English composition that has come under our notice.

It has a preface of forty pages, which prefaces nothing, being in fact

nothing more than a few statistics of railways, the army, the mineral

and other products of Spain, jumbled together, with no attempt at

order or classification. The first chapter, styled "introductory," is

jumble number two, on national character, entertainments,

manufactures, railways again, infanticide, education, authors and

authoresses, sobriety and smoking.

In the second chapter we are surprised to find the authoress has not

yet left Dover. We thought we were in Spain long ago. It is not until

the middle of the third chapter that we are permitted to get to the

frontier, and by this time we confess we are tired of our gentle

guide, and decline going any further. When we are conversing with an

Englishman or an Englishwoman, we prefer the English language to that

affected jargon which consists in italicizing and translating into a

foreign language every emphatic word. It is scarcely an exaggeration

to say that there are three or four such italicized foreign words,

French, Spanish, Latin, or Greek, on each and every page of these two

volumes. Our readers may wish to see a specimen. "The first obstacle

that met us on this same bridge was a crowd of _ouvriers_ in blouses,"

p. 26. "The cathedral rather disappointed us, _quoad_ its outward

aspect, and offers nothing _very_ remarkable within," p. 27. "There

are, it is true, some districts which present a very curious and

interesting picture _en_ bird's eye," p. 28. "One day it was a

_fiesta_, on which we made sure of admission, because the _entrée_ is

_libre_ on Sundays, and in all _else_, a _fiesta_ is synonymous with a

Sunday; and finally, at the last attempt we made, on the _right_ day,

hour, etc.," p. 41, vol. ii. "Boleros and Fandangos are national

dances, but they are among the _délassements_ of the _plebs_," p. 145,

vol. ii. Scattered here and there through these intolerable pages we

find numerous examples of wit unequalled in dreariness. Speaking of

Spanish authoresses the writer facetiously remarks, "One or two have

so far exceeded the ordinary limits of female capacity in Spain, as

even to dip the tip of their hose into the cerulean ink-bottle." Of

the domestic pottery she says: "There is what we may call a jar-ring

incongruity between the roughness of the material and the striking

elegance of the form." Aquatic gambolling at Biarritz, we are told,

"is not the only gambling to be seen there." A visit to the tomb of an

archbishop elicits the following: "It is an object of great

attraction, and renders the spot chosen by the archbishop an excellent

site for a tomb, as it cannot fail to keep the memory of him whose

bones it covers before all who frequent the church, and there can be

now little left _besides_ his bones. This is as it should be. '_De

mortuis nil nisi bonum_.'"

Had the book been expurgated of the hundreds of foreign words, and of

all these dead-and-alive puns, which deface its pages, and the subject

matter been arranged with the slightest view to order, it would have

been quite readable, for the authoress is good-natured and

communicative, and has an eye for the beautiful and the picturesque,

as well as {859} intelligence to appreciate the moral and the useful;

but, as it is, we think the quotations we have made from it are quite

sufficient to prove the justice of our opinion concerning it.

LETTERS OF EUGÉNIE DE GUÉRIN.

Edited by G. S. Trebutien. 12mo, pp. 453. London: Alexander Strahan;

New York: Lawrence Kehoe. 1866.

Our readers have already been presented in our pages with several

articles and notices of Eugénie de Guérin's character and writings,

and they are doubtless sufficiently familiar with both to waive any

further reflections upon either in this place. The volume of letters

before us is, like her journal, a delicious literary repast, from

which we rise with mind and heart equally gladdened and refreshed. Our

space will not permit us to give but one or two short extracts. "23d

December, 1863. I write to you, dear Louise, to the sound of the

_Nadalet_, to the merry peal of bells, announcing the sweetest

festival of the year. It is, indeed, very beautiful this midnight

celebration, this memorial of the manger, the angels, the shepherds,

of Mary and the infant Jesus, of so many mysteries of love

accomplished in this marvellous night. I shall go to the midnight

mass, not in hope of a pie, coffee, and such a pleasant dish as your

nocturnal cavalier; nothing of the kind is to be found at Cahuzac,

where I only enjoy celestial pleasures, such as one experiences in

praying to the good God, hearing beautiful sermons, gentle lessons,

and, in a quiet corner of the church, giving oneself up to rapturous

emotion. Happy moments, when one no longer belongs to earth, when one

lets heart, soul, mind, wing their way to heaven!"

The following to M. de la Morvonnais he must have received and read

with intense emotion:

Cayla, 28th July, 1835.

Did you imagine, Monsieur, that I should not write to you any more?

Oh! how mistaken you would have been! It was your journey to Paris,

and, after that, other obstacles, which prevented my speaking to you

earlier of Marie. But we will speak of her to-day; yes, let us speak

of her, always of her; let her be always betwixt us. It is for her

sake I write to you: first of all, because I love her and find it

sweet to recall her memory; and then, because it seems to me that

she is glad you should sometimes hear terms of expression that

_vividly recall_ her. I come, then, to remind you of that sacred

resemblance so sweet to myself when it strikes you. How I bless God

for having bestowed it upon me, and thus enabled me to do you some

good! This shall be my mission with regard to you, and with what

delight shall I fulfil it!

Do not say that there is any merit or act of profound charity in

this acceptation. My heart goes out quite naturally toward those who

weep, and I am happy as an angel when I can console. You tell me

that your life will no longer have any bright side, that I can

elicit nothing from you but sadness. I know this; but can that

estrange me--I, who loved the Marie you weep? Ah! yes; let us weep

over her; lean on me the while, if you will. To me it is not painful

to receive tears: not that my heart is strong, as you believe, only

it is Christian, and finds at the foot of the cross enough to enable

it to support its own sorrows and those of others. Marie did the

same . . . . let us seek to imitate the saints. You will teach this

to your daughter beside the cross on that grave whither you often

lead her. Poor little one! how I should like to see her, to

accompany her in that pilgrimage to that tomb beside the sea, and

under the pines, to pray, to weep there, to take her on my knees and

speak to her of heaven and of her mother. This would be a joy to me:

you know that there are melancholy ones.

We give only these little tastes of the charming volume, which will

find its way, after the "journal," into many a circle, to afford in

its perusal the most unqualified delight to all its readers.

THE VALLEY OF WYOMING; the Romance of its History and its Poetry; also

Specimens of Indian Eloquence.

Compiled by a Native of the Valley. 12mo, pp. 153. New York: R. H.

Johnston & Co. 1866.

"This little volume," says the author in his prefatory note, "has not

the slightest claim to be either a history or a study of romance." We

are sorry that it has not, for we cannot see that (apart from the

republication of Campbell's "Gertrude of Wyoming") it has the

slightest claim to be anything else. We thank the author, however, for

giving us the following amongst the specimens of Indian eloquence. It

is part of the reply of the celebrated chief Red Jacket to a

Protestant missionary,

{860}

"_Brother_, continue to listen. You say you are sent to instruct us

how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to his mind, and that if we

do not take hold of the religion which you teach, we shall be unhappy

hereafter. How do we know this to be true? We understand that your

religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well as

you, why has not the Great Spirit given it to us: and not only to us,

but why did he not give to our forefathers the knowledge of that book,

with the means of rightly understanding it? . . . . _Brother_, you

say that there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit.

If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much

about it? _Why not all agree, as you can all read the book?_"

We should like to know what answer the missionary made, or could make,

to that argument.

SHAKESPEARE'S DELINEATION OF INSANITY AND SUICIDE.

By A. O. Kellogg, M.D., Assistant Physician State Lunatic Asylum,

Utica, N. Y. 12mo, pp. 204. New-York: Hurd and Houghton. 1866.

Dr. Kellogg's essays upon some of the characters in Shakespeare are

the evidence of an expert in support and illustration of the intuitive

apprehension and scientific fidelity of genius to truth. The

difference between the creations of genius and those of industry is,

to a certain degree, the difference between the limning of the sea and

the laborious skill of the engraver. The mind gives its unquestioning

and conscious assent to the psychological _delineations_ of

Shakespeare, but it is doubtful if Shakespeare ever made it a special

subject of study. He was undoubtedly a thorough reader of the ancient

classics, and a close and critical observer of the persons and events

of his own time, and that we believe to have been the substance of his

education, properly so called.

The essay on Hamlet is the best, and we quite agree with Dr. Kellogg's

conclusion on this much disputed subject, that the dramatist meant to

describe a mind unsettled by distress, and gradually culminating in

complete madness. If we were allowed to draw a personal conclusion

from reading this book, we should say that Dr. Kellogg is admirably

adapted for that department of his noble profession which he has

chosen.

The volume is well printed and beautifully bound.

HOMES WITHOUT HANDS.

Being a Description of the Habitations of Animals, classed according

to their Principles of Construction. By Rev. J. G. Wood, M.A., F.L.S.,

etc. With new designs by W. F. Keyle and E. Smith. 8vo, pp. 651. New

York: Harper and Brothers. 1866.

This is a delightful book, full of scientific knowledge communicated

in the most pleasing and attractive style. It is admirably calculated

to awaken a love for natural science and original collection and

exploration. We consider this class of studies of the highest value,

especially on account of their reflex action on the mind and

character, and their powerful influence in the direction of morality

and religion. We would suggest this book as an admirable one for

prizes in our Catholic boarding-schools, and we wish natural science

were more prized and cultivated in them than it at present seems to

be.

It is printed and bound in a very handsome manner.

A PRACTICAL GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

By T.E. Howard, A.M. Metropolitan Series. New York: D. & J. Sadlier &

Co. 1866.

This is an excellent little manual for our schools, and we doubt not

that it will come into extensive use.

It bears throughout the unmistakable signs of having come from the

hand of an experienced teacher, from whose pen books of this character

must come to possess any practical worth. The style in which it is

published is, to our thinking, and according to our experience, unfit

for a school-book. The copy sent us would be in tatters in the hand of

a school boy before he had studied one tenth of it.