Chapter XI.

The Mountains Whence Help Cometh.

Mr. Granger was one of those persons whom we miss more than we

expect to, their influence is so quiet, their stability has so

little of hardness. As has been beautifully said, such characters

are "like the water-lily, fixed yet floating." We do not know how

much we rest on them till the support is withdrawn.

They heard from him constantly, the letters being directed to Mr.

Lewis, but intended for all the family.

Evidently his good spirits had not deserted him. Never before had

he been so much alive, he wrote. The excitement, the uncertainty,

the very restraints which reminded of power, and of great

interests at stake, all kept his thoughts in a brisk circulation,

and threw the bile off his mind.

Miss Dora had, however, her separate correspondence, letters

directed to herself, which Miss Hamilton read to her, and

answered from her dictation.

In those days the child learned a new prayer: "O Mother in

heaven, take pity on me who have no mother on earth, and whose

father has gone to the wars. Watch over him, that I may not be

left an orphan. Pray for him, and for me, and for whoever loves

us best. Do not forget me, O Mother! for if you do, my heart will

break."

"Who is it that loves us best?" the child asked the first time

she said this prayer.

"I do not know," was the reply. "We can never be sure who loves

us best. But God knows, and the good Mother can find out."

"I thought it was you," said Dora. Margaret's voice sank to a

whisper. "Perhaps it is, dear."

{457}

In a few weeks Mr. Southard also left then, not cheerfully, but

with a gloom which he took no pains to conceal.

And the few weeks grew to many weeks, and months multiplied. The

summer was gone, and the autumn was gone, and winter melted like

a snow-flake on the mantle of time. When our eyes are fixed in

anxious longing on some future day, the intermediate days slip

through our fingers like sands through an hour-glass, and keep no

trace of their passage.

If, when the spring campaign opened, and both the absent ones

were in active service, our friends watched with some sinking of

the heart for news, it was no more than happened in tens of

thousands of other homes. Heart-sickness was by no means a rare

disease in those days.

The soldier in charge of the soldier's news-room on Kneeland

street became very much interested in one of the few visitors who

used to go there that summer. Nearly every say, surely every day

when there had been a battle, a pale-faced young lady would open

the door, enter quickly, and without looking to right or left go

directly to the frames that held the lists of killed and wounded,

and read them through from end to end. The soldier got to have an

anxious feeling about this lady. Unnoticed by her, he watched her

face while she read, and hushed his breath till he saw that

terrible look go out of her eyes. The lists finished, she would

pull her veil down, sigh wearily, and go out as quietly as she

had entered.

"When she finds the name she is looking for, I hall see her

drop," he thought.

But Margaret did not drop, though often enough she was in danger

of it, as her eyes fell on some blurred name, or some name very

like the one she dreaded to see.

It was too wearing. Both flesh and spirit were sinking under this

constant strain. Where was the help that religion was to give

her? Leave everything to God, trust all to him, she was told. But

how? Her thoughts were clenched in these interests; and, in spite

of faith, it seemed as though, if she should let go her hold,

they would fall. She found that her religion was only of the

surface. It had grown in the sunshine, and was not rooted against

the storm. She tried to put into practice the precepts she

listened to, but the daily distractions of life constantly

neutralized her efforts. There was but one way, and for the first

time Margaret made a retreat.

The place selected was a convent a little out of the city.

Here in this secluded asylum was all that her soul needed for its

restoring; quiet, leisure, the society of those whose lives are

devoted to God, and, to crown all, the presence of the blessed

sacrament of the altar.

One feels very near heaven when one hears only praying voices,

sees only happy, peaceful faces, is looked upon only by kind

eyes, and can at any hour go before the altar, alone, undisturbed

by those distractions which constantly environ our ordinary

worship. How still we become! In that presence how our little

troubles and sorrows exhale, as mists lift from the rivers at

sunrise, and leave all clear and bright! How cramped and feverish

all our past life has been! Everything settles into its true

place. Sorrow and death lose their sting. We are safe, for we

partake of the omnipotence of God. To think that the same roof

that shelters our heads when we lie down to sleep shelters also

the sacred head of the Son of God--that drives every other

thought from the mind.

{458}

It is marvellous, it seems incredible, and yet the wonder of it

is lost in the sweetness. The moonlight coming in at the window

lies white and silent on the bare white floor. You rise to kiss

that luminous spot, for just beneath is the altar. Peace rises to

exultation, for you perceive more and more that the Father holds

us all in his hands, those near and those afar, and that we have

but to lift our eyes, and we shall behold the mountains whence

help cometh. We want to run out and tell everybody. It seems as

if we have just discovered all this, and that no one ever knew it

before. We forget that we are sinners. It isn't much matter about

us any way. We will think of that afterward. We will make acts of

contrition when we get away from here. Now we can make only acts

of adoration and of joy.

The superior of the convent directed Margaret's retreat, and on

the last morning of it she and all the nuns received communion,

and there was the benediction after mass.

The others had gone out, but Margaret still lingered before the

altar. Out in the early sunshine, the trees rustled softly, and

the breeze waved the curtains of the chapel windows.

Occasionally, one of the nuns would come to the door, look in,

and go away again smiling, though Miss Hamilton's breakfast was

spoiling over the fire, and there was a gentleman waiting in the

parlor for her.

"She is in the chapel at her devotions," the sister had told him.

"Don't disturb her on any account," he had answered. "There is no

haste."

Margaret was not praying, was not thinking; her soul was silent,

lost in God, like a star in the day.

Presently she came out, and, meeting one of the nuns in the hall,

embraced her tenderly. "Sister," she said, "this is the most

beautiful world that ever was made."

The gentleman had been waiting some time when he heard a step,

and in the door there stood a slight, black-robed lady with a

veil thrown over her head, a bright face, and a smell of incense

lingering about her. She lifted both hands when she saw him.

"My cup runneth over!"

"You are not a nun?" asked Mr. Granger.

"You're not an apparition," she returned. "Oh! welcome!"

"And now," he said, delighted to see her so happy, "if you are

ready, we will go home. I have only a few days' furlough, and I

want to make the most of it."

Margaret went to take a hasty leave of the nuns, and also to step

into the chapel for one moment.

Then she went out from under that happy portal, and down the

steps to the carriage that was waiting for them. One of the

sisters stood in the door looking after her, and others here and

there in the grounds looked up with a pleasant word of farewell

as she passed. She stooped to gather from the lower terrace a

humble souvenir, two or three grass-blades and a clover-leaf,

then stepped into the carriage. As they drove slowly down the

avenue, she looked up into the overhanging branches and repeated:

"'Above him the boughs of the hemlock trees

Waved, and made the sign of the cross,

And whispered their Benedicitis.'"

The family were in raptures over Mr. Granger's return. They could

not look at him enough, listen to him enough, do enough for him.

"And how nice you look in your uniform!" said Margaret, feeling

as if she were about six years old.

"And how nice you look in anything!" he retorted, at which they

all laughed. It took but little to make them laugh in those days.

{459}

Mr. Granger, on his part, was as merry as a boy. He was full of

adventures to tell them, glad to be at home, happy in their

confidence and affection, and hopeful of the future.

Margaret could scarcely believe her own happiness. She would turn

away, shut her eyes, and think, "I have imagined it all. He is

hundreds of miles away, I do not know whether he is sick or well.

He may be in peril. He may be dead. O my friend! come home, come

home! Are we never to see you again?"

Then, when she had succeeded in tormenting herself sufficiently,

when her heart was sinking, and her eyes overflowing with tears,

she would turn quickly, trembling between dream and reality, and

see him there alive and well, and at home.

"Oh! there he is, thank God!"

And so every day she renewed in her vivid imagination the pain of

his absence and the delight of his return, till too soon the day

came when she no longer dared to play such tricks with herself,

for he was again gone out of their sight. But the lessons of the

retreat were not forgotten, and every morning brought

refreshment.

To Be Continued.

----------

Sauntering.

Saunterer, (from _saint terre_,)

a pilgrim to holy lands or places.--_Thoreau_.

Would that I were, if not like the king of Ava--lord of the

twenty-four umbrellas--at least the owner of one, was my thought.

I was in Paris, that paradise of many good Americans who are

_not_ defunct. Three thousand and odd miles from home, in

the streets of a strange city, with an imperfect knowledge of any

foreign tongue, not daring to say _parapluie_ to the most

obsequious shopman, and the rain was pouring down like a douche.

I had no devotion to St. Swithin--not a particle. I respected him

in a vague way as a successor of the apostles, whose name is in

the calendar; but I was always inclined to mention him with a

smile on account of his hydropathic propensities. I am a perfect

Oriental as far as a warm bath is concerned, but I never could

endure the gentlest shower-bath, and the thought of St. Swithin,

in his wet grave under a waterspout, always made me shudder. This

peculiar sensitiveness always made me suspicious of the lightest

summer cloudlet, and led me to make for years a series of minute

observations on the weather, till I became deeply versed in

mackerel clouds, mare's tails, and such sinister prognostics. I

used to imagine myself so sensitive to the dryness and moisture

of the atmosphere, and to its density and rarity, that I was

quite above barometers. I was a barometer to myself. A

foreknowledge of the weather was my strong point, or one of my

strong points, when at home in the new world. There I had a full

view of the heavens that bend over us all, down to the very

horizon on every side. The rarity of the American atmosphere, its

lofty heavens, with its luminous spheres, are full of skyey

influences, which tell not only upon the very plants, if we

observe them, but upon ourselves, if we heed the silent lesson.

{460}

I always knew what those clouds meant, gathering over the far-off

north-wood hills at the west, and I felt the very mist as it

began to rise around Mount Agamenticus, in the east, like

sacrificial clouds around that altar of the renowned St.

Aspinquid. I seldom made a false prediction, and was consequently

approached with considerable deference by provident neighbors,

especially before a storm. But somehow, I lost this prestige as

soon as my foot was off my native heath. Here, in a compact city,

with the tall houses and narrow streets shutting the great blue

eye of heaven till it became a mere line, like a cat's eye at

mid-day, I felt myself utterly at the mercy of nature; I gave

myself humbly up to St. Swithin, to whom of old I was rather

defiant. A haughty spirit goes before a fall. Humiliations are

good for the soul. I think I must consider mine a case of special

providence; for there is nothing more soothing to mortified

vanity or spiritual pride, or even in dire calamity, than the

conviction that ours is an instance of special providence.

On one of those doubtful days in October, when the air is murky

and a light mist from the Seine pervades every part of the city,

but which were not always, as I had found, indicative of rain, I

sallied forth from the Hotel Meurice to wander around the French

capital with no special object in view. I discarded my

guide-book, tired of being the victim of square and compass. To

be told to admire, whether an object appealed to my peculiar

tastes or not, was quite opposed to my notions of American

independence, and sure to rouse a certain spirit of contradiction

in me--a bad trait, I fear, but a fault acknowledged is half

cured; so I make a clean breast of it to test the truth of the

old saying. I turned, therefore, a blind eye to all the palaces,

and gardens, and fountains, and went around feasting my eyes on

the forbidden vanities of the world which my god-parents had

renounced for me at baptism, but which were glittering

delightfully in the booths of this Vanity Fair; not that I cared

much for them, to tell the truth, but from a sheer feeling of

perversity. There must be some powerful charm in them, or they

would not be put down in every religious chart as quicksands to

be avoided. Perhaps I was in danger of being stranded among them,

and it was, after all, a case of special providence, when, as I

was pursuing my way, or rather any way in my ignorance of the

city, and moralizing on these things, or demoralizing, of a

sudden it began to pour. For an old weather-wise like me to be

thus caught, was very humiliating; and in my consternation, I

found myself enjoying one of the high and mighty prerogatives of

the king of Ava, as aforesaid. _Que faire?_ I should have

said, being in France. Looking around, I saw the open door of a

church, in which I gladly took refuge. In benighted, "popish"

lands, mother church often affords a place of bodily refuge, as

well as moral. It was the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, to

which I had wandered back, and which from this time became my

favorite church in spite of the bad repute of the bells. Passing

from the gay streets into these cool shades is like passing for a

moment, as it were, from time into eternity. All light and

frivolous thoughts--all vanity and littleness die away with the

noise of the world, at the very entrance. The mind is elevated.

We partake of the grandeur of the edifice, and, for a few moments

at least, our nature is ennobled.

{461}

Only great and lofty ideas should wander beneath such arches.

Only souls full of noble and magnificent ideas could have

designed them. There are truly sermons in these stones, of which

one never grows weary--sermons in the grand old _vitraux_,

rich with saintly forms, and in the gloom, inspiring sweet and

solemn reverie.

"I love the gloom; I love the white-robed throng;

I love the flood of most religious song

That tosses all its choric waves afar

To seek and search each quaint-carved crevice there.

The music surges to each singing star,

And bears the soul to heaven's own upper air,

Sweet crushed to happy tears; but chiefly where

Peace, dove-like, broods above clasped hands of prayer."

The Catholic is no longer in a foreign land when he enters a

church. The altar, the cross, the Madonna, above all, the

tabernacle, with it twinkling lamp of olive oil, are his old

familiar friends, and all there, and his heart is at home. He

feels a bond of universal brotherhood with all these worshippers

before the altar. And then the dear old Latin service! I never

thoroughly realized at home the advantage of a universal language

in which the whole church could lift up her voice, as with one

accord, throughout the world. That language--one of those which

were consecrated above the head of the dying Saviour--is

associated with all the holiest and tenderest memories of a

Catholic. He cannot remember when he first heard it from the lips

of holy mother church. It is one of his mother tongues. Each word

has a new significance in this foreign land, and the whole

service a new meaning. I have heard people exclaim at the

rapidity of the opening service of mass, not knowing its

significance. Every act and word in our sublime ritual has its

meaning to him that enters into its spirit. Dr. Newman says, in

his own beautiful way:

"I declare nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling,

so overcoming, as the mass, said as it is among us. I could

attend masses for ever and not be tired. It is not a mere form

of words; it is a great action, the greatest action there can

be on earth. It is not the invocation, merely, but, if I dare

use the word, the evocation, of the Eternal. He becomes present

on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom angels bow and

devils tremble. This is that awful event which is the end and

is the interpretation of every part of the solemnity. Words are

necessary, not as means, but as ends. They are not mere

addresses to the throne of grace; they are instruments of what

is far higher, of consecration, of sacrifice. They hurry on as

if impatient to fulfil their mission. Quickly they go; the

whole is quick, for they are all parts of one integral action.

Quickly they go, for they are awful words of sacrifice; they

are a work too great to delay upon, as when it was said in the

beginning, 'What thou doest, do quickly.' Quickly they pass,

for the Lord Jesus goes with them, as he passed along the lake

in the days of his flesh, quickly calling first one and then

another. Quickly they pass, because, as the lightning which

shineth from one part of the heaven unto the other so is the

coming of the Son of Man. Quickly they pass, for they are as

the words of Moses, when the Lord came down in a cloud, calling

on the name of the Lord as he passed by, 'The Lord, the Lord

God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in

goodness and truth.'

"And as Moses on the mountain, so do we too 'make haste and bow

our heads to the earth and adore.' So we all around, each in

his place, look out for the great advent, 'waiting for the

moving of the water.' Each in his place, with his own heart,

with his own wants, with his own thoughts, with his own

intention, with his own prayers, separate but concordant,

watching what is going on, watching its progress, uniting in

its consummation; not painfully and hopelessly following a hard

form of prayer from beginning to end, but, like a concert of

musical instruments, each different, but concurring in a sweet

harmony, we take our part with God's priest,

supporting him, yet guided by him."

The words being, then, only used as means, as instruments of

consecration, it is not at all necessary for the people to follow

the words of the priest; but, entering into the spirit and

meaning of each part of the sacrifice, abandon themselves each

one to his own devotions.

{462}

While the church is exceedingly

particular about the exact following of the liturgy by the

clergy, it allows the greatest latitude to the devotions of

laymen. All the sects that have a form of prayer, or extempore

prayers, afford far less liberty to those who join therein than

the church. Their service is nothing to you unless you join in

its forms, which leave no liberty of soul. Whereas at mass, while

some use a prayer-book with a variety of beautiful and touching

devotions in harmony with the service going on at the altar,

others simply say the rosary, and others again use no form

whatever, but, following the celebrant in spirit, abandon their

hearts in holy meditation and mental prayer according to the

inspiration of the moment. Thus our holy services never become a

mere form. They are always new, new and varied as our daily

wants, as our fresh conceptions of what worship is due Almighty

God, and of the nature of the holy oblation in which we are

participating.

The church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois was once the frequent

recipient of royal munificence, being for a long time the royal

parish, and it was the most sumptuously adorned in Paris.

Sculptors and painters vied in filling it with the choicest works

of art. It was not much injured at the revolution, but narrowly

escaped destruction in 1831. The anniversary of the death of the

Duc de Berri was to be commemorated by services for the repose of

his soul; but a mob surrounded the church, and destroyed

everything in it. It was afterward closed till 1838, when it was

reopened for public worship.

It has some poetical associations as well as historical; for here

M. de Lamartine is said to have hung up the long locks that

Graziella had shorn from her beautiful head, and sent to be

suspended in one of the churches of his belle France. And perhaps

this was the one to which he referred in the following words:

"When the last hour of the day has sounded from thy lofty

towers, when the last beam has faded away from the dome, when

the sigh of the distant organ dies away with the light, and the

nave is deserted by all but the Levite attentive to the lamps

of the holy place, then I come to glide under thy obscure

arches, and to seek, while nature sleeps, Him who never

slumbers! The air which the soul breathes in thy aisles is full

of mystery and peace. Let love and anxious cares seek shade and

solitude under the green shelter of groves to soothe their

secret wounds. O darkness of the sanctuary! the eye of religion

prefers thee to the wood which the breeze disturbs. Nothing

disturbs thy foliage. Thy still shade is the image of eternal

peace."

I loved to think the poet found here the source of the

inspirations which are embodied in his _Harmonies

Religieuses_ which are the delight of every tender and

religious soul.

There is in one of the transepts a beautiful font of pure white

marble, executed by M. Jouffroy from a model by Madame de

Lamartine and presented by her to this church. The basin is

surmounted by three expressive figures, Faith, Hope, and Charity,

supporting a cross.

This church with its perfumed air, its subdued light, and its

quiet recesses incentive to piety, so charmed me by its contrast

with the gay world without, and revived all the fervor of early

religious impressions, that I did not leave it till I had

resolved to commence each remaining day of my stay at Paris, by

going to a different church till I had visited them all, like

Horace Walpole. And should I even visit them like him as a mere

amateur of art, I could not fail to receive some inspiration that

would leave me better for the rest of the day.

{463}

The hours thus passed in the churches seemed to consecrate the

day, and left a perfume in my heart that nothing in the world

could wholly dissipate. They became the happiest and most

profitable of my life, both morally and intellectually.

"For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of Rome,

By thy unwearied watch, and varied round

Of service, in thy Saviour's holy home.

I cannot walk the city's sultry streets,

But the wide porch invites to still retreats,

Where passion's thirst is calmed, and care's unthankful gloom."

"There, on a foreign shore,

The homesick solitary finds a friend:

Thoughts, prisoned long for lack of speech, outpour

Their tears, and doubts in resignation end."

One morning I went to St. Merri's, where St. Edmund, Archbishop

of Canterbury, when a young student at Paris, used to go to

assist at the midnight office. A friend had given me his

practical little book entitled _The Mirror of the Church,

_and I took it with me to read in a place he had loved. In

reading it I was struck by what he says of the Lord's Prayer, the

great prayer of the middle ages, and the prominence he would have

us give it in our devotions. He says:

"The Pater Noster surpasses all other prayers in excellence,

dignity, and utility. It was made by God himself; hence the

injury done to Jesus Christ the Son of God when curious or

rhymed prayers are preferred to that composed by him who knows

the will of the Father, and better than we what prayer is most

acceptable to him, and what we most need. How many deceive

themselves in multiplying the forms of prayer! They think they

are devout, but they are only carnal in their affections, for

every carnally-minded person naturally delights in the vain

curiosity of words. Be then prudent and discreet in this

respect. I know you will bring forward St. Augustin, St.

Gregory, and other saints to oppose me, who prayed according to

the affections of their hearts. I am certainly far from blaming

them. I only blame the practice of those who, from a spirit of

pride or curiosity abandon the prayer made by the Lord himself

for those which the saints have composed. Our Lord himself

says, And when you are praying, speak not much as the heathen

do, for they think they are heard for their much speaking. You

therefore shall pray in this manner, Our Father, etc."

We Catholics are often accused of elevating the creature above

the Creator, and reproached for saying ten Hail Marys to one Our

Father in the beautiful devotion of the Rosary, as if we had no

other. This extract from St. Edmund does not support the

accusation, and he was a prelate of the dark ages--the thirteenth

century. But then he was an Englishman, and we all know the

Anglo-Saxon race did not fall in Adam, and only a little way in

Peter!

In justice to St. Edmund I will add that he was so devout to Our

Lady that, early in life, he consecrated himself to her, and

wore, in memory of this consecration, a ring with Ave Maria upon

it. He related this on his death-bed, that his example might be

followed by others, and was buried with the ring on his finger.

There is an interesting chapel in St. Merri's Church, dedicated

to St. Mary of Egypt, which is beautifully frescoed by

Chasserian, depicting the touching old legend, with its deep

moral significance, of

"That Egyptian penitent whose tears

Fretted the rock, and moistened round her cave

The thirsty desert."

The poet tells of a miraculous drop which fell in Egypt on St.

John's day, and was supposed to have the effect of stopping the

plague. Such a drop fell on the soul of this renowned penitent.

"There's a drop, says the Peri, that down from the moon

Falls through the withering airs of June

Upon Egypt's land, of so healing a power,

So balmy a virtue, that even in the hour

That drop descends, contagion dies,

And health reanimates earth and skies!

Oh! is it not thus, thou man of sin,

The precious tears of repentance fall.

Though foul the fiery plagues within,

One heavenly drop hath dispelled them all!"

{464}

St. Mary of Egypt is one of a long line of penitents who, after

the example of Magdalen, have given proofs of their repentance in

proportion to their sins and to the depth of their sorrow, and

thus rendered the very scars on their souls so many rays of

light.

Le Brun painted one whose frailties are "linked to fame" as

Magdalen, and at her own request. The universal interest felt in

her story, and the sympathy it always excites, induced me to

visit a place that cannot be disconnected from her memory--the

chapel of the Carmelites in the Rue d'Enfer, where she took the

veil. I refer to Madame de la Vallière, whom Madame de Sevigné

calls "la petite violette qui se cachait sous l'herbe."

A priest was just commencing mass when I entered the chapel. I

knelt down by the tomb of the Cardinal de Bérulle, who used to

come here to pray in the chapel of St. Magdalen, having a great

devotion to that saint. It was difficult to resist the

distractions that were inevitable in such a spot, but in which I

would not indulge till the holy sacrifice was over. The choir of

nuns was separated from the chancel by a grating which was

closely curtained. There is always a certain charm in everything

that savors of mystery. Whatever is hidden excites our curiosity

and interest. That forbidding grate, that curtain of appalling

blackness, were tantalizing. They concealed a world in which we

had no part. Behind them were hearts which had aims and

aspirations and holy ambitions, perhaps, we know not of. They led

a life which is almost inexplicable to the world--hidden indeed

in God. The chapel was so still, save the murmur of the

officiating priest, that you might have supposed no one else

there. But after the Agnus Dei, came out from that mysterious

recess a murmur from unseen lips like a voice from another world.

It was that of the nuns all saying the Confiteor together before

going to holy communion. That murmur of _mea culpâ, mea

culpâ_, seemed like the voice of penitence from La Sainte

Beaume, or the voice of past times repeating the accents of the

repentant La Vallière. There she lived and prayed and did penance

for thirty-six years, longer than Magdalen in her cave, "son

coeur ne respirant que du côté du ciel," thus displaying a

remarkable strength of volition, and therefore of character; for

"What is character but a perfectly formed will?" says Novalis.

Before that altar she used to come two hours before the rest of

the community to pray, and in cold weather she, that had been

brought up in luxury, was often found senseless on the pavement

of the choir when the rest of the nuns came to the chapel.

We read that the tears of Eve falling into the water brought

forth pearls, and we cannot doubt that the tears through which

our penitent viewed her past life helped obtain for her the pearl

of great price. One instance of her austerity is well known. One

Good-Friday, meditating in the refectory, during the meagre

repast of the day, on the vinegar and gall given to the dying

Saviour when he was athirst, she recalled the pleasures of her

past life and particularly of the time when, returning with the

court from the chase, being thirsty, she drank with pleasure of

some delicious beverage which was brought her. This

immortification, so in contrast with the vinegar and gall of the

Saviour, filled her with lively sentiments of repentance and

humiliation, and she resolved never to drink again.

{465}

For three weeks she did not taste even a drop of water, and for

three years she only drank half a glass day. This severe penance,

which was unsuspected, brought on a fit of illness and caused

violent spasms in the stomach, which reduced her to a state of

great feebleness. Besides that, she suffered greatly from

rheumatism, but she never ceased to share in the labors in the

community. She died in 1710, aged nearly sixty-six years, having

passed thirty-six years in the convent. Her life here was one

long Miserere which was surely heard in heaven. Her soul had to

pass through the deep waters; but she took fast hold of that

"last plank after shipwreck"--repentance. Everything went to feed

the stream of her sorrow. Every new grace gave her a new

conception of the guilt of sin and awoke new regrets for lost

glory. So she shut herself up in the garden of myrrh. She

sheltered herself in the _creux du rocher_ from the waves of

memory that swept over her soul. In that dark night of her soul

she looked tremblingly out over the wide sea of her sorrows with

a heart like the double-faced Janus, looking into the past and

toward the future, memory and hope struggling in her heart. Over

that dark sea rose the moonlight of Mary's face--our Lady of

Mount Carmel--a narrow crescent at first, but growing larger and

brighter every day. And the great luminous starry saints with

their different degrees of glory studded the heavens that opened

to her view. And so the morning came when the voice of Jesus

spoke: Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much.

There is an accent of sincerity, with no savor of cant, in the

well-known reply of Soeur Louise de la Misericorde when asked if

she was happy in the convent: "I am not happy, but I am

satisfied." How few in the world can even say with sincerity that

they are satisfied. Dr. Johnson said, "No one is happy," but

satisfaction is certainly reasonable happiness. Carlyle says,

"There is in man a higher than love of happiness. He can do

without happiness, and instead thereof find blessedness." That

happiness alone is real which does not depend on contingencies.

It is reasonably satisfied with the present, and has a constantly

increasing hope in the future. Such was the happiness Madame de

la Vallière found among the pale-eyed votaries of the cloister, a

satisfaction of the soul which became perfect happiness when

death came to her after so many years of dying.

I wonder if there was no perfume left in the dried rose leaves in

her heart causing it to faint ofttimes by the way. A person of so

much sensibility must have had a wonderful capacity for

suffering. That her memory was ever alive to the past is evident

from the unrelenting austerity of her life, from her well-known

reply when informed of the death of her son, and from her

requesting Le Brun to paint her as Magdalen.

Remembering so many proofs of her conversion, we, too, say,

Neither do I condemn thee. No stone will I cast on thy grave; no

reproach on thy memory: for repentance effaced every earthly

stain, and thou art now sharing the joy there is in heaven over

one sinner that repenteth. Tears of penitent love mingled with

those of virgin innocence at the foot of the cross. Let them

still mingle there; we will not regard them with distrust or

disdain. We too have need to cry:

"Drop, drop, slow tears

I And bathe those beauteous feet.

Which brought from heaven

The news and Prince of peace.

Cease not, wet eyes,

For mercy to entreat:

{466}

To cry for vengeance

Sin doth never cease.

In your deep floods

Drown all my faults and fears:

Nor let his eye

See sin but through my tears."

Every one who looks deeply into his own heart finds a motive of

charity for the faults of others. A monk of Cluny hung up in his

cell the picture of a famous debauchee under which he placed his

own name. The surprised abbot asked the reason. It was to remind

him what grace alone prevented him from becoming. We are all

miracles of grace. It may be restraining or transforming. We are

not the less in need of it than those who have apparently sunk to

lower depths.

All these things passed through my mind while lingering in the

chapel of the Carmelites. In that chapel had resounded the grand

tones of the great Bossuet at the profession of Madame de la

Vallière, with his usual refrain--the emptiness of all earthly

things. "Away, earthly honors!" he said on that occasion, "all

your splendor but ill conceals our weaknesses and our faults;

conceals them from ourselves, but reveals them to

others."--"There are two kinds of love," he added, "one is the

love of ourselves, which leads to the contempt of God--that is

the old life, the life of the world. The other is the love of

God, which leads to the contempt of ourselves, and is the new

life of Christianity, which, carried to perfection, constitutes

the religious life. The soul, detached from the body by

mortification, freed from the captivity of the senses, sees

itself as it is--the source of all evil. It therefore turns then

against itself. Having fallen through an ill use of liberty, it

would be restrained on every side, by frightful grates, a

profound solitude, an impenetrable cloister, perfect obedience, a

rule for every action, a motive for every step, and a hundred

observant eyes. Thus hemmed in on all sides, the soul can only

fly heavenward. _Elle ne peut plus respirer que du côté du

ciel_"--a beautiful expression, recalling the lines from an

old manuscript poem in the _Bibliothèque Royal:_

"Li cuers doit estre

Semblans à l'encensoir

Tous clos envers la terre

Et overs vers le ciel."

The heart should be like a censer, closed toward earth and open

toward heaven; and such is the heart of the real spouse of

Christ.

When Bossuet had finished his discourse and the black veil was

placed upon the head of La Vallière, the whole audience wept

aloud. The Duchess de la Vallière was now Louise de la

Miséricorde, vowed to the rigorous life of the Carmelites, to

fasts and vigils, to sackcloth and ashes.

Philosophers say no motion is ever lost, and that every act is

photographed somewhere in the universe. Think of swelling the

choral song that will go on vibrating in the air for ever; of

sighs of penitence that go on sighing through space for ever in

the ears of a merciful God; of attitudes of adoring praise and

love, which are somewhere imaged, to be revealed at the last day

as a page in the great book that will decide our eternal fate.

How much better to be thus perpetuated than idle words, vain

songs, and all the graces of fashion only intended to please the

eye of a fellow-mortal.

After all, there is something in such a life that appeals to the

instincts of our nature. Even those who condemn it cannot but

admire. At least, they find it poetical. Who does not feel an

increased sentiment of respect for Dr. Johnson as he stands with

bared head, in the rain, where his father's book-stall was, in

the market place at Uttoxeter, to expiate an act of early

disobedience to his father?

{467}

"The picture of Samuel Johnson," says Carlyle, "standing

bare-headed in the market-place is one of the grandest and

saddest we can paint. The memory of old Michael Johnson rising

from the far distance, sad, beckoning in the moonlight of memory.

Repentance! repentance! he proclaims as with passionate sobs--but

only to the ear of heaven, if heaven will give him audience."

"O heavy laden soul! kneel down and hear

Thy penance in calm fear;

With thine own lips to sentence all thy sin;

Then, by the judge within

Absolved, in thankful sacrifice to part

For ever with thy sullen heart!"

----------

The Physical Basis Of Life.

[Footnote 128]

[Footnote 128: _New Theory of Life_. Identity of the

Powers and Faculties of all Living Matter. A Lecture by

Professor T. H. Huxley. _New York World_, Feb. 18th,

1869.]

We know this rather remarkable discourse only as republished in

the columns of _The New York World_, where it had a

sensational title which we have abridged. Professor Huxley's name

stands high among English physicists or scientists, and his

discourse indicates considerable natural ability, and familiarity

with the modern school of science which seeks the explanation of

the universe and its phenomena without recognizing a creator, or

any existence but ordinary matter and its various combinations.

The immediate purpose of the professor is to prove the physical

or material basis of life, and that life in all organisms is

identical, originating in and depending on what he calls the

protoplasm.

The protoplasm is formed of ordinary matter; say, carbon,

hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. These elements combined in some

unknown way give rise to protoplasm; the protoplasm gives rise to

the plant, and, through the plant, to the animal; and hence all

life, feeling, thought, and reason originate in the peculiar

combination of the molecules of ordinary, inorganic matter. The

plant differs from the animal, and the animal from man, only in

the different combinations of the molecules of the protoplasm. We

see nothing in this theory that is new, or not as old as the

physics of the ancient Ionian school.

The only novelty that can be pretended is the assumption that all

matter, even inorganic, is, in a certain sense, plastic, and

therefore, in a rudimentary way, living. The same law governs the

inorganic and the organic world. But even this is not new. Many

years ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson asserted the identity of

gravitation and purity of heart, and we ourselves are by no means

disposed to deny that there is more or less analogy between the

formation of the crystal or the diamond and the growth of the

plant. It is not, perhaps, too much to say that the law of

creation is one law, and we have never yet been convinced of the

existence of absolutely inert matter. Whatever exists is, in its

order and degree, a _vis activa_, or an active force.

Matter, as the _potentia nuda_ of the schoolmen, is simple

possibility, and no real existence at all.

{468}

There is and can be no pure passivity in nature, or purely

passive existences. We would not therefore deny a certain

rudimentary plasticity to minerals, or what is called brute

matter, though we are not prepared to accept the plastic soul,

asserted by Plato, and revived and explained in the posthumous

and unfinished works of Gioberti under the term _methexis_,

which is copied or imitated by the _mimesis_, or the

individual and the sensible. Yet since, as the professor tells

us, the animal can take the protoplasm only as prepared by the

plant, must there not be in inorganic matter a preparation or

elaboration of the protoplasm for the use of the plant?

The professor speaks of the difficulty of determining the line of

demarcation between the animal and the plant; but is it difficult

to draw the line between the mineral and the plant, or between

the plant and the inorganic matter from which it assimilates its

food or nourishment? Pope sings,

"See through this air, this ocean, and this earth,

All matter _quick_, and bursting into birth;"

but we would like to have the professor explain how ordinary

matter, even if _quick_, becomes protoplasm, and how the

protoplasm becomes the origin and basis of the life of the plant.

Every plant is an organism with its central life within. Virchow

and Cl. Bernard by their late discoveries have proved that every

organism proceeds from an organite, ovule, or central cell, which

produces, directs, and controls or governs the whole organism,

even in its abnormal developments. They have also proved that

this ovule or central cell exists only as generated by a

pre-existing organism, or parent, of the same kind. The later

physiologists are agreed that there is no well authenticated

instance of spontaneous generation. Now this organite must exist,

live, before it can avail itself of the protoplasm formed of

ordinary matter, which is exterior to it, not within it, and

cannot be its life, for that moves from within outward, from the

centre to the circumference. Concede, then, all the facts the

professor alleges, they only go to prove that the organism

already living sustains its life by assimilating fitting elements

from ordinary matter. But they do not show at all that it derives

its life from them; or that the so-called protoplasm is the

origin, source, basis, or matter of organic life; or that it

generates, produces, or gives rise to the organite or central

cell; nor that it has anything to do with vitalizing it. Hence

the professor fails to throw any light on the origin, matter, or

basis of life itself.

It may or it may not be difficult in the lower organisms to draw

the line between the plant and the animal, and we shall urge no

objections to what the professor says on that point; we will only

say here that the animal organism, like the vegetable, is

produced, directed, and controlled by the central cell, and that

this cell or ovule is generated by animal parents. There is no

spontaneous generation, and no well authenticated instance of

metagenesis. Like generates like, and even Darwin's doctrine of

natural selection confirms rather than denies it. It is certain

that the vegetable organism has never, as far as science goes,

generated an animal organism. Arguments based on our ignorance

prove nothing. The protoplasm can no more produce or vitalize the

central animal than it can the central vegetable cell, and,

indeed, still less; for the animal cannot, as the professor

himself asserts, sustain its life by the protoplastic elements

till they have been prepared by the vegetable organism.

{469}

Whence, then, the animal germ, organite, or ovule? What vitalizes

it and gives it the power of assimilating the protoplasm as its

food, without which the organism dies and disappears?

Giving the professor the fullest credit for exact science in all

his statements, he does not, as far as we can see, prove his

protoplasm is the physical basis of life, or that there is for

life any physical basis at all. He only proves that matter is so

far plastic as to afford sustenance to a generated organic life,

which every farmer who has ever manured a field of corn or grass,

or reared a flock of sheep or a herd of cattle, knows, and always

has known, as well as the illustrious professor.

We can find a clear statement of several of the conditions of

life, both vegetable and animal, but no demonstration of the

principle of life, in the professor's very elaborate discourse.

Indeed, if we examine it closely, we shall find that he does not

even pretend to demonstrate anything of the sort. He denies all

means of science except sensible experience, and maintains with

Hume that we have no sensible experience of causes or principles,

all science, he asserts, is restricted to empirical facts with

their law, which, in his system, is itself only a fact or a

classification of facts. The conditions of life, as we observe

them, are for him the essential principle of life in the only

sense in which the word _principle_ has, or can have, for

him, an intelligible meaning. He proves, then, the physical basis

of life, by denying that it has any intelligible basis at all. He

proves, indeed, that the protoplasm, which he shows, or endeavors

to show, is universal--one and the same, always and everywhere

--is present in the already existing life of both the plant and

the animal; but that, whatever it be, in the plant or animal,

which gives it the power to take up the protoplasm and assimilate

it to its own organism, which is properly the life or vital

power, he does not explain, account for, or even recognize. With

him, power is an empty word. He nowhere proves that life is

produced, furnished, or generated by the protoplasm, or has a

material origin. Hence, the protoplasm, by his own showing, is

simply no protoplasm at all. He proves, if anything, that in

inorganic matter there are elements which the living plant or

animal assimilates, and into which, when dead, it is resolved.

This is all he does, and in fact, all he professes to do.

The professor makes light of the very grave objection, that

chemical analysis can throw no light on the principle or basis of

life, because it is or can be made only on the dead subject. He

of course concedes that chemical analysis is not made on the

living subject; but this, he contends, amounts to nothing. We

think it amounts to a great deal. The very thing sought, to wit,

life, is wanting in the dead subject, and of course cannot by any

possible analysis be detected in it. If all that constituted the

living subject is present in the dead body, why is the body dead,

or why has it ceased to perform its vital functions? The

protoplasm, or what you so call, is as present in the corpse as

in the living organism. If it is the basis of life, why is the

organism no longer living? The fact is, that life, while it

continues, resists chemical action and death, by a higher and

subtler chemistry of its own, and it is only the dead body that

falls under the action of the ordinary chemical laws. There is,

then, no concluding the principle or basis of life from any

possible dissection of the dead body.

{470}

The professor's answer to the objection is far from being

satisfactory.

"Objectors of this class," he says, "do not seem to reflect ...

that we know nothing about the composition of any body as it

is. The statement that a crystal of calcspar consists of

carbonate of lime is quite true, if we only mean that, by

appropriate processes, it may be resolved into carbonic acid

and quicklime. If you pass the same carbonic acid over the very

quicklime thus obtained, you will obtain carbonate of lime

again; but it will not be calc-spar, nor anything like it. Can

it therefore be said that chemical analysis teaches nothing

about the chemical composition of calc-spar? Such a statement

would be absurd; but it is hardly more so than the talk one

occasionally hears about the uselessness of applying the

results of chemical analysis to the living bodies which have

yielded them. One fact, at any rate, is out of reach of such

refinements and this is, that all the forms of protoplasm which

have yet been examined contain the four elements, carbon,

hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, in very complex union, and that

they behave similarly toward several reagents. To this complex

combination, the nature of which has never been determined with

exactness, the name of protein has been applied. And if we use

this term with such caution as may properly arise out of

comparative ignorance of the things for which it stands, it may

be truly said that all protoplasm is proteinaceous; or, as the

white, or albumen, of an egg is one of the commonest examples

of a nearly pure proteine matter, we may say that all living

matter is more or less albuminoid. Perhaps it would not yet be

safe to say that all forms of protoplasm are affected by the

direct action of electric shocks; and yet the number of cases

in, which the contraction of protoplasm is shown to be effected

by this agency increases every day. Nor can it be affirmed with

perfect confidence that all forms of protoplasm are liable to

undergo that peculiar coagulation at a temperature of 40

degrees--50 degrees centigrade, which has been called

"heat-stiffening," though Kuhne's beautiful researches have

proved this occurrence to take place in so many and such

diverse living beings, that it is hardly rash to expect that

the law holds good for all."

This long extract proves admirably how long, how learnedly, how

scientifically, a great man can talk without saying anything. All

that is here said amounts only to this: the conclusions obtained

by the analysis of the dead body cannot be denied to be

applicable to the living body, because we know nothing of the

composition of any body organic or inorganic, as it is. Therefore

all life has a physical basis! Take the whole extract, and all it

tells you is, that we know nothing of the subject it professes to

treat. "All the forms of protoplasm, which have yet been examined

contain the four elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen

in very complex union." When chemically resolved into these four

elements, is it protoplasm still? Can you by a chemical process

reconvert them into protoplasm? No. Then what does the analysis

show of the nature of your physical basis of life? "To this

complex union, the nature of which _has never yet been

determined_, the name of protein has been applied." Very

important to know that. Yet this name protein names not something

known, but something the nature of which is unknown. What then

does it tell us? "If we use this term [protein] with such caution

as may properly arise out of our comparative _ignorance_ of

the things for which it stands, it may truly be said that all

protoplasm is proteinaceous." Be it so, what advance in

knowledge, since we are ignorant of what protein is? It is

wonderful what a magnificent structure our scientists are able to

erect on ignorance as the foundation.

The professor, after having confessed his ignorance of what the

alleged protoplasm really is, continues:

"Enough has, perhaps, been said to prove the existence of a

general uniformity in the character of the protoplasm, or

physical basis of life, in whatever group of living beings it

may be studied. But it will be understood that this general

uniformity by no means excludes any amount of special

modifications of the fundamental substance. The mineral,

carbonate of lime, assumes an immense diversity of characters,

though

{471}

no one doubts that under all these protean changes it is one

and the same thing. And now, what is the ultimate fate, and

what the origin, of the matter of life? Is it, as some of the

older naturalists supposed, diffused throughout the universe in

molecules, which are indestructible and unchangeable in

themselves; but, in endless transmigration, unite in

innumerable permutations, into the diversified forms of life we

know? Or is the matter of life composed of ordinary matter,

differing from it only in the manner in which its atoms are

aggregated. Is it built up of ordinary matter, and again

resolved into ordinary matter when its work is done? Modern

science does not hesitate a moment between these alternatives.

Physiology writes over the portals of life,

'Debemur morti nos nostraque,'

with a profounder meaning than the Roman poet attached to that

melancholy line. Under whatever disguise it takes refuge,

whether fungus or oak, worm or man, the living protoplasm not

only ultimately dies and is resolved into its mineral and

lifeless constituents, but is always dying, and, strange as the

paradox may sound, could not live unless it died."

Suppose all this to be precisely as asserted, it only proves that

there is diffused through the whole material world elements which

in certain unknown and inexplicable combinations, afford

sustenance to plants, and through plants to animals, or from

which the living organism repairs its waste and sustains its

life. It does not tell us how carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and

nitrogen are or must be combined to form the alleged protoplasm,

whence is the living organism, nor the origin or principle of its

life. It, in fact, shows us neither the origin nor the matter of

life, for it is only an actually living organism that uses or

assimilates the alleged protoplasm. There is evidently at work in

the organism a vital force that is distinguishable from the

irritability or contractility of the protoplasm, and not derived

from or originated by it. Undoubtedly, every organism that falls

under our observation, whether vegetable or animal, has its

physical conditions, and lives by virtue of a physical law; but

this, even when we have determined the law and ascertained the

conditions, throws no light on the life itself. The life escapes

all observation, and science is impotent, if it leaves out the

creative act of God, to explain it, or to bring us a step nearer

its secret. Professor Huxley tells us no more, with all his

science and hard words, than any cultivator of the soil, any

shepherd or herdsman, can tell us, and knows as well as he, as we

have already said.

In the last extract, the professor evidently prefers, of the two

alternatives he suggests, the one that asserts that "the matter

of life [protoplasm] is composed of ordinary matter, is built up

of ordinary matter, and resolved again into ordinary matter when

its work is done." This the professor applies to man as well as

to plants and animals. Hence, he cites the Roman poet,

"Debemur morti nos nostraque."

But we have conceded the professor more than he asks. We have

conceded that all matter is, in a certain sense, plastic, and

living, in the sense of being active, not passive. But the

professor does not ask so much. We inferred from some things in

the beginning of his discourse that he intended to maintain that

his protoplasm is itself elemental, and pervading all nature. But

this is not the case; he merely holds it to be a chemical

compound formed by the peculiar chemical combination of lifeless

components. Thus he says:

{472}

"But it will be observed that the existence of the matter of

life depends on the pre-existence of certain compounds, namely,

carbonic acid, water, and ammonia. Withdraw any one of these

three from the world, and all vital phenomena come to an end.

They are related to the protoplasm of the plant, as the

protoplasm of the plant is to that of the animal. Carbon,

hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are all lifeless bodies. Of

these, carbon and oxygen unite in certain proportions and under

certain conditions, to give rise to carbonic acid; hydrogen and

oxygen produce water; nitrogen and hydrogen give rise to

ammonia. These new compounds, like the elementary bodies of

which they are composed, are lifeless. But when they are

brought together, under certain conditions they give rise to

the still more complex body, protoplasm, and this protoplasm

exhibits the phenomena of life. I see no break in this series

of steps in my secular complication, and I am unable to

understand why the language which is applicable to any one term

of the series may not be used to any of the others."

But here is a break or a bold leap from a lifeless to a living

compound. No matter how different are the several chemical

compounds known from the simple components, the new compound is

always, as far as known, as lifeless as were the several

components themselves. Hydrogen and oxygen compounded give rise

to water, but water is lifeless. Hydrogen and nitrogen, brought

together in certain proportions, give rise to ammonia, still a

lifeless compound. No chemist has yet, by any combination of the

minerals, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, the

constituents of protoplasm, been able to produce a living plant

or a living organism of any sort. How then conclude that their

combination produces the matter of life, or gives rise to the

living organism? There seems to us to be a great gulf between the

premises and the conclusion. Certain combinations of carbon,

hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen produce certain lifeless compounds

different from themselves, _therefore_ a certain other

combination of these same elements produces the living organism,

plant, or animal, or originates the matter, and forms the

physical basis of life. If the professor had in his school days

reasoned in this way, his logic-master, we suspect, would have

set a black mark against his name, or, more likely, have rapped

him over the knuckles, if not over his head, and told him that an

argument that has no middle term, is no argument at all, and that

"Transitio a genere ad genus," as from the lifeless to the

living, is a sophism.

The professor is misled by his supposing that what is true of the

dead body must be true of the living. Because chemical analysis

resolves the dead body into certain lifeless elements, he

concludes that the living body is, while living, only a compound

of these same lifeless elements. That is, from what is true of

death, he concludes what must be true of life. But for this

fallacy, he could never have fallen into the other fallacy of

concluding life is only the result of a certain aggregate or

amalgam of lifeless minerals. Our scientists are seldom good

logicians, and we have rarely found them able, when leaving

traditional science, to draw even a logical induction from the

facts before them. This is wherefore they receive so little

respect from philosophers and theologians, who are always ready

to accept their facts, but, for the most part, unable to accept

their inductions. The professor has given us some valuable facts,

though very well known before; but his logical ineptness is the

best argument he has as yet offered in support of his favorite

theory that man is only a monkey developed.

In the extract next before the last, the professor revives an old

doctrine long since abandoned, that life is generated from

corruption. "Under whatever disguise it takes refuge, whether

fungus or oak, worm or man, the living protoplasm not only

ultimately dies and is resolved into its mineral and lifeless

constituents, but is _always dying, and, strange as the paradox

may sound, could not live unless it died._"

{473}

We know that some physiologists regard the waste of the body,

which in life is constantly going on, and which is repaired by

the food we take, as incipient death; but this is only because

they confound the particles or molecules of matter of which the

body is externally built up, and which change many times during

an ordinary life, with the body itself, and suppose the life of

the body is simply the resultant of the aggregation of these

innumerable molecules or particles. But the life of the organism,

we have seen, is within it, and its action from the centre, and

it is only its life, not its death, that throws off or exudes as

well as assimilates the material particles. The exudation as well

as the assimilation is interrupted by death. Why the protoplasm

could not live unless it died is what we do not understand.

The professor, of course, not only denies the immortality of the

soul, but the existence of soul itself. There is for him no soul

but the protoplasm formed of ordinary matter. All this we

understand very well. We understand, too, that on his theory the

protoplasm assimilated by the organism to repair its waste,

renews literally, not figuratively, the life of the organism. But

how he extracts life from death, and concludes that the

protoplasm must die, as the condition of living, passeth our

comprehension. We suppose, however, the professor found it

necessary to assert it in order to be able to reason from the

dead subject to the living. If the protoplasm were not dead, he

could not by chemical analysis determine its constituents; and if

the death of the protoplasm were not essential to its life, he

could not conclude the constituents of the living protoplasm from

what he finds to be the constituents of the dead protoplasm. But

this does not help him. In the first place, the waste of the

living organism is not death nor dying, though death may result

from it. And the supply of protoplasm in the shape of food does

not originate new life, nor replenish a life that is gone, but

supplies what is needed to sustain and invigorate a life that is

already life. In the second place, the vital force is not built

up by protoplastic accretions, but operates from within the

organism, from the organite or central cell, without which there

could be no accretions or secretions. The food does not give

life; it only ministers sustenance to an organism already living.

No chemical analysis of the food can disclose or throw any light

on the origin, nature, or constitution of the organic life

itself.

It is this fact that prevents us from having much confidence in

chemical physiology, which is still insisted on by our most

eminent physiologists. In every organism there is something that

transcends the reach of chemical analysis, and which no chemical

synthesis can reproduce. Take the professor's protoplasm itself.

He resolves it into the minerals, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and

nitrogen: but no chemist can by any possible recombination of

them reproduce protoplasm. How then can one say that these

minerals are its sole constituents, or that there are not other

elements entering it which escape all chemical tests and, indeed,

are not subject to chemical laws? Chemistry is limited, and

cannot penetrate the essence of the material substance any more

than the eye can. It never does and never can go beyond the

sensible properties of matter. Life has its own laws, and every

physiologist knows that he meets in the living organism phenomena

or facts which it is impossible to reduce to any of the laws

which are obtainable from the analysis of inorganic or lifeless

matter.

{474}

It is necessary then to conclude that there is in the living

organism present and active some element which, though using

lifeless matter, cannot be derived from it, or explained by

physical laws, be they mechanical, chemical, or electrical. The

law of life is a law _sui generis_, and not resolvable into

any other. We must even go beyond the physical laws themselves,

if we would find their principle.

As far as human science goes, there is, where the nucleus of life

is wanting, no conversion of lifeless matter into living matter.

The attempt to prove that living organisms, plants, animals, or

man are developed from inorganic and lifeless matter, though made

as long ago as Leucippus and Democritus, systematized by

Epicurus, sung in rich Latin verse by Lucretius, and defended by

the ablest of modern British physico-philosophers, Mr. Herbert

Spencer, in his _Biology_, has by the sane part of the human

race in all times and everywhere been held to be foolish and

absurd. It has no scientific basis, is supported by no known

facts, and is simply an unfounded, at least, an unsupported

hypothesis. Life to the scientist is an insolvable mystery. We

know no explanation of this mystery or of anything else in the

universe, unless we accept the creative act of God; for the

origin and cause of nature are not in nature herself. We have no

other explanation of the origin of living organisms or of the

matter of life. God created plants, animals, and man, created

them living organisms, male and female created he them, and thus

gave them the power to propagate and multiply each its own kind,

by natural generation. The scientist will of course smile

superciliously at this old solution, insisted on by priests and

accepted by the vulgar; but though not a scientist, we know

enough of science to say from even a scientific point of view

that there is no alternative: either this or no solution at all.

The ablest men of ancient or modern times, when they reject it,

only fall into endless sophisms and self-contradictions.

Professor Huxley admits none but material existences, concedes

that the terms of his proposition are unquestionably

materialistic, and yet denies that he is individually a

materialist.

"It may seem a small thing to admit that the dull vital actions

of a fungus, or a foraminifer, are the properties of their

protoplasm, and are the direct results of the nature of the

matter of which they are composed. But if, as I have endeavored

to prove to you, their protoplasm is essentially identical

with, and most readily converted into, that of any animal, I

can discover no logical halting place between the admission

that such is the case, and the further concession that all

vital action may, with equal propriety, be said to be the

result of the molecular forces of the protoplasm which displays

it. And if so, it must be true, in the same sense and to the

same extent, that the thoughts to which I am now giving

utterance, and your thoughts regarding them, are the expression

of molecular changes in the matter of life which is the source

of other vital phenomena. Past experience leads me to be

tolerably certain that, when the propositions I have just

placed before you are accessible to public comment and

criticism, they will be condemned by many zealous persons, and

perhaps by some of the wise and thoughtful. I should not wonder

if 'gross and brutal materialism' were the mildest phrase

applied to them in certain quarters. And most undoubtedly the

terms of the propositions are distinctly materialistic.

Nevertheless, two things are certain: the one, that I hold the

statement to be substantially true; the other, that I,

individually, am no materialist, but on the contrary believe

materialism to involve grave philosophical error."

{475}

If what he has been from the first endeavoring to prove, and here

distinctly asserts, is not materialism and consequently by his

own confession, "a grave philosophical error," we know not what

would be. "This union of materialistic terminology with the

repudiation of the materialistic philosophy," he says, further

on, "I share with some of the most thoughtful men with whom I am

acquainted." His terminology is, then, better fitted to conceal

his thought than to express it. He may repudiate this or that

materialistic system; he may repudiate all philosophy, which he,

of course does, yet not his terminology only, but his thought, as

far as thought he has, is materialistic. Nothing can be more

materialistic than the conception of life, sense, sentiment,

affection, thought, reasoning, all the sensible, intellectual,

and moral phenomena we are conscious of, as the product of the

peculiar arrangement or combination of the molecules of the

protoplasm, itself resolvable into the minerals, carbon,

hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.

The scientific professor defends himself from materialism, by

asserting that both materialism and spiritualism lie without the

limits of human science, and by denying the necessity of a

substance, whether spirit or matter, to underlie and sustain--we

should say, produce--the phenomena, and the necessary relation of

cause and effect, or that we do or can know things under any

relation but that of juxtaposition in space and time. He falls

back on the skepticism of Hume, and takes refuge behind his

ignorance. He is too ignorant either to assert or to deny the

existence of spirit, and though he may not be able to prove the

phenomena in question are the product of material forces, nobody

knows enough of the nature and essence of matter to say that they

are not; and in fine, he in the first part of his discourse is

only stating the direction in which physiology has for some time

been moving. After all, what is the difference, or rather, what

matters "the difference between the conception of life as the

product of a certain disposition of material molecules, and the

old notion of an Archaeus governing and directing blind matter

within each living body?"

But if matter lies out of the limits of science, and the

professor is unable to say whether it exists or not, what right

has he to call anything material, to speak of a material basis of

life, or to represent life and its phenomena as the product of "a

certain disposition of material molecules"? What, indeed, has he

been laboring to prove through his whole discourse, but that the

phenomena of life are the product of ordinary matter? After this,

it will hardly answer to plead ignorance of the existence and

properties of matter. If matter be relegated to the region of the

unknowable, his whole thesis, terminology and all, must be

banished with it, for it retains, and can retain, no meaning.

Nor will it answer for the professor to take refuge in Hume's

skepticism, and say he is not a materialist, because he admits no

necessary relation between cause and effect, or that there is

within the limits of science, any power or force, or _vis

activa_, which men in their ignorance call "cause," actually

producing something which men call "effect." If he says this,

what becomes of his thesis, that life and even mind are the

_product_ of a certain disposition of material molecules, or

of "the peculiar combination of the molecules of the protoplasm"?

If he denies the existence, or even the knowledge of causative,

that is, productive force, his thesis has no meaning, and all his

alleged proofs of a physical basis of the vital and mental

phenomena must count for nothing.

{476}

Every proof, every argument, presupposes the relation of cause

and effect. When that relation is denied, and the two things are

assumed to have with each other only the relation of

juxtaposition, no proposition can be either proved or disproved.

The professor, after having asserted and attempted to prove his

materialistic thesis, cannot, without gross self-contradiction,

plead the skepticism of Hume in his defence. If he holds with

Hume, he should have kept his mouth shut, and never stated or

attempted to prove his thesis.

Whether we are or are not able to prove that life, sense, and

reason do not originate in the peculiar "combination of the

molecules of the protoplasm," is nothing to the purpose. It is

for the professor to prove that they do. He must not base his

science on our ignorance, any more than on his own.

But our space is exhausted and we must close. Taken, as we have

taken him, on what he must concede to be purely scientific

ground, and brought to a strictly scientific test, the

professor's thesis must be declared not proven, and to be

destitute of all scientific value. We have met him on his own

ground, and have urged no arguments against him drawn from

religion or metaphysics; we have simply corrected one or two

mistakes in his science, and assailed his inductions with pure

logic. If he has not reasoned logically, that is his fault, not

ours, and neither he nor his friends have any right to complain

of us for showing that his inductions are illogical, and

therefore unscientific. Yet we are bound to say that the

professor reasons as well as any of his class of scientists that

we have met with. No man can reason logically who rejects the

[Greek text], that is, logic itself, and nothing better than

Professor Huxley's discourse can be expected from a scientist who

discards all causes and seeks to explain the existence and

phenomena or facts of the universe, without rising from second

causes to the first and final cause of all.

Two questions are raised by this discourse, of great and vital

importance. The one as to the _nexus_ between cause and

effect, in answer to Hume's skepticism, and the other as to

spirit and matter, and their reciprocal relation. We have not

attempted the discussion of either in this article; but should a

favorable occasion offer, we may hereafter treat them both at

some length.

----------

{477}

Two Months In Spain

During The Late Revolution.

Gibraltar.

October 7.

At an early hour yesterday we left Cadiz, which did indeed look

like a "silver cup floating on the water," as the Spaniards say

of it. As the steamer bore us away, the rising sun upon its white

towers and cathedral dome, the belvideres which adorn the roof of

every house, (making each look like a church,) the lovely green

alameda, the distant mountains, the pretty white towns on the

shore, the hundreds of vessels in the sparkling bay, all made an

enchanting scene, from which we were recalled to the miseries of

sea-sickness! From time to time, we crept upon deck to see the

fine sea view, and when we came to Tarifa, near the straits, the

scene was magnificent. On one side, the mountains of Africa,

Tangier in the distance; on the other, the mountains of Spain and

the Moorish-looking town of Tarifa, with an island on which is

the lighthouse and defences standing directly in the mouth of the

straits; so that it seemed as if a long line of vessels with

their white sails spread were encompassing the island. In sight,

at one time, were eighty sail. Every nation under the sun seemed

represented, as they saluted one another with their flags. Among

the rest, Sweden and Norway. We landed at Gibraltar under a

glorious sunset. The farewell beams lighted the mountains with a

tint of gilded bronze. Gibraltar, opposite these, was like a huge

gray mountain, and behind it the sky was of the palest rose

color, melting into blue where it touched the water. The town is

on the side and at the foot of the "Rock," (a place of sixteen or

twenty thousand inhabitants,) and above it are the famous

galleries cut through the rock, from which we could see the noses

of the great guns peeping from the port-holes, range after range,

one above another, till the top is reached, where is the Signal.

The Rock of Gibraltar is 1430 feet high, and about three miles

long--a great gray sphinx jutting into the water. It is joined to

the mainland by a narrow slip of sand, capable of being submerged

if necessary. Upon this neck of land is the "neutral ground," (a

narrow strip,) where, side by side, the fair British sentinel and

the sunburned Spaniard keep their "lonely round." We mount upon

donkeys to ascend the "Rock," passing through the wonderful

"galleries" which, at an immense expense, have been cut into the

solid rock, where, with the guns, are depositories for powder,

balls, etc. Some of these galleries are over a mile and a quarter

long, lighted by the port-holes, which, in passing, gave us

glimpses of the loveliest of landscapes. Leaving the galleries,

we ascend by zigzag paths to the Signal; at every turn feasting

our eyes upon the wonderful panorama spread out below us, which

is seen in perfection from the summit. Here we looked down upon

two seas, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and two worlds,

Europe and Africa! Spain on one side, with the snowy heights of

the Alpujarras and Sierra Nevada; at our feet, the town of

Gibraltar, with the lovely alameda, its green trees and bright

gardens, the glorious bay crowded with shipping--men-of-war,

school ships, steamers, and every small craft; and, seemingly,

but a stone's throw across lay Ceuta, at the foot of that other

"Pillar of Hercules" which rises 2200 feet, and looks like a

mountain of bronze, while Gibraltar is of gray granite.

{478}

These two great pillars were considered in the olden time the end

of the world--the Tarshish of the Bible; the Calpe of the

Phoenicians, who erected here Calpe (carved mountain) and Abyla.

Tarik, the one-eyed Berber chief, took Gibraltar in 711, and

called it after his own name, Ghebal Tarik, from whence comes

Gibraltar.

While upon the "Signal," we signalize the event by taking a lunch

of delicious English cheese, bread and butter, (the first butter

we have had in Spain,) and such ale! And while thus agreeably

engaged, we hear that an American man-of-war is coming into port,

which proves to be the flagship of Admiral Farragut; so we repair

to the rampart to see the ship saluted by the town, and then by

the British frigate Bristol, to both of which the Yankee replied

in gallant style. It was a fine sight, and, altogether, the scene

a most remarkable one. Down by the neutral ground, some English

officers playing cricket looked like ants in the sunshine; the

blue guard-tents of the English sentinels, and the white ones of

the Spaniards, were little specks, and the Christian and Jewish

cemeteries were like checker work on the greensward.

How longingly we looked toward the purple mountains of Africa,

and that beautiful city of Tangier which we had hoped to visit!

but the quarantine, still in force, obliged us to abandon the

idea. It would have been _something_ to set foot in another

continent! Ceuta, which belongs to Spain, and is but a

prison-house, could not tempt us. Tearing ourselves from this

wonderful scene, we descended by the other side of the mountain

and entered the city by beautiful gardens near the alameda,

seeing below us the government houses, store-houses, magazines,

and many fine residences embowered in gardens of tropical trees

and plants; whole hedges of geraniums and cactus lined the

roadside, and almond trees, dates, and oranges. We passed a

convent-school with beautiful and extensive gardens. In the

evening there is music on the alameda, where are trees and

statues, and marble benches, on which sit the motley population

of this strange place; Moors in turbans, bare-legged Highlanders,

officers in scarlet, Andalusians in the red faja, Irishmen fresh

from their native isle, ladies in French bonnets and English

round hats next the Spanish mantilla and ever-moving fan.

Gibraltar is a free port, and every people and kindred meet here

for trade. The garrison is very large, about three thousand men

in time of peace; for the Spaniards see the occupation of this

important point in their country with great jealousy, and would

gladly seek occasion to win it back. And every now and then the

subject is mooted in the English parliament of giving it up, as

it is a most expensive appendage to the English people, and can

bring little benefit save to their pride.

{479}

Malaga Hotel Alameda.

October 8.

Leaving Gibraltar at an early hour, and passing the forest of

ships in the bay, we soon see the last of the pillars of Hercules

and the African coast. The sea is calm, and the coast of Spain

along which we come is most beautiful. There is something

peculiarly interesting in the mountains of Spain; they seem to

rise hill upon hill till they grow to be mountains, and instead

of the blue of most southern countries they are of a mulberry

hue--seldom with trees, and reminding one of the purple moors of

Scotland. The steamer is crowded with families returning from

Gibraltar, whither they had fled to get out of the way of the

revolution.

We find a busy, crowded city, a lovely bay with mountains in the

background, an old Moorish castle overlooking the city, and a

beautiful alameda, with trees, and statues, and marble seats,

upon which we look from the windows of our delightful hotel.

October 9.

The first thing to-day is to drive to a lovely villa, (that of

the Marquis de Casa Loring,) in whose garden we see every fruit

and flower and tree of the tropics. Bananas and mangoes, the

coffee-tree, the magnolia and India-rubber trees, and among all

these we found, and ate, ripe persimmons!--that homely fruit of

old Virginia, found amidst all these oriental splendors; and

sweeter were they than even the oranges which we gathered from

their overladen trees. Returning, we paused to see another villa,

from whence is a more extensive and beautiful view of the

mountains, the city and the sea, and the fertile plateau upon

which Malaga lies, and which is said to rival even the famous

huertas of Valencia and Murcia in variety and luxuriance of

vegetation. The cemetery gives another favorite point of view,

and the old Moorish castle (Gibralfaro) has even a finer one; but

the day is too warm to attempt the ascent. The castle dates from

1279, and the lower portion, (the Alcazaba,) which is connected

with it, is supposed to be of Phoenician origin; Malaga having

been first a Phoenician colony, and afterwards Roman. Of the

remains of the Roman period, we saw two interesting bronze slabs

in a pavilion of the Villa Loring this morning, one of them

containing the municipal laws of Malaga under Domitian, and the

other those of a city (Salpense) now unknown.

The interior of the cathedral, which rises upon the site of an

ancient mosque, is not at all remarkable. It was begun in 1528.

The church of "El Cristo del Victoria" is interesting, from the

circumstance of its being built on the spot where stood the tents

of the Catholic kings during the siege of 1487. On the right of

the altar hangs the royal standard of Ferdinand, and on the left

the one taken from the Moors. When the city surrendered, the

former was hoisted on the castle, or alcazaba. Opposite this

church is a small church, San Roque, the first Christian edifice

built here by Ferdinand and Isabella. The crucifix which was

formerly here was the one brought by their majesties, is highly

revered, and is now over the high altar of Santa Victoria.

Malaga is famed for its climate, the best in Spain. It is

considered drier, warmer, and more equable than that of Rome,

Pau, Naples, or Nice, even superior to Madeira. Invalids flock

here, and it will soon be as crowded as Nice. The extreme dryness

of the air is its marked feature, and it is said that there are

not ten days in the whole year when an invalid may not take

out-door exercise. The evaporation is so great, the rain has no

influence on the air. During nine years, it has rained only two

hundred and sixty times. The "oldest inhabitant" does not

remember to have seen snow, and the cold winds from the Sierra

Nevada are kept off by the mountains immediately surrounding the

city.

{480}

To show the longevity of the inhabitants, in the year 1860,

twenty-nine out of five thousand deaths were of people who had

lived to the ages of _ninety or a hundred_.

Granada.

October 10

This morning we leave Malaga at an early hour by rail, the road

being cut through extraordinary mountain passes to Antiquera, an

old Roman and Moorish town; from thence by diligence to Loja,

where we again take the railway. The journey is altogether

delightful, the day being cool and bright, and the mountain

scenery on either side grand and beautiful. Loja is in a narrow

valley, through which runs the Genil river, on one side the

Periquete Hills (Sierra Ronda) and the Hacho. The Manzanil unites

here with the Genil, both rapid and clear mountain streams

fertilizing a lovely valley. Soon after leaving Loja, we reach

Santa Fé, (Holy Faith,) built by Queen Isabella to shelter her

army in winter during the siege of Granada in 1492, and called

"Santa Fé" because she looked upon the war as a struggle for the

faith, and believed piously in its happy issue. This little town

has been the scene of many important operations and political

acts. It witnessed the signing of the capitulation of Granada,

and it was to this town that Columbus was recalled by Isabella

when he had already reached the bridge of Piños, behind the

mountains, determining to ask aid elsewhere for his great

undertaking.

Darkness now fell upon us, and except one exquisite view which

the setting sun gave of the snow mountains over Granada, we saw

nothing till we reached this last stronghold of the Moors in

Spain, and found lodgings inside the Alhambra grounds in the

Hotel Washington Irving.

October 11.

We go first to the Cathedral, to hear the high mass, and pay our

respects to the remains of Ferdinand and Isabella, which rest

there. Driving through beautiful ornamental grounds out of the

Alhambra gate, down a steep hill in the old Moorish looking city,

we find the cathedral, like that of Malaga, greatly ornamented,

(in the Greco-Roman style,) built in 1529. Within the sanctuary

are eleven pictures by Alonzo Caño, and two of his most

celebrated pieces of sculpture--the heads of Adam and Eve carved

in cork. Caño was a native of Granada, and is buried in the

Cathedral Bocanegra. Another of the celebrated artists of Spain

was also a native here, and the cathedral has several of his

pictures. But everything connected with the church sinks into

insignificance when one enters into the royal chapel, where all

that can perish of the great Ferdinand and Isabella lies (a small

space for so much greatness, as Charles V. said.) In a crypt,

below the chapel, in plain leaden coffins, with but the simple

initial of each king and queen upon them, are the coffins of

Ferdinand and Isabella and their daughter Joanna, with her

husband Philip I. (the handsome)--the last--that very coffin

which the poor crazed Joanna carried about with her for

forty-seven years, embraced with such frantic grief, and would

never be parted from. Nothing was so affecting as the sight of

this--not even the remembrance of all Isabella's glories and

goodness! So does an instance of heart devotion touch one more

than even the sight of greatness. Above the vault are the four

beautiful alabaster monuments, made by order of Charles V. to the

memory of his father and mother and his grandparents.

{481}

Ferdinand and Isabella, with their statues, lie side by side; and

poor Joanne la Folle looks lovely and placid (all her jealousies

over) beside the husband she adored, as if at last sure that she

could not be divided from him. Isabella died at Medina del Campo,

(near Segovia, about thirty miles from Madrid,) but desired to be

buried here in the bright jewel which she had won as well for her

crown as for her God. Her body was taken to Granada in December,

journeying over trackless moors amidst storms and torrents, of

which the faithful and learned Peter Martyr gives account, who

accompanied his beloved mistress to her last home.

The inscription which runs around the cornice tells: "This chapel

was founded by their most Catholic Majesties, Don Fernando and

Doña Isabel, king and queen of las Españas of Naples, of

Sicily--of Jerusalem--who conquered this kingdom, and brought it

back to our faith; who acquired the Canary Islands and Indies, as

well as the cities of Oran, Tripoli, and Bugia; who crushed

heresy, expelled the Moors and Jews from their realms, and

reformed religion. The queen died Tuesday, November 26, 1504; the

king died January 23, 1516. The building was completed in 1517."

The _bassi relievi_ on the altar in this chapel are very

interesting, from the scenes they represent--Ferdinand and

Isabella receiving the keys of Granada from Boabdil, etc. At each

end of the altar are figures of the king and queen in the costume

of the day, the banner of Castile behind the king. In the

sacristy is the crown of Isabella, the sword of Ferdinand, the

casket in which she gave the jewels to Columbus, some vestments

embroidered by her own hand, and the tabernacle used on the altar

where they heard mass, on which is a picture of the adoration of

the Magi, by that wonderful old painter Hemling of Bruges. Lord

Bacon has said of Isabella: "In all her relations of queen or

woman, she was an honor to her sex, and the corner-stone of the

greatness of Spain--one of the most faultless characters in

history--the purest sovereign by whom the female sceptre was ever

wielded."

We hear mass in the chapel of the Sagrario, a beautiful church in

itself. It was on one of its three doors that the Spanish knight

Hernan Perez del Pulgar (during the siege of Granada) nailed the

words, "Ave Maria;" to accomplish which feat, he entered the town

at dusk, and left it unharmed--nay, even amidst the plaudits of

the Arabs, who appreciated the deed. He is buried in one of the

chapels called "Del Pulgar."

From the Cathedral we visit the "Cartuja," once a wealthy

Carthusian convent, built upon grounds given to the monks by

Gonzales de Cordova--"El gran Capitan." In the refectory is shown

a cross, painted on the wall by Cotan, which so well imitates

wood that the very birds fly to it, and try to perch there. The

church has a beautiful statue of St. Bruno upon the altar; and a

larger one in the chapel of the Sagrario, by Alonzo Caño, is

especially fine. The sacristy is rich in marbles from the Sierra

Nevada, and the doors and other wood-work of the church and

chapel are made of the most curious and beautiful inlaid

work--tortoise-shell, ebony, silver, and mother of pearl--all

done by one monk, who took forty-two years to accomplish it; and

after so adorning this chapel, behold! the monks are driven from

it.

In the church are several lovely pictures--a head of our Lord by

Murillo; a copy, by Alonzo Caño, of the Viergo del Rosario in the

Madrid gallery, and a copy of one of the "Conceptions" of Murillo

--that one with the fair flowing hair, so very lovely.

{482}

Returning home, we have our first view of the snow mountains,

(Sierra Nevada.) How strange and how charming to be beneath a

tropical sun, and with all the beautiful vegetation of Africa and

the Indies, with people all eastern in dress and manners, and see

above one snow-capped mountains like the glaciers of Switzerland!

Owing to the proximity of these glaciers, the heat is never

intolerable here, and yet the winters are so mild they seldom

need fire in their sitting-rooms or parlors.

October 12.

To-day is made memorable by our first visit to the Alhambra.

Situated on a high hill, on either side of which flows the Darro

and the Genil, this space, which occupies several hundred acres,

was formerly surrounded by walls and towers, and contained within

it the palaces and villas of the Kalifs of Granada; and so

numerous were these that it was called a city, Medina Alhambra.

Of all these, there now remains but that portion of the Alhambra

known as the summer-palace, (the winter-palace having been torn

down by Charles V. to make room for a palace which he never

finished.) Besides this summer-palace, there is the "Generalife,"

(a summer-palace built--later than the Alhambra--in 1319;) the

remains of the Alcazabar, (fortress,) the Torre de la Vega, where

the bell strikes the hours in the same manner as in the Moorish

days, to signify upon whom devolves the duty of irrigating the

"vega," the beautiful and fertile plain below; the tower of the

captive; tower of the princesses; the tower of the "Siete

Suetos," (seven stories;) and the Torres Bermujas, (Red Towers.)

The last named are outside the Alhambra walls, but are on the

same hill, and claim to belong to an older date than even the

Moors or the Goths--supposed to be of Phoenician origin. The

walls are entered by several gates, some Arabic, and others more

modern. From these gates, you wander among stately avenues of

trees, with flowers and shrubs and charming paths, through which

now and then is seen a glimpse of the yellow towers, or some

picturesque ruin, altogether a scene of enchanting beauty. And

when upon one of the "miradors" (look-outs) or terraces which

crown these towers and palaces, there lies the Moorish city at

your feet, the grand snow mountains on the east, the beautiful

vega stretching to the mountains on the west, down which marched

the conquering Christians; and on the south lies that mountain so

poetically called "the last sigh of the Moor," from which Boabdil

looked his last upon the kingdom he was leaving for ever, and

where his mother made him the famous reproach which has passed

into history, that he did well to weep as a woman over that

kingdom he could not defend as a man.

And how venture to describe the Alhambra, which has been written

of by such men as Prescott and Irving! how give to any one an

idea of that which is unique in the world, of the grace and

beauty and wonderful variety of its adornments--the carvings like

lace, the bright colored mosaics and azuelos, (tiles,) the

transparent stucco work and filagree, the inlaid cedar-wood

roofs, the pillars, the domes and fountains, the courts, the

beautiful arches! We enter first the Court of the Myrtles, in

which a large square pool, filled by a fountain at either end, is

surrounded by a hedge of fragrant myrtle, and this in turn by a

marble colonnade, over which is a second gallery, with jalousies,

through which we could imagine the dark eyed beauties to have

peeped.

{483}

The roofs of these galleries are of cedar-wood inlaid, and the

arches and sides of exquisite wreaths and vines in stucco, with

shields of the Moorish kings, mottoes and verses from the Koran,

etc. This court was a place of ablutions for the kalifs.

From the Court of the Myrtles, one sees the Tower of Comares,

(called from the name of its Persian architect;) and within this

tower, opening from the Court of Myrtles, and preceded by its

"antesala" is the Hall of the Ambassadors, the largest, highest,

and most beautifully adorned of all the Alhambra. Here was the

sultan's throne and reception room. On three sides, arched

windows look down into the deep ravine from which the tower

rises; and, beyond, upon an enchanting prospect, the old Moorish

city and the verdant hills and mountains. The roof of this hall

is a sort of imitation of the vault of heaven, and that of the

"antesala" (called "La Barca," from being shaped like a boat) is

also very elegant.

On another side the Court of Myrtles is the famous Court of the

Lions, with its one hundred and thirty-six pillars of white

marble, its twelve lions in the centre, supporting an alabaster

basin, (a fountain.) At each end, a pavilion projects into the

court, with arabesque patterns so light and graceful that the

very daylight is seen through the stucco.

Opening from the Court of the Lions is the Hall of the

Abencerrages, deriving its name from the legend according to

which Boabdil invited the chiefs of the illustrious family of

that name to a feast, and had them taken out one by one and

beheaded. Others assert that they were murdered in this hall, and

show the stains of blood in the marble of the fountain. As they

had been mainly instrumental in placing him upon the throne, this

act of ingratitude helped to his ruin. This story is generally

believed, but Washington Irving has rescued the name of this

"unlucky" one (_el chico_) from this unjust aspersion. His

investigations prove that the crimes laid to the charge of

Boabdil were in reality committed by his father, Aben Hassin. He

it was who murdered the thirty-six Abencerrages upon suspicion of

having conspired against him, and it was he who confined his

queen in the "tower of the captive," etc.

On the east side of the Court of the Lions is the "Sale del

Tribunal," (the hall of justice,) where the kalifs gave audience

on state affairs. Three arches in the centre and two at either

end lead into this hall, which is ninety feet long by sixteen

wide, with a dome thirty-eight feet high. This is divided by

arches into seven rooms, all profusely ornamented, and in the

ceilings of several recesses are paintings of Moors, with

cimeters, castles, etc. In one of these rooms is the famous

Alhambra vase of porcelain, four feet three inches high, which

was found full of gold. In another small room are three

tombstones, one of Mohammed II., and one of Yusef III., found in

the tomb-house of the Moorish kings, near the Court of the Lions,

in 1574. They have long and elaborate inscriptions, one of which

reads thus:

"In the name of God, the most merciful and clement!

"May God's blessing for ever rest with this our king!

"Health and peace!

"Gentle showers from heaven come down on this tomb, and give it

freshness, and the orchard spread its perfume upon it. What

this tomb contains is wine without admixture, and myrtles.

Reward and pardon be granted to him who lies within.

"It was God's pleasure that he should dwell amid the garden of

delights.

"Those that inhabit those happy regions come forth to meet him

with palms in their hands.

{484}

"If thou wouldst know the story of him who lies in the tomb,

listen. He was a prince above all in excellence. May God give

him sanctity!

"He was cut down into the dust. Yet the Pleiades themselves are

not his equals.

"Unavoidable fate took up arms, and aimed at the very throne of

the empire.

"Oh! how great was his fame. His excellence, how high! and

unbounded his virtues!

"For Abul Hadjaj was like the moon that points out the road to

take, and when the sun went down its brightness beamed no less

from his eyes.

"Abul Hadjaj showered down tokens of his liberality. But

drought is come; his liberality has ceased; his crops are

gathered.

"His generosity is forgotten; his halls are lonesome; his

ministers silent, and his rooms deserted.

"But it was God's pleasure, the merciful one, (may he be

glorified,) to take him into the eternal dwelling when he

deprived him of life.

"Here lies he softly, within this narrow tomb, but his real

dwelling is the heart of every man.

"Why should I not pray God that the rain should moisten his

tomb with its abundant dew? for the rain of his liberality

showered down upon all without ceasing.

"Was he not filled with the fear of God, with gentleness and

wisdom? Amongst his qualities, were not virtue, liberality, and

magnificence one part?

"Was he not the only one that with his science cleared up all

doubts?

"Was not poetry one of his attributes, and did he not deck his

throne with verses like strings of pearl?

"Was he not always stout, and held his ground in the

battle-field?

"How many enemies his sword repelled!

"But Ebn Nasr, his successor, is certainly the greatest among

all monarchs of the earth.

"May God protect him!

"For he is most generous and victorious; besides, he

distributes rewards generously. He has saved the kingdom from

ruin, and restored it to its former greatness."

The Hall of the Two Sisters takes its name from two white slabs

of equal size in the pavement. Here are beautiful arches, windows

with painted jalousies, a fountain, and a wonderful roof,

composed of three thousand pieces in little miniature domes and

vaults, all colored in delicate blue and red with white and gold.

From this hall, indeed quite from the Court of the Lions, one

sees through a series of arched entrances into the "Corredor de

Lindaraja," in which room are thirteen little cupolas, and the

Mirador de Lindaraja (a boudoir of the sultana) looks upon the

garden of Lindaraja, with flowers, and fountains, and

orange-trees.

On the opposite of this lovely garden, and looking into it, are

the rooms occupied by Washington Irving, those built by Philip V.

for his beautiful queen, Elizabeth of Parma, whom the Spanish

call "Isabel Farnese." Several corridors here lead to modernized

parts of the building--" the queen's boudoir," a chapel made by

Charles V. out of the mosque, and a lofty tower, used by the

Arabs as an oratory for the evening prayer, and from which the

view is superb--the "Generalife" with its white towers, the woods

of the Alhambra, the Darro far below in the deep gorge, and,

beyond and above all, the snow-capped Sierra Nevada.

The "Patio de la Mosquita" (the court of the mosque) has only the

remains of its beautiful roof.

From this to the baths is a long corridor leading to the Chamber

of Rest, which has just been restored by Sig. Contreras, the able

architect who is repairing the whole building, by order of the

queen. This has a fountain in the centre, marble pillars all

round, a gallery above, where the musicians played and sung while

the bather inclined upon the cushions below; within were the

marble baths of the sultan, the sultana, etc.

{485}

"Generalife" means garden of pleasure, and here garden above

garden rises upon the mountain side, through which the Darro

rushes noisily, being brought by a little canal quite through the

mountain. In one of the rooms are some interesting portraits of

the kings and queens of Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella, Philip the

handsome, Jeanne la Folle, Charles V. and Isabella, Don John of

Austria, etc.; and in a second room a series of portraits of the

Dukes of Granada, whose descendant, now married to an Italian

nobleman of Genoa, owns this lovely place. The founder of this

house was a converted Moor, and to his descendants (the houses of

Venegas and Granada) Philip IV. made this a perpetual grant. In

one of the many gardens are some cypress-trees planted by the

Moors, seven hundred years old. Under one of these, a love story

is said to have been enacted, of which the beautiful Sultana

Zorayda is the heroine. Amongst the portraits in the picture

gallery is one of Boabdil, fair and handsome, with yellow hair,

and a gentle, amiable look. He may not have had the qualities

fitted to the terrible emergency in which he was placed, when

domestic contention and misrule had so weakened his empire as to

make it difficult to struggle against the growing greatness of

Ferdinand and Isabella; but he must have possessed qualities

which won for him the love of his people, for many years after

his time, the Moors who still lingered about Granada sung the

plaintive song said to have been composed by Boabdil himself,

relating his misfortunes and his sorrows, spoke of him

reverently, and lamented his fate.

It is said he lived to see his children begging their bread at

the door of the mosques in Fez. He was killed in Africa, fighting

the battles of the prince who gave him shelter.

We hasten from the Generalife to see the sunset from the Torre de

la Vega, which is the finest view we have had of the city--the

Vega with the lovely rivers winding through it, and the grand

mountains beyond. As the sun declined, from the many church bells

came the "Ave Maria," soft and musical from the great distance

below.

The guide points out the hospital founded by St. John of God, (a

Portuguese saint,) the founder of the brothers of charity now

spread all over Europe. According to the guide, the saint asked

the king for as much land, on which to build this hospital, as he

could enclose in a certain number of hours. Of course he was

miraculously assisted; and by working all night, he took in so

great a space that the king became alarmed. Here he built this

hospital and the church in which he is buried. He lost his life

rescuing a drowning man, and died blessing Granada.

Tuesday.

Spent the whole morning in the Alhambra, wandering amid its

beauties, feasting upon its romantic memories, and reading at

intervals the charming legends connected with every spot so

delightfully told by Washington Irving. In the hall of the

tribunal, we read his account of the entrance of the triumphant

Ferdinand and Isabella, and fancy the scene when Cardinal Mendoza

celebrated the first mass here.

Seated in the Court of the Lions, we meditate upon the cruel

death of the noble Abencerrages, and lean from the window of the

Tower of Comares, down which the good Ayesha let her infant son

Boabdil escape, to save him from the jealous fury of her rival

Zorayda.

{486}

And then, in the later days of the beautiful Elizabetta of Parma,

we recall the scene where the hypochondriac Philip persists in

being laid out for dead, and can only be brought to life by the

voice and lute of the fair maiden, "the Rose of the Alhambra."

In contrast to the Alhambra are the remains of the palace begun

with such magnificence by Charles V., of which only the walls

remain. Within their vast area and amongst its marble pillars,

muleteers were depositing their billets of wood, and burdens of

dirt and ashes! _Sic transit gloria mundi_.

We go to look at that which has lasted longer, the church built

by him near by, and called Sta. Maria del Alhambra. Wandering on,

we find ourselves amongst the ruins of the Franciscan convent

(still within the Alhambra walls) which was destroyed by the

French in 1809-11, when so much of the Alhambra was injured.

Led by a little boy, and following the wall, we come upon a

plantation of cactus, with its red and yellow fruit, which a man

is gathering with great scissors, to prevent its prickings. A

woman politely cuts and pares some for us to taste. It is sweet

and juicy; is much eaten by the poor, who call it "Tuños." They

also make from it a palatable drink--a sort of beer. Hans

Andersen has written a pretty sonnet to the cactus, which seems

especially applicable to this time and occasion.

"Yes, yellow and red are the colors of Spain;

In banners and flags they are waving on high;

And the cactus flower has adopted them too,

In the warm sunshine to dazzle the eye.

Thou symbol of Spain, thou flower of the sun,

When the Moors of old were driven away,

Thou didst not, like them, abandon thy home.

But stayed with thy fruit and thy flowers so gay.

The thousand daggers that hide in thy leaves

Cannot rescue thee from the love of gain;

Too often it is thy fate to be sold,

Thou sunny fruit with the colors of Spain."

Here we find ourselves at the tower of the "Siete Suelos,"

through which Boabdil passed when he left the Alhambra for ever.

It is said that he asked of Isabella that the door might be

walled up, so that no one should ever pass through it after him,

and his conquerors acceded to his request. Returning through one

of the many beautiful paths leading to our hotel, we diverge to

look at a view which presented itself, and find we are near the

villa of Señora Calderon. Here, terrace above terrace rises in

view of the mountains, and on the summit is an artificial lake,

with bridges and boats, and winding walks, and flowers and

fruits, and statues and fountains--everything to make a perfect

paradise.

At night, we have a gypsy-dance. The chief of his troop is the

finest guitar player in Spain--there can be no better in the

world--a tall, dark, grave man, who received our plaudits with

kingly grace; he looked as if in sorrow over the degradation of

his people, who are here in great numbers, living in wretched

quarters on a hillside, in holes or caves in the ground.

The dancers were four lovely, graceful girls, modestly dressed,

and several men, all dark, with large, soft eyes and white teeth.

A youth in short jacket, with broad red faja (sash) and the

peculiar Andalusian hat, danced a solo of strange fashion, with

many movements of the body, and the extraordinary gestures which

belong to all. The feet move in short steps--a sort of "heel and

toe"--while the body sways to and fro, and the hands and arms

move gracefully and expressively. The men had tambourines and the

women castanets, and the wild airs to which they danced were

accompanied with their voices. The variety of dances and songs

was curious and interesting, and often descriptive. At the end of

each dance, the girls came round and saluted all, gentlemen and

ladies, by passing one arm over the neck.

{487}

Wednesday.

Drive about the city, the public squares, etc., and visit the

remains of the old Moorish bazaar which occupies a square

intersected by narrow lanes, every one of which is beautifully

ornamented with pillars and arabesque work.

The alameda, planted in long avenues of trees which meet

overhead, beyond which one catches a view of the Snow mountains,

and beside which flows the Genil river, can not be excelled in

beauty.

The church and hospital of St. John of God is most interesting.

Over the door are these words of the saint, "Labor, without

intermission, to do all the good works in your power while time

is allowed you." The hospital is built round a large court, with

fountains and gardens, and a double row of corridors in which sat

the sick poor, clean and comfortable. It communicates with the

church, which has several good pictures, and a head of St. John

the Baptist, carved by Caño.

In a richly ornamented chapel behind the great altar is the body

of the saint in a silver casket. The remains of St. Feliciana are

also here, as well as many other relics. In an adjoining room is

seen the identical basket in which the saint carried provisions

to the poor.

The church was built by contributions sent by one of the order

from South America. The cedar-wood doors are said to be made from

the logs in which the concealed treasures were brought over.

We climb to the top of the "Torres Bermujas," outside the

Alhambra walls, from whence is another splendid view--a curious

old ruin, dating from the time of the Phoenicians. It is said to

have been a stronghold of the Jews, who made a colony here during

their persecutions by the Romans; and being treated with equal

cruelty by their Gothic conquerors, they invited in the Moors,

betrayed the city to them, made terms for themselves, and thus

brought upon themselves the eternal enmity of the Spaniards, who

treated them with great rigor after the conquest, and finally

banished them. In the story of the three beautiful princesses,

this tower plays an important _rôle;_ here were confined the

captive Spanish knights who eloped with the Infantas, (daughters

of Mohammed the left-handed,) and beyond, rising above the deep,

romantic ravine, is the Tower of the Princesses, beneath which

the knights sang their tales of love.

Madrid, Hotel De Paris.

Friday, October 16.

Yesterday (my feast) and the feast of the great Spanish Saint

Teresa was celebrated by our most sorrowful departure from

Grenada! At three o'clock in the morning, we descend the hill of

the Alhambra, and ruefully mount to the top of a Spanish

diligence, and squeeze into what they call the "coupe"--an

exalted place behind the coach-box, from whence one looks down

upon the ten mules who drag this lumbering vehicle, see all their

antics, observe the rash manner in which they tear down

precipitous heights, and mount steep ascents, having the

comfortable certainty that in no event of danger could we

possibly descend from this lofty perch and save ourselves!

A "special providence," however, guards the Spanish diligence, to

say nothing of the three "conductors"--the postillion who rides

in front, the individual who sits on the box with gold lace and

red on his cap, and who smokes leisurely, let what will happen,

only occasionally speaking to the mules, calling them by name,

and urging them on with a sound like "ayah!" and the boy who runs

alongside shouting, screaming, and plying the whip, now jumping

on the front of the diligence to rest a moment, now hanging on by

one hand to the side doors or behind; active as a cat he springs

up and down while the vehicle is at full speed, keeping one all

the while in terror for his safety.

{488}

Such is the Spanish diligence from the "coupé." In the interior,

shut out from the front view, one only hears the united voices of

the "conductors," and it is less exciting. We who are above,

however, have the advantage of a fine view of the mountains, (the

Sierra Morena,) over which we pass by a smooth and beautiful

road.

Jaen is the only place of importance which we see, an old Moorish

town with histories and legends, a fine cathedral, and a Moorish

castle on the height above. From this, a few hours brings us to

Menjibar, where we take the railway at six P.M., and reach Madrid

about eight the next morning. At Menjibar, we bid adieu to our

young American friend, who had journeyed with us since leaving

Cordova, and parted with the Scotch and German ladies whom we had

encountered at various points.

Madrid is filled with people. General Prim is in this hotel, is

modestly refusing to be made dictator, and proposing that Spain

shall have, as heretofore, a king. We shall see how long it will

be before (like Caesar) he is overpersuaded, and reluctantly

assumes power.

Topete (the admiral who, at Cadiz, brought over the fleet) is

also in Madrid; and Serrano, the prince of the traitors, is

president of the provisional government. The table d'hôte is

crowded with men of the press, (letter-writers of all nations,)

giving their several impressions of matters to the gullible

"public," and interpreting events to suit the taste of their

readers. We ask one of these (a witty Frenchman) if he writes for

_Le Monde_. "Oui, Madame, pour tout le monde." Amongst the

motley crowd, we distinguish the letter-writer of the _London

Times_, and him of the New York _Times_, with whom we

make acquaintance, and who having lived a long time in France,

and being of Irish extraction, is very little of an American in

appearance and manner.

Saturday, October 17.

Madrid is a modern city with fine buildings and shops, many

handsome streets and squares, and a beautiful promenade, called

the Prado, (meadow.) The principal of these squares is the

"Puerta del Sol," upon which this hotel opens, and which is

always thronged with people, and is all life and bustle. This

being the head and front of the revolution, and General Prim

being in the house, the doors are besieged by beggars and

revolutionists. As we walk the streets, in many shop-windows are

vulgar caricatures of the queen and the priests. This is adding

insult to injury, and the very essence of meanness--to take away

her throne, and then aim at her character as a woman. It is

refreshing to find that the best people we see--the best born,

the best bred, and the best educated--defend her from these

aspersions, and are loyal to her, and to the throne.

Sunday, October 18.

We hear high mass in the church of the "Calatrava," (an ancient

order of knighthood,) where are crowds of pious looking men.

Certainly it will be difficult for the revolution to rob these

people of their religion. For a time they may be intoxicated with

the excitement of the change, but the reaction must come, when

the sober second thought will bring them back to their true

friends.

{489}

Now, the banishment of the Jesuits, the best and most learned

teachers, the confiscation of church property, and the

destruction of churches initiates the new order of things.

Yesterday, an English gentleman (one of the noisiest supporters

of the revolution) told us how the junta had given two places of

great trust and importance into the hands of two of the lowest

and most vulgar and ignorant of the bull fighters; and thus this

class of people who have helped on the revolution must be

rewarded. We hear, to-day, that General Prim has offered to

promote, one grade, every officer of the army lately opposed to

him. To their honor be it spoken, every one refused such

promotion.

To Be Continued

----------

Translated From The French.

Sister Aloyse's Bequest.

I.