X.

O poet! more than Crashaw, saint! forgive, If break my singing in unworthy praise; Pardon, if uncouth love in stammering lays, Seeking to thank, but give thee cause to grieve. Unspoken gratitude is burden sore When debt so passing strong of love is owed; Unworthy speaking but augments the load, Forgiveness making so love’s burden more. So much to thee I owe! Along my life Thy words like patient, wingèd seeds are sown, So long amid the dark and brambles grown, Yet winning bloom at last despite the strife. As once for him of Ars thy heart was shrine, So mine holds thee, O blessed of Love Divine!

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AMONG THE TRANSLATORS.

VIRGIL AND HORACE—II.

“Traduire Horace, et surtout le traduire en vers, est même devenu, depuis soixante ou quatre-vingts ans, et chez nous et en d’autres pays, une sorte de légère infirmité morale, et de douce maladie qui prend régulièrement un certain nombre d’hommes instruits au retour d’âge; c’est une envie de redevenir enfant, adolescent, de se reporter au temps des études qui nous étaient chères.” To translate Horace, says Sainte-Beuve, above all to translate him in verse, has become within the last sixty or eighty years, both in France and abroad, a kind of venial moral infirmity, a sort of mild fever, which periodically seizes a certain number of educated men as they find themselves growing old; and it has its source in the longing to renew our youth, to live over again the time of studies we were fond of.

Like all the sayings of that most delicate and _spirituel_ of critics, this is so far true that most translations of Horace will be found, we think, to be the work of men advancing in life, and, in the majority of cases, to have grown up insensibly through a number of years. One does not sit down to a version of the _Odes_ as to a version of the _Æneid_, beginning at the first line and going religiously through in order to the end. No; but we pick out an ode here and there, as the mood takes us and that fits the mood—some gay _Ad Amphoram_ or _Ad Asterien_ when we are young and sprightly, _calidus juventâ_; a nobler _Ad Augustum_ or _Ad Calliopen_ when we are older and graver, in the time of whitening locks—riding in the cars, it may be, walking in the street, smoking the after-dinner cigar; everywhere, in fact, that solitude gives us a chance to entertain the best of all good company. We turn it into such English as we can muster, and print it perhaps, or, better still, put it away in our portfolio; Horace must have had a prophetic eye on his coming translator when he gave that soundest of poetic counsels—unless _Punch’s_ “Don’t” be sounder still:

“Nonumque prematur in annum Membranis intus positis”—[73]

we put it away to be taken up again and again, lingered over fondly, touched up and polished, until the exact word is found for every elusive epithet, the precise equivalent for every tantalizing phrase, and the entire ode lies before us, its foreign garb bagging, indeed, a little here and there, but fitting as snugly as our art can make it, and we are content. That is a moment of such supreme satisfaction, of such tranquil triumph, as life but rarely yields. Less than any other that dabbles in ink has your true Horatian the fever of the type. His virtue is really—what virtue, alas! so seldom is in this perverse world—its own reward. Like Joubert, _il s’inquiète de perfection bien plus que de gloire_; to have hit upon what he feels to be a happy rendering is glory enough; enough that he and Horace should share his exultation; a felicitous adjective will put him in good-humor for a week. And so, before he well knows it, his portfolio is nearly full, and the notion first dawns upon him—the duty it almost seems—of sharing his good fortune with his fellows. “Rather would I have written the _Quem tu Melpomene semel_ or the _Donec gratus eram tibi_,” cried Scaliger, “than to be king of Aragon.” Rather would I make a perfect translation of these or any other of the _Odes_, cries our Horatian, than to be king of all Spain, with all _Cuba libre_ to boot—

“Quam si Libyam remotis Gadibus jungas et uterque Pœnus Serviat uni.”[74]

Somewhat in this wise, we fancy, have most versions of Horace come to be and to be printed; certainly, we incline to think, all the best versions. Thus, too, partly for the reason M. Sainte-Beuve gives, partly from the poet’s universality and the charm which lies in the very difficulty of the task—an impossibility Johnson called it, but it is one of those “sweet impossibilities” which ennoble failure—do we count so many renderings of single odes by famous men. There are few names eminent in English letters or statesmanship that are not thus allied to the genial Venusian—names, too, of the most diverse order. Not only poets like Cowper and Montgomery, Chatterton and Byron,[75] essayists like Addison, or dramatists like Congreve, Rowe, and Otway, but grave historians such as Mitford and Merivale, judges like Lord Thurlow and Sir Jeffrey Gilbert, philosophers like Atterbury and Sir William Temple, bitter satirists like Swift, tender sentimentalists like “Namby Pamby” Phillips, professors and prime ministers, doctors and divines, lords and lawyers, archdeacons and archtraitors, have joined in paying court to the freedman’s son. In his ante-room, or _atrium_, prim John Evelyn is jostled by tipsy Porson humming somewhat huskily one of the bacchanalian lyrics to a tune of his own (perhaps the _Ad Sodales_, i. 27, which that learned Theban has rendered with true Porsonian zest—a little too much so to quote); Warren Hastings there meets Edmund Burke in friendlier contest than at the bar of the House of Commons; Dr. Bentley takes issue with Archdeacon Wrangham over a doubtful reading; Mr. Gladstone leads a poetic opposition to Lord Derby in Englishing the _Carmen Amabœum_. In that modest _cœnaculum_ we can greet these great men all on a familiar and equal footing, made one of them for the nonce by the fellowship of a common taste—nay, may even flatter ourselves that here, at least, we are at their level; that our poet’s door may even be opened to us sooner than to the tallest and wisest among them. It is true greatness has no prerogative in Horace; the meanest may win to his intimacy, be admitted to his _penetralia_, sooner than the mightiest. Of all the distinguished names we have quoted, few would have had much distinction as translators alone, though Bishop Atterbury’s versions, especially that of the _Ad Melpomenen_, iv. 2, are deservedly famous. Hastings’ translation of the _Ad Grosphum_, written during his passage from Bengal to England in 1785 (he was going home to the famous trial), merits notice for its curious adaptation to his Indian experiences:

“For ease the slow Mahratta spoils And hardier Sikh erratic toils, While both their ease forego....

“To ripened age Clive lived renowned, With lacs enriched, with honors crowned, His valor’s well-earned meed. Too long, alas! he lived, to hate His envied lot, and died too late From life’s oppression freed.”

Another verse had perhaps a still more personal application; there is but a trace of it in the Latin:

“No fears his peace of mind annoy Lest printed lies his fame destroy Which labor’d years have won; Nor pack’d committees break his rest, Nor avarice sends him forth in quest Of climes beneath the sun.”

The fashion of fitting Horace to contemporary persons and events was much in vogue in Hastings’ time and earlier. Creech tells us in his preface that he was advised “to turn the Satyrs to his own times.” It was carried out to the fullest extent in the well-known _Horace in London_ of Horace and James Smith.

Within the past twenty-five or thirty years many complete versions of the _Odes_ have been put forth, including those of H. G. Robinson, the Rev. W. Sewell (printed in Bohn’s Library), Lord Ravensworth, Mr. Whyte Melville, Mr. Theodore Martin, the late Prof. Conington, and the late Lord Lytton. Of these, Mr. Martin’s, which we should feel inclined to pronounce upon the whole the best, and the most notable Lord Lytton’s, have alone been reprinted here. In giving this pre-eminence to Mr. Martin’s work we are perhaps influenced by a strong individual liking, amounting even to a prepossession, in its favor, dating from that very potent time Sainte-Beuve speaks of—“_le temps des études qui nous étaient chères_.” When it first fell into our hands it was the only version we had yet seen which at all reproduced, even to a limited degree, for us its original’s charm. By many Prof. Conington’s translation, easy, fluent, and in the main faithful—just what, from his _Æneid_, one might expect it to be—will be preferred to Mr. Martin’s, which it certainly surpasses in single odes. As to the worst there need be no such doubt. The Rev. Mr. Sewell’s is not, perhaps, the worst possible version of the _Odes_, as one is half tempted to believe who remembers how it was recommended to the readers of the _Dublin University Magazine_ long ago—how we relished that literary execution with all boyhood’s artless delight in slaughter! Time, alas! soon sobers that youthful vivacity of temper, and, better than Æsop, teaches us to respect the frogs whom it loves to revenge in kind. No; the possibilities and varieties of badness in this direction are unhappily too great for that; but it is as bad as need be—as need be, let us say, for admission to Bohn’s Library.[76] Great indulgence is certainly to be extended to translators of Horace; much is to be forgiven them; but one must finally draw the line, and probably most Horatians would feel like drawing the line at the Rev. Mr. Sewell.

It was in the process of pointing out this fact to that gentleman, in a review of his book in the magazine mentioned, that Mr. Martin some twenty years ago put forth, we believe, the first specimens of his own translation, which was completed and published some years later. Its success was immediate and deserved; for its positive no less than its comparative merits were great. Mr. Martin was one of the first to discern, or at least to put in acceptable practice, the true theory of translating the lighter odes—“a point of great difficulty,” as he truly says. “They are,” he adds, “mere _vers de société_ invested by the language, for us, with a certain stateliness, but which were probably regarded with a very different feeling by the small contemporary circle to whom they were addressed. To catch the tone of these, to be light without being flippant, to be playful without being vulgar, demands a delicacy of touch which it is given to few to acquire, even in original composition, and which in translation is all but unattainable.” The graver odes have their own difficulties; but the skilful translator handles them more easily, we fancy, than the gay fluttering swarm of laughing Lydias and Neæras that flash athwart their statelier pomp like golden butterflies through the Gothic glooms of summer woods—butterflies whose glossy wings, alas! lose something of their down and brilliance at every, even the lightest and most loving, touch. The thought of a poem is always easier to transplant into other speech than its form. Ideas are essentially the same, whatever tongue interprets them—Homer’s Greek or Shakspeare’s English; but the infinite delicate shades of beauty or significance added to them by the subtle differences of words, by that beauty of their own and intrinsic value which, as Théophile Gautier puts it—himself a master of language—words have in the poet’s eyes apart from their meaning, like uncut and unset jewels, the deftest, most patient art of the translator toils in vain to catch. They vanish in his grasp like the bubble whose frail glories dazzle the eyes and mock the longing, chubby fingers of babyhood; to render them is like trying to paint the perfume of a flower.

Now, it is true enough, whatever iconoclasts like Stendhal may pretend, that in poetry thought cannot be divorced from form; it is the indissoluble union of both that makes the poem. Try to fancy any really great passage of verse expressed in other words, even of the same speech, and you see at once how important form is. Take once more Shakspeare’s

“Daffodils That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty,”

and try to change or misplace a single word. One feels instantly that any change would be fatal; it almost seems, with such passages, as though noble thought and perfect word had been waiting for each other from all time until the high-priest of Apollo should come to wed them. To quote Sainte-Beuve again—the critic who wishes to instruct his readers can scarcely quote him too often: “Je conçois qu’on ne mette pas toute la poesie dans le métier, mais je ne conçois pas du tout que quand il s’agit d’un art on ne tienne nui compte de l’art lui-même et qu’on déprécie les parfaits ouvriers qui y excellent.”[77] Yet it is none the less true that a poem in which the idea is paramount is more susceptible of translation than one whose form is the chief element of its charm. One can imagine Wordsworth’s fine sonnet on Milton, “Milton, thou shouldst be with us at this hour,” being turned into Latin with comparatively little loss; indeed it has been so turned by one of the most accomplished of English scholars—Dr. Kennedy—into Alcaics of which the purity and finish make a fitting casket for that gem of poetry; though even here one feels the wide difference between the original of that immortal line,

“Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart,”

and the Latin

“Mens tua lumine Fulgebat, ut sidus, remote,”

missing, as we do, the “lovely marriage of pure words,” that in the English is itself a poem. But take such a bit of verbal daintiness as George Darley’s “Sweet in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers,” with its peculiar and _saisissant_ rhythm, the perfection of verbal music; or Tennyson’s “Break, break, break,” where the poetry—and undeniable poetry it is—lies in a certain faint aroma of suggestion that seems to breathe from the very words, and try to reproduce the effect of them in other speech. As well try with earthly tools to rebuild Titania’s palace of leaf shadows and the gossamer, to weave her mantle on any mortal loom out of moonbeams and the mist.

Much the same is it to attempt to transfer to an English translation aught of the peculiar grace which invests Horace’s lightest lyrics with a charm we feel but cannot analyze, which resides in the choice of epithets, the arrangement of words, the cadence of the rhythm, the metrical form, and which yet is something more than any or all of these. The noble thought which lies embodied in the _Justum et tenacem propositi virum_ we may not despair of rehabilitating, with somewhat of its proper majesty, in our own vernacular; but the shy, fugitive loveliness of that wildwood picnic to which the poet bids us, to forget the cares of life,

“Quo pinus et ingens albaque populus Umbram hospitalem consociare amant Ramis, et obliquo laborat _Lympha fugax trepidare rivo_”

—what art can coax away from its native soil? Do we find it in Francis?—

“Where the pale poplar and the pine Expel the sun’s intemperate beam; In hospitable shades their branches twine, And winds with toil, though swift, the tremulous stream”;

or in Creech—though Creech is here luckier than usual?—

“Where near a purling Spring doth glide In winding Streams, and softly chide The interrupting Pebble as it flows”;

or in Prout?—

“While onward runs the crooked rill, Brisk fugitive, with murmur shrill”;

or in Lord Lytton?—

“Wherefore struggles and murmurs the rill Stayed from flight by a curve in the shore.”

Even Mr. Martin gives it up, and presents us, instead of a translation, with a couplet which is very pretty English verse, but about as far from Horace as can be:

“Where runs the wimpling brook, its slumb’rous tune Still murmuring as it runs to the hush’d ear of noon.”

It is passages such as this especially which have caused Horace to be called the untranslatable.

To come from theory to practice, it is in the lighter odes, and in those parts of all the odes the beauty of which in the original lies chiefly in expression, that all Horace’s translators have most conspicuously failed. Take Milton’s _Ad Pyrrham_, for example (Ode v.). The _Ad Pyrrham_ is not only one of the most charming but also one of the most difficult of the minor odes, and for that reason among the oftenest translated. It is one of the many _mitten_-pieces wherein the inconstant bard seems to have taken a somewhat ostentatious delight in celebrating the numerous snubbings he had to put up with from the no less inconstant fair who were the objects of his brief and fitful homage. In it, as in the _Ad Neæram_ (_Epod._ xv.) and the _Ad Barinen_ (_Carm._ ii. 8), reproaches to the lady for her perfidy are mingled with self-gratulations on the poet’s own lucky escape and sinister warnings to his rival—the time-old strategy and solace of the discarded lover the world over. He has been shipwrecked, he says, on that treacherous sea of love; but having, the gods be praised! made shift to scramble ashore in safety, and got on some dry duds, sits in gleeful expectation of seeing his successor get a like ducking. The poem is simply a piece of mock heroics, for the counterpart of which we must look to such minglings of cynicism and sentiment as we find in the poetry of Praed and Thackeray and Locker, or, to a less degree, in many of Béranger’s lighter songs. The difference between the modern poets and the ancient is that in the former the sentiment is real, veiled under an affectation of cynicism: in the latter it is precisely the reverse. But, bearing that difference in mind, the translator may find in the methods of the poets named some hints for the handling of such odes as the _Ad Pyrrham_.

But how do the translators treat it? Take Milton’s famous version, which everybody knows:

“What slender youth bedewed with liquid odors Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave, Pyrrha? For whom bind’st thou In wreaths thy golden hair?

“Plain in thy neatness,” etc.

—’tis as solemn as a Quaker conventicle. Nor, with reverence be it said _en passant_, is it altogether free from graver faults; undeniably elegant as it is, this translation has had quite as much praise as it deserved. It is full of those Latin constructions Milton loved—“on faith and changed gods complain” for _fidem mutatosque deos flebit_, “always vacant” for _semper vacuam_, “unwonted shall admire” for _emirabitur insolens_, etc.—which are nowhere more out of place than in a translation from the Latin. Some, indeed, claim that they carry with them and impart a certain flavor of the original to those unacquainted with it; but this seems to us a view at once fallacious and superficial. The office of translation into any language is surely to reproduce the original in the idiom of that language as nearly as may be; and though the theory, like all theories, may be pressed to an excess—as we think Mr. Morris has pressed it, for example, in his translation of the _Æneid_—better that than such deformities as

“Always vacant, always amiable Hopes thee.”

It is the suggestion not of Horace but of Milton here that is pleasant; it is because Milton’s natural English style is a highly Latinized and involved style that these oddities of his translation strike us less than in another. Sometimes, too, oddly enough for so good a scholar, he falls short of the full sense of his original. _Potenti maris deo_, the commentators tell us, means, not “the stern god of sea,” but “the god potent over the sea”; and “plain in thy neatness” for _simplex munditiis_ misses the entire significance of the latter word, which implies something of grace and beauty. “Plain in thy neatness” suggests rather “Priscilla the Puritan maiden” than Pyrrha of the dull-gold hair. Ben Jonson’s

“Give me a look, give me a face That makes simplicity a grace,”

hits Horace’s meaning exactly, and certainly far more poetically. Indeed, we often find in original English poetry much apter renderings than the translators give us. Prof. Conington knew this when he went to Shakspeare for “fancy free” as an equivalent for this very word _vacuam_ we have been talking of—a perfect equivalent of its association did not make it a little un-Horatian—and to Matthew Arnold’s “salt, unplumbed, _estranging_ sea” for the very best version we have seen of that most puzzling phrase (i. 3), “_oceano dissociabili_.”

This is, perhaps, a digression; but as we set out for a ramble, we have no apologies to make. Conington’s version, in the same metre as Milton’s, only rhyming the alternate lines, is not all so good as “fancy free,” though it gains from its rhyme a certain lightness lacking in that of Milton’s:

“What slender youth besprinkled with perfume Courts you on roses in some grotto’s shade, Fair Pyrrha? Say for whom Your yellow hair you braid.

“So true, so simple! Ah! how oft shall he Lament that faith can fail, that gods can change, Viewing the rough black sea With eyes to tempests strange,” etc.

So true, so simple! We are not much nearer to _simplex munditiis_ than before. Martin is not here at his best, and Francis is unusually successful: “dress’d with careless art” and “consecrate the pictured storm” are felicities he does not always attain. Prout is chiefly noticeable for yielding to the almost irresistible temptation of a false beacon in _intentata nites_:

“I the false light forswear, A shipwreck’d mariner”;

and Leigh Hunt’s, though but a paraphrase, is surely a very happy one:

“For whom are bound thy tresses bright With unconcern so exquisite?”

and

“Though now the sunshine hour beguiles His bark along thy golden smiles, Trusting to see thee for his play For ever keep smooth holiday,”

admirably elude, if they do not meet, the difficulties of the Latin. But in none of these, nor in any other rendering we have seen, is there any trace of that _nuance_ of sarcasm or polite banter we seem to taste in the original. The only American version we remember to have met with is not in this respect more successful:

“In thy grotto’s cool recesses, Dripping perfumes, lapped in roses, Say what lissome youth reposes, Pyrrha, wooing thy embrace? Braid’st for whom those tawny tresses, Simple in thy grace?

“Ah! how oft averted heaven Will he weep, and thy dissembling. And, poor novice, view with trembling O’er the erewhile tranquil deep, By the angry tempest driven, Billowy tumult sweep;

“Now who in thy smile endearing Basks, with foolish fondness hoping To his love thou’lt e’er be open, To his wooing ever kind, Knowing not the fitful veering Of the faithless wind?

“Hapless they rash troth who plight thee! On the sacred wall my votive Picture, set with pious motive, Shows I hung in Neptune’s fane My wet garments to the mighty Monarch of the main.”

It may be said that this sly spirit of badinage which lurks, or to us, at least, seems to lurk, in the shadows of the lighter odes, like some tricksy Faun peering and disappearing through the thickets of Lucretilis, it is impossible to seize; that when we try it “the stateliness of the language” interposes itself like a wall, and we find ourselves becoming vulgar where Horace is playful, flippant where Horace is light. Doubtless this is so; what then? Because it is an impossibility, shall any loyal Horatian balk at it? It is just because of these impossibilities that translations are always in order, and will, to a certain extent, always be in demand. Translations of other poets pall; it is conceivable that a version of Virgil might be produced which human skill could not better. But no such thing being conceivable of Horace, every fresh version is a whet to curiosity and emulation; each separate ode hides its own agreeable secret, every epithet has its own individual surprise. Let there be no talk, then, of impossibilities; for our own part, to paraphrase what Hallam says of Lycidas, we look upon the ability to translate such odes as the _Ad Pyrrham_, so as to demonstrate their impossibility, a good test of a man’s capacity to translate Horace at all.

Another nice consideration for the translator of Horace is in respect of metre. Undoubtedly the translator who can retain the metrical movement of his original has gained so much towards reproducing his general effect. But with Horace this attempt may as well be abandoned at once. The Alcaic and the Sapphic stanza, much less the Asclepiad or the Archilochian, have never yet been, and for obvious reasons never will be, naturalized in our English verse, though poor Percival thought differently, and added one more to a life of failures. Tennyson, in his ode to Milton,

“Whose guardian-angels, Muriel, Abdiel, Starred from Jehovah’s gorgeous armory, Tow’r, as the deep-domed empyrean Rings to the roar of an angel onset,”

gives us, perhaps, as good Alcaics as we have any right to look for in English (though “gōrgĕoŭs” is not a very gorgeous dactyl); yet how different from the Horatian cadence:

“Æquam memento rebus in arduis Servare mentem, non secus in bonis Ab insolenti temperatam Lætitia, moriture Delli.”[78]

As for Sapphics, whether we take Canning’s _Knife Grinder_ for our model or Mr. Swinburne’s

“All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids, Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather, Yet with lips shut close, and with eyes of iron, Stood and beheld me,”

we are not much nearer to Horace’s melody:

“Scandit æratas vitiosa naves Cura, nec turmas equitum relinquit Ocior cervis, et agente nimbos Ocior Euro.”[79]

But, at least, following that rule of compensation with which all good translators are familiar, some attempt may be made to suggest the metrical variety and richness of the _Odes_ by a corresponding variety and grace in the English measures of the translation. It is here that the modern translators excel; indeed, it may be said that only within the last hundred years have translators had this adjunct at their command, for it is only during that period that English poets have begun to comprehend and master fully the resources and possibilities of English metre. Not that the earlier poets were at all deficient in the metrical sense; that their ears were not quick to catch the finest delicacies of verbal harmony. Not to mention a host of minor bards who knew how to marry “perfect music unto noble words,” Milton’s lyrics are melody itself. There is scarcely a more tunable couplet in the language than his

“Sweetest Shakspeare, fancy’s child, Warbles his native woodnotes wild.”

The open vowels and liquid consonants fairly sing themselves. Nor was it for lack of experiment that they failed of

“Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony”

in words, as Shelley and Tennyson and Swinburne learned to do later. The attempt to naturalize the classical metres, for example, began at a very early period of our literary history, and many learned treatises were written to prove them your only proper vehicle for English poetry. Perhaps it was the ill-success of these efforts that made our poets so long shy of wandering in their metres away from the beaten track and the simplest forms. Up to the time of Campbell we may say that the iambus and the trochee reigned supreme in English verse; the anapest and the dactyl, of which such effective use has been made by the later poets, were either unknown or contemned. Suckling’s _Session of the Poets_, the metrical intention of which appears to be anapestic, shows what desperate work even the best lyrists could make when they strayed after strange metrical gods.[80]

It may be said, then, that until within a comparatively recent period Horace could not be properly translated into English verse at all. English verse was not yet ready to receive so noble a guest. Compare Martin’s or Conington’s versions with one of the earlier translations, and the truth of this, we think, will be apparent at once. Creech, indeed, seems to have had a dim notion of the truth, and his version shows a perceptible striving for metrical effect, at least in the arrangement of his stanza; but Creech had too little of the poetical faculty to make the effort with taste or success. Francis for the most

## part is content with the orthodox measures, and Father Prout was

perhaps first to bring to the work this essential accomplishment of the Horatian translator. Prout’s metrical inventions are bold, and often elegant; and his versions, though free, are always spirited, and often singularly felicitous. Among the most striking of his metres is the one he employs for the _Solvitur acris hiems_ (_Carm._ i. iv.):

“Now Venus loves to group Her merry troop Of maidens, Who, while the moon peeps out, Dance with the Graces round about Their queen in cadence; While far ’mid fire and noise Vulcan his forge employs, Where Cyclops grim aloft their ponderous sledges poise.”

A paraphrase that, not a translation; but not even Horace could find it in his heart to gainsay so graceful a paraphrase. Another effective metrical arrangement which shows off well Prout’s astonishing copiousness of rhyme is that of the _Quum tu Lydia_ (i. 13):

“But where meet (thrice fortunate!) Kindred hearts and suitable, Strife comes ne’er importunate, Love remains immutable; On to the close they glide ‘mid scenes Elysian, Through life’s delightful vision.”

Mr. Martin is here somewhat closer and not less skilful in handling his metre:

“Oh! trebly blest, and blest for ever, Are they whom true affection binds, In whom no doubts or janglings sever The union of their constant minds; But life in blended current flows Serene and sunny to the close.”

Compare with these Francis, who is scarcely more literal than Prout, and not so literal as Martin:

“Thrice happy they whom love unites In equal rapture and sincere delights, Unbroken by complaints or strife Even to the latest hours of life.”

Is not the advantage in point of poetry altogether on the side of the moderns, and is it not largely due to their superior mastery of rhythm? The passage, it may be said, has been paraphrased by Moore in the lines,

“There’s a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told, When two that are linked in one heavenly tie, With heart never changing and brow never cold, Love on through all ills, and love on till they die.”

Both Mr. Martin and Prof. Conington have given close and successful attention to this part of their task. But it was left for Lord Lytton to attempt something like a systematic imitation of the Horatian metres. His plan, as set forth in his preface, “was in the first instance to attempt a close imitation of the ancient measure—the scansion being, of course (as in English or German hexameters and pentameters), by accent, not quantity—and then to make such modifications of flow and cadence as seemed to me best to harmonize the rhythm to the English ear, while preserving as much as possible that which has been called the type of the original.” Something of this kind, no doubt, Milton had in view in the measure he took for his _Ad Pyrrham_, and which the Wartons and Professor Conington adapted to the same purpose after him, the latter, however, adding the embellishment or, as Milton himself had called it, the “barbarous jingle” of rhyme. Milton’s measure (well known as that of Collins’ “Ode to Evening”), which consists of two unrhymed iambic pentameters, followed by two unrhymed iambic trimeters—or, to be “more English and less nice,” of two ordinary blank-verses followed by two three-foot verses—resembles Horace’s metre, which the grammarians would tell us is the third Asclepiadian strophe, “rather,” says Prof. Conington, “in the length of the respective lines than in any similarity of the cadences.” Lord Lytton attempted something more, and with only partial success, though the task, it must be owned, was not an easy one. Horace, in the _Odes_ and _Epodes_, uses eighteen different varieties of metre, ranging from the grave sadness of what is called the first Archilochian strophe, the lovely measure in which one of the loveliest of all the _Odes_ is written (iv. 7)—

“Diffugere nives; redeunt jam gramina campis Arboribusque comæ,”[81]

to the quick sharpness of the first iambic strophe in which the poet mauls the unsavory Mævius. And not only this, but each of these metres is used by Horace to express widely differing moods of feeling. Thus, the same measure which in the beautiful lament for Quinctilius breathes the tenderest spirit of grief and resignation, serves equally well to guy Tibullus on his luckless loves, to sound “stern alarums” to the absent Cæsar, or to bid Virgil or Varius to “delightful meetings.” The Sapphic rises to the lofty height of the _Carmen Seculare_ or stoops to chide a serving-boy for his super-serviceable zeal; is equally at home with an invocation to the gods or an invitation to dinner; while the Alcaic—what subject is there that in Horace’s hands the Alcaic cannot be made to sing?

This flexibility of the Latin metres Lord Lytton has recognized, and sought to meet by a corresponding variation of his own, “according as the prevalent spirit of the ode demanded lively and sportive or serious and dignified expression.” Thus, for the Alcaic stanza he employs “two different forms of rhythm”; one as in i. 9:

“See how white in the deep fallen snow stands Soracte; Laboring forests no longer can bear up their burden; And the rush of the rivers is locked, Halting mute in the gripe of the frost”;

the other as in i. 34:

“Worshipper rare and niggard of the gods, While led astray, in the Fool’s wisdom versed, Now back I shift the sail, Forced in the courses left behind to steer,”

or, with a slight modification, as in i. 35:

“Goddess who o’er thine own loved Antium reignest, Present to lift Man, weighted with his sorrows Down to life’s last degree, Or change his haughtiest triumphs into graves.”

For the Sapphic, likewise, he has two varieties; for the statelier odes three lines of blank-verse and what may be called an English Adonic; for “the lighter odes a more sportive and tripping measure.” Thus, for iv. 2 he gives us:

“Julus, he who would with Pindar vie Soars, with Dædalian art, on waxen wings, And, falling, gives his name unto the bright Deeps of an ocean”;

for iii. 14 a nearer approach to the _Knife Grinder_ jingle:

“Nothing cools fiery spirits like a gray hair; In every quarrel ’tis your sure peacemaker: In my hot youth, when Plancus was the consul, I was less patient.”

Lord Lytton’s experiment is full of interest to Horatians—as, indeed, what translation is not?—even the worst, even the Rev. Mr. Sewell’s, may be of use in teaching the translator how not to do it—and his failures, which are many, are scarcely less instructive than his successes, which seem to us fewer than for so bold an essay could be wished; but both alike are suggestive of many possibilities. It is in the lighter odes that he is least satisfactory, and we doubt if these can be done full justice to without the aid of rhyme. Horace’s grace of form in these is so delicate and exquisite that it taxes all the resources and embellishments of our English verse to give any adequate idea of it. Take, as an illustration of Lord Lytton’s method, and as giving, perhaps, the measure of his success, his version of that delicious little landscape, _Ad Fontem Blandusiæ_ (iii. 13):

“Fount of Blandusia, more lucid than crystal, Worthy of honeyed wine, not without flowers, I will give thee to-morrow a kid Whose front, with the budded horn swelling.

“Predicts to his future life Venus and battles; Vainly! The lymph of thy cold running waters He shall tinge with the red of his blood, Fated child of the frolicsome people!

“The scorch of the Dogstar’s fell season forbears thee; Ever friendly to grant the sweet boon of thy coolness To the wild flocks that wander around, And the oxen that reek from the harrow.

“I will give thee high rank and renown among fountains, When I sing of the ilex o’erspreading the hollows, Of rocks whence in musical fall Leap thy garrulous silvery waters.”

This is better because more literal than Joseph Warton’s unrhymed version in the Miltonian stanza, with which it may be compared:

“Ye waves that gushing fall with purest streams, Blandusian fount! to whom the products sweet Of richest wines belong, And fairest flowers of spring, To thee a chosen victim will I slay— A kid who, glowing in lascivious youth, Just blooms with budding horn, And, with vain thought elate, Yet destines future war; but, ah! too soon His reeking blood with crimson shall enrich Thy pure, translucent flood And tinge thy crystal clear. Thy sweet recess the sun in midday hour Can ne’er invade; thy streams the labor’d ox Refresh with cooling draughts And glad the wand’ring herds. Thy name shall shine, with endless honors graced, While in my shell I sing the nodding oak That o’er thy cavern deep Waves his embowering head.”

It would almost seem as if the author of this version had taken pains to rub out every Horatian characteristic. The pretty touch of the _loquaces lymphæ_ is thus omitted, unless the first line be meant to do duty for it, while by such padding as “chosen victim” and “endless honors” Horace’s sixteen lines are diluted into twenty—a danger to which the unrhymed translator, constantly seeking by inversions and paraphrases to cover the baldness of his medium, is peculiarly liable. Whatever may be said to the contrary, rhyme compels conciseness, and helps to point quite as often as it entices to expansion. Prof. Conington’s version, in the same metre as Warton’s, but rhymed in alternate lines, will be found greatly superior to it, and is perhaps, on the whole, the best we have seen—better even than Mr. Martin’s, who cannot get his Latin into less than twenty-four octosyllabic lines. Instead of giving either, let us see if all that is essential in Horace cannot be given in the same number of lines of what is known as the Tennysonian stanza, which is somewhat less capacious than the Alcaics of the original, though, by a certain pensive grace, peculiarly fitted to render the sentiment of this delightful ode:

“Blandusian fount, as crystal clear, Of garlands worthy and of wine, A kid to-morrow shall be thine, Whose swelling brows, just budding, bear

“The horns that presage love and strife; How vainly! For his crimson blood Shall stain the silver of thy flood With all the herd’s most wanton life.

“The burning Dogstar’s noontide beam Knows not thy secret nook; the ox Parched from the plough, the fielding flocks, Lap grateful coolness from thy stream.

“Thee, too, ‘mid storied founts my lay Shall shrine: thy bending holm I’ll sing, Shading the grottoed rocks whence spring Thy laughing waters far away.”

Though terseness and fidelity are two of the chief merits claimed by the advocates of the unrhymed measures, it is just here that they oftenest fail; and Lord Lytton is no exception. Space permits us to give but few instances. “Trodden by all, and only trodden once,” is Lord Lytton’s version of _calcanda semel_, i. 28—seven English words for two Latin, and the sense then but vaguely given at best. _Feriuntque summos Fulgura montes_ is in like manner diluted into

“The spots on earth most stricken by the lightning Are its high places.”

Awkwardness of style, too, is a much more frequent characteristic of Lord Lytton’s renderings than we should look for either from his own command of style or the freedom which disuse of rhyme is claimed to ensure. For instance, in ii. 2:

“Him shall uplift, and on no waxen pinions, Fame, the survivor,”

might surely have been bettered; and in the same ode a line in the stanza already quoted above, _Latius regnes avidum domando Spiritum_, is translated, “Wider thy realm a greedy soul subjected,” which would be scarcely intelligible without the Latin. “Bosom _more seen through_ than glass” is by no means the neatest possible equivalent for _per lucidior vitro_, and such expressions as “closed gates of Janus vacant of a war,” “lest thou owe a mock,” “but me more have stricken with rapture,” are scarcely English.

Nevertheless, with all its faults and shortcomings, Lord Lytton’s essay is in some respects the most interesting translation of Horace that has yet appeared, and may pioneer the way to more fortunate results in the same direction. It has, at least, the _raison d’être_ which Mr. Matthew Arnold denies to such translations as Wright’s and Sotheby’s Homer; it has a distinct and novel method of its own, and does not simply repeat the method and renew the faults and virtues of any predecessor. The American edition, it is worthy of remark, is printed in the old-fashioned way, with the Latin text to face the English—an innovation, or, more properly, a _re_novation, which will no doubt be welcome to lovers of the Venusian, whose love has outlived their memory, and who, though loyal to the spirit of our poet, are no longer so familiar with his letter as in the days, the far-off sunny days, when Horace was the heaviest task that life had yet laid upon us.

We have dwelt upon this subject at somewhat greater length than we intended; for to us it is full of a fascination we should be glad to hope we had made our readers in some sort share. But it has also a practical side which the most fanatical opponent of the classics, the most zealous upholder of utilitarian education, must recognize and admit. As a means of training in English composition, as an aid to discover the resources of our own tongue, there is no better practice than translating Horace into English verse, with due attention to his epithets. That, perhaps, may serve in some degree to reconcile the practical mind to his retention in the modern curriculum, even though Homer be kicked out of doors and Virgil sent flying through the window; for a practical man is none the worse equipped for business in being able to say what he means in “good set phrase.” To be sure it does not ask the pen of an Addison to write an order for a “hnd. trces. lard,” but we dare say if Mr. Richard Grant White were called upon to make out a bill of lading, he would do it none the worse for knowing all about the English language that is worth knowing, if not more than is worth telling. There are mysteries in our English speech that the _Complete Letter-Writer_, or even the “editorials” of the daily newspaper, do not quite explore, and some of these our old friend Horace may help us to find out. _Fas est ab hoste doceri._

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THE LITTLE CHAPEL AT MONAMULLIN.

CONCLUSION.

Father Maurice sped upon his journey to Moynalty Castle. The dinner hour was eight o’clock, but he had delayed so long with his guest that it took the little pony her “level best” to do the seven miles within the necessary time.

“Av we wor wanst beyant the Mouladharb berrin’ groun’ I wudn’t care a thraneen; but sorra a step the little pony’ll pass it afther dark,” observed Murty Mulligan, bestowing a liberal supply of whip upon the astonished nag, whose habit it was to proceed upon her travels at her own sweet will, innocent of lash, spur, or admonition.

“Tut, tut! Nonsense, Murty! Push on.”

“It’s thruth I’m tellin’ yer riverince. We’re at it. See that, now—curse of Crummell on her! she won’t put wan foot afore the other,” adding, in a whisper full of consternation: “Mebbe she sees ould Casey, that was berried a Munda. He was a terrible naygur—”

“Jump down and take her head,” said the priest.

“Be the powers! I’ll have for to carry her, av we want to raich the castle to-night.”

Father Maurice dismounted, as did Murty, and, by coaxing and blandishment of every description, endeavored to induce the pony to proceed; but the animal, with its ears cocked, and trembling in every limb, refused to budge an inch.

“Och, wirra, wirra! we’re bet intirely. It’s Missis Delaney he sees, that died av the horrors this day month,” growled Mulligan.

“Silence, you jackass!” cried Father Maurice, “and help me to blindfold the pony.”

This _ruse_ eventually succeeded, and they spun merrily along the road, the terrified animal clattering onwards at racing speed.

“This pace is dangerous, Murty,” said the priest.

“Sorra a lie in it, yer riverince.”

“Pull in.”

“I can’t hould her. She’s me hands cut aff, bad cess to her!”

“Is the road straight?”

“Barrin’ a few turns, it’s straight enough, sir.”

The words had hardly escaped his lips when the wheel attached to the side of the car upon which the priest was sitting came into contact with a pile of stones, the car was tilted upwards and over, Father Maurice shot into a thorn hedge, and Murty Mulligan landed up to his neck in a ditch full of foul and muddy water, while the pony, suddenly freed from its load, and after biting the dust, quietly turned round to gaze at the havoc it had made.

“Are ye kilt, yer riverince? For I’m murdhered intirely, an’ me illigant Sunda’ shuit ruined complately. Och, wirra, wirra! how can I face the castle wud me duds consaled in mud? How can I uphould Monamullin, an’ me worse nor a scarecrow? Glory be to God! we’re safe anyhow, an’ no bones bruck. O ye varmint!” shaking his fist at the unconscious cause of this disaster, “its meself that’ll sarve ye out for this. Won’t I wallop ye, ye murdherin’ thief, whin I catch a hould of ye!”

“Hold your nonsense, Murty. How near are we to the castle?”

“Sorra a know I know, yer riverince; the knowledgeableness is shuk out o’ me intirely.”

“The shafts are broken.”

“Av course th’ are.”

“Here, help me to shove the car over to the ditch and pile the cushions under this hedge. God be praised! neither of us is even scratched.”

A carriage with blazing lamps came along.

“Hi! hi! hi!” roared Murty, “we’re wracked here. Lind us a hand! We’re desthroyed be a villain av a pony that seen a ghost, an’ we goin’ to dine at Moynalty Castle.”

The carriage belonged to Mr. Bodkin, the senior member for the county, who was only too delighted to act the Good Samaritan; and as he, with his wife and daughter, was bound for the castle, which still lay two miles distant, the meeting proved in every respect a fortunate one.

The worthy priest was received by his host and hostess with the most flattering courtesy, and by Miss Julia Jyvecote as though he formed part and parcel of her personal property. He took Mrs. Jyvecote into dinner, and said grace both before and after.

Father Maurice was positively startled with the splendor and exquisite taste of the surroundings. The room in which they dined—not _the_ dinner-room, but a delightful little snuggery, where the anecdote was the property of the table, and the _mot_ did not require to be handed from plate to plate like an _entrée_—was richly decorated in the Pompeiian style, with walls of a pale gray, while the hangings were of a soft amber relieved by red brown. The dinner was simply perfect, the _entourages_ in the shape of cut glass, flowers, and fruit—veritable poems—while the quiet simplicity and easy elegance lent an indescribable charm which fell upon the simple priest like a potent spell.

Every effort that good breeding combined with generous hospitality could make was called into requisition in order to render the timid, blushing clergyman perfectly at home; and so happily did this action on the part of his entertainers succeed that before the lapse of a few moments he felt as though he had lived amongst them for years.

Mrs. Jyvecote promised to send him flowers for the altar, and Julia to work an altar-cloth for him.

“I must go over and pay you a visit, father,” she said. “I am one of your parishioners, although I go to Mass at Thonelagheera.”

“I wish you would, my dear child; but I have no inducements to offer you, although at present perhaps I have.” And he narrated the arrival of the guest to whom Mrs. Clancy was playing the _rôle_ of _châtelaine_ during his absence.

“Why, this is quite a romance, Father Maurice. I must see your artist _coûte que coûte_, and shall drive over next week.”

But fate determined that she should drive over the next day.

When, upon the following morning, Father Maurice came to examine the condition of his pony, he found both the knees barked and the luckless animal unfit to travel.

“We couldn’t walk her home, Murty, could we?” he asked of his _factotum_.

“Och, the poor crayture couldn’t stir a step wudout tears comin’ to her eyes. Me heart is bleedin’ for her this minnit,” replied the wily Mulligan, sagaciously perceiving that so long as the pony remained at the castle he should abide with her; and as his reception in the servants’ hall had been of the same flattering description as that of his master up-stairs, he resolved to continue in such delightful quarters as long as he possibly could.

“Poor Rosy!” he cried, affectionately scratching the pony’s forehead, “shure it’s yerself that wud dance on yer head for his riverince, av ye wor able; but yer bet up, poor little wumman, an’ it’s rest ye want for a cupple o’ days, anyhow.”

When Father Maurice mentioned the predicament he found himself in, Mrs. Jyvecote instantly proposed sending him home in the carriage, since he could not be induced to prolong his stay; but Julia insisted upon driving him herself to Monamullin in her basket phaeton; and so, laden with flowers, hot-house pines, grapes, a hamper of grouse and a brace of hares, and under solemn promise to make another visit at no distant date, Father Maurice turned homewards under the “whip” of his newly-found and exceedingly charming parishioner.

As they jogged along by the sad sea-wave she told him the entrancing history of her conversion—of her meeting with Cardinal Manning at a garden party at Holland House, and of a casual conversation which led to so much.

Father Maurice felt as if he had a white-robed angel by his side, and revelled in the absorbing narrative until the phaeton stopped at the cottage gate. The pony was duly stabled, and, while the priest set forth to attend to a sick-call, Miss Jyvecote proceeded to the chapel, where she encountered his artist guest.

Brown started, despite himself, when Father Maurice mentioned her name.

“A parishioner of mine, Mr. Brown.”

“I—I saw you in the church just now,” muttered the artist. “It’s an awfully seedy—I mean it’s a very quiet little place.”

“I could pray more fervently in a church like that than in the Madeleine,” she replied in a soft, silvery voice.

“The Madeleine is too rowy, too many chairs creaking, too many swells, and all that sort of thing, you know.”

Insensibly the drawl of society had come upon him, and the slanginess of expression which passes current in Mayfair and Belgravia.

“Miss Jyvecote is going to brighten me up, Mr. Brown; she is going to work me an altar-cloth,” exclaimed the delighted priest.

“And I am going to paint you an altar-picture, a copy of Raphael’s Virgin and Child—that is, if you will kindly accept it,” he added, blushing to the roots of his hair.

“Oh! how charming, how generous,” cried Miss Jyvecote.

“My dear Mr. Brown,” said Father Maurice, crossing the room and taking his guest by the hand, “I am deeply, _deeply_ sensible of the kindly, the noble spirit which actuates you to make this offer; but you are a young man, with a grand future before you, with God’s help, and by and by, when you have leisure, perhaps you will get a stiff letter from me calling on you to fulfil your promise. You’ll find me a very tough customer to deal with, I assure you.”

“He thinks I cannot afford it,” said Brown to himself; “and how delicately he has refused me!”

The entrance of Mrs. Clancy with a smoking dish of salmon cutlets turned the tide of the conversation, and in a few moments the artist found himself with Miss Jyvecote discussing the Royal Academy pictures of the last season, glorifying Millais, extolling Holman Hunt, raving over Leslie and Herbert, and ringing the changes over the pearly grays, changeful opals, amaranths, and primrose of Leighton. From London to the _salon_ is easy transition, and from thence to the galleries of Dresden, Munich, and Florence. She had visited all, and to a purpose. He had lingered within their enchanting walls until every canvas became more or less a friend. There was a wonderful charm in this meeting. To Brown Miss Jyvecote was a listener freshly intelligent, _naïvely_ sensible. To her the clever _critiques_ of this high-bred yet humble artist savored of a romance written but unreal. It is scarcely necessary to say that when people drop thus upon a subject so charming, so inexhaustible, so refreshing the old Scytheman is utterly disregarded, and the sun was already sinking towards the west when Miss Jyvecote’s phaeton came to the gate.

“Have you any of your sketches here, Mr. Brown?” she asked, as she drew on her yellow dogskin driving-gloves.

“Only a few that I dashed off on my walk hither from Castlebar.”

They were glorious little bits of weather-worn granite, brilliant with gray, green, and orange lichens; luminous green seas and black rocks basking in the sunlight; fern-crowned inlets and cliffs glittering with bright wild flowers. She gushed over them. What girl does not gush over the sketches of a tall, handsome, earnest artist?

“Oh! if I might dare to ask you for one of them, Mr. Brown.”

“Take all,” he said.

She would not hear of this.

“They are your working-drawings, Mr. Brown?” selecting one, possibly the least valuable.

“Will you not require an escort, Miss Jyvecote, on your lonely drive?”

“Escort! No. In the first place, I shall probably not meet a human being; and, in the next, I should only meet a friend were I to encounter any one. I fear my prolonged visit has spoiled your work for to-day, Mr. Brown.”

“My work! You will hardly guess what I am pledged to do and the work I am about to commence. It is nothing less than a copy of the picture of Daniel O’Connell which hangs over the mantel-piece. It is for Mrs. Clancy, who is to adorn her kitchen wall with it.”

“Surely you are not in earnest?”

“_Hélas!_ I am always in earnest, and so is Mrs. Clancy,” he added, laughingly narrating that worthy lady’s anxiety with reference to the artistic adornment of the back door.

“May we not hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at Moynalty? Father Maurice has promised us a visit. I’m sure my father will call and—”

“Pray do not trouble him. I never visit, and, as my stay here is only one of sufferance, I know not the moment I may be evicted by my ruthless landlord.”

“You should make an exception in our favor, Mr. Brown. We can show you a Claude, a doubtful Murillo, and a charming Meissonier. Our flowers, too, are worth coming to see—that is, they are wonderful for Connemara. Father Maurice, you must ask Mr. Brown to come over with you on Monday.”

“Of course, my dear child, of course. He’ll be enchanted with the castle. You’ll come, of course, Mr. Brown?” turning to our hero, who, however, remained silent, although brimming over with words he dared not speak.

“Then it’s _au revoir, messieurs_!” gaily exclaimed Miss Jyvecote, as she whirled rapidly away.

It would have surprised some of the artist’s London friends could they have peeped behind the scenes of his thoughts and gazed at them as naturalists do at working bees. It would have astonished them to hear him mutter as he watched the receding vehicle: “This is just the one fresh, fair, unspotted, and perfect girl it has been my lot to meet. Such a girl as this would cause the worst of us to turn virtuous and eschew cakes and ale.”

* * * * *

Mr. Brown had confided in one man ere dropping out of Vanity Fair. To this individual he now addressed himself, requesting of him to “drop down to O’Connor’s, the swell ecclesiastical stained-glass man in Berners Street, Oxford Street, and order a set of Stations of the Cross. You don’t know what they mean, old fellow, but the O’Connors will understand you. Let them be first class and glowing in the reds, yellows, blues, and greens of the new French school of colors. I don’t mind the price. Above all things let them have especially handsome frames of the _Via Dolorosa_ pattern.” The letter went on to tell Mr. Dudley Poynter of his doings and the calm throb of the heart of his daily life. “There is not much champagne in it, Dudley, but there is a body that ne’er was dreamed of in your philosophy, or in that of the wild, mad wags of the smoking-room _clique_.”

Mr. Brown completed his copy of the Liberator, to the intense admiration of Father Maurice and the ecstasy of Mrs. Clancy. The worthy priest would not permit its being hung in the kitchen, though, but gave it the place of honor in the snug little sitting-room. It is needless to say that the entire population of Monamullin, including the cabin curs—who were now on terms of the closest intimacy with the artist—turned in after last Mass to have a look at the “picther o’ Dan.”

“Be me conscience! but it’s Dan himself—sorra a wan else,” cried one.

“I was at Tara, an’ it’s just as if he was givin’ Drizzlyeye [Disraeli] that welt about his notorious ancesthor, the impinitent thief on the crass,” observed another.

“Faix, it’s alive, it is. Look at the mouth, reddy for to say ‘Repale.’”

“There’s an eye!”

“Thrue for ye; there’s more fire in it than in ould Finnegan’s chimbly this minit.”

“Troth, it’s as dhroll as a pet pup’s.”

“Stan’ out o’ that, Mr. O’Leary, or ye’ll get a crack av his fist.”

“Three cheers for the painther, boys!”

These and kindred comments flung a radiated pleasure into the inner heart of the artist—that _sanctum_ which as yet was green and fresh and limpid—while the eulogies, however quaintly and coarsely served up, bore the delicious fragrance which praise ever carries with it like a subtle perfume.

“The love of praise, howe’er concealed by art, Reigns more or less, and glows in every heart.”

Mr. Brown was enamored of his new existence—possibly with the child passion for toyland; but the passion endured, nevertheless, strengthening with each successive sunrise and maturing with every gloaming. An invitation, accompanied by a card, had arrived by special messenger for the artist, requesting the favor of his company, _et cætera, et cætera_, to which that gentleman responded in a polite negative, assigning no particular reason, but indulging in vague generalities. He had thought a good deal of Miss Jyvecote, and sat dreaming about her by the sea, his hands clasped around his knees and his beloved meerschaum stuck in his mouth—sat dreaming, and fighting against his dreams—fights in which fancy ever got the uppermost of the rude and real. A longing crept up out of the depths of his heart to see her once again, and to travel in the sunlighted path of her thoughts. One thing he was firmly resolved upon—not to leave Monamullin without another interview; though how this was to be brought about he did not very well see. Yes, he would see her just once more, and then stamp the whole thing out of his mind. He had been hit before, and had come smilingly out of the valley of desolation, and so he should again, although this was so utterly unlike his former experiences.

Father Maurice was charmed with his guest. He had never encountered anything like him—so bright, so genial, so cultured, so humble and submissive, and so anxious to oblige.

“Imagine,” said he in cataloguing his virtues to Larry Muldoon—“imagine his asking me to let him ring the bell for five o’clock Mass, and he a Protestant!”

The priest and his guest had long talks together, the latter drawing out his host—digging for the golden ore of a charming erudition, which lay so deep, but which “was all there.” Night after night did Father Maurice unfold from germ to bud, from bud to flower, from flower to fruit the grand truths of the unerring faith in which he was a day-laborer, the young artist drinking in the sublime teachings with that supreme attention which descends like an aureole. Father Maurice was, as it were, but engaged in thinking aloud, yet his thoughts fell like rain-drops, refreshing, grateful, and abiding.

The good priest, although burning with curiosity with regard to the antecedents of his guest, was too thorough a gentleman, had too great respect for the laws of broken bread and tasted salt, to ask so much as a single question. A waif from the great ocean of humanity had drifted into this little haven, and it should be protected until the ruthless current would again seize it to whirl it outwards and onwards. Miss Jyvecote betrayed her disappointment in various artless ways when Father Maurice arrived at the castle without the artist. “I’m sorry you didn’t fetch him along _bon gré mal gré_, father,” said Mrs. Jyvecote, “as papa goes to Yorkshire next week, and Juey can talk of no person but Mr. Brown.”

Miss Jyvecote blushed rosy red as she exclaimed: “What nonsense, mamma! You have been speaking a good deal more about him than I have. You rave over his sketch.”

“I think it immense.” Mrs. Jyvecote affected art, and talked from the pages of the _Art Journal_ by the yard. “His aerial perspective is full of filmy tone, and his near foreground is admirably run in, while his sense of color would appear to me to be supreme.”

“Come, until I show you where I have hung it,” exclaimed Miss Juey, leading the priest up a winding stair into a turret chamber fitted up with that exquisite taste which a refined girl evolves like an atmosphere.

“You have really hung my guest most artistically. And such a frame! Where on earth did you get it?”

“I—I sent to Dublin for it—to Lesage’s, in Sackville Street.”

“I have no patience with the fellow for not coming over to see this joyous place,” said the priest, “and I really can’t understand his refusal.”

Miss Juey couldn’t understand it either, but held her peace.

According to Murty Mulligan’s veterinary opinion, the pony was still unfit to travel.

“It’s meself that’s watchin’ her like a magpie forninst a marrabone; but she is dawny still, the crayture! an’ it wud be a sin for to ax her to thravel for a cupple o’ days more, anyhow, your riverince.”

“Why, her knees are quite well, Murty.”

“But she’s wake, sir—as wake as Mrs. Clancy’s tay on the third wettin’—an’ I’m afeard for to thrust her; more betoken, yer riverince”—in a low, confidential tone—“she’s gettin’ a bellyful av the finest oats in the barony, that will stand to her bravely while she’s raisin’ her winther coat.”

Mr. Brown asked Father Maurice a considerable number of questions anent his visit, and was particularly anxious in reference to the departure of Mr. Jyvecote.

“He told me himself that he would leave Westport to-morrow by the night train for Dublin, in order to catch the early boat that leaves Kingston for Holyhead.”

Upon the following morning the artist, slinging his knapsack across his back, started in the direction of the Glendhanarrahsheen valley.

“I want to make a few sketches of the coast scenery about May Point,” he observed.

“There is better scenery in the Foil Dhuv, about two miles farther on; and, bless my heart! you’ll be quite close to Moynalty Castle, and why not go in and see their pictures, your own especially, in such a grand gilt Dublin frame?”

Simple priest! Artful artist!

It was a delightful morning that was shining over Monamullin as the artist quitted it _en route_ to—May Point, of course. The sea, like a great sleeping monster, lay winking at the sun, and but one solitary ship was visible away in the waste—a brown speck in a flood of golden haze. If young gentlemen would only put the single “why?” to themselves in starting upon such expeditions, it might save them many a heartache; but they will not. Any other query but this one. What a talisman that small word in every effort of our lives!

Brown felt unaccountably joyous and brave, charmed with the present, and metaphorically snapping his fingers at the future. A morning walk by the deep and dark blue ocean summons forth this sensation. You bound upon air; champagne fills your veins; all the ills the flesh is heir to are forgotten, all the phantoms of care and sorrow are laid “a full fifty fathom by the lead.”

It is a glorious seed-time, when every thought bears luscious fruit.

He travels merrily onward, now humming a barcarolle, now whistling a fragment of a _bouffe_, until he reaches the gloomy defile known as the Valley of Glendhanarrahsheen. A turn of the sylvan sanded road brings him in sight of the lordly turrets of Moynalty; another turn, and lo! he comes upon no less a personage than Miss Jyvecote, who, with her married sister, a Mrs. Travers, are driving in the direction whence he had come. Juey was Jehu, and almost pulled the ponies upon their haunches on perceiving our hero.

“This _is_ a condescension, Mr. Brown,” she said, presenting him to her sister. “Will you take a seat?”

“Thanks, no; I am about to ascend that mountain yonder,” pointing vaguely in the direction of the range known as the Twelve Pins.

“Then we shall expect you to luncheon at two o’clock.”

“I’m afraid not. I purpose returning by the other road.”

“What road? There is no other road.”

“Across country.”

“Then you do not intend honoring us with a visit?” Her tone was vexed, if not haughty.

Now, he had quitted Monamullin with no other intention than that of proceeding straight to the castle, and yet he replies in the negative. Let those better versed in the mysteries of the human heart than I am analyze his motives. I shall not endeavor to do so.

“Don’t you think you are acting rather shabbily?” she said, preparing to resume her drive.

He laughed.

“_Au plaisir_, then!” And with a stately salutation, courteous enough but nothing more, she swept onwards.

He watched the phaeton go whirling along the white road and disappear round a huge fern-covered boulder, and his vexation with himself grew intolerable.

“What an ass, what a brute I have been! What could I have been thinking about? Was I asleep or mad? Invited to the house, I actually refuse to pay the stereotyped visit. Why a counter-jumper would know better. How charming she looked! And that delicious blush when she met me! She seemed really pleased, too. What can she think of me? My chance is gone.”

He seated himself on the stump of a felled tree in his favorite attitude, having lighted his pipe.

“Might I thrubble yer honner for a thrifle o’ light or a bit of a match?” asked a passing peasant.

“With pleasure; take a dozen!”

The man looked puzzled; he had never seen wax vestas till now.

“They look mighty dawny, yer honner.”

“Do you belong to the castle?” asked our hero. Somehow or other the castle and its inmates were ever uppermost in his thoughts now.

“Yis, sir.”

“Is Mr. Jyvecote at home?”

“No, yer honner. I met him this mornin’ at Billy’s Bridge, makin’ hard for Westport.”

The cards all in his favor, and he wouldn’t play his hand! What did it mean? Would he go up to the castle, and, announcing himself to the _châtelaine_, pay that visit which conventionality demanded? No; he had swung into another current, and he would not alter his course. It was better as it was—ay, far better. And there came a sort of desolate feeling upon him, smiting him drearily like a dull ache. Had he seen the last of her? Was his life henceforth to be unlighted by the radiance of her presence? Here, in the mystic silence of Glendhanarrahsheen, came the revelation. Here did his own secret surprise him. He had allowed the image of this fair young girl to twine itself around his heart, till he now felt as if he could fling aside pride, reserve, past and future, just to hear her voice once more, to feel the tender pressure of her tiny hand.

And so he sat there dreaming, and fighting with his dreams, until his tobacco “gave out,” and until, shaking himself together, he summoned a supreme effort to help him on his road.

“It won’t do to be caught skulking here,” he thought.

The soft white shingle drawn from the brown-black waters of the lake muffle the sound of approaching wheels, and, ere he can return to a coign of vantage, the phaeton flashes past.

I have already stated that my hero was a young gentleman of warm temper, great energy, and prone to sudden impulses and unconsidered

## actions, and on this occasion he was true to his nature, for he shouted

“Stop!” with the authoritative tone of a post-captain on a quarter-deck.

Miss Jyvecote pulled up.

The artist, glowing with a fierce excitement, plunged down the road and came up to the vehicle.

“Miss Jyvecote,” he pants, his handsome face flushed, his eyes flashing, “I don’t want you to think me a brute. I do not know why I acted so rudely this morning. I left Monamullin on purpose to come and visit you. Father Maurice says that open confession is good for the soul. You have it now. _Do_, please _do_ forgive me.”

“Hand and glove,” she exclaims, holding out her coquettishly-gloved hand.

He jumped into the back seat, and, in a flutter of joyous commotion, was whirled to the grand entrance of the castle.

“You must first come and see _my_ picture, Mr. Brown,” exclaimed Miss Jyvecote, leading the way to the turret chamber.

There was a courteous flattery in this that caused the heart of the artist to swell in admiring gratitude.

Later on they visited the gardens and the conservatories, tasting green figs and toying with luscious bunches of bursting grapes; and by and by came the presentation to Mrs. Jyvecote, who complimented him in pre-Raphaelite terms upon his greens, grays, opals, and blues.

“We want some one to continue the fascinating pages of Hook,” she said, “and I feel assured, Mr. Brown, that next year’s Academy will see you ‘on the line.’”

After luncheon they repaired to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Travers indulged in chromatic fireworks upon a superb Erard piano; and when she had risen the artist seated himself unasked, and sang a little love-song of Shelley’s in a baritone that would have pushed Mr. Santley _a l’outrance_. Song was one of Mr. Brown’s gifts, and his voice was cultivated to perfection. A deep, rich voice, sweet, sad words, with perfect enunciation of every syllable—_ma foi_, there are moments, and there _are_ moments, and this was one of the latter in the life of Julia Jyvecote.

He sang Gounod’s _Ave Maria_ as that sublime hymn has been rarely sung in a drawing-room—sang it with a religious fervor, and with a simple intensity of feeling that wrought its own magic. He _felt_ his success, and smiled gravely to himself as he bent over the instrument, playing the closing chords ever so softly, until note after note fainted in sheer melody.

He was asked for _Annabel Lee_—for “that love that was more than love”—but refused. He possessed Tom Moore’s secret, and, having produced the desired effect, faded out like his own last notes. Mrs. Jyvecote tackled him upon art, Mrs. Travers upon music, and Miss Jyvecote was silent. Somehow or other in talking to _her_ he was stupid and confused, while in conversing with the others he was at his best.

Pressed on all sides to stop for dinner and remain the night, he could scarcely refuse, although pleading dress and the probable anxiety of his host. The first point was settled by a declaration upon the part of his entertainers that it would be a treat to sit down in morning toilettes; the second by the despatching of a boy to Monamullin. Mr. Brown resigned himself to his fate and went with the stream.

How beautiful Miss Jyvecote looked in the mild radiance of the wax-lights which lit up the rooms at night—wax-lights everywhere—in the hands of Ninive dancing-girls, Dresden shepherdesses, oxidized silver sconces, and girandoles of quaint and cunning design. What rapture in being seated beside her, engaged in turning over the pages of a superb photographic album too heavy for her dainty lap, and resting upon his knees!

Why does he start and turn pale?

Why does Miss Jyvecote gaze at him, and with a merry laugh exclaim:

“Why, Mr. Brown, this photo is the very image of you.”

Beneath the photograph were the words:

“To Jasper Jyvecote from Ernest Noel.”

* * * * *

“Three days away from me! Why, it appeared three weeks,” exclaimed Father Maurice, as the artist returned to the cosy cottage of the amber thatch and snow-white walls. “I knew you would appreciate the Jyvecotes, and I felt that they would appreciate _you_. Have you taken any sketches?”

“One, the lake of Glendhanarrahsheen, which I mean to finish; and then, _padre_, I must say _adios_ to Monamullin for many a long day.”

“Tut, tut, tut, man! we can’t do without you,” said the priest; “and mind you, Mr. Brown, I’m sure the ladies at Moynalty would have their likenesses done, and give you a good deal of money for them, too—probably as much as five pounds apiece.”

“Five pounds apiece,” thought the artist, “and Millais getting two thousand guineas for a single portrait!”

“And I’m delighted to tell you, my dear friend, that your O’Connell has already got you a job. Mr. Muldoon—you might have noticed his shop nearly opposite the chapel, a most flourishing concern—is anxious to have his likeness done, and will have his wife and mother painted also, as well as his five children and his collie; and if his maiden aunt comes over from Castlebar he’ll throw her in, provided you can draw her chaise. So I think,” added Father Maurice triumphantly, “I have been doing good business for you in your absence.”

“Splendid, my valued host! But before I can touch these commissions I must finish the lake.”

“Of course, of course; there’s no hurry. But, mind you, Muldoon is ready money, and all you young fellows in the world require a little of that—not that you want it here,” he cried hastily, lest his guest might suppose that anything was required of him; “but when you take a day in Westport, or perhaps as far as Sligo, you’ll want many little things that couldn’t be had here for all the gold in the Bank of Ireland.”

The three days Mr. Brown had spent at Moynalty completely riveted the fetters which might have been easily burst ere the iron had grown cold. He endeavored to persuade himself that this visit was a mere romantic episode in the career of an artist—a thing to be talked of in the sweet by-and-by, and to be remembered as a delightful halting-place in the onward journey. He tried to fling dust in his mind’s eye, and but succeeded in closing the eye to everything save the glorious inviting present. He floated on from day to day in a sort of temporary elysium—why call it a fool’s paradise?—so tranquil that it was impossible pain or sorrow could be its outcome. An intimacy sprang up in this wild, strange, isolated place that a decade of London seasons could never have brought to ripeness, and he felt in the _entourages_ of the palatial dwelling as though he was in his own old home. He rode, walked, boated, drew, and sang with Julia Jyvecote. She, too, would seem to live in the present, in the subtle, delicious consciousness of being appreciated—ay, and liked. The small chance of ever enjoying a repetition of his visit lent a peculiar charm to every circumstance, and forbade those questionings as to who’s who with which the favored ones of fortune probe the antecedents of the standers at the gates which enclose the upper ten thousand.

From the accident of the photograph he was playfully christened Sir Everard, and it became a matter of amused astonishment how readily he accepted the title and how unvaryingly he responded to a call upon the name.

He quitted Moynalty in a strange whirl of conflicting thought.

“May we not hope to see you in London, Mr. Brown?” said Mrs. Jyvecote, graciously coming upon the terrace to bid him adieu. “We go over in April, and our address is 91 Bruton Street, Mayfair. I know how sorry Mr. Jyvecote will be to have missed you, especially as he arrives here to-morrow; and I am also confident that he would be anxious to serve you—although,” she added, with a caressing courtesy, “a gentleman of Mr. Brown’s gifts requires no poor service such as we could render him.”

“How long do you remain in Monamullin, Mr. Brown?” asked Mrs. Travers.

“Until I finish a sketch of the lake here which Miss Jyvecote intends to honor me by accepting.”

“Oh! then we shall see _much_ more of you.”

“I am compelled to raise the drawbridge and drop the portcullis upon the hope, Mrs. Travers. My working-drawing is here, and—”

“Then if Mohammed will not come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed. I’ll drive my sister over to service next Sunday, and see how the priest, the painter, and the picture are getting on.”

It was a great wrench to the artist to tear himself away, and the _sans adieux_ that fluttered after him on the evening breeze seemed sad and mournful. Was the barrier between Mr. Jyvecote and himself utterly impassable? Could it not be bridged over? He could not assume the initiative. _He_ would see Jyvecote and his whole race in—Yokohama first; and yet what would he not do to gain the love of the youngest daughter of the house! Anything, everything. Pshaw! any chance of wooing and winning such a girl should be through the medium of his title, his position, and by passing beneath the yoke of society. What sheer folly to think of her from the stand-point upon which he had been admitted to her father’s house! As the artist he was patronized, as the baronet he could be placed; and yet to win her as the artist would just be one of those triumphs which lay within the chances occasionally vouchsafed by the rosy archer. She had been silent, reserved, and had seemed shy of him. She spoke much of a man in the Guards, a chum of her brother Jasper; possibly this Guardsman was _the_ man.

In musings such as these did Mr. Brown pursue his work, and the picture came to life beneath his glowing hands. The canvas, with all the necessary _et cæteras_, had arrived from Dublin, the good priest marvelling considerably at the pecuniary resources of his guest. “His little all,” he thought, “and he’s going to make it a present to my sweet parishioner.”

But a great surprise was in store for Father Maurice.

Mr. Brown had issued instructions to his London friend to forward the Stations of the Cross, free of all carriage, to the Rev. Maurice O’Donnell, P.P., Monamullin, Ballynaveogin, County Mayo.

This order was promptly complied with, and a lovely autumnal evening beheld the whole village, curs and all, turn out to speculate upon the nature of the contents of four gigantic wooden cases which were deposited in the little garden attached to the priest’s cottage. It were utterly useless to endeavor to describe the _furore_ occasioned by the opening the boxes; the excitement rose to a pitch never realized in Monamullin since the occasion of the visit of the Archbishop of Tuam—the Lion of the Fold of Juda. Father Maurice fairly wept for joy; Mrs. Clancy insisted upon doing the Stations there and then; and as each picture was brought to light, from the folds of wrappers as numerous as those surrounding the body of an Egyptian mummy, a hum of admiration was raised by the assembled and reverential multitude. The good priest, never guessing the source from whence the splendid gift had emanated, endeavored to trace it to Miss Jyvecote—a belief which Mr. Brown sedulously sustained—and Father Morris, full of the idea, chanted whole litanies in her praises, scarcely ever ceasing mention of her.

“I’ll drive over to-morrow and tender her my most devoted gratitude. I’ll offer up Masses for her. I’ll—”

“She will be here to-morrow, father. Mrs. Travers is to drive her over. Don’t you think we ought to see about hanging the Stations? It will please her immensely to see them in their places in the church.”

A hanging committee was appointed and the work of suspending the pictures carried into instant execution. The mouldy little edifice was soon ablaze with gilding and glorious coloring, which, alas! but seemed to display its general dinginess more glaringly.

“My poor little altar may hide its diminished head,” said Father Maurice mournfully, brightening up, however, as he added: “But, sure, I’ll soon have Miss Jyvecote’s beautiful altar-cloth.”

The “castle people” arrived upon the following morning and were escorted by the artist to the church.

“You have come over upon an interesting occasion, Miss Jyvecote,” he said; “Father Maurice has received an anonymous gift of a set of Stations of the Cross, and he thinks that you can tell him something about them.”

Great was the astonishment of the simple priest when Miss Jyvecote disclaimed all knowledge of the presentation.

“Why, father, you must think me as rich as Miss Burdett-Coutts,” she cried. “These beautiful works of art have cost hundreds of pounds. Mr. Brown here will tell you how much they cost,” turning to that gentleman. How often a stray shot hits home! Mr. Brown had the receipted bill in his pocket at that particular moment.

“They are French,” he said, evading the question.

“Consequently more expensive, _n’est ce pas_?”

“They are not badly done.”

“They are on the borderland of high art, Mr. Brown. Why do you pooh-pooh them?”

Poor Father Maurice was fairly nonplussed. All his guesses anent the donor fell short, while his surmises died from sheer inanition. It could not be the cardinal. Might it be little Micky O’Brien, that ran away to sea and was now coming home a rich man? or Paudheen Rafferty, who was a thriving grocer in Dublin? For the first time in his life the parish priest of Monamullin felt uneasy, if not unhappy. What did it portend? Who could possibly take so serious an interest in the affairs of his little parish? Mr. Malachi Bodkin might have done so in the olden time, but the famine of ‘48 left him barely able to keep up Corriebawn. Sir Marmaduke Blake was a scamp who racked his tenants and spent his money in debauchery.

“I suppose I shall learn some day,” sighed the priest. “I must be patient, but I wish it was to-day.”

After luncheon—Father Maurice’s breakfast—the artist and Miss Jyvecote strolled along the shore. The sun seemed to shine with a certain sadness, the gray ocean to moan as if in pain, and the shadow of the “we shall not meet again” to hang over Julia and her companion as they seated themselves in a secluded nook surrounded by huge rocks—a spot in which the world seemed to cease suddenly.

“And so you think of leaving?” she said after a long silence, during which she drew eccentric circles in the sand with the tip of her parasol.

“My _kismet_ says ‘yes,’ Miss Jyvecote.”

“Does your _kismet_ say whither?”

“It points to that little village on the Thames called London.”

“We go to London next month, _en route_ to Egypt. My sister Gussie—you never met her—who has been in Italy with my uncle, is recommended Egypt for her chest. Papa received letters yesterday.”

“How long do you think you will remain in London?”

“Only a day or two.”

“Might I hope to see you?”

“Why not? Our address is 91 Bruton Street, Mayfair.”

“Is—is Mr. Delmege, of the Guards, going to Egypt?”

She looked gravely at him, full into his eyes, as she replied, somewhat coldly:

“Not that I am aware of.”

His heart gave one great bound, as though a dull, dead weight had been suddenly removed.

“I hope to see your handicraft on the walls of the Academy when we return.”

“_Sabe Dios_!” he said, clasping his knees with his hands, and gazing out across the moaning sea.

“If you try you will succeed.”

“I have a very poor opinion of my own power of success in anything. I am colorless, purposeless.”

“Neither one nor the other. You have a noble profession, a glorious talent, and Father Maurice says you have a good heart. With three such friends as companions life is a garden of flowers.”

“And yet till within the last few days I have found it but a desert.”

Then silence fell upon both.

“Father Maurice will miss you dreadfully,” she murmured. She was very pale, and her dark eyes turned upon him with mournful earnestness. “He has become so much attached to you; and the poor little altar will miss your artistic grouping of the flowers. Do you know,” she added, “I shall say an _Ave Maria_ when I visit the little church, and for your conversion?”

“Is that a promise, Miss Jyvecote?”

“It is.”

“Will you also”—he stopped suddenly short, and dug his heel into the sand.

“The shay is waitin’ for ye, Miss Jewel, and Missis Thravers is roarin’ murdher,” cried Murty Mulligan, thrusting his shock head between a cleft in the rocks.

Brown sprang to his feet and offered Miss Jyvecote his arm. Neither spoke during the walk to the cottage. “If you should hear of me through your brother, do not think ill of me,” he whispered, as he handed her into the phaeton.

“What do you mean?” she asked in as low a tone.

“Promise me that you will not forget Brown, the poor artist.”

“It is scarcely necessary,” she murmured, as she gave him her hand.

There was a blank at the priest’s home when the artist left. Father Maurice missed him sadly—missed his hit at backgammon, his gay gossip, and his cheery company.

“He was a rale gintleman,” said Mrs. Clancy; “he wanted for to give me a goolden soverin—mebbe th’ only wan he had—but I tuk a crukked ha’penny for luck, an’ it’s luck I wish him wherever he goes.”

“He was the nicest man, an’ the nicest-mannered man, I ever seen,” chimed in Murty; “an’ I’m in dhread that I spoke too rough whin he offered me menumeration.”

“He promised to come here next summer, and he will keep his promise,” said the priest.

* * * * *

Mr. Jocelyn Jyvecote was seated in the study at 91 Bruton Street, engaged in perusing the columns of the _Times_. He had slept well, breakfasted well, and was thoroughly refreshed after his journey, as he had arrived in town from the East upon the previous day.

A servant entered with a card upon a silver salver.

Mr. Jyvecote adjusted his eyeglass and leisurely lifted the tiny bit of pasteboard. “What does this mean?” he cried, letting it fall again. “Is the gentleman waiting?”

“In the ‘all, sir.”

“Show him in.”

A tall, high-bred-looking young man entered. His face was pale and he somewhat nervously stroked a _Henri Quatre_ beard.

“May I ask to what I am indebted for this visit from Sir Everard Noel?” demanded Mr. Jyvecote haughtily.

“I shall explain the purport of my visit in a few words.”

“Pray be seated.”

“Thanks! Mr. Jyvecote, there was bad blood and bitter feud between you and my poor father about the Ottley Farm.”

“You need scarcely remind me of that, Sir Everard.”

“There is bad blood between us, Mr. Jyvecote. You claimed it in right of an old lease that could not be discovered when the case came before the court, and I retain possession of it by law. The last time that we met we met in hot anger, and—and I used expressions for which I am very seriously sorry. So long as that farm is in possession of either of us it will lead to bad feeling, and I came here to-day to tell you what I mean to do about it.”

A somewhat less stern frown appeared upon Mr. Jyvecote’s features as he listened.

“Last autumn accident threw me into the wildest portion of the west of Ireland, a place not unknown to you—Monamullin.”

“It is within seven miles of Moynalty Castle.”

“I am aware of that. I was the guest of one of the purest men that God Almighty ever made—Father Maurice O’Donnell.”

“Your estimate is just, Sir Everard.”

“His soul is in his work, and his simple heart is fragmentarily divided amongst his little flock. I found his church dingy, dilapidated, falling. He is worthy of a better building; he is worthy of anything,” cried the young man enthusiastically.

Mr. Jyvecote bowed assent.

“Well, sir, I purpose selling Ottley Farm, and devoting the proceeds towards building a new church for Father Maurice O’Donnell. I have an offer of three thousand pounds for the farm, and here are the plans, prepared by Mr. Pugin—pure Gothic,” extracting a roll of papers from his pocket and eagerly thrusting them into the hands of the other.

Mr. Jyvecote leisurely surveyed them, while the young man regarded him with the most eager scrutiny. Suddenly flinging them upon the table, Mr. Jyvecote rose, and, taking Sir Everard Noel’s hand, shook it warmly.

“Noel, you are a fine-hearted fellow, and a chivalrous one. There are not ten—pshaw! there are not two men in London who would patch up a feud as you are doing to-day. I am better pleased to see you in this fine form than the acquisition of ten farms. Give the dear old priest his church, and for my daughter’s sake—I am as stanch a Protestant as yourself—I’ll put up an altar. Come up-stairs now, and I’ll present you to her.”

At this particular moment Miss Jyvecote entered the study. Upon perceiving our hero she grew deadly pale and then flushed up to the roots of her hair.

“Mr. Brown,” she said holding out her hand.

“You are mistaken, Juey; this is an old enemy and a new friend—Sir Everard Noel.”

* * * * *

The church was erected at Monamullin and is a perfect gem in its way, the talent of “all the Pugins” being thrown into the design. At its altar Everard Noel received his First Communion, and at its altar he was united to Julia Jyvecote by the proud, happy, and affectionate Father Maurice O’Donnell.

“An’ only for to think o’ me axin’ a rale live baronet for to paint the back doore,” is the constant exclamation of the worthy Mrs. Clancy.

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RECENT POLEMICS AND IRENICS IN SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY.

It is not always easy to draw the line, either in theology or philosophy, that divides the part which has been dogmatically or scientifically defined from that which remains open ground of discussion in the Catholic schools. Occasionally we are aided and favored by a new definition, made with supreme and final authority by the Holy See, which adds something, not to the immutability of truth itself, which is eternally incapable of the slightest alteration, but to the quantity of science as fixed and immutable in the conceptions of the understanding intellect. The authority of reason may also suffice to add to the quantity of certain science by inductions from facts made evident by experience, which have the force of demonstration. But the dogmatic definitions are not so numerous and frequent as some minds, impatient of discussion and difference of opinion, may desire. Rational demonstration, though fully sufficient to define scientific truth and terminate doubt in the understanding of those who clearly and distinctly apprehend it, is not always understood sufficiently for this purpose even by all intelligent, educated minds, at least for a considerable period. Discussion on important points is not, therefore, terminated between different Catholic schools, and agreement in doctrine established, as completely and speedily as might be desired by those who have a strong sense of the importance of unity in theological and philosophical doctrine. Some, who are animated by a polemical spirit, are disposed to claim for the doctrines of their own particular school a greater amount of dogmatic or scientific authority than that which is generally conceded to them. They are disposed to amplify the import of decisions or declarations made by the authority of the church, to magnify the authority of great doctors and masters in Catholic science, and to extend as far as possible the claim of metaphysical or moral certitude for the doctrines which they advocate. Others are animated by a more irenical spirit. They desire to moderate polemical ardor; to control the zeal for the triumph of particular systems, and the exaltation of individual masters in wisdom, within reasonable bounds; to harmonize all branches of science with each other; to observe the just limitations of dogmatic or scientific certainty; to extend the range of rational science by calm discussion which has only the attainment of truth in view; and, without compromising orthodox doctrine, to leave open and free to argument all that domain which has not been closed in by any final definition of competent authority. The polemical and irenical tendencies are not in real opposition. They are elements capable of combination with each other. We do not believe that differences of opinion among Catholic schools will ever be entirely terminated or controversy cease. Yet there is always an increasing approximation toward unity, and the irenical spirit aids this movement by diminishing misunderstandings and moderating controversial ardor. The Holy See not only at times decides and terminates controversies by a judgment, but also, at other times, refuses to pronounce judgment, and admonishes those who seek to stretch too far the import of her decisions to respect the liberty of opinion and discussion which she allows.

We have an instance of this in the subjoined documents respecting the philosophy of the venerable and holy Father Rosmini—a system which has at present a considerable following and is in very decided opposition to the ideological doctrine of the Thomist school, as well as to other parts of the common, scholastic teaching.

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ROSMINI’S WORKS, AND THE JUDGMENT OF ROME UPON THEM.

(The following is a translation of the official communication which appeared in the _Osservatore Romano_ of June 20, 1876.)

MOST ILLUSTRIOUS MARQUIS:

In No. 136 of your esteemed journal, June 14, 1876, I have read with pain an article on a little work entitled “_Antonio Rosmini and the Civiltà Cattolica before the Sacred Congregation of the Index_, by Giuseppe Buroni, Priest of the Mission.”

You are well aware that the works of the distinguished philosopher Antonio Rosmini were made the subject of a most rigorous examination by the Sacred Congregation of the Index from 1851 to 1854, and that at the close of this examination our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., still happily reigning, in the assembly of the most reverend consultors and the most eminent cardinals, whose votes he had heard, and over whom he deigned, with a condescension seldom shown, to preside in person, after invoking with fervent prayers the light and help of Heaven, pronounced the following decree: “All the works of Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, concerning which investigation has been made of late, must be dismissed; nor has this same investigation resulted in anything whatever derogatory to the name of the author, or to the praiseworthiness of life and the singular merits towards the church of the religious society founded by him.”

The author of the article referred to undertakes to discuss the meaning of the words _Dimittantur opera_, but, while professing to admit their force, he reduces it well-nigh to nothing. For he says: “We do not deny that _Dimittantur_ is in a _certain respect_ equivalent to _Permittatur_; but to permit that a work may be published and read without incurring ecclesiastical penalty has nothing whatever to do with declaring the work itself uncensurable.” Now, by these words one is led to suppose that the Sacred Congregation, or rather the Holy Father, by pronouncing that judgment, did nothing more than permit that the works of Rosmini may be published and read without incurring a penalty.

But I ask: What penalty did the editors and readers of Rosmini’s works incur before those works were subjected to so lengthened and accurate a scrutiny? None whatever. What, then, would the Sacred Congregation of the Index have done by such grave study and labors so protracted? Nothing whatever. And to what purpose would the judgment of the Holy Father have been given? To no purpose whatever. If, then, we do not wish to fall into these absurdities, we must say that the accusations brought against the works of Rosmini were false; that in these works nothing was found contrary to faith and morals; that their publication and perusal are not dangerous to the faithful. Who can ever suppose that the Holy Father has set free for publication works containing erroneous doctrines, and liberated the readers of them from penalty? To liberate from penalty the readers of books infected with error would be an act productive of greater injury than if a penalty were imposed or (assuming its previous existence) were maintained in full vigor.

I might touch on other points of the article in question, and show that its author has presumed to dive further than he ought into a matter which does not belong to him. But what I have said suffices to make it imperative on me to address this letter to you. As it may not be known to every one that the Master of the Sacred Palace does not, under existing circumstances, revise the journals, and as the character and fame of the _Osservatore Romano_ might lead to a belief that he (the Master of the Sacred Palace) has approved of the article in question, I think it necessary to declare to you that I should never have given my consent to the publication of the same. Nay, I have to request that you will not, in future, receive any articles either on the sense of the judgment _Dimittatur_, or against the learned and pious Rosmini, or against his works, examined and dismissed.

I take this opportunity to remind all concerned that the Holy Father, from the time of the issuing of the _Dimittantur opera_, enjoined silence, and this in order that no new accusations should be put forward, nor, under any pretext, a way made for discord among Catholics: “That no new accusations and discords should arise and be disseminated in future, silence is now for the third time enjoined, on either party, by command of His Holiness.”

Who does not see that the seeds of discord are sown by traducing the works of Rosmini either as not being yet sufficiently examined, or as suspected of errors which were not seen either before or after so extraordinary an examination, or as dangerous; or by using expressions which take away all the value or diminish excessively the force and authority of a judgment pronounced with so much maturity and so much solemnity by the supreme Pastor of the church?

By this it is not meant to affirm that it would be unlawful to dissent from the philosophical system of Rosmini, or from the manner in which he tries to explain some truths, and even to offer a confutation of them in the schools; but if one does not agree with Rosmini in the manner of explaining certain truths, it is not on that account lawful to conclude that Rosmini has denied these truths; nor is it lawful to inflict any theological censure on the doctrines maintained by him in the works which the Sacred Congregation has examined and dismissed, and which the Holy Father has intended to protect from further accusations in the future.

Believe me, etc., etc.,

Your most obedient servant, FR. FRANCIS VINCENZO MARIA GATTI, Of the Order of Preachers, Master of the Sacred Apostolical Palace.

JUNE 16, 1876.

The following appeared in the _Osservatore Cattolico_ of Milan, July 1, 1876:

The Sacred Roman Congregation of the Index, by a letter addressed to His Grace the Archbishop of Milan under date of June 20, 1876, and signed by His Eminence Cardinal Antonio de Luca, Prefect of the Congregation, and the Very Reverend Father Girolamo Pio Saccheri, of the Friars Preachers, Secretary, and delivered by his grace in person to one of the responsible editors of this journal in the afternoon of Wednesday, July 28, has enjoined us:

“1. To maintain in future the most rigorous silence on the question of the works of Antonio Rosmini; because, in consequence of the authoritative decree of the Holy Father (_That no new accusations and discords should arise and be disseminated in future, silence is for the third time enjoined on either party by command of His Holiness_), it is not lawful—in matters pertaining to religion and relating to faith and sound morals—to inflict any censure on the works of Rosmini or on his person; _the only thing upon which freedom is allowed being to discuss in the schools and in books_, and within proper limits, his philosophical opinions and the merits of his manner of explaining certain truths, even theological. 2. To declare in an early issue of this journal that we have not rightly interpreted the sentence _Dimittantur_, which the Sacred Congregation of the Index thinks fit sometimes, after mature and diligent examination, to pronounce upon works submitted to its authoritative judgment.”

Full of reverence for the supreme authority of the Holy See, and wishing to be faithful to our duty as well as to the programme of this journal, we, the undersigned, responsible editors of the _Osservatore Cattolico_, in our own behalf and of all who have written in our columns on the question aforesaid, intend to declare and do hereby declare in the most docile and submissive manner possible, that

1. As to the silence now imposed we repeat and confirm what we said on occasion of reproducing in this journal the letter of the Master of the Sacred Palace to the editor of the _Osservatore Romano_—viz., that it shall be observed.

2. The sentence _Dimittantur_, as used by the Sacred Congregation of the Index was not rightly interpreted by us.

ENRICO MASSARA, Priest, DAVIDE ALBERTARIO, Priest, Editors of the _Osservatore Cattolico_.

MILAN, June 30, 1876.

Another and more recent instance is that of the controversy concerning the constitution of bodies. A letter of the Pope to Dr. Travaligni, president of a scientific society in Italy, commending the effort to bring physical and medical science into harmony with the scholastic philosophy, was interpreted as giving authoritative sanction to a certain doctrine of the Thomist school. A professor in the University of Lille wrote a letter to the Pope on the subject, setting forth the differences of opinion and the continued controversies respecting the constitution of bodies, and praying for a positive decision. In reply to this the professor and all others interested in these questions were instructed, in a letter written and published by order of the Holy Father, that the Holy See had defined nothing in the premises, and that a solution of difficulties should be sought for by scientific investigation and discussion. We have not space for the publication of this letter, but it may be found in one of the back numbers of the _Catholic Review_ of Brooklyn (Sept. 22, 1877).

As for the Rosminian philosophy, we agree personally with Liberatore and the Thomist school in rejecting it as scientifically untenable. Nevertheless, we have heretofore distinctly avowed that in a dogmatic aspect it is free from censure, and we are glad to see the matter placed beyond question, and the controversy relegated to its proper sphere as one debatable only on purely rational grounds. The other question is one which has been extensively discussed in our pages, and which we regard as extremely interesting and important.

The doctrine proposed and elaborately discussed in the articles formerly published under the title “Principles of Real Being” has been attacked by a very learned and able writer in a German periodical published at St. Louis, on dogmatic as well as philosophical grounds. This is a convenient opportunity to state that we have in manuscript a very long and minute defence and vindication of the doctrine advocated in these articles, written by their distinguished author, who is well versed not only in scholastic theology and metaphysics, but also in mathematical and physical science. We refrained from publishing his reply to the attack of his antagonist, partly because the discussion was too subtle and abstruse for our readers, and still more from unwillingness to engage in dogmatic controversy when there is a risk of perplexing pious minds. In matters really dogmatic and pertaining to Catholic doctrine we want no compromise or attenuation. We desire only the restriction of the argument from authority within its actual limits, that the discussion of matters purely philosophical may be carried on by rational arguments alone, without accusations of heterodoxy on either side. In respect to the essence and integrity of the scholastic philosophy according to the system of the two great doctors, Aristotle and St. Thomas, we are in hearty concurrence with the great intellectual movement of the revival and restoration of this philosophy as the only true and scientific metaphysics to its ancient dominating position. We do not, however, consider that a blind submission to the authority even of St. Thomas is reasonable. An author who, like Liberatore, professedly aims at nothing more than an exact exposition of the doctrine of St. Thomas undoubtedly renders a service to metaphysical science and its students. The writer of this article esteems very highly all the philosophical works of this distinguished Jesuit, and has used by preference, for several years, his _Institutiones Philosophicæ ad triennium Accommodatæ_ as a text-book of instruction. Yet we cannot approve of such a complete abdication of original and independent investigation and reasoning as a rule to be followed in philosophical teaching. We do not find that the system of the strict Thomists is proved in a manner entirely satisfactory and conclusive, in some of its details, particularly in that part which relates to the harmony of physical with metaphysical science. There is such a thing as progress and development in theology and philosophy. The opinions of private doctors are not final. Neither St. Augustine in dogmatic theology, St. Alphonsus in moral theology, nor St. Thomas in both these sciences and metaphysics, though declared by the Holy See doctors of the universal church, were competent to pronounce final judgments; since they were not rendered infallible by the superiority of their genius and wisdom, from which alone their authority is derived. Their private doctrine, inasmuch as it passes beyond the line of the Catholic doctrine contained in their works and having its own intrinsic authority, has only a claim to a respectful consideration, with a presumption in its favor. In the last analysis all its weight consists in the rational evidence or proof sustaining it, which is lessened or destroyed by probable or demonstrative proof to the contrary. The Jesuit school has always insisted on these principles. While recognizing St. Thomas as master, it has diverged from the teaching of the Dominican commentators on St. Thomas, both in theology and metaphysics. Whether Suarez and others diverged or not from the genuine doctrine of St. Thomas, in their controversy with writers of the Thomist school, is a matter of dispute. The question as to what is the real sense and import of the doctrine of St. Thomas or of Aristotle is distinct from the question of the material truth and evidence of any controverted proposition. The latter is much the more important of the two, and reason alone must decide it, so far as it can be decided, in the absence of any authoritative definition. If philosophy, therefore, is to make any progress, and if there is to be any real approximation to unity in philosophical doctrine among Catholics, the authority of reason and evidence must prevail over all human authority, and exclusive devotion to systems or great names must be abandoned, that truth may be investigated and brought to light.

The great motive urged by those who write in a specially irenical spirit is to strengthen the combination of forces in the Catholic intellectual army for the polemical contest against error and doubt. That the sophists of heresy and infidelity may be confuted and vanquished, that those who are erring and out of the way may be reclaimed, that honest seekers after truth may be guided to a successful discovery of this hidden treasure, is the great object of Catholic polemics. The great field of contest is the philosophical domain. It springs to view at once that agreement in philosophical doctrine is of the utmost importance for the success of the Catholic cause in this holy warfare. Among those who have labored most zealously and successfully toward this end, the distinguished Jesuit Father Ramière stands pre-eminent. In his most recent publication, _L’Accord de la Philosophie de St. Thomas et de la Science moderne au sujet de la composition des corps_, prepared with the aid of another Jesuit specially versed in the physical sciences, he has made a deeply-studied and masterly effort at harmonizing the peripatetic system with the results of experiment and induction in modern chemical science. It is the most subtile and acute piece of argumentation which has ever proceeded from his pen. The doctrine of Aristotle and St. Thomas has hitherto been generally supposed to be in a diametrical contradiction to that of modern chemistry in respect to the combination of elements in the compound substances. The peripatetic theory has been, on this account, abandoned by most of our modern authors and professors in philosophy. A few, however, among whom Liberatore and the editor of the _Scienza Italiana_ are conspicuous, have exerted all their power of subtile analysis to defend the Thomist opinion. Another recent writer, Dr. Scheid of Eichstädt, has endeavored to maintain the same thesis in the most exclusive sense, and attempts to prove that the Thomist theory alone is either compatible with the dogmatic definitions of the church or adequate to give a satisfactory explanation of the facts established by chemical and physical experiments. On the contrary, Dr. Frédault, who is a French physician and an advocate of the general doctrine of the Thomist school on form and matter, maintains that it is inadmissible in respect to the constituent elements of compound substances. In order to facilitate the understanding of the subject of controversy, we will cite from Father Ramière’s appendix a part of the _Exposé parallèle des deux systèmes_ prepared by a distinguished professor in a Catholic college of France at Father Ramière’s request.

_Peripatetic _Chemical School._ School._

I. WHAT IS A SIMPLE BODY?

It is a composition of It is a material first matter and substance endowed with substantial form. determinate forces.

II. WHAT IS A CHEMICAL BODY—FOR INSTANCE, WATER?

It is a composition of It is oxygen and hydrogen first matter and the combined in the aqueous substantial proportions of 88 to form. 11. The forces of the two components remain identical in the composition, although in the state of combination they do not manifest all their special characteristics.

III. HOW ARE THE SIMPLE BODIES EXTRACTED FROM A CHEMICAL COMPOUND?

At the moment of The force of the chemical decomposition the re-agent destroys the substantial form of the combination and union compound is destroyed of the simple bodies, and replaced by the dies, which return to substantial form of the their primitive state, components, which are and manifest anew their produced from their own proper forces in all proper non-existence their integrity. (_ex nihilo sui_); and the simple bodies recover their former proportions.

IV. WHAT IS AN ANIMAL BODY—THE BODY OF A MAN, FOR EXAMPLE—OR A PART OF SUCH A BODY, AS A BONE, ETC.?

This body is a The human body, like all composition of first bodies, is a matter and a composition of substantial form. In molecules and of parts man this substantial endowed with chemical form is the rational forces which are united soul, which gives to together by the mutual the matter its action of these forces; _corporeity_, or but, during life, these corporeal being. In forces are subjected such a way that a body, and subordinated to the taken in the vital force of the reduplicative soul, which penetrates sense—that is, inasmuch them, dominates them, as it is considered and unifies them in simply as body—is a their vital functions, composition of first and which gives to the matter and the soul, entire body the form of which latter gives to a human body, life, and the body its specific sensibility. material being. NOTE.—Form does not mean _figure_ but the determining principle of the specific nature which this organized body possesses as a human body.

V.—WHAT PRODUCES DEATH IN THE ANIMAL BODY AND THE HUMAN BODY?

At the moment when the Death consists simply in soul departs from the the separation of the body there is produced soul and body, and does in it a new substantial not exact the form, the _cadaverous_ production of any form, which by its substantial form. The union with the first chemical forces, which matter constitutes the are no longer dominated corpse. But when the by the soul, act dissolution of the freely, and the corpse proceeds dissolution of the gradually by the effect corpse is nothing but of corruption, the the natural result of cadaverous form is their action. succeeded by new substantial forms, produced from previous non-existence (_ex nihilo sui_), as numerous and different as are the substances resulting from corruption, the mephitic particles dispersed in the air being included.

The theory here presented under the name of the peripatetic, and claiming to be the genuine doctrine of Aristotle and St. Thomas, is frequently called the theory of _substantial generations_. Under that name it has been examined and opposed in the series of metaphysical articles in this magazine already referred to. It is necessary to explain, before proceeding further, that the term _matter_ in scholastic philosophy denotes, not the complete material being or body, whether simple or compound, such as oxygen, water, iron, etc., but merely one element or component of the material substance—viz., the common, indeterminate element, which is the same in all, having a potency or receptivity for every possible determination, but no fixed and necessary union with any. It is the principle of extension, but not extended; the source of inertia and all that is passive, yet not a solid atom; the subject of qualities and active forces, but itself possessing no quiddity or quality, and not having existence, or the possibility of existence, except as joined with its compart, the active and determining element, joined with it in order to make any single material substance. This active element is called the substantial form, which is equally incapable of subsisting alone, and therefore has no separate being, yet is capable of giving its first being to matter, and thus constituting with it material substance. According to the peripatetic theory, as stated above, in chemical combinations which produce a new, compound substance, such as water, nothing remains of the components except the material substratum or first matter. The determining form which gave this matter its specific being as oxygen and hydrogen are destroyed, and a new form, the aqueous, springs forth to give the matter a new first being and constitute the substance water. There is, consequently, in this and every similar case, the generation of a new substance, in which the matter is pre-existent, but the substantial form is educed from the passive potency of the matter, [ex nihilo sui], or from utter previous non-existence.

Father Ramière maintains that this theory is the creation of the commentators on Aristotle and St. Thomas, but does not properly belong to the system of either, and can be refuted by arguments drawn from the works of both these great doctors. This is rather startling and contrary to the prevalent supposition. The Thomist writers, many of whom are men of the most remarkably acute power of analysis and thoroughly conversant with the works of these great masters, honest also and candid withal, have certainly not imputed a theory to Aristotle and St. Thomas which is a pure invention, or without plausible grounds and apparent reasons. Father Ramière gives an explanation which is at least ingenious and merits consideration. In the first place, he argues that the two doctors of peripatetic philosophy did not reason from _à priori_ principles respecting the composition of bodies. They both taught that celestial bodies are composed of what they called _materia quinta_, which is incorruptible by reason of the inseparability of its form from the matter. The separability of matter and form in earthly bodies, therefore, belongs to them as a peculiar kind of bodies, composed from what were supposed to be the four simple elements of earth, air, fire, and water. The fact that these elements are transformed one into the other in the transmutation of substances led to the conclusion that there was a common substratum underlying all, which remained under different substantial forms. But since chemistry has discovered the really simple bodies which are not susceptible of mutual transmutation, and cannot be resolved into other substances by mechanical or chemical agents, Father Ramière argues that the very principles enunciated by Aristotle and St. Thomas respecting _materia quinta_ require that oxygen, hydrogen, etc., should be placed with it under the same category. Moreover, he maintains that the permanence of what we now know to be simple substances and irresolvable in combination, was really taught under another concept and with different terms by Aristotle and St. Thomas; that is, that certain virtualities were recognized as remaining and exercising an active force in the compound or transformed substance, which is incompatible with the supposition that only nude matter remains, acted upon by a wholly different and entirely new active force. In regard to the human body, in particular, he shows an incompatibility between the explanation of the cause of death which St. Thomas gives and the peripatetic theory. The reason of death given by St. Thomas is that contrary forces are combined in the human body which are dominated by the vital force of the soul only to a limited extent and with a limited duration. When, by the laws of nature, these contrary forces begin to free themselves from the dominating vital force, decay commences, and is continued until they have freed themselves to such an extent that they destroy the aptitude of the body for receiving the mode of being from the soul which is called sensitive life. The soul then necessarily ceases to inform the body, and the two comparts of the human substance or essence are separated. The soul, being a self-subsisting, incorruptible form, an immortal spirit, departs to the sphere of spirits, and the body is dissolved by the force of natural decomposition. Now, according to the peripatetic theory, the soul, being the only substantial form or active force in the body, giving to the nude first matter of the body its first being or physical, corporeal existence, must be itself the active cause of decay and death. This is contrary to the teaching of St. Thomas that the soul gives only life to the body, and, so far from ceasing of itself the vital influx, would continue to exert it for all eternity, and thus make the body immortal, if other and contrary forces did not work within the body to make it incapable of receiving this influx, and thus force the soul to abandon it to itself and to the power of death.

Father Ramière acknowledges that it is difficult to make all the texts of Aristotle and of St. Thomas harmonize with each other, and to bring out a completely distinct and finished theory from their writings. He advances a conjecture, with some plausible appearance of probability, that some texts found in the works of St. Thomas have been interpolated by disciples who were more zealous than honest in their efforts to maintain their own system. The same conjecture has been made heretofore in regard to passages relating to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Be this as it may, we think it is quite sufficient to explain obscurities of any kind which are found in the dogmatic or philosophical system of the Angelic Doctor, that he either had not time or any pressing motive for a thorough investigation and elucidation of the matters in question, or had not the requisite data before him for the deductions and conclusions pertaining to the case. It is more to the purpose to discuss the doctrine of the composition of bodies on its own merits, using all the facts discovered by experiment, and rational argumentation, aided by the light of all previous investigations, both physical and metaphysical. Left to its own intrinsic probability, the peripatetic theory is sustained by a kind of argumentation which seems to be more ingenious than conclusive. Several of its ablest advocates have acknowledged that it is incapable of demonstration. It rests its claim to acceptance chiefly on _aliunde_ considerations. And on the other side there are certain arguments which have not yet, so far as we know, received a satisfactory answer.

Father Ramière advances some of these with his usual subtlety and force, and at the same time with the most courteous moderation and respect toward his opponents.

It is admitted—as it indeed must be, for there is no escape from evident facts—that a chemical re-agent applied to a composite substance like water brings back the component elements in their former proportions. Water gives up its eighty-eight parts of oxygen and its eleven parts of hydrogen. What is the producing cause of these so-called new substantial forms which invariably make their appearance _ex nihilo sui_? When the soul, which is said to be the only substantial form of the body, leaves it in its nudity as first matter, without first being, quiddity, or quality, and, as it would seem, doomed to annihilation, what is the cause which produces the cadaverous form, that suddenly appears to actuate the matter and give it being as a corpse? Here Father Ramière has made one of his most dexterous logical passes—one which it will require great dialectical skill to parry. The editor of the _Scienza Italiana_ replies thus to the question as to where these forms come from:

“Certain forms do not come to the subject from an extrinsic cause, but spring up within the subject, by educing them (_traendole_) from the potentiality of the same subject.” Father Ramière desires to be informed “what is the object to which the active verb _traendole_ is referred; what is that which educes these forms from the potentiality of the subject?” If no sufficient cause can be assigned by which substantial forms are educed, the theory becomes untenable.

Father Ramière devotes a considerable part of his treatise to a consideration of the important question, What is the true sense of the proposition that the rational soul is the form of the human body? This proposition, maintained by Aristotle and received by sound scholastic philosophy, has been defined as Catholic doctrine by the Council of Vienne and by Pius IX. Father Ramière refers to Father Palmieri, S.J., the author of a recent philosophical text-book of high repute, who “proves that the Council of Vienne by no means intended to condemn a doctrine maintained at that time and since by perfectly orthodox theologians. The error proscribed by the council is that which ascribes to the human body another vital principle besides the rational soul.” The Catholic doctrine is that the soul is _forma corporis_, in the sense that it is the life-giving principle of the composite, corporeal, organic structure which constitutes the human body in its physical though incomplete nature, as one compart of the total human composite, or complete human nature. Father Palmieri calls the bodily part a complete substance but an incomplete nature, as likewise the spiritual part, which is the soul. Father Ramière adheres to the common terminology which denominates each part an incomplete substance. As considered in distinction from the soul, it lacks its due complement, the vital principle which makes it a living body and sentient. The soul also, as distinct from the body, lacks the complement of its inferior vital force, which is an eminent kind of sensitive and vegetative principle contained in the same subject to which the attribute of rationality belongs, and giving to the subject—that is, to the soul—an exigency for a body as its essential compart. The soul and body complete each other in the human essence or nature. The body is passive and inert in respect to every vital force and function, without the soul. The soul remains in a merely potential state in respect to its inferior faculties, when separate from the body. In the composite essence, the human nature composed of soul and body, the body stands in the relation of _materia_ to the soul, the soul in the relation of _forma_ to the body. Thus is constituted the human, rational _suppositum_ or _persona_, and the specific essence and unity of the human being, of man, according to his logical definition as _animal rationale_. We will let Father Ramière speak for himself, and explain at length in his own language what his own view is on this important topic:

“Between spiritual substance and body there is a complete opposition, and it is consequently absurd to suppose that a body can borrow from a spirit that by which it becomes body. Since the substantial form of a being is that which makes it formally to exist as such, the soul cannot be the substantial form by which a body exists as body, unless it is itself corporeal. It is the same with all forms essentially material, and consequently with all those which belong to the essence of the elementary substances. These forces, not being in the soul, cannot be destroyed when the elements pass into the body;[82] yet they no longer exist in their former state of independence. They are seized upon and controlled by the superior force of the soul, elevated in a certain sort above their natural condition, and employed as instruments of the vivification of the matter of the body. Heretofore these elements formed so many independent unities; henceforth they become fractions of a whole to which the soul must give the specific determination. Their entire force continues to subsist; their being is not destroyed; but, under the domination of a new form, it acquires a new formal existence. It is thus that the soul is the principle of the substantial unity of man. It does not destroy the variety of the elements, but it unites them; it does not suppress completely their mutual opposition, but tempers it so far as to establish a condition of harmony. There is really but one substantial form in man—the reasonable soul, because this soul alone gives to the entire totality of the human being its substantial determination; it alone reduces the diversity of elements to unity. It confers upon the body, by its union with the same, something which is not a mere accident but a new being, the being of humanity, which raises it above all purely corporeal beings, and constitutes it within the generic class of rational substances.

“The modern theory, understood in this sense, is in perfect agreement as to its substance with the peripatetic doctrine, and safe from all the dangerous tendencies imputed to it. There is no just cause for repeating any longer the accusation heretofore made against this theory that it suppresses the substantial unity of bodies, since, as we have shown, so far from destroying this unity it presents it as it subsists in various grades, proportioned to the relative degrees of perfection in substances, much better than the other systems. There is even less foundation for the pretext that the theory in question is in opposition to the definitions of the church regarding the union of soul and body in man. What, in fact, do these definitions affirm? That the soul is the true form of the human body, which it informs and vivifies, not accidentally or mediately, but immediately and essentially. Now, all this is perfectly verified in our theory, which supposes that the body receives its life, its specific nature, its existence as human body, without any interposing medium, from the soul. Moreover, its union with the soul, so far from being regarded as accidental, is shown to be, on the contrary, substantial, in whatever aspect it is considered, whether on the side of the soul or on the side of the body: on the side of the soul, which without this union would be unable to exercise several faculties proceeding from its essence; on the side of the body, which receives from this union the substantial complement of its elements. When, therefore, we examine closely that argument which is the strongest, if not the only, one sustaining the contrary theory,[83] we perceive that it resolves itself into a mere equivocation. The partisans of this theory, who sometimes reproach their adversaries with equivocating in respect to the words ‘substantial and accidental,’ do not perceive that they themselves commit this fault. They confound that which is indispensable to a being that it may exist, with that which is indispensable to it that it may possess the integrity of its nature. Union with the body is not essential to the soul in the former sense, as all acknowledge, but it is certainly not allowable to conclude from this that it is purely accidental to it. We may very justly call substantial, and even essential, all that which is exacted by the nature of anything. Now, union with the body is certainly exacted by the nature of the soul, which differs mainly from pure spirits by this exigency. Nothing could be more contrary to the principles of scholastic philosophy than to regard that property pertaining to the soul which adapts it to be the form of the body as a simple accident; but if this is an essential property, union with the body cannot be considered as purely accidental, even admitting that the body is composed of elements endowed with their proper forms. Let us apply the same reasoning to the elements, which are themselves made in order to unite themselves with other elements, as the soul is made in order to unite itself with the body; and by this simple distinction of the two senses of the word _substantial_ we shall eliminate the doctrinal misunderstanding which makes a division between us.

“How, then, could it happen that this division has been so long continued? It is because the distrust of the defenders of traditional philosophy has been provoked by the presentation of the theory at the present day generally adopted by scientists, as an innovation. This distrust will have no longer any object, and harmony cannot fail to be re-established, from the moment when it shall be recognized that the modern experimental science is in perfect harmony with the principles laid down by Aristotle and accepted by St. Thomas.”

The professor of physics who prepared the _Exposé_ given in Father Ramière’s appendix presents very distinctly and strongly what is the common sentiment, especially of those who are devoted to the study of physical science, in our modern Catholic schools:

“The peripatetic system on the composition of bodies is rejected by the greater number of Catholic philosophers, because this system, considered metaphysically, sustains itself solely on _equivocations and the begging of questions_ (Card. Tolomei), and _has no demonstrative_ _force_ (P. Zigliara); considered psychologically, it gives a handle to materialism; considered in the aspect of the chemical sciences, it is in evident contradiction to their experimental facts; considered historically, it has been, so far as its psychological part is concerned, always combated by the school of Alexander de Halès, St. Bonaventure, Scotus, and the Franciscans; was condemned in the thirteenth century by all the doctors of the English universities, together with a majority of those of the Sorbonne; and in the eighteenth century was commonly repudiated by all the schools, with the exception of the most rigid Thomists.”

There is certainly no chance whatever that this theory will ever regain any considerable sway from the mere weight of authority which belongs to it from the traditions of the past. As Father Ramière justly remarks:

“We must not forget that the present discussion appertains to the purely scientific order, and must consequently be definitively decided _not by authority but by reason_. So long as the rational arguments which overturn the theory contrary to our own have not been refuted, nothing will be gained by the effort to prove from a literal interpretation of some texts that this theory belongs to St. Thomas. The only interpretation admissible in this case is the rational interpretation, which clears up obscure texts by the perfectly clear principles which the holy doctor loudly proclaimed. It is thus that we explain many difficult passages in the works of the eagle of Hippo; and those who act otherwise, far from proving in this way their respect for him, really inflict an outrage on his memory by putting him in opposition to himself and to the truth. Let us not do a similar wrong to St. Thomas. As he was always attentive to correct himself even to the end of his short career, we can be sure that, if his mortal existence had been prolonged to our day, he would not have failed to clear up that which remained in obscurity in his writings, and to complete, by the aid of new discoveries in science, what was necessarily incomplete in his theories. Let us act in the same manner, and not fear to show ourselves more faithful to the spirit of the doctrine of St. Thomas than to the letter of a certain number of texts found in his writings.”

Father Ramière could not have expected to put an end to the controversy by his short essay, and, in fact, the only immediate result of Dr. Frédault’s larger work and his own briefer piece of argument has been to call forth rejoinders from the _Scienza Italiana_ and the _Civiltà Cattolica_. Some of the advocates of the peripatetic theory are unquestionably as well versed in the physical sciences as their opponents. Their studies in chemistry and other branches of science have made them dissatisfied with the prevalent modern theories on the constitution of bodies, and they have for this very reason sought for a more philosophical doctrine in the ancient metaphysics. It is not to be supposed that they will yield to anything short of cogent reasoning, or that any agreement in unity of doctrine can be produced, unless some really solid, satisfactory, and conclusive theory is presented with such convincing proof and evidence that it must command general assent. Until this is done there is no choice except to continue the discussion. If it is interminable, then all sides must agree to differ, and in such a case it is quite natural to fall back on the authority of great men who are supposed to have been gifted with extraordinary perspicacity of intellect, and to have seen into things more clearly and deeply than modern men are able to do, perhaps by the aid of supernatural light. If the constitution of bodies is an impenetrable mystery, we must be content to remain in our ignorance, and accept whatever formulas of metaphysical or physical statement seem to us the best expression of the vague and confused notions we possess. We are not quite prepared to accept this situation as inevitable, and it is certain that not only on the European continent, but in England and America also, the reviving interest in metaphysical studies and the necessity of combating materialism will stimulate an effort toward a more perfect evolution of the truth contained in the ancient philosophy by the help of mathematical and experimental science. It may be asked what metaphysics and theology have to do with these matters, which seem to belong to the domain of physics. We reply to this question in the words of Father Ramière:

“The question what is in general the nature of material beings, and what is in particular the nature of man as appertaining by his corporeal part to the material world, does not belong, at least exclusively, to physics; it is also within the domain of philosophy and theology. The special object of physics is the study of the sensible properties of bodies, the observation of the phenomena by which the different forces with which they are endowed manifest themselves, and the determination of the laws which regulate the exercise of these forces. The investigation of the essential properties which enter into the very idea of body and distinguish it from spiritual being belongs to metaphysics. And since, in man, the body, united with the spirit, participates in its destiny; since, in Jesus Christ, the corporeal world has been associated to the divine dignity, theology cannot give us a perfect knowledge of our destiny and our deification by the divine Person who assumed humanity, without availing itself of the aid which is furnished by an exact notion of the nature of bodies.”

It seems to us that the real point of difficulty and of controversy respecting the “nature of bodies” lies deeper than any of the questions proposed by Father Ramière, and that the whole discussion must start from this point in order to be thorough and decisive. It is no solution at all of the question, What is the nature of corporeal being? to tell us that bodies are material substances endowed with determinate forces, or composites of such substances. The drop of water, mechanically divided, gives us only minuter and minuter molecules of water. But since, chemically divided, it gives oxygen and hydrogen in composition with each other to form these minutest molecules, there must be in each of these molecules others of such minute quantity as to elude experiment, which are composed of still smaller distinct molecules of oxygen and hydrogen. One of these molecules of oxygen, considered apart from all other corporeal beings, must be itself constituted by smaller molecules or of some more simple elements. We must come at last to these simple elements, and ask the question, What constitutes the entity and first actuality of these elements? Boscovich and Leibnitz, two of the most original thinkers of modern times, both of them well versed in mathematics as well as eminent in metaphysics, have presented the theory of simple monads, which are dynamic centres radiating in space upon each other the active forces which produce extension, quality, motion, and every kind of material substance with all their specific differences. Father Bayma, in his remarkable work _Molecular Mechanics_, has presented the hypothesis that these simple elements are each separately endowed with only one force—that is, either the attractive or repulsive. The laws of molecular mechanics have been exposed in this treatise with rigid and complicated mathematical demonstrations. The metaphysical part of this hypothesis has been fully developed, so far as its primary and essential principles are concerned, in the pages of this magazine. The arguments by which this hypothesis is sustained and the contrary ones overturned we have never seen fairly and distinctly answered. Certain objections are made, such as these: that a force is not a being in itself, but needs a substance to support it; that dynamism takes away the reality of matter, that it makes material substance like spiritual substance, that it gives no basis for extension and continuous quantity, etc. We think there is some misunderstanding of terms and concepts in the minds of those who make these objections. We understand in this theory such terms as “active force” to denote not an attribute or product without subject or cause, but a principle from which force proceeds, which is also a passive principle upon which active force terminates. It is a real being, simple, unextended, not a body or a spirit, having position but not quantity, marking by its existence a point in space, the first element of the primary composite body or molecule, distinguishable in respect to its matter and form, but not separable, any more than the centre and circumference of a circle are separable. It is a substance, standing _in se et per se_, in respect to existence, but expressly created for entering into composition with similar entities, in order to make bodies with the various attributes and accidents, active powers and passive potencies, which experience shows them to possess. It is not a spirit, because it has no capability of consciousness, intelligence, or volition, but is simply determined by its grade of being to act in space by means of motion. It is _ens mobile_, and the beginning of physical quantity, as the point is the beginning of abstract quantity in geometrical science. As to the difficulty of conceiving how extension arises without a first material _continuum_ to begin with, we think this objection is counteracted by the arguments proving that such a _continuum_ is an absurdity and an impossibility.

The great desideratum in the question of matter is to find the invariable and indestructible element, which remains, and will forever remain, the same amid all transmutations of bodies, the ultimate substance endowed with a perpetual existence _in se_, and competent from its potency and active power to be the principle of every possible combination and mode of being within the limits of the purely corporeal essence. Such a principle seems to be furnished by the theory of Boscovich and Leibnitz, as corrected and developed by Father Bayma. The simple beings endowed with attractive or repulsive force proceeding from a centre which marks a point in space, and having both a form and a material principle which are naturally inseparable, are capable of existing, each one alone by itself, and absolutely indestructible, except by annihilation. Though utterly useless and inoperative, except as existing in multitude and mutually acting on each other in their chemical and mechanical combinations they furnish the substratum of every kind of matter and form which can be predicated of corporeal being as _ens mobile_. The primary molecules of the simple bodies formed by the first combinations of simple elements are so firmly bound together that no power of which man can avail himself suffices to separate them, and we may suppose there is no power in nature which can break up their unity. Nor is there any difficulty in supposing that God can make bodies of any magnitude or composite perfection which are likewise incorruptible, in accordance with the ancient conception of _materia quinta_, or celestial, incorruptible bodies. The reasoning by which this dynamic hypothesis is sustained and contrary theories refuted seems to be extremely probable, and even, in certain parts, demonstrative, from its premises and _data_. If these include all which must be included, and nothing pertaining to the essence and integrity of the matter of demonstration is left out, the hypothesis is sufficient to account for all which must be accounted for, and by its simplicity recommends itself to the mind as proposing enough, and no more than enough, for a distinct notion of the nature of body and its specific difference from soul and spirit. Just here, it seems to us, comes in the need for more full explanation and evolution of the theory, and a more minute discussion between its advocates and those who advocate the theories of the rigid peripatetic system or the system favored by Father Ramière. We would like to see a more complete proof given that all which can be predicated of material substance, as such, can be referred to its nature as _ens mobile_, and accounted for by the two primitive forces of attraction and repulsion.

Especially when we consider the phenomena of organized, living bodies, vegetable and animal, the most important questions arise, demanding from each one of the different philosophical schools the answers which they are able to furnish, and an exposition of the way in which they seek to harmonize this particular portion of their respective systems with the first principles of philosophy, of physics, and of theology. The notions of potential matter and substantial form assume here a new import and present difficulties of the first magnitude, the solution of which in one way or another introduces most considerable modifications into the metaphysics and the theology of each different party in the controversy.

What is the principle of vegetable life and reproduction? If all the facts and phenomena of vegetable life can be explained by the laws of molecular mechanics and chemistry, the need for a distinct, simple form, vital principle, or vegetable soul, is removed; otherwise the hypothesis fails to meet the exigency of the case, and the reasoning of the peripatetic philosophers remains, in this respect, unanswered.

The question of the animal soul stands by itself, and is more important. Molecular mechanics and chemical combinations cannot produce a sentient subject or account for the sensible cognition which animals possess. There is certainly in the animal a distinct form giving to animal nature a potency and a power not reducible to attraction and repulsion between molecules, not a modification of mobility and motion. The ingenious scholastic theory gives us a formula which answers very well as a verbal statement of the difference between the irrational and the rational soul, between the brute and man. According to this theory, the animal soul is not a substance, is not capable of existing _in se_, depends on the body and is destroyed by its death, is not immediately created, but is educed, _ex nihilo sui_, from the potentiality of matter by the physical agencies and laws of generation. What is startling and puzzling about this theory is that it makes an organized, material body exercise sensible cognition. The soul is a mere substantial form, higher than the aqueous or igneous or cadaverous form, but of the same genus. It is educed from the potentiality of matter, and therefore matter is in potency to the sentient faculty, as it is in potency to have quantity, figure, color, and weight. Second causes suffice to evolve from its potency this new form of being in which it can see, hear, feel, imagine and remember, simulate many of the processes and actions of rational beings, enjoy and suffer, recognize friends and enemies, invent stratagems, play tricks, exercise courage, fidelity, fortitude, and constancy in affection, and show forth all those remarkable phenomena which make the animal, in one point of view, the greatest marvel of creation. If the animal soul is not a distinct substance, immediately created and having existence _in se_, the peripatetic theory, pure and simple, with all its mysteriousness, is preferable to any other, and its failure to give demonstration and satisfy the _ingenium curiosum_ of many searchers into the secrets of nature is a necessary consequence of the impenetrable mystery which shrouds the essence of material being.

If the animal soul is a substance, we must admit a grade of being between the corporeal and the rational natures, an inferior kind of spirit, similar to the human soul in respect to that which makes it fit to be the animating principle of an organic body, destitute of intelligence and incapable of activity independent of its bodily organs, yet, as a substance in itself and a simple being, not destructible by corruption. It is a maxim in philosophy that there is no destruction of anything once created by annihilation. It continues to exist, therefore, after the death of its bodily compart. If the _anima belluina_ is imperishable, what becomes of it when the animal dies? Even the human spirit, though capable by its intellectual faculties of living a separate life, has an intrinsic exigency for a body which it can animate; much more, then, the _anima belluina_, which is a principle of animal life and activity, and nothing more. There is nothing superfluous or useless in nature, yet this kind of soul, continuing to exist without a body, is a useless thing. Moreover, although the more perfect animals manifest qualities which can easily be taken to indicate the presence of a vital principle which is a distinct substance, what shall we say of those which can be divided into sections, each of which continues to live; and of those which approach so near to the line of demarcation between animal and vegetable life that the difference between the two seems to reach a vanishing-point, and they shade into each other by nearly imperceptible gradations?

This is enough to show how serious is the task of reconciling philosophical parties, and settling the disputes about the constitution of bodies, matter and form, and all their cognate topics, and making a perfect synthesis of physics and metaphysics. Mathematics come in also, with the consideration of quantity, space, infinites and infinitesimals, demanding a place in a really complete synthetical exposition of fundamental and universal philosophy. There is room enough for a great genius who shall be a continuator of the work of St. Thomas. If such a man should arise, he would need to have all the intellectual gifts and all the knowledge of a great metaphysician, a great mathematician, and a great physicist, combined under one form. There has been but one Aristotle and one St. Thomas, and we cannot tell whether or no any other man like them, or even equal to Suarez, will be granted to the science of philosophy. It seems that we need some man of that kind to deal with the obscurities and ambiguities, the new aspects and new relations of scholastic metaphysics, and with the peculiar mental attitude and habits of thought and expression belonging to our own time. The English-speaking part of the educated world certainly needs the service of some really original thinker, as well as learned and acute expositor, to make all that is certain or highly probable in the Thomistic philosophy thoroughly intelligible, and to accomplish whatever is requisite and possible in advancing this philosophy toward a desirable completion. Able and learned expositors of the ancient philosophy are not lacking in Italy and Germany, but it seems to us that some higher degree of original power of thought and expression than is found even in the most eminent of these authors is desirable for the masterly handling of certain questions of present controversy.

Father Ramière considers that the time has come to hope for and attempt the construction of “the majestic temple of Catholic science, whose base is laid in the infallible dogmas of faith and the immovable principles of reason, whose stories are erected by the co-operating labor of observation and reasoning, whose circuit embraces the entire expanse of human knowledge, in which facts and laws, experimental and abstract sciences, the truths of the natural and those of the supernatural order, complete, strengthen, and embellish each other by their mutual agreement.” That “complete synthesis, to which all the

## particular sciences are attached as branches of a tree to the trunk,”

he considers to have been fifty years ago apparently impossible, though the conception of it may have been latent in some minds, but at present to be really within the power of combined and rightly-directed intellectual effort to achieve.

So far as essentials are concerned, we are convinced that the learned and pious Jesuit is not without a solid ground for his enthusiastic prognostication of the advancement of Catholic science. In respect to the special topics of which we have been writing in the present article, we are not very sanguine of a speedy adjustment of the controversies which divide Catholic philosophers and others, whether physicists or metaphysicians, who investigate and argue upon the nature of material substance. There is yet a good deal of discussion and controversy to be gone through, and we confess we are in doubt how far it will ever terminate in a conclusive and final result. There are limitations to human knowledge which are not precisely determined. The space of the unknowable lies around our restricted sphere of the known and the knowable. Happily, it is not necessary for the substantial solidity and practical utility of rational metaphysics and ethics, much less for theological certainty in the matters of real moment, that all the interesting and abstruse questions of controversy between different schools should be decided. Apparent “antinomies of reason” may furnish a pretext to the sceptical and captious, but they prove only the limitation of intellect and reason, our imperfect and inadequate conceptions of the terms and premises which we reason about and from which we draw conclusions, and the defectiveness of language as the medium of thought. The certainties of reason, of history and experience, of the judgments of the human conscience, of divine revelation, of Catholic authority, of the common sense of mankind, are amply sufficient for refuting every kind of infidel or heretical error which cloaks itself under a scientific pretext, and for proving and defending all that belongs to sacred dogma in faith or morals, or is in proximate connection with it. Unity and harmony in these things need not be disturbed by differences and discussions respecting all manner of scientific questions. We understand that this is what Father Ramière principally aims at, and he himself gives a good example of free and earnest controversial discussion conducted in the irenical spirit. We have always found his writings luminous, interesting, and profitable. We trust that he and his _confrères_ will continue their labors in the same direction. We shall look also with great interest for the arguments by which the learned writers for the _Civiltà Cattolica_ and _Scienza Italiana_ and other advocates of strict Thomism maintain their own opinions. The Sovereign Pontiff, in his recent letter to the rector of the University of Lille, has declared that he desires all learned Catholics “should with one accord, _although they follow different systems_, turn all their energies to put down materialism and the other errors of our age.” This shows that, in the judgment of the Holy Father, agreement in these matters of actual difference is not a necessary condition precedent to combined and successful polemics against materialism and the other dangerous errors of our time. The Holy Father also exhorts “all whom it may concern” not to “scatter their forces by disputing with one another on questions which are matters of free opinion.” We understand this to mean that discussions should not degenerate into disputes of that kind which is hostile to the spirit of unity and charity, and not that discussion should be altogether abandoned. For, in another paragraph, he exhorts learned Catholics to “keep within the bounds of moderation and observe the laws of Christian charity while they discuss or attack systems in nowise condemned by the Apostolic See.” This may suffice for the present, and we trust that our readers who hold metaphysical articles in aversion will tolerate this one, in consideration of the long time they have been spared a similar trial of their patience.

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TOTA PULCHRA.[84]

Can God so woo us, nor, of all our race, Have formed one creature for his perfect rest? Must the Dove moan for an inviolate nest, Nor find it ev’n in thee, O “full of grace”— In thee, his Spouse? Or could the Word debase His Godhead’s pureness when he fill’d thy breast, Tho’ Moses treasured up, at his behest, The typical manna in a golden[85] vase? Who teach that sin had ever aught in thee, Utter a thought the demons may not share— Not tho’ they prompt it in their fell despair: For these, while sullenly hating the decree That shaped thee forth Immaculate, “All Fair,” Adore it still—and must eternally.

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THE MYSTERY OF THE OLD ORGAN.

In one of the least-visited churches of Ghent stands the most curious and characteristic thing in it—its organ: a contrast to the defaced wood-work and mouldering Renaissance plaster, to the unused and deserted chests in the vestry and the few benches in the choir. The paintings, the removable carvings, even some of the monuments, the choir-stalls and the stained-glass windows, disappeared long ago; the very name by which the church goes in the popular speech is ill-omened and mysterious. Old women cross themselves and shake their heads as they whisper the name of the Apostate’s church, and tradition tells the rare inquirer that this was a private chapel, the property of a once renowned family, noble and brave, but fierce and fanatical, well known in the town annals for centuries, and only struck from the roll of citizens and householders at the end of the great Flemish struggle of the sixteenth century, when the Protestants left Spanish ground for ever and found a new country in Holland. The disappearance of all valuable objects in the deserted church is ascribed—and perhaps truly—to many combining causes. Some were destroyed during the occasional image-breaking raids that distinguished the wars of the Reformation; some were sold or carried off by the family whose property they were, some confiscated or stolen by the triumphant Spanish government, or by no less indignant relations of the family, who, remaining behind, were anxious to prove by deeds their freedom from complicity with the apostate and fugitive Stromwaels. Such were the fragments of information to be picked up by any one in whom the simple people of the neighborhood had confidence; but whether every fragment was historical is another question. The church was in a lonely quarter of the town, the least altered by progress, where stood only small shops supplying the local wants, which in such populations and such places vary very little from those of five or six generations ago. A few spacious, comfortable houses showed among more cramped and less ornamented ones, but the aspect of all, if rather dead-alive, was very picturesque. The church stands in a narrow street and far from the house of its patrons, now used as a storehouse by the few wholesale dealers of this quarter, who each have one floor. In the attics live a few workmen and one or two nondescript, eccentric, and inoffensive persons, supposed to be pensioners of one of the dealers. One of these is a bookworm and supposed to know much of local legends and history. Being very poor, he frequents only the public library and such private ones as are accessible gratis to students; and when he wants to preserve information which he cannot purchase in the shape of printed books, he copies it assiduously on miscellaneous paper, recruited from old ledgers, bank and register books, large parcels, etc., besides the little he buys or has been given to him. His notes thus present a very curious appearance, which he sometimes complacently connects with the possible researches and comments of scholars of two hundred years hence. One of his many little sheaves of manuscript came into my hands not long ago while I was poking about the neighborhood, looking for anything out of the way, and I was induced to go and see him. He was very shabby and commonplace, and a good deal smeared with snuff; neither his appearance nor his home was in keeping with the outward look of the houses, and there were no artistically-dilapidated surroundings to fill out the romantic sketch which my imagination had made before I was introduced to him. Travellers seldom mention their disappointments, and always make the most of their agreeable surprises, so that stay-at-home people are often deluded into a belief that every one on the European continent is more or less like a Dresden figure or an actor in a mediæval play. My friend, however substantial the entertainment might be which his manuscript and his narrative gave me, was decidedly a failure personally, but none the less was he to me a very important and, in a degree, even an interesting vehicle of information. A free translation of his manuscript is all that I can give; as to his absorbed manner in speaking, his evident interest in the past, and his self-forgetfulness when he got upon the subject of the stories he had dug out or pieced together from ancient papers, and his own impressions concerning whatever was uncertain—these it is impossible to convey to others. He asked me first whether I had examined the organ in the chapel. I had done so, and found its case a very beautiful piece of carving; the keys were kept speckless, and the front contained a remarkable group of figures, carved in wood and painted, representing our Lord and the twelve apostles. The instrument stood in a high tribune looking into the choir, and reached by a separate staircase, narrow and winding. A carved railing gave this tribune something of the look of a balcony, but it scarcely projected forward into the chapel; the carved front of the organ and the gilt pipes were visible from below, and a tapestry curtain hung from an iron rod on each side of the instrument, concealing the back entrance into the tribune. The peculiarity about this organ was that it was all but dumb, and had never given a satisfactory sound since its maker had bid it be silent. It emitted some doleful sounds, if struck, but for all musical purposes it was useless. The situation it was in, and the defects in its interior, besides a third reason still unforgotten by the popular mind, accounted for its having been left when the rest of the church treasures were carried off. As a relic of antiquity it was valuable, exhibiting as it does the state of mechanical art at the beginning of the sixteenth century; but it was still more interesting as the tangible proof of a story connected with its maker, the organist of the church in 1505. This my old friend of the attic had written out in the queer-looking manuscript I have mentioned.

* * * * *

Nicholas Verkloep was born a servant of the Stromwaels, and brought up in their household in the very house where I read the story. His parents kept the outer gate, and the boy passed through the usual stages of service common to lads of his position, now a favorite, now a butt, according to the humor of his master and each member of the family, but all the spare time at his command was devoted to music. He haunted the churches, and begged his way into choirs and libraries, learnt all the church music he could pick up by his ear, the hints of choristers, and the few explanations in the manuscript chant-books of the time, and at last begged to be allowed to blow the organ-bellows at the family chapel. Meanwhile, he joined in the services, and drew on himself the notice of the old organist, who grew so fond and proud of him that he taught him all he knew, taught him to play the organ, and asked the Count Stromwael to allow him to bring the boy up as his successor. Nicholas was fifteen when this request was granted, and henceforth he nearly lived in the chapel. Not only the music of the organ fascinated him; he grew absorbed in studying its mechanism, and would crouch for hours within the instrument, getting his eyes used to the darkness, and learning by heart the “feel” of each piece. This developed all sorts of oddities in him: he grew absent-minded, and often unconsciously moved his fingers as if at work. Soon after he began to make models of various parts of an organ, indifferently the inside and the outside; for carving seemed as natural to him as mechanical dissection. He had not the same conservative feeling about things as is common among our present musicians, and the fact that the Stromwael instrument was a hundred and fifty years old, and had gone through many repairs as time went on and new improvements succeeded each other, did not prevent him from feeling certain that he could make a much better organ in a very short time. His plans were manifold; the subject grew and grew in his mind; the additional stops which he added in imagination disgusted him with the music he could draw from the instrument at present; and while every one in the town was excited about the wonderful young player who bade fair to be a prodigy, he himself was impatiently bewailing his drawbacks.

He told no one but his old master of his hopes and his expectations, and this confidant was certainly the safest he could have; for the old musician was a contented and patient man, used to his old ways, firm in his old traditions, not caring to travel out of his old grooves, and rather resentful of the idea that what had been good music and perfect mechanism in his time should not be good enough to satisfy the fastidious taste of a young beginner. Yet he was fond of his pupil, who used to soothe him by the saying that each generation had a new door to open and a new room to explore in the house of knowledge, and that he ought not to grudge him his appointed advance, any more than Moses grudged Josue his succession to the leadership. In truth, the old man was secretly proud of his clever scholar, and, perhaps unconsciously to himself, expected even more of him than the youth did of himself. The two lived together in the house of their patron, but had little intercourse with the rest of the mixed household, more gay and more ignorant than themselves, and my snuffy old friend nursed the belief that he had discovered the room which was home to these two. It was a small attic chamber looking towards the church, and in a chest in it had been found remnants of wood, wire, and leather, as well as some strange-looking models and bits of carving, with rough sketches on strips of parchment, all of which I had seen in their case in the museum at the Town-hall. On the walls were some doggerel Latin verses and some rather indistinct marks, which, nevertheless, the most learned musician in the town had pronounced to be, most likely, a sort of musical short-hand, understood only by its author. All this I also saw, and, having no opposite theory to uphold, was glad to believe remains of Nicholas.

Now, says the manuscript, there were found notes and jottings besides plans and sketches, and it seems plain from these that the young organist wished eagerly to make a new organ, on which no one but himself should work; indeed, this idea grew to be a monomania, and he devoted to it all the energy and interest which a man generally spends on wife, children, friends, home, profession, and advancement. But the count was an obstinate conservative, and scouted the idea of replacing his time-honored family organ by a new one, the work of a crazy youth, even though he were the best player and composer that ever breathed. The old organist and his pupil had many anxious talks on the subject. In those days it was not easy to transfer your domicile and allegiance to a patron better suited to you; family bondage still held good in practical matters; the Stromwaels had given him all the home and education he had, and, in fact, he belonged to them. Besides, the count was as proud of his human possession as he was of his ancient organ, and set as much store by the reputation of the marvellous young musician whom he owned as he did by that of his best-bred falcon, dog, or horse. He would not have given up any of these; they were all ornaments to his name, and it was fitting that he should not be beneath or behind any of his townsmen. He was not old enough to give room to hope for a change of circumstances through his death, and Nicholas became every day more discontented at his prospects. He was more reserved, morose, and morbid than ever, and as he grew odder the more was his music admired. Strangers from neighboring towns came to hear him play; the towns-people begged him to teach their sons; women looked up at the gallery where he sat with his back to them, with eyes that told of as ready an inclination to love the player as to admire the music; wealthy foreigners sent him presents of money or jewels, after the fashion of the times; but nothing seemed to elate, or even interest, him.

One day, while he was sitting at the old organ, poring over his plans for a new one, and contrasting the existing instrument with the possible one, a man lifted the curtain which then, as now, covered the entrance to the tribune. He was a stranger to Nicholas, and seemed elderly; he was very quietly dressed in black, and wore a sword. The young man looked up in bewilderment, but rose and welcomed the unknown, who sat down with great composure by his side on the wide carved bench in front of the organ. He spoke Flemish, but Nicholas thought with a foreign accent, which, however, he could not localize.

“You will forgive my curiosity,” he said, “in coming here. I have often heard you play from below, and to-day, passing by the open door, I came into the chapel in hopes of hearing something, but met your little blower lying asleep on the altar steps, woke him up, made inquiries, and decided to come up.”

“You are very welcome,” said Nicholas in a low voice, politely but not cordially, and speaking with that resignation which well-bred but much tried misanthropes have but too much occasion to practise in all times and companies.

“I want to speak of something else than mere conventionalities,” said the stranger abruptly, “and I will begin by telling you that I quite understand and appreciate your distaste to general fellowship with your kind; I see no reason why I should be an exception, so you need not resort to courteous commonplaces. I have heard what is your aim, and only seek you because I think I may be of some use to you.”

Nicholas looked up, at first eagerly, then a shadow came over his face. Any allusion to future success fired him even against his will, but experience had always hitherto gone the opposite way. Taking the stranger’s permission literally, he said nothing, but looked at him inquiringly. The other went on after a pause:

“I think I can promise you the certainty, within ten years, of accomplishing your wish and seeing your organ, if not in this place, at least in some other quite as advantageous. I have oddities and fixed ideas myself, and understand them in others. In short, it rests mainly with you whether you like to accept my proposal or not.”

“There are conditions, then?” asked Nicholas, whom the belief of his time with regard to compacts with the devil imbued quite as strongly as if he had not been a genius, and who, in consequence, immediately jumped to the conclusion that this visit was not wholly natural.

“Yes,” said the stranger in his metallic voice, unimpassioned but compelling attention by some quality indefinable to Nicholas’ mind, yet surely present to his perception, “I always hedge in business with conditions; otherwise I should be a mere Haroun-al-Raschid, an experimenter in benevolence, which, though an amiable character, is a weak one. I hate weakness and I hate foolishness. I judged you to be neither fool nor weakling, and so sought you out. The conditions are very simple: I want you to bind yourself to my secret service for ten years, and in return I promise you the fulfilment of your wish at the end of that time. In the meanwhile your fame will increase, your powers as a musician will be unrivalled; you will play and compose so as to rouse the jealousy of all your profession; you will be in danger, but will never be struck down; you will have full time for work and study, yet you must always be ready to leave everything instantly when I call upon you; you will be my right hand, but no one will suspect it; but if you once fail in your allegiance to me during these ten years, your object will be frustrated at the end of that time.”

“But,” said Nicholas, who had listened, growing more fascinated as the stranger spoke, and by his eagerness and play of features guiding unconsciously the latter’s fast-increasing promises—“but what power have you to bring such things about? Count Stromwael is a great man, besides being obstinate and perverse; how can you dispose of his property, and even his will?”

“And how,” quickly retorted the stranger with a cold smile, “can you be so imprudent as to speak thus unguardedly of your master’s defects to one whom you saw to-day for the first time, and whose name, position, and motives are unknown to you? Do you know that you put yourself in my power by these words? But I will partly answer your question. I know something of Count Stromwael, and what I know gives me the right to offer you what I do; and as I happen to want your services—they will never conflict with your outward allegiance to your patron—I make you the only proposal, as an equivalent, for which you care. If you cared for the common things—women, money, position—you would not be the person I want; such vassals can be bought by the cart-load, in every station in life, from the Countess of Flanders or the first lord of her household down to the ragged beggars or the sleek hypocrites who crowd the city. I want you, my fancy has chosen you, and I ask you will you buy success at the price of ten years of your life?”

“But why,” persisted the eager but uneasy Nicholas, “only ten years? Why not ask for my whole life?”

The stranger laughed oddly. “And your future life too?” he said. “Yes, I see what you are thinking of: that I want your soul. I will not deny your imputation; you flatter me by identifying me with one whose power is as dread as you have been taught to believe the devil’s to be, but I am quite truthful in saying that I do not crave more than a promise of ten years’ faithful and blind service. You may, if you can, redeem the sacrifice by a long after-life—I only ask ten years; at your age it is not much to give.”

“And if I should die before the ten years are over?”

The stranger raised his eyebrows, but without opening his eyes perceptibly wider.

“You insist on continuing the parallel?” he asked. “I only said ten years of life; if you die you escape me, but you lose your own chance. What should I want with a dead man? The loss would be as much mine as yours.”

“If you can guarantee, as you said, that I should be in danger but should not be struck down, perhaps you can promise me that I shall not die till our contract is fulfilled on both sides?”

“My dear friend, one would need to be deathless one’s self to make such a promise. Even a doctor could only promise life provided such and such circumstances were certain.”

“If you can dispose of Count Stromwael’s will and property,” said Nicholas doggedly, “you can ensure me ten years’ life.”

“Is your life dearer to you than your success, then?”

“No; but the latter depends on the former, and if _you_ must hedge in business by conditions, _I_ must be sure that I do not give you in advance all you want without being sure of my reward at the end.”

“I should not have expected so much foresight in you; I respect you for it. I will see that you have this assurance, but how do I know whether you will believe in it? You see you are so much shrewder than ordinary enthusiasts that I may be taking a spy or a critic into my service.”

“I have never thought about business or guarantees before, because I care for nothing but the success of my organ, and only that would have made me eager to bind you to your promise,” said Nicholas, still uneasily; “but since you only ask ten years’ service, I think I may safely say yes.”

The stranger smiled again, as oddly as before, and drew out a roll of parchment from a little bag. “According to tradition, you should sign this with your blood,” he said, “but I shall be quite content if you sign it with common ink. Here is a horn and a pen; only write your name. But first read the bond.”

Nicholas looked suspiciously at the stranger, who calmly handed him the paper; the latter’s face showed neither interest nor triumph. The deed was very simply worded: “I, Nicholas Verkloep, promise to owe unfailing and unquestioning obedience in all things to Marcus Lemoinne for the space of ten years from this day and hour, in return for the success of my organ at the end of that time, and for all the help he may give me in the interval.” The date was already filled in, being the day on which the above conversation took place, and the hour was marked two hours after noon. Nicholas glanced at the clock behind him in the chapel; the hands pointed to ten minutes to that hour. The stranger followed his glance, quietly rose from the bench, and turning his back upon him, knelt down on the narrow board fixed for this purpose to the front of the tribune.

Nicholas quickly turned things over in his mind: as to his silence about it when the promise was signed he had decided; as to his fulfilment of his obligations to the letter he was as loyally certain; as to the individual whom this man either was or represented he had very little doubt. Very few in his time would have thought otherwise; perhaps few would have hesitated so much after having made up their minds not to ask the advice of any one either before or after the contract was made. Nicholas was only an average Christian, and had no strong feelings except on the subject of his art; everything was in favor of his giving ten years’ life for the success of his scheme. As the clock struck the hour the stranger rose, touched his shoulder, and said, “Well?”

Nicholas, with something like a start, took the pen and signed his name as quickly as he could, whereupon the other also wrote in a fair and scholarly hand these words: “I, Marcus Lemoinne, promise to ensure the success of Nicholas Verkloep’s organ at the end of ten years, in return for his obedience to me during that time.”

No commonplaces passed at parting, and Nicholas went home soon after. His old master noticed that he was a little more excited than usual, and began to make plans and preparations with more energy, but he was used to these phases of mind. The young man (he was now twenty-three) procured beautiful and costly wood for carving, besides ivory, paints, and other materials, and set to work on a complete model. Now began the oddest experiences of his life: his mind seemed doubled, for he was conscious of a never-ceasing expectation, an alertness, and a watchfulness hitherto unknown to him. In the streets, in church, in bed at night, he was always looking for Lemoinne or ready to obey his summons, yet his attention, when he bestowed it on his work, was not disturbed or lessened by this parallel current of thought. His mind grew stronger, brighter, quicker, more ingenious; his fanatical devotion to his art increased daily, and with it his powers, until his fame grew to be just such as the stranger had foretold. This stimulated him further, and he made unheard-of progress, so that his old friend and teacher was half-crazy with joy and pride. The count sent for him to play in the hall before his guests on a small organ of no great power or value, and Nicholas drew from it such sounds as the great men of the profession could not draw from the most magnificent church instruments. That they were jealous of him he knew, but he feared no jealousy, as he courted no admiration. He refused repeatedly to take advantage of his reputation and increase his fortune by travelling to the various art-loving cities of the Netherlands and of Italy, or even by performing in public on great occasions, so that the crowds of his persistent admirers had to content themselves with hearing him at his own old organ in the Stromwael chapel. Even the popular preachers of the day were envious of him. Meanwhile, he worked first at the model, then at the separate pieces of his future organ. The count had given no permission, nor hinted at any, and Lemoinne had made no call on his time, but his belief in the efficacy of the bond never flagged for a moment. It did not occur to him to wonder why he never heard the man’s name mentioned as among those who, whether merchants, artists, or statesmen, had public or secret power; his unspoken suspicion of his identity prevented all such ideas, but it did strike him as odd that for ten months after the signing of the contract nothing was required of him. He felt morbidly that he did not belong to himself, and knew that, do what he would, a secret influence sat within, master of his heart and will, master even of his dreams, and, he feared, of his art also. Was it himself that he put forth in his compositions? When the ten years were ended he would be able to tell, but it was a long time to look forward to. Yet during that time his fame would have been made, and if his power then suddenly deserted him and his suspicions came to be confirmed, he could easily retire on his former laurels and compose no more. Retire at thirty-three? Well, there was the monastery; many men had made a second career, more creditable even than the first, by devoting their worldly gifts, their wealth, and their fame to religious purposes when circumstances made the world distasteful to them at an earlier period than usual. If his suspicions should be true, an after-life of atonement would be fitting, and it would give him time for studies which he longed to undertake, but had no leisure or opportunity for at present. The spiritual element counted for nothing in his calculations; there were many doors still closed in his nature. As he wandered in fancy, his fingers worked and produced beautiful or weird things. The face of Lemoinne, so constantly present to his mind, often came out in wood under his touch, and always, when finished, gave him a start of surprise; for, surely, that was not the expression he remembered? And yet, in carving the likeness, he must have had the recollection before him? A year after the interview in the chapel his old teacher the organist died, and the first strange thing that he had ever said to his pupil he said on his death-bed.

“My son,” he began, as he lay with his hand in that of Nicholas, “there is one thing I feel I must say to you before I go; it is my duty, and young men sometimes forget it. With you it is more dangerous than with most. Be your own master; do not lose the ownership of yourself. Men who do generally commit crime, and, if the slavery be to a woman, they often do base, mean things. I have sometimes feared that you were losing the mastery of yourself, and yet at other times I saw you absorbed in what has been your only idol for twelve years or more.”

“There is no woman that shares that idolatry,” answered Nicholas evasively, starting at the old man’s anxious looks and awakened insight.

“Well,” said the dying man, “I do not grudge you a wife, but I fear any one, man or woman, whose influence over you is not entirely supported and controlled by reason. In God’s name, Nicholas, and as a dying man, I beseech you, if you are in any toils, break through them as quickly as you can.”

“My dear master,” said his pupil, “when you are in heaven pray that I may be guided aright, for I shall have lost the only guide on earth whose help or advice was of use to me.”

“That is no answer, Nicholas,” said the old man reproachfully and wearily; “but remember what I said.”

“Yes, I will remember it,” said the other in an altered tone, “and, if I can, I will heed it.”

After the old man’s death Nicholas led a very lonely life, but his increasing labors at his organ cheered him and occupied his time. His fame kept at its high pitch, and the jealousy of his brother artists was well known.

Fourteen months after his first interview with Lemoinne the latter came again, this time to his home (possibly the attic before described). Nicholas told him how surprised he had been at hearing nothing from him for so long.

“One does not use one’s best and rarest tools often,” said the other with his indescribable smile, “though the highest price paid for them is none the more begrudged on that account; and, again, the finest instruments are used to do what seems the least important work. You know how a glass-cutter uses a diamond? Now, all I want you to do is to ride to a certain place and deliver this letter; you will find the horse ready saddled at St. Martin’s Gate; you have twelve hours to do it in, and by daybreak you will find the same man ready to take the horse at the same place from which you start. The fleetest government messenger would take sixteen hours; but I know the horse and his powers; of his rider I know enough to make me trust him equally.”

The implied trust flattered Nicholas, who took the letter, and, seeing the direction, started a little, but said: “If you say it can be done, it can, but the distance would take a common rider nearer twenty hours than sixteen. Shall I go at once?”

“Yes, and remember your trust goes no further than the delivery of this package to whoever opens the door of that house to you.”

It would take too long to describe the night ride, or even the state of mind in which Nicholas found himself while careering along at a headlong speed towards his goal. This was the first service he had performed for his strange master—an easy and safe one apparently, though secret; the man’s fascination of manner or voice—which was it?—had evidently not lessened since his last appearance. Nothing special occurred; he gave the letter to a commonplace looking person at the door of an ordinary, rather shabby house, and returned by dawn. As to curiosity concerning his errand, it struck him as odd that he should feel none; yet he had never been of a gossipy turn of mind, and these things were, after all, only details in the scheme. This business of Lemoinne’s was probably connected with politics, about which he cared nothing. He did not see his patron again for months, and his work progressed wonderfully.

The next figure which bore the man’s likeness was that of a physician, pouring a liquid from one vial into another, and the expression was that of absorbed attention. The organ-case was to be ornamented with figures representing various saints, the patrons of music, of the Stromwaels, of the chapel, and of the city; then figures typifying the various city guilds; then nine figures emblematic of the traditional nine choirs of angels; but a space was left in the centre, just over the key-board, for the crowning masterpiece. A rose-tree hedge was to run round the instrument, and the pedals were each to be carved so as to represent the seven deadly sins, which, by being trodden under foot, contribute to make the music of the soul before God. Fantastic ideas and odd devices were constantly springing up in his brain and being realized beneath his touch, and in these he encouraged himself to indulge. In one corner of the case, however, was to stand a beautiful, dignified, venerable figure, the glorified likeness of his old master, with no corresponding figure opposite, and robed like a prophet, holding a tablet on which in letters of gold were to be carved in Latin these words: “Be master of thyself.”

His life as a solitary artist and mechanic was a monotonous one to record; even his few tests of obedience to Lemoinne were neither romantic nor terrible. Once he was sent in the disguise of a page to a court entertainment, with orders to follow and observe a high official of the state (who afterwards was proved a traitor and put to death accordingly); another time he was instructed to detain for half an hour a professor of one of the great universities, by which delay the man lost an appointment he much coveted; and another time he was sent to a young man of great position and wealth, but an orphan, to recommend a servant to him. From this, however, sprang some other circumstances worth recording. The young man, Count Brederode, took a violent fancy to him, visited him at his home, entered into his hopes and plans, and begged him to be a friend and brother to him. Nicholas felt drawn to the count, but reminded him of the difference between their stations, and only agreed so far as circumstances would allow. This young man was his very opposite—bright, garrulous, sociable. He always had a love affair on hand, and always confided it to Nicholas, whose words on the subject were never, however, very encouraging. He wasted his money in a way that distressed his prudent friend, and his time in a thousand pursuits for which he had no better excuse than that “gentlemen generally did so and so.” The best-employed part of his day was that which he sometimes spent watching Nicholas at work. At last one day he said suddenly:

“Do you know I am to marry Count Stromwael’s favorite niece, whom he brought up as a sister with his own only daughter? And upon this occasion I am going to ask him a favor, which I am sure he cannot refuse: to let you put up your organ in place of his, which I will take for my chapel in the country.”

Nicholas stared at him in silence. Was this a roundabout fulfilment of Lemoinne’s promise, or a wild, boyish freak, likely to result in nothing?

“Your organ is sufficiently far advanced to put up and play on, is it not?”

“It will be in six months.”

“Then six months hence you shall transfer your workshop to the chapel tribune,” said Brederode confidently.

Nicholas said nothing, but the other was used to that. The famous musician grew more silent every day; things got complicated in his mind, and he was always puzzling himself. His brain was clear only for his work; at all other times he walked in a dream of expectation, conjecture, and dread. Each day the seemingly light burden weighed more upon him; the horror of being entangled in conspiracies of which he was ignorant, and concerned in wrongs which he could neither prevent nor reconcile to himself, haunted him; and yet in actual facts there was nothing to complain of, nothing even to describe. It seemed incomprehensible to him that Lemoinne should have made so solemn an appeal and promise for so little reward, and should have used his power so sparingly. The very blandness of the passing years made him fear some awful test towards the last. Meanwhile, Brederode’s generous, boyish friendship cheered and soothed him. But a year after he first knew him, and two months after Count Stromwael had yielded to his nephew-in-law’s vehement pleading for the Verkloep organ, Nicholas, at work in the chapel, saw him enter with an unusually serious face. The young man began to make dark confidences on political subjects, which Nicholas instinctively repelled, and, without knowing why, he said:

“I entreat you, Count Brederode, do not make me the repository of plans and intentions that may end dangerously for you. I wish to know nothing of anything which is likely to make the state rake up all your habits and intimacies, and use them as the Philistines did Delilah.”

“I would sooner trust you than my own wife,” laughed the young man, “and no one will suspect such a maniac as you are, you know!”

“If you insist upon it,” said Nicholas sadly, “let me at least solemnly swear to you, by my hope of salvation, that nothing shall make me betray you in the slightest thing.”

“I would trust you without an oath,” cried Brederode.

“Then you are not of the stuff of which conspirators are made,” said Nicholas, “and I wish you would retire from a position unsuited to you. You have no interest even in it.”

“None but the fun of secrecy and excitement—except this,” he added more seriously: “that having once promised to give others the shield of my name and the support of my money, I am bound in honor not to run away.”

“True, but break with them honorably and frankly.”

“I cannot.”

“You _will_ not?”

“No, it is not that; there are other games almost as exciting, but my wife’s brother is involved, and I must stand by him. Let us treat it only as an escapade; I want to tell you about it.”

“I repeat my oath, then, and pray Heaven to strike me deaf, dumb, and palsied before I have anything to do in this to your disadvantage.”

“You make it so serious that it loses its fun. But....” And Brederode went on to explain a scheme which the spirit of the times and its prejudices alone made dangerous, but which, if frustrated and discovered, surely entailed capital punishment. Nicholas listened moodily, striving to abstract his mind, endeavoring not to take in his friend’s talk, and all the while feeling a miserable consciousness that, however it might come about, he was nearing one of the tests of his hateful bondage. The day passed, and he still felt uneasy; each step on the stairs frightened him; he could hardly work. At night Lemoinne came to see him. Few words passed; Lemoinne bade him in the same cool, metallic voice, indifferent yet compelling attention, denounce Brederode and his fellow conspirators. He pleaded his oath.

“No oath that conflicts with your promise is worth anything.”

“But he is my friend, and his wife the niece of my patron.”

“No harm shall come to you through denouncing him; your name will be unknown. You shall appear only as an agent—my agent—and not even Brederode himself shall have the chance of upbraiding you.”

“But, since you know the whole affair, why not act yourself?”

“I do not know the whole, but you do, and I mean you to tell me and write it down; I will sign it alone. I am known and have power in many places, but it is useful to have instruments; I have bought mine, and only wish to use what I purchased. Sit down and write.” Nicholas stood sullen and silent. “Do you fancy, because your organ is partly built and placed, that no accident may happen to it? I can do more than you think; you weigh an act with which no one but I shall be acquainted against the possible destruction of your favorite, the fall of your ambition, the collapse of your whole life.”

“No one can put it to me more forcibly than I have done to myself,” said Nicholas moodily; “but, unluckily for me, I have a conscience left.”

“Forget it for twenty-four hours.”

“You do not ask me to forget it, but to disregard it, to gag it. I know what I lose in breaking my bond, and I believe in your power sufficiently to be sure that even my friend would not have opportunity to rebuke me in life.”

“Why do you talk about it?” interrupted Lemoinne with the cold smile peculiar to him. “To discuss a thing, and weigh _pros_ and _cons_, is to yield; you do not reason against what you have made up your mind to refuse.”

Nicholas gazed at the man in horror. Who was he to go thus mercilessly to the heart of the question, to see his hidden thoughts, to interpret the secret of all the uneasiness he had felt ever since his friend had spoken those light but fatal words? Who? A master stronger than himself; one whom it was little use to resist now, no doubt, since he had not had the fortitude to resist him at first. It ended in his yielding, but not without the most terrible self-contempt; self-reproach was nothing to it. He wrote what he knew; as he wrote it all came back to him, much as he had honestly tried not to hear or understand the details. Lemoinne alone signed the paper, and bade him take it to a certain address before morning.

“If you change your mind or try to deceive me, I shall know it,” he said coldly as he left, “and all the difference will be that you will lose your hopes, as well as Brederode his life.”

Nicholas did as he was bidden, and from that day the little peace he had had before fled. The day of the execution came, and he could not resist going to see his friend pay the penalty of _his_ treachery. His tongue was parched and his eyes bloodshot; he skulked behind people in the crowd, and wore his cap as low as he could over his forehead; but nothing availed him, and when the axe fell he felt as if his own soul had been under it instead of the head of his friend. Feverishly and recklessly, all but despairingly, he returned to his work, but though his brain and hands had not lost their cunning, the impressions of that day clouded everything else in his mind, and he had no heart for anything. Two years sped on, and Nicholas Verkloep, with his glowing reputation, was more of an enigma than ever; but it would be impossible to describe the many phases of his mental _delirium tremens_ during that time. The organ was near completion, and Count Stromwael was now as proud of it as the maker. Lemoinne visited Nicholas once more before the end, and this time at the place where the contract was first made. It was the same hour, too. He began by congratulating him on his success so far, then examined the carvings, and smiled as he noticed his own face repeated many times.

“And here is Brederode’s,” he said, as he pointed to the figure personifying the Choir of Thrones. “What made you put him in?”

“Because, as you well know, his face is always with me,” said Nicholas, emboldened by his very complicity with his terrible master. “It was a relief to me to make the image a sort of reality, to give tangible expression to my remorse.”

“Yes; I see you have made the carvings a sort of history of your mind: I see the venerable prophet and the device he bears; the rose-hedge with the prominent and unnaturally-multiplied thorns; the haunting imps of dreams, your own face and mine, and so on. It is only a year and a few months now to the time when our contract ends, and hitherto we have kept it well. I think it likely we shall not meet again till the day is over. Nothing but silence now will be your burden. If you speak of or hint at anything of our transactions, remember the bond is cancelled; but, of course, after the expiration of the ten years you are free to publish the whole.”

He smiled scornfully, and, with another expression of admiration as to the work, left the tribune. It was now that Nicholas put in just over the key-board the groups of our Saviour and the twelve apostles (Judas, with the bag of money, bore Lemoinne’s likeness), but, instead of being, as they are at present, immovable, the figures went in and out by a spring hidden among the stops, so that at the Consecration they could be brought forward, and after the Communion return to the interior of the organ, in the same way as some of the famous figures of the clock in Strassburg Cathedral. The day of the public opening of the completed organ came, the tenth anniversary of the day of the contract, and the reader may imagine all the paraphernalia of a great mediæval _fête_, half-religious and half-secular.

Lemoinne sat among the guests at Count Stromwael’s banquet; it was the first time Nicholas had met him in public. The strange man seemed utterly unconscious that they had ever met before, and his eyes met the organist’s fully as he complimented him in set phrases and handed him a golden gift with a small roll of parchment attached. Stromwael laughed as he remarked:

“Is that the title-deed to a mortgaged estate, or a share in one of your ships?” Nicholas clutched it in silence and tried to smile; the talk around him seemed to point to his strange master being a banker, but he held to his first suspicions. As soon as he was alone he looked hastily at the hateful bond and thrust it into the fire. It seemed odd to him that he did not yet feel free; he had expected the release to be instantaneous. Weeks passed, and still the same old watchfulness and uneasiness went on. Brederode’s face came to him more constantly; all his faculties were centred in horrible recollections and vague and still more horrible expectations. All Flanders raved about the wonderful organ, and requests for similar ones made under his directions and supervision poured in from distant parts. He vowed to himself never to touch such a thing again, or even give directions for it; it was to his fancy an accursed thing, associated with all the horror and despair of his life. He refused all offers; and this grew to be even more of a mania with him than the making of the instrument had been before. Now that his dream had been fulfilled, he only longed to die; his servitude was still unbroken, though the letter of the bond was now a dead letter; he felt himself miserably fettered, haunted, paralyzed. To the rather imperious demand of Count Stromwael’s cousin, himself a powerful personage, for an organ with the same group of the twelve apostles, he returned a flat denial, and neither threats nor promises could shake him. At last the power of the two nobles combined threw him into prison; they made sure of reducing him to obedience by violence and temporary ill-treatment. The prison was what all mediæval dungeons were—damp, filthy, unhealthy, dark. His food was bread and water, and a very scanty measure of both. For a month he was treated as a criminal, but nothing made any impression on the moody, prematurely-aged man. He had made up his mind that only death would make him free, only death would make him able to explain and excuse himself to his dead friend. He cared for no bodily tortures; for ten years he had suffered a mental hell. His friends and his patrons came alternately to coax and tempt or to threaten and abuse him; he would not yield.

Neither wealth, marriage, nor a patent of nobility tempted him; neither the wheel, the rack, nor the block frightened him. He grew weaker and weaker. His eyes saw Lemoinne and Brederode all over the narrow cell; the one seemed like a fiend, and the other always like a corpse, with the head half-severed, yet still conscious with a kind of ghastly life. Physicians examined him and confidently pronounced him sane, and priests visited him and pronounced him certainly not possessed, but both agreed that something unusually terrible must be preying on his mind. He never told what he saw or felt, and answered all questions evasively. At last Stromwael, furious at his vassal’s obstinacy, threatened to put his eyes out and prevent him from ever taking pleasure in work again. He only said:

“You cannot take away my sight, even if you put out my eyes; would to God you could!”

Before this last measure was resorted to he received a visit from Lemoinne, who, in the calm tone of a cynic and a man of the world, begged him to reconsider his decision.

“Nothing could tempt me!” said Nicholas. “Not even you could compel me; it is not in the bond, and I am free.”

“Of course,” said the other, smiling. “I only ask you to yield for your own good. Why should you object?”

“Because the thing is accursed; it has wrecked my life, and I will have no more to do with it,” said Nicholas violently.

“But you are free now?”

“Am I?” said Nicholas, with savage meaning.

“You do me too much honor,” said Lemoinne sarcastically, “in believing my power to be supernatural. Shall I tell you who I am, and what was both my object and the secret of my influence?”

“You can tell what lies you like.”

“I dare say your superstition is greater than my falsehood,” said the man with a smile; “and if I told you, you would be convinced against your will and still remain of the same opinion. Well, you are free now, and show your freedom by throwing away the very gift you sold yourself to obtain.”

“If I could undo the past ten years,” said Nicholas, “I would give up not my organ only, but my art. But as it is, I shall never be free while I live, and I will do nothing that may save or lengthen my horrible life—a mockery, indeed, of freedom!”

“If that is your last decision, I will say no more,” said Lemoinne; “but remember, though our pact is over, I am still your friend, and, should you wish anything between this and death which your jailers would deny you, send me word.”

Nicholas looked at him in surprise and suspicion.

“Yes, they know me here by the same name as you do, and I can generally find means to do what I wish. It is not the first time I have been here or made a like offer to a condemned man.”

“I believe you,” said Nicholas shortly, and his visitor left him. Two days elapsed before the threat was carried into execution, but the prisoner, full of his own trouble, hardly dwelt upon the coming trial. He prayed wildly that the red-hot iron which was to take away his bodily sight would blot out his phantom companions from his mental vision; the horrors of his disturbed brain appalled him more than any earthly punishment, and his half-description or hints of it to one person who visited him constantly was such that the latter compassionately got leave for one of his jailers to sleep with him in his dungeon. The day of the horribly unskilful torture came, and with common iron rods, heated red-hot, the famous artist’s eyes were put out. He writhed and moaned, but the bodily pain was only a faint image of the agony of his mind. Was it madness? Was it possession? Were all the learned men wrong, and he alone right, in thinking that he carried hell within his brain? There was no peace from the gnawing remorse of his betrayal of friendship; no assurance that his repentance was of avail comforted him; no obstinate affirmations could make him feel that the unholy fetters of his bond were in truth broken. It was not his blindness that was killing him; it was his mania. He felt life ebbing, and was fiercely glad, yet at times furious that, with such gifts as his, he should go prematurely to the grave. A chaos of schemes floated through his brain and maddened him yet more: he saw a long array of the works he might have accomplished before he died—Masses, antiphons, fugues; the improvements in the organ-stops and the internal machinery of the instrument; a school he might have founded—if he had been content to rely upon his own industry and the slow path of trust in Providence. He had sold his birthright, and what was the farce of a ten years’ contract, when he knew that at this present moment even the wreck that was left of him was not his own? “If I am still his, at least he shall help me once more,” he thought suddenly, as Lemoinne’s offer occurred to his mind. “I will end this suspense at once.” He asked the man who brought him his meals to tell Lemoinne that he wanted him; and as he began the message he watched with fear and curiosity to see how it would affect the bearer of it. Strange! nothing but a common assent; evidently the request was not a novel one. Lemoinne came that very evening, and Nicholas asked him for a sharp knife. He produced his own, which Nicholas felt all over and took, saying:

“When you hear of my playing on my organ for the last time, come to the tribune and claim your knife. I shall make the request, and feel sure they will grant it.”

“What do you mean to do with the knife?”

“Nothing which _you_ would disapprove; but since you _say_ I am free, let me prove it by not answering this question.”

“I do not press you,” said Lemoinne with his usual icy smile. Nicholas felt the look he could not see, and his very heart seemed to tighten and writhe within him. He had guessed truly; when he asked Count Stromwael to allow him to play once more on the organ before he died—for he felt that he should not live long, he said—the request was quickly granted. His persecutors fancied that he would be less on his guard now, and that somehow, while he played, they could surprise the secret which they wanted to discover. He was taken to the chapel and seated before his instrument. Stromwael, his cousin, and Lemoinne were there, besides other less important persons. All watched eagerly. After half an hour’s playing, as divine as the player’s mind was storm-driven and despairing, Nicholas asked:

“Are the apostles out or in?”

“In,” was the answer.

He pressed a spring and the group came slowly out—our Lord’s figure from the centre, and those of six apostles from each side. Then, with a quick and deft touch, he cut something, and a snapping sound was heard within; his fingers moved again, the knife gleamed, and a wailing sound came from the notes on which his left arm now leaned; then, turning round with a smile of triumph that looked ghastly on the blank face and mutilated eye-sockets, he said:

“I am free now. I am ready to die.”

Lemoinne quickly took up the knife that Nicholas dropped, and smiled as if another character-play had come to an end and he had solved another riddle; Stromwael burst out into wild and furious threats of purposeless revenge. Nicholas sat unmoved and said:

“This organ will be my only monument, and, if a man’s curse can follow another, may mine follow whoever shall attempt to remove or to repair my organ.”

To this day the instrument stands a witness to the tradition of its maker’s fate; the group is immovable, and the few sounds the notes produce are worse than dumbness. Nicholas died two months after, in prison, his mind more and more delirious each day. It is said that, when Lemoinne heard of his death, he remarked to one of his associates:

“That man was the most perfect tool I ever knew. If I had sworn to him that I was a banker, a merchant, a usurer, a spy—an unscrupulous eccentric, whose one mania was the possession of secret power, and whose conscience was dead to any obstacle—he would still have believed in his own theory. But I own I overshot the mark and drove him too far.”

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THE GERMAN ELEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES.

The social, moral, and political influence of the German-born and German-descended population of the United States upon their fellow-citizens has already been perceptible; that this influence will vastly increase in the future is highly probable. We may state here one of the many reasons for this belief. The intellectual and political leaders of the Germans in America have hitherto mainly confined their public utterances, in the press or on the platform, to the German language. The German newspapers are very numerous; their circulation is large; they are written for the most part with much ability; their treatment of social and political questions is often marked by a breadth of view and a soundness of logic too frequently wanting in many of their English contemporaries. Their influence upon the minds of their readers is also greater than that wielded by the majority of our newspapers printed in the English language. We have heard this fact attributed to the superior honesty with which the German press is conducted; but upon this delicate ground we shall not enter. Our point at present is that German thought and opinion, as expressed through the German periodical press, influence for the most part only the German population. Few of us who are not Germans read a German journal; what the German leaders in politics, morality, and literature are saying, day after day, is for the most part wholly unknown to the rest of us. Occasionally an American editor translates a leading article from a German journal and gives it to his readers; still more frequently he avails himself of the ideas and the arguments of his German contemporaries and reproduces them as his own.

In the next generation this state of things will be modified; more Americans will read German literature, and more Germans, or German-Americans, will write in English journals, speak in English at public conventions, and sit in our legislative assemblies. The barrier of language, which has hitherto tended to separate Germans from the rest of us to so great an extent, will gradually yield and disappear. The German language will be learned by increasing numbers of our non-German citizens; the common use of the German language by the German-Americans will be dropped, and the English tongue adopted in its stead, not only in business affairs, but in politics, literature, religion, and social intercourse. The English language has made many conquests, but in America it has only to hold its own. It is the language of the country, of the legislature, of the courts, of the markets and exchanges, and of society. Our German citizens must acquire it, or enter handicapped into all the relations of life.

The ability with which the German journals here are conducted does not prevent nearly the whole of them which are not avowedly Catholic from being inspired by an antagonism to religion. The genius of the German mind has little sympathy with socialism or communism, and the theories of socialism and communism find expression among our German citizens only through the writings or speeches of a few insignificant and uninfluential men in New York and some of our other large cities. But the German who is not a Catholic is most often an atheist; and he differs from the French atheist in wishing his wife and children to be atheists also. The non-Catholic German press faithfully represents this phase of the German mind; and it sneers at religion with the same pertinacity and often with more skill than is shown in a like direction by too many of our English-written newspapers.

The total immigration into the United States from the close of the War of Independence to the end of 1876 was 9,726,455 souls. The records of the government do not furnish an ethnological classification of all these; it is only since 1847 that this classification has been made. But every one knows that the bulk of our immigrants have come from Ireland and Germany. At the port of New York alone the total number of Irish immigrants from 1847 up to September 1 of the present year was 2,009,447; of German immigrants 2,345,486; of all others 1,265,240. An estimated classification of those arriving before 1847, added to the above figures, gives 2,463,598 Irish, 2,622,556 German, and 1,542,311 of other nationalities. The present Secretary of the Interior is the only American citizen of German birth who has ever held a cabinet appointment; we believe that he is the only citizen of German birth who has ever sat in the Senate. But among the senators at the last session of the Forty-fourth Congress there were seven who were either of foreign birth or the sons of foreigners; and in the lower House of the same assembly there appears to have been but one German to twelve naturalized citizens of other nationalities. The Secretary of the Interior owes the prominent political position which he fills less to his statesmanlike and philosophical acquirements than to his command of the English language and to his grace and power as a public speaker. No doubt there are among our German citizens many who are his equals in learning and political wisdom, but who are almost wholly unknown outside the German-speaking community, for the reason that they confine themselves, on the platform or in the press, to the use of the German language. The coming generation of Americans of German descent will not subject themselves to this disadvantage; and thus the influence of German thought will be widened and deepened.

Upon this portion of our subject we may as well reproduce in substance, although not with literal exactness, the observations made to us by a German ecclesiastic, a member of one of the German religious orders which are working here with so much zeal and success. In his opinion the German element now in the United States will ere long be greatly increased by a revival of immigration. Immigration from Germany may not again attain the vast proportions which it reached in 1852–53–54, nor during the seven memorable years 1866–1872, but it will still be very large. All other things being equal, the proportion of Catholics immigrating from Germany will be greater in the future than in the past. In looking at the future of the country we should reckon that the German element here will for many years to come steadily and rapidly increase. But it is not probable that, after the passing away of the present generation, our German population will so tenaciously retain its distinctive national or ethnological features. It will become absorbed in, amalgamated with, the rest of the community, but through this very absorption and amalgamation it will leaven the whole mass for good or for evil; and most probably the good will preponderate.

In our present German population, especially the younger portion of it, there is a very perceptible disposition to be a little ashamed of their German origin. This feeling, which has long existed, received a check during and immediately after the triumph of Germany over France in 1870 and the erection of the German Empire. But it has now revived and prevails with more force than before. Our German citizens feel that the golden apples of victory have turned to ashes in the grasp of the conquerors. The milliards wrung from France have sunk into the ground or vanished in the air, and Germany is poorer than before the war—much poorer than France, which Prince Bismarck imagined had been crushed into nothingness. All the glory that Germany won by her conquest of France in the field has been eclipsed by the peaceful victory of France—a victory the effects of which were made manifest at our International Exhibition last year. More serious still than this, in the opinion of the learned and acute ecclesiastic whom we are quoting, is the dislike and contempt with which the iniquitous, unnecessary, and tyrannical policy of the German government toward the church is regarded not only by Catholic Germans in America, but by those of their non-Catholic compatriots here who are not swayed by sectarian hatred of the church. This policy is justly regarded as at once an evidence of weakness and a prolific source of future trouble, and among the non-Catholic German-Americans the remark is common that “between the Red-coats and the Black-coats—the Communists and the Catholics—the empire is in great danger of destruction.” For these reasons, and other slighter ones, our German fellow-citizens are becoming less and less disposed to boast of their nationality, and more and more inclined to Americanize themselves and their children. The “Watch on the Rhine” gives place to “Yankee Doodle”; the suggestive inquiry as to the precise locality and boundaries of the Faderland is not so popular as “Hail Columbia.” Certain considerations of a utilitarian nature aid powerfully in leading our German citizens in the same direction. Their common sense enables them to see that their own advancement in life, and the prosperity and happiness of their children, materially depend upon their thorough Americanization—their complete identification with the rest of the community in which they live. The first step towards this end is the acquirement and use of the English language, and in this the children often outstrip the wishes of their parents. In the German-American schools, secular as well as religious, the study of the English language is compulsory, and necessarily so. The children appear to have a natural affinity for the English tongue; they acquire its use rapidly and soon begin to speak it in preference to their native language. It is not uncommon to meet with families where the parents address the children in German and the children reply in English. The truth is that the English language as now spoken, largely Teutonic in its composition and structure, but enriched and softened by Celtic, Latin, and Greek accretions, more easily adapts itself to the expression of the necessities, the emotions, and the ideas of the age. An amusing illustration of this self-asserting power of the English language was afforded by the experience of a village in Indiana, on the Ohio River, which was settled a few years ago by an exclusively German colony consisting of about three hundred families. Nothing but German was at first spoken in the houses, but in a very brief space of time the language in the streets was found to be English, and ere long that became the prevailing dialect of the place, appearing, as one of the residents said, to have sprung up and taken root there just as the weeds in the fields.

We should not omit to mention, however, a fact which to a very large degree tends to show that the Americanization of our German citizens is not so rapid as it might be. Intermarriages between Germans, or descendants of Germans, and Americans of other descent are not regarded with favor by the older Germans of the present generation, and such marriages are of rare occurrence. This is to be deplored, especially for the sake of the non-German party. In all the domestic virtues the Germans are richly endowed. The influence of the mother in the family is supreme within certain limits, and this influence is almost always exerted for good. The German husband does not regard his wife as a pretty plaything, a fragile and expensive doll to be dressed in gay raiment and paraded for the gratification of her own and his vanity. On the contrary, the German husband, if at fault at all in this respect, looks upon his wife too much in the light not merely of a helpmeet, but of a servant in whose zeal, industry, and faithfulness he can repose the utmost confidence. Americans too often make useless idols of their wives; the German husband may seem to regard his spouse from too utilitarian a point of view. In the German household, here as in the Fatherland, there is not, as there is too often in American homes, one bread-winner and one or more spenders. The wife, whenever it is needful or expedient, not only manages the domestic affairs of the family with economy, prudence, and good sense, but takes a full share of the burden of providing its income. If one journeys through those portions of the West where the Germans are largely engaged in agricultural pursuits, he will see the wife and daughters working in the fields alongside of the husband and the brothers; in the towns, while the husband is pursuing his trade or laboring in the streets, the wife is keeping a shop or a beer-saloon, or otherwise earning her full share of the family income, and aiding her husband to lay up the nest-eggs of their future fortune. The will of the wife is most frequently supreme in all domestic affairs, and even in matters of business; and this, too, without the husband feeling himself at all “hen-pecked.” His wife is his equal; he shares with her his amusements as well as his toils. Nothing is more pleasant than the spectacle of German families, on _fête_ days or on summer evenings, taking their pleasure together in the beer-gardens. The presence of the women and children does not lessen the gayety of the men; but it prevents them from excess and compels propriety of conversation and deportment. With these habits, and with the gift of living well and wholesomely, on plain but abundant food, without wastefulness, the Germans prosper, and they acquire competences sooner and more generally than other classes. When wealth comes, their frugal and sensible habits of life are not laid aside for extravagant display, nor is the influence and sway of the mother weakened or lessened. The daughters, even of the wealthiest and most cultured German families, are taught how to become good and useful wives to poor men, and are thus prepared for reverses of fortune. By some of our American women these virtues of their German sisters may be regarded with contempt and dislike; but many American men, we are inclined to think, would lead happier lives and escape much pecuniary trouble, if they won for themselves wives from among the daughters of their German neighbors. There are but few such marriages now. The German parents dislike them; and there is, moreover, a little ignorant prejudice on the American side. The next generation or two, we trust, will be wiser.

The limits of our space and the scope of our article forbid us to do more than merely glance at a branch of our subject which is in itself worthy of a separate essay—the influence exerted by our German fellow-citizens upon the rest of us by their works in music and in the fine arts. Here the barrier of language does not exist; the genius of music and of art is universal. A certain degree of cultivation of the ear and eye is necessary, of course; but, this being attained, the music of a German composer, the painting, the sculpture, the architecture, or the decoration of a German artist, is appreciated, admired, and imitated as well by those ignorant of his language as by those of his own nationality. There is reason to believe that American taste in music and in art owes vastly more to German influence than is generally supposed or conceded. Perhaps the strongest evidences of this would result from a critical examination of the extent to which German ideas have modified, enlarged, beautified, and spiritualized our architecture, our dramatic, domestic, and ecclesiastical music, and all those phases of our daily life wherein the fine arts play a part.

Among German-American architects may be mentioned G. F. Himpler, a student at Berlin and Paris, and a thoroughly-educated master of his art—the builder of fine churches in St. Louis, Detroit, Sandusky, Elizabeth, Rome (New York), Atchison, and other places; among historical painters, Leutz—now dead, but whose works at Washington and elsewhere have given him a national fame—Lamprecht and Duvenech (the latter a native of this country), Biermann and Lange; among decorative painters, Thien, Ertle, and Muer; among sculptors and designers, Schroeder, Allard, and Kloster—the latter a very distinguished young artist; among German singers, as well known here as in Germany, Wachtel, Hainamns, Lichtmay, and Tuska; among actors. Seebach, Janauschek, Taneruscheck, Lina Meyer, and Witt.

But we can only hint at these things, and hasten on to remark, in passing, that our German citizens, even more generally and zealously here than in Germany, seek to provide for and to secure the education of their children. “The first thing that a colony of German emigrants settling in America seeks to establish is the school,” said to us a high authority. “If they are Catholics, or even zealous Lutherans, the church is built simultaneously with the school; but in every case the school must be set up, and the children must attend it at whatever cost to the parents.”

Thus far we have written of our German population as a whole. We now turn our attention to that portion of it which belongs to ourselves—_i.e._, the German Catholics of the United States. United with us by the bond of faith, their welfare is especially dear to us, and in their spiritual and material progress, prosperity, and happiness we have a deep and abiding interest.

Prior to 1845 the German emigration to the United States had been numerically insignificant, and consisted chiefly of the peasant class. The revolution of 1848 had the effect not only of greatly increasing this emigration but of materially changing its character. An official report recently made by Dr. Engel, Director of the Bureau of Statistics at Berlin, states that the number of Germans who emigrated to the United States from 1845 to 1876, both years inclusive, was 2,685,430. Dr. Engel remarks that a very large proportion of these emigrants (considerably more than 1,000,000 of them) were “strong men”; there were few old or infirm people among them; those of them who were not adult males in the vigor of their manhood were chiefly young and middle-aged women and children. A goodly proportion of these emigrants must now be living among us; we know by the census of 1870 that our German-born population even then numbered 1,690,410. The German race is hardy and prolific; its women are good mothers; their thrift, industry, and economical habits enable them to live in comfort upon modest resources; without being teetotalers, they are seldom intemperate. The German-born and German-descended population of the United States at present—including in the latter class only those whose parents on both sides or on one side or the other were natives of Germany, but who were themselves born here—is believed to be about 5,500,000 souls. The great bulk of this population is in the Central, Western, and Northwestern States; the six States of New York, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Missouri contain nearly two-thirds of the whole number.[86]

The German Empire as at present constituted contained at the latest census (1875) 42,723,242 people. Of these not quite one-third are Catholics. Had the immigration from the states which now form the German Empire borne this proportion, we should have in the United States a German Catholic population of about 1,800,000 souls. But the immigration was largely from the Protestant states, or from those in which the Protestants were in the majority. We should be satisfied, and more than satisfied, when we learn that the German Catholics in the United States, according to the latest and most accurate computation, numbered 1,237,563 souls. It is a very large number—large enough to establish the fact that the Catholic Germans arriving here have not lost their faith, but have preserved and guarded it for themselves and their children. These 1,237,563 German Catholics in America are not mythical or hypothetical persons; in making up the numeration care was taken to include only those who were known as practical Catholics, frequenters of the sacraments, careful observers of their duties as Catholic parents or Catholic children. In this connection we may add some figures for which we are indebted to the courtesy of a German priest and statistician, and on the accuracy of which our readers may depend. First, however, let us state, upon the best authority, that the church in America loses very few of her German children. We were extremely gratified with the unanimous testimony which rewarded our inquiries on this matter. It very rarely occurs that a young German Catholic of either sex strays or is stolen from the fold. Neither the false philosophy of the infidel or Protestant German schools, nor the seductions and ridicule of their infidel or Protestant American neighbors, lure them from the faith. We have observed in our own visits to the German churches in New York, especially at the early Masses, the large proportion of male adult worshippers. “Our old people, of course, never leave us,” said a learned German priest, “and our young people rarely, very rarely, stray away. They are faithful in their duties, and they appear to love their religion with all their hearts. When they marry and have children, they look after them as Catholic parents should do. Our parochial schools are well attended; our higher schools and academies are prosperous. Our teaching orders, of men and women, have their hands full of work, and they are almost without exception well supported. One of the bishops in a Western diocese, the greater part of whose flock are Germans, has the happiness of knowing that all the children of his people are in attendance either in his parochial schools or in other schools of which the teachers are Catholics.”

Our 1,237,563 German Catholics in America are ministered to in spiritual things by 1,373 German priests. They have 930 church edifices, while there are 173 other congregations of them regularly visited by priests, but as yet without church buildings. The whole number of Catholic priests in the United States, according to the _Catholic Directory_ for this year, is 5,297, of churches 5,292, and of chapels and stations 2,768. Thus it will be seen that the German priests number a little more than one-fourth of our American ecclesiastical army. There is a German priest for every 900 German Catholics. How faithfully they discharge their duties, and how zealously the people, on their part, assist their pastors, may be estimated by the fact that the baptisms by these German priests last year numbered 71,077—an average of more than one each week for each priest; and that the number of children in the German parochial schools was 137,322—an average of almost exactly 100 children for each priest. The following table will show with approximate exactness the number of German Catholic priests and German Catholic laymen in the various States or dioceses:

_Priests_. _Laymen_.

New York 149 134,100

Baltimore 103 92,700

Pennsylvania 75 67,500

Ohio 200 180,000

Indiana 132 118,800

Michigan 33 29,700

Kentucky 43 38,700

Wisconsin 163 146,700

Kansas 13 11,700

Illinois 135 121,500

Missouri 80 72,000

Minnesota 74 69,600

Louisiana 38 34,200

Other 135 120,363 localities

—— ————

1,373 1,237,563

The education of the juvenile portion of this large army of German-American Catholics is partly in the hands of the teaching orders of the church, male and female; partly in the hands of the parish priests; and partly confided to private instructors. The “German Sisters of Notre Dame,” for example, 923 in number, in 79 congregations, have charge of the parochial schools and instruct 25,557 children. They have also 15 academies, in which 1,375 pupils are receiving higher education; and 11 orphan asylums with 1,400 children. Another branch of the same sisters have their houses in 17 congregations, and in these 63 teaching sisters are instructing 9,000 children; they have also 3 academies with 700 pupils. The German Franciscan Sisters, in 19 congregations, have 53 teaching sisters educating 5,700 children; and one academy. The Sisters of the Precious Blood, in 11 congregations, employ 17 of their number in teaching 900 children. The German Dominican Sisters, whose houses are in New York, Williamsburg, and Racine, Wisconsin; and the Sisters of Christian Charity, at Melrose and elsewhere, are among the many religious orders chiefly engaged in educational work among the German Catholics. Prince Bismarck has done us a very good turn without wishing it. The expulsion of the religious orders of men and women caused by the persecution of the church in Germany compelled these servants of God to seek new homes. Many of these orders already had houses in this country; driven from Germany, they found not merely a refuge but a warm welcome and abundant work with their brothers and sisters here. Others of them, not previously established in this country, and being robbed by the paternal government of Prussia of all their property, arrived here in poverty; but they were joyfully received and speedily supplied with means for commencing their work in these new and inviting fields. The German branch of the Christian Brothers—“Christliche Schulbrüder”—has experienced a marvellous growth, and is accomplishing splendid results in the primary and higher education of the German Catholic youth.[87]

A visit to a German Catholic church can scarcely fail to be interesting and profitable to an American Catholic. He will see much that is edifying and highly pleasing. The congregations at the early Masses on week-days—we speak now only of what we have ourselves observed in New York—are generally large and are composed of a fair share of men; at all the Masses on Sundays the attendance is still more numerous. On days of obligation, other than Sundays, these churches are thronged to their utmost capacity; at the nine o’clock Mass on last Corpus Christi we saw the great Church of the Redemptorists, on Third Street, packed from the altar rails to the doors, and even the spacious vestibule filled with kneeling worshippers. On this occasion, as on many others, nearly or quite one-half of the congregation were men—a fact which we emphasize, as it contradicts the mistaken idea that the faith is losing its hold upon our men and is mainly cherished only by women. There are thirteen German Catholic churches in this city. The good sense, thrift, and wise management of the Germans have borne their natural fruit in their churches and religious houses as well as elsewhere. For example, attached to each of the two Capuchin churches is a large, handsome, and substantial convent for the use of the fathers and for their schools. We were astonished at the extent, the good arrangement, and the solidity of these edifices, and our astonishment was not lessened when we learned that they had both been erected within the last ten years.

It would be well, we think, if the relations between our German Catholics and the rest of us were made more close and intimate. The bond of faith, we know, unites us in all essential things; but it would be well for us to come nearer together in every way. Our German co-religionists are worthy of all esteem. They are already strong in numbers. They will constantly became stronger. The _Pall Mall Gazette_ recently contained a most interesting summary of a report made by Vice-Consul Kruge upon the subject of German emigration. We quote the following portion of this summary:

“Emigration from Germany, particularly to the United States, increased steadily after the memorable year 1848, and assumed very large proportions immediately after the chances of a war between Austria and Prussia in 1852 and 1853. The largest number of emigrants of any year left in summer, 1854, or after the declaration of the Crimean war—the United States alone receiving 215,009 German immigrants in that year. There appears a considerable falling off from 1858 to 1864, but already in 1865, when a probability of a war between Austria and Prussia became more and more visible, the number of emigrants began to increase very much. The years from 1866 to 1870, most likely in consequence of the suspicious relations between France and the North German Confederation, which ultimately brought on the war in 1870, give very large figures. Even the year 1870 has the large number of 91,779 emigrants. ‘Strange to witness,’ says Consul Kruge, ‘after the close of the Franco-German war, when the German Empire had been created, and a prosperity seemed to have come over Germany beyond any expectation, when wages had been almost doubled, and when, in fact, everything looked in the brightest colors, a complete emigration fever was raging in all parts of Germany’; and the years 1871, 1872, 1873 show an almost alarming tendency to quit the Fatherland. This movement would no doubt have continued but for the natural check it received through the financial and commercial crisis in the United States. There are however, at present again unquestionable signs that a very large emigrating element is smoldering in Germany, stimulated by political and economical embroilments which will break forth as soon as sufficient hope and inducements offer themselves in transatlantic countries in the eyes of the discontented and desponding Germans. The general political aspect and the decline of German commerce and industry at the present period are, observes Consul Kruge, such that an emigration on a large scale must be the natural consequence of the ruling state of affairs. Among other illustrations of the causes of a desire on the part of the Germans to leave their native land, Consul Kruge mentions the religious ‘Kulturkampf,’ which, he says, in its practical results may, at least up till now, be rightly termed an unsuccessful move on the political chessboard, and has been brought home by degrees to the Roman Catholic population in an irritating, harassing form. Between the priests on the one hand and the Government on the other the lives of the Roman Catholic peasantry are made one of ‘perfect torment’; and these people naturally desire to leave that country where, rightly or wrongly, they believe their religion attacked or endangered. The relations between France and Germany also act powerfully to promote emigration, and the huge expenses of maintaining the army, besides a navy of considerable size, contribute to swell the emigration tendency of the country. Consul Kruge thinks that if the Australian colonies care to have the largest portion of the coming German emigration, at no time have they had a better chance of creating an extensive movement to their shores than at present.”

These remarks strongly confirm the opinions expressed by ourselves when writing on the same subject four months ago.[88] But when the wave of German emigration again rises to its former height, it will turn toward this country, as before, and not to Australia. Here the German population is already so large and so well-to-do that the new-comers will find themselves at home upon their arrival. Especially will the United States be attractive to the German Catholics; for here they will find their exiled priests and nuns, already settled in their new homes, with churches and schools prepared for them. The return of moderate prosperity to the United States will probably give the signal for the commencement of the new German exodus; and we are scarcely too sanguine in believing that this return to prosperity will not be delayed much longer.

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AT THE CHURCH-DOOR.

The city lights still glimmered in the square, Shivered with morning’s chill the winter air, Scarce yet the eastern line of light broke through The starlit darkness of the deep skies’ blue.

Upon the sparkling snow clear shadows lay The moon flung eastward,—as if so the day, Whose unseen coming seemed to fill the air, They yearning sought with outstretched arms of prayer.

A sound of bells from far-off towers broke, The frosty silence with their pealing woke, And answering bells flung back across the sky The Christmas morning’s glad, earth-echoed cry.

Dark, muffled figures with quick, constant tread O’er glittering ice and snowy pathway sped— A gathering train, crowding from lane and street, To lay love’s homage at the Child-Christ’s feet.

A soft gleam from the church’s windows fell Across the square, as if in peace to tell Of light less clouded shining pure within, Of peace more eloquent cleansed souls should win.

As, with the thronging crowd, my feet drew near The open doorway whence the light streamed clear, The accents of a language not my own Broke through the hurrying footsteps’ monotone—

Quick-spoken words of soft Italian speech: So far the simple utterance seemed to reach, To Roman skies my dreaming thoughts it bore, While home’s familiar walls new aspect wore.

Seemed it almost, beneath that dark of dawn, As if my feet fell Roman pavement on, The lights that twinkled through the open door Burning some altar, centuries old, before,

Whose glow, in truth, fell soft on northern fir O’er whose dark shadow shone the face of her, The lowly Mother-Maid, Lady of Grace, Foligno’s Queen watching the holy place.

And shrined within lay martyr-saint of Rome— Vial and bones from ancient catacomb Of that far city that seemed far no more, Whose faith and speech met at the low church-door.

Seeming that speech true witness of the peace Won years ago, when weary earth’s release The angels chanted in the midnight sky, And earth’s Redeemer waked with infant cry:

He who had come the narrow bonds to break Of race and nation, who frail flesh did take That Jew and Gentile might one Father claim, And win all sweetness through one Brother’s name.

Scarce foreign seemed the stranger’s vivid word; Nay, rather was it as if so I heard The Christian speech of some old saintly age Claiming in faith an earlier heritage.

Before one altar soon our knees should bend, In one heart’s-worship soon our prayers ascend, Within those sacred walls—our common home— As children kneel of one true mother—Rome.

One faith was ours, one country all our own, Wherein all petty landmarks are o’erthrown: Not worshipping as Latin, Saxon, Gaul— The children of one God who made us all.

Ours an inheritance so full and great, Each lowliest handmaid clothed in royal state; No heart so poor but that it throne may be For Heaven’s King in his infinity.

From Rome this guerdon of our faith we hold: What though its light o’er broken seas is rolled? Unfaltering it shines through storm-clouds’ shade, Unfailing beacon! by God’s Spirit fed.

A foreign faith! Ay, so, of that strange land Whereof as citizens our free souls stand, Whose earthly pasture is the church’s shrine— Earth’s limits lost within her realm divine.

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A SWEET REVENGE.

CONCLUSION.