heroic action have disappeared, the Creator of them is a present and living force, and, as the hampering ties of former systems are loosed, we may expect to see revived the active forces of human emotion in their noblest forms. Again representative men may know the rapture of sacrifice, and perceive that death is an acceptable link in the chain of life. Glimpses will again be credibly reported of that supreme good which encompasses evil as the calm of space encompasses the storms of our atmosphere.

At epochs when the tide of human advance has been at the ebb, the absence of emotion, the affectation of dispassionateness have been taken as proofs of strength; but the wave returns and lifts men once again to the higher levels of the race, and the strongest, because they are the strongest, join hands with tears under stress of some generous impulse, some pain of evolution, some delight of attainment, some sense of beauty, or some just repugnance.

Most persons of advanced thought will allow that as guardian of conduct, as mistress and guide of the emotions towards nobler life, the great Christian Church could be ill spared from the world, if it is to remain a civilised world. If beauty have its use and what biologist would deny it?-how could we spare the goodly blossoms borne by the Roman stem? A chief element in beauty is its expression of pure passion, and when has passion found fuller expression than in the work most saturated with Catholic spirit? Thousands within the Church have made and make of their lives a 'perfumed altar flame' fed by love; and if it seem long since the authors of the Vita Nuova and the Imitation vindicated the Church's claim to be the mother of intensely passionate poetry, the exigencies of her defensive attitude must be considered.

The revolutionary outbreak of the last ninety years set hearts beating, and if the nether fires of hate and lust broke forth, there was within the Catholic Church a revival of noble emotion, while, true to her tradition, its purest examples are found where the deluge swept by most fiercely.

In a time when the value of family ties is questioned, when intellectual distinction is vulgarised to general knowledge, when the struggle for luxurious existence, and the egotism of discouragement have most obscured them, the noble outlines of conjugal union, and the record of a family in which intellectual genius polished by society gave due expression to ardent passion, are of special value. A memoir in which courtship, marriage, and death are portrayed with entire nobleness, is an impressive gift to European society. We live in a pelting shower of romances, rhymes, and realism, and now and then there is in its confused noise a note of true emotion; but unless the music made be according to the divine science, it will be to Christian passion but as a passing sound to a symphony by one of the great masters of harmony.

The writer of this article is bold to say that such a symphony of noble emotion nobly presented has been, in this latter half of our century, given to those who have ears to hear.

There are in England singularly few readers of the better French literature, but those who are familiar with it can hardly have failed to meet a book published in 1864, when the second Empire was in its full development, and which had for title Le Récit d'une Sœur.

It is now in a thirty-first edition, though it appeals to no literary fashion of the day, but it expresses many thoughts and responds to many desires of modern hearts. It has the beauty which is of all time, and treats of those issues of human life which are universal. There have been published lately several books of intimate and highly toned memoirs, both of English and French growth, for a note struck by a master hand, and in harmony with the thoughts of many, sets similar chords vibrating; but Le Récit d'une Sœur has the superiority of that ideal beauty to which, if men are not habitual dullards, they instinctively do homage.

The prelude to this story of a family that knew how to live, and die, and conquer death, is joyous and bright as a morning of early summer. Earthly happiness seemed realised in May 1830 at the Palazzo Simonetti, then occupied by the French Ambassador, Comte de la Ferronnays, and his family. M. de la Ferronnays is acknowledged by those who knew him to have been a brilliant specimen of the brilliant class of Frenchmen who retained the chivalry and religious honour of the old kingdom, and added thereto the new energy of the young century. He had for many years represented France at St. Petersburg, and had gained the intimate friendship of both Alexander and Nicholas. Though one of Charles the Tenth's trusted supporters, M. de la Ferronnays had kept aloof from some personages and measures of the French court, but he was, perhaps, the more respected. In 1828 he was given the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but his health and his distaste for the ideas dominant just then made him gladly accept the Roman Embassy as a dignified retreat. He, his wife, and his family of three sons and four daughters were all together when the Récit begins, and in full possession of all that high birth, rank, and brilliant worldly position could add to the happiness of family union. Madame de la Ferronnays was a daughter of Comte de Monsoreau, and a niece of that faithful Duchesse de Tourzel who had accompanied Louis the Sixteenth and Marie-Antoinette in their flight to Varennes, and, as governess of their children, had shared their captivity in the Temple. The Comte de la Ferronnays married Mademoiselle de Monsoreau in those years of the emigration when the power of Napoleon was at its height, and when the Royalists were most discouraged. The discomforts and disenchantments of their exile were extreme, but salutary for noble

natures. Madame de la Ferronnays has left an unpublished memoir of her and her husband's experiences in England which it is to be hoped will be given to the world as an example of courage and of that humility which cannot be humiliated. But since the Restoration they had belonged to the higher diplomatic and ministerial world, and had acquired that best cosmopolitanism which is its characteristic.

To M. de la Ferronnays' eldest daughter, Pauline, the world owes the Récit as well as much other work which, by its qualities of style and its deep humanity, must rank with what has been done by the chiefs of emotional literature. Just twenty-one when her father was appointed ambassador at Rome, she had already seen much of the 'great world.' Admitted as her parents were to intimacy with the Russian Imperial family, she had, child as she was, appreciated much of the light and shade of the St. Petersburg court. It was full at the time of the echoes of the most advanced European thought. The genius of Joseph de Maistre had there met in fair tourney the champions of encyclopedism. Probably it was chiefly owing to him that the intense conservatism of the Russian Church appeared too narrow for some of its nobler children, who, like Madame Swetchine, were driven to seek in a living authority for the balancing power that could adapt tradition to progress. The young De la Ferronnays, but chiefly Pauline (now Mrs. Craven), formed many ties among the Russians, and the Russian element is strong in the group to which Mrs. Craven has given its due place among the beautiful forms of the world. She has arranged the letters and memoranda left to her charge by her family with a skill that is hardly remembered in the interest they evoke. Yet no other living artist in words could have so well shaped her materials, or so perfectly told the story of family life entrusted to her, and which covers a period of eighteen years, from the brilliant spring of 1830, spent under an Italian sky and in the city of noble thoughts, until 1848, when Madame de la Ferronnays at length laid down her crown of sorrow.

It is a question how far domestic affairs and private letters should be made public. Unless they emit some ray of universally felt beauty, there is little excuse for exposure of souls. Yet where such beauty exists the record of its spiritual and intellectual loveliness is at least as valuable as any sculptured or painted representation of material form. In the latest of her psychological studies, the Memoir of Natalie Narischkin, Mrs. Craven expresses the purpose which underlies her whole work.

La science étudie avec passion tous les mystères de la nature; elle contemple avec une juste attention et un intérêt infini le développement des germes déposés au sein de la terre; elle se perd dans l'étude des transformations diverses que peut subir la matière. Combien il est étrange qu'à côté de ce monde extérieur, déjà si beau et si rempli de mystères, tant de savants négligent totalement cet autre

monde, non moins mystérieux, non moins digne d'étude à coup sûr, dont les fruits apparaissent aussi au dehors, et surprennent ceux qui les contemplent. Fruits qu'ils reconnaissent et qu'ils admirent eux-mêmes, car un savant même incrédule (s'il n'est point, en outre, un homme corrompu) admet la beauté du dévouement sans bornes, de la pureté sans tache, de la charité sans limites. Mais ce sont là, dans le fait, des choses rares, il le sait mieux qu'un autre. Il sait bien que l'égoïsme, la sensualité et l'orgueil sont des tendances naturelles, et qui caractérisent tellement cette plante qu'il a sous les yeux, et qu'il nomme l'humanité, que c'est une sorte de phénomène que de l'en trouver exempte. Mais si ce phénomène se produit cependant? S'il se répète ? S'il se répète au moyen des mêmes lois? Ces lois, n'ont-elles rien d'intéressant à étudier? Cette humanité, n'est-ce point eux-mêmes? N'en font-ils point partie? Et n'est-il pas inouï de consumer son temps et ses forces à se rendre compte, avec exactitude, de ce qui se produit dans le monde extérieur et d'ignorer profondément ce qui se passe dans ce monde intérieur, qui les touche si directement, et où s'ils voulaient plonger dans le but de connaître d'autres âmes, ils seraient conduits à faire de si merveilleuses découvertes dans la leur? Un grand écrivain a dit 'qu'il fallait prêter l'oreille aux sons que rendent les âmes saintes, avec plus de respect qu'à la voix du génie.' Combien est-il plus vrai encore de dire qu'il faudrait s'approcher avec plus de respect, d'attention et de curiosité, des mystères que renferme le monde de la grâce, que de tous ceux que contient le monde de la nature!

An old-fashioned view of the matter! but as there can be no new fashions in ethics, it is well to be reminded that there exists scientifically a spiritual life—or one that we agree to call so-just as much as in a drop of dirty water there exists a torment of innumerable tails,' valuable to biologists, but not more valuable than the phenomena of emotion.

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And in Mrs. Craven's work there is a revelation of beauty not less than of truth. She ministers to the wide-felt yearning for news of the kingdom of God.' That it can exist within men and women of the latest civilisation is proved by her as by no other writer of the century. The Holy Grail is still carried to and fro in the world, and Sir Galahad, Sir Perceval, and Sir Bors still are fed of it with great refreshment to their strength. The intense humanity Mrs. Craven does not fear to reveal reconciles us to the supernatural light in which the actors in her drama of life move, and indeed makes it seem more natural than any other. There is no divorce between matter and spirit in her work of reconciliation. The passionate ardours of human love, the tenderness of family ties, the very amusements and trifles of daily life become sacramental. Even in her last book, the life of a sister of charity who in youth had belonged to the De la Ferronnays' group of friends, Mrs. Craven so sets forth the ardent affection, the sweet and faithful devotion of the nun to her friends and relations, rich and poor, that her readers must needs perceive that a true 'vocation' is a deepening and enlarging of all charities, and not a renunciation of any one worthy affection.

The Récit d'une Sour introduces us to a brilliant group, distinctly 'worldly' by circumstances, but in which before long spiritual forces are manifested, so that the commonplace events of such a life

become so many open windows through which heavenly horizons may be seen.

Not many weeks after the Comte de la Ferronnays had established his family at Rome, the revolution of July put an end to his official career, and without official pay he was a poor man. Of their Breton possessions none remained to the loyal Ferrons de la Ferronnays but their Breton faith, courage, and keen intellect. The privations of the first emigration seemed imminent to the young people at least, who faced them with brave hearts. They had been educated for any lot, and poverty was but an old acquaintance, and but an item of that sacrifice for which all noble hearts have almost too great a craving. But the upset of July was very different from the crash of '89, and society did not let so charming and brilliant a family retire far out of its inner circle. M. de la Ferronnays' health was not good, Italy was necessary for him, and they migrated to a house near Naples where they had at least splendid views if a poor lodging. Two of the sons started for active life, but the rest of the family spent a particularly cheerful and gay winter, gathering flowers in Lady Acton's garden on the Chiaja to wear at their balls, and having lost nothing but what, to their happy temper and courage, seemed but superfluous wealth. Albert, M. de la Ferronnays' second son, was the first to feel satiety of mere idle pleasure, and yet there was not wanting among them serious talk in presence of the beautiful world. We spoke often of God and the other life,' Pauline writes, and no bond of family union was wanting to strengthen their hereditary qualities of ardent devotion and their quick receptiveness to spiritual impressions. Albert, however, was dissatisfied with the pleasant life of Naples; he asked and obtained leave for a wanderjahr.

He had the good fortune to make two friends who were representatives of the Catholic revival, at that time in its full vigour. M. Rio, who was then collecting materials for his Art Chrétien, M. de Montalembert, and Albert formed a triad in which the younger man -for Albert was but twenty-was to be the example of human love educated to all ends of noble passion by Christian faith and obedience, rather than restrained. M. Rio and M. de Montalembert were not behind him in their idealisation of life in its political and its æsthetic -aspects.

To M. de Montalembert Albert confided the history of his love in letters that show the singular courage of passion which witnesses to its purity. Writing after his friend's death in 1836 to his widow, Montalembert could justly say of some passages in Albert's journal :-

Vraiment ce sont de ces choses qui, si elles étaient dans un livre imprimé (comme disent les paysans), seraient dans la mémoire et dans l'admiration de tout le monde; du moins c'est ce qui me semble. Je ne connais rien de plus beau dans René, ou dans aucun des chefs-d'œuvre de la littérature du cœur.

Je trouve quelque chose d'inexprimablement consolant, je dirai même d'hono