future destination, and the attempt to restore them to their rightful claimants the most imperious duty and the noblest task of genius." Elsewhere, describing the enthusiasm of a crowd on seeing the queen of Prussia errive, "I involuntarily exclaimed," he says, "O man! ever nobler than thy circumstances! spread but the mist of obscure feeling over any form, and even a woman, incapable of blessing or of injuring them, shall be welcomed with an intensity of emotion adequate to the reception of the Redeemer of the world!"

Nevertheless, particularly in her latter years, it was evident that secretly she shunned the world each day with more and more intensity of desire, and with a still greater depth of tenderness for what she found out of it. It would have been difficult to induce her, as Shakspeare says,

Where pomp, and cost, and witless bravery keep."

But who, I should like to know, in the silent hall of his conscience can blame her for indulging in this disposition? As Alain Chartier says after his quaint fashion,—

"Curia dat curas, ergo si tu bene curas
Vivere secure, non sit tibi curia Curæ.

Curia, curarum genitrix, nutrixque malorum,
Injustis justos, inhonestis æquat honestos

It was, indeed, one must admit even for the sake of one's
literary reputation, the first poets who, as Sarasin remarks,
assembled men together and civilized them, and, as it were,
founded cities and courts. But for all that, Heaven forbid,
will every wise man add with him, that I should blame retire-
ment!
"I love it," continues that frequenter of brilliant
assemblies, "though I do not always enjoy it; I know that
wisdom has no better friend, and that one might call it the life
of the soul. I naturally seek repose; I need sleep. The crowd
and tumult injure me, though I do not go to the length of
Euripides when he makes Agamemnon esteem a man happy
who is unknown."

* Le Curial.

Be all that as it may, and our sentence will, no doubt, be determined partly by our own circumstances at the time, the fact undoubtedly was that with all her qualifications to enhance the charm of society, she was disposed to comply with the old poet's invitation to confine within a small space our long hopes, and to accept as a necessity the strong impression on her mind, that quiet and retirement for her were best. She had not heard Chateaubriand saying, "believe me, who am an old traveller, there is nothing like repose, and in a corner some friends tried by time;" but she would have spoken like Ballanche writing to Mme. Récamier, and saying, “I have need of calm and repose; I have need of tranquil studies, of peaceful leisure." Perhaps these feelings entered into her profound attachment to that community of Ramsgate branching from Subiaco, and still so worthily representing that founder of placid quiet, St. Benedict, as he is qualified by a monk of Mount Casino,—“Ipse fundator placidæ quietis *." Certainly, it would be difficult to express with what calm desire she was drawn on to lead a life unostentatiously and, as it were, naturally separated from the crowd. To see her seated in her little garden, with her book in front of the fountain, with the birds singing round her, you might have been reminded of the lines of Menander, "How sweet to one who hates evil manners is a solitary place, and to one meditating the seeing no evil! A sufficient possession is a small field, for envy springs from a crowd of clients; and as for the things in the town, these delights, indeed, are splendid, but they last only a short time." Alas! some, perhaps, who used to blame her for such abstraction, to taunt her with neglecting what was necessary, though of that she was ever guiltless, to say unkind things, as if to try how much she could smilingly endure, and who little reflected on the cause of her inclination, which never affected to control that of others, will have learned, by this time, to esteem it an additional motive for now becoming enamoured on her grave.

* Ap. Montalembert, Les Moines d'Occident.

CHAPTER VII.

EFORE we proceed to recall virtues that address themselves more immediately to the heart, and all its sweet affections, let us during this day's visit to the chantry, indulge a curiosity that may be permitted by inquiring in what relation this pure character may have stood with those graces of the intellect inspired by faith and Catholicity, by piety and wisdom, and a spirit that soared above the world, the graces, I mean, which consist in what may be termed a sense of art and literature; and this will be an inquiry that will form no digression or mere circling of the goal, for the result will be found to reflect much light upon the sweetness and depth of the whole picture, while adding no tint or contour that did not in strictest truth belong to the original.

It is related of Chateaubriand that he had a horror of meeting women who affected to pronounce their opinion on literary and learned questions, and that he could never forgive those who betrayed an affectation of superior knowledge. It was with a similar feeling that a poet of his nation attributes to a woman the lines

"Et que j'aimerois mieux être carpe ou merlan
Que d'être bel esprit seulement pour un an."

Were I to continue in this strain, it would awaken, perhaps, suspicion that I was merely as a hired advocate pleading in the interest of a client, and bent on disparaging all who stood with her in honourable though decried opposition; for we must begin by admitting, that the first elements which enter into the composition of such a character as these literary men condemn, were wanting in her whose graces we are seeking to recall. All her conversation was simple and natural. She resembled that Mme. de Courbon, of whom Mlle. Scudéry says, "she speaks well on all subjects, and yet so admirably does she confine herself within the just limits which custom and good breed

ing prescribe to women, in order that they may not appear learned, that when you hear her converse on elevated topics you would think that it was merely by the means of simple good sense she came to have such knowledge *." Two classes of persons therefore were not to be pleased by her general tone of conversation; those who exclusively admired literary talk, and those who wished to hear of nothing but what was merely frivolous or relating to the prosaic drudgery of life in the world. Nevertheless, it is not every one who will be disposed to agree with either of these classes in their estimate of the worth of the picture which is offered for our inspection here; and yet truly, for entertaining an opposite opinion, these connoisseurs are not left without means of self-defence to justify it. Some one, indeed, has said, that the difficulty for women of having superior attainments in this respect with propriety, does not come so much from the fact of one woman's knowing it, as from others not knowing it. But most people, I rather believe, will be inclined to think that this is only a sophist's explanation; for the truth seems to be, that though by a general contravention of what nature intended, all women were to possess such cultivation, the disagreeable consequences for each would remain precisely what they were when witnessed only in a few. Mlle. de Scudéry represents herself as replying to a pedant who asked her at a concert what was her opinion respecting a verse of Hesiod, "I assure you it would be better to consult some one else; for as for me, who only consult my mirror to know when I am dressed least ill, I am not a proper person for being consulted on difficult questions +." Society has not gained so much in later times as to justify it in supposing that it can afford to discard, as of no importance, the opinion on this subject which prevailed during the seventeenth century; and it would be difficult to select a passage that would give a more true idea of this opinion than that in which Mlle. de Scudéry describes a conversation in which she was obliged to take part at a concert before the music began,-which shows how thoroughly she detested the reputation of a bas bleu, and the inconveniences which it exposed

* Le Grand Cyrus.

† Cousin, La Société Française au XVIIe Siècle.

her to. She desires that no one should treat her as a person who writes books or who judges of books, but as one who wishes to live the common life of all the world. "Since I must say it,” she replies, "I am so weary of this literary reputation, that in the humour in which I at present am, I would place the supreme felicity in not knowing how to read, or write, or speak; and, if it were possible, to forget how to read, write, and speak, I protest to you that I would be silent from this moment, and never speak again as long as I lived,-I am so sick of the folly of this kind of world, and of the persecution inseparably attached to it, which every woman suffers who has the reputation of knowing more than to choose ribbons. How can one endure not to be talked to as other people are talked to,-one like me, too, who only wish to be as others are, and who cannot bear to be distinguished after such a fashion? But they never will speak to me as they speak to others; for if one of them apologizes for not having been to see me, he tells me that it is through fear of interrupting my occupations. If another accuses me of studying, it is to add that, without doubt, I am never less alone than when alone with myself. If I complain of a headache, there is sure to be some one to reply that it is the common malady of clever people. In short, I am driven to regard dulness and ignorance as the sovereign good. In fine, I beg to be left to my repose without any one either seeking or avoiding me; for I confess to you, that I do not like the idea of being either sought after or avoided as a singularly clever, talented, poetic, or literary lady *.”

But perhaps, as already suggested, it will be thought by some that these preliminary remarks were hardly called for in the present instance, from supposing that where this feeling existed, and there was no pretension, there was not in reality any knowledge or attainments which rendered them meritorious. But to suppose this would be a great mistake; and the more we summon our recollection to aid our judgment on this point, the more shall we feel assured that it would be untrue. No; when brought back as it were to her presence, we can only say with our great dramatist,

* Le Grand Cyrus.

M