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THE
IRISH MONTHLY
a n>aaa3ine of (3eneral literature
EDITED BY THE REV. MATTHEW RUSSELL, S.J.
THIRTIETH YEARLY VOLUME 1902
Bnblin
M. a GILL & SON, O'CONNELL-STREBT liONDON: BUBNS ft OATBS; SDCPEIN, MABBHATiTi * 00.
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The numy hind friends who take a personal inier$st in the pre^Mirity of this Magaeine can serve it best hy ftmoarding at ones their subscription of Sxvbn Shilunqb for 1903, its thirty-first year, ie
Bbv. Matthbw Bubbbll, S.J.,
St. Stamislaus* Oollbgb, Tullamobx.
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CONTENTS.
STOBIES.
FAOB
In the Old Countiy. By Miss Frances Maitland
CsAFTEB L The Flitting at Baronsconrt ... ... ... ... 361
n. Yankaem Bednz ... ... ... ... ... 367
m. Teresa 370
IV. Mn. Makepeace Talks of Beaux ... ... ... 435
V. A Talk in ihe Wood 439
VI. The Twins ... ... ... ... ... 444
Vn. A New Patient 494
VnL The Parish Register ... ... ... ... 498
IX. James Lee Lycett ... ... ... ... 501
X. A Search for Relations ... ... 564
XL "Of High Degree" 567
Xn. Mr. Lycett Pays a Visit ... ... ... ... 574
Xm. Teresa's "Beaox" Meet ... 633
XIV. Teresa Sends a Basket ... ... ... ... 640
XV. The Fate of Teresa's Basket ... ... ... ... 646
XVI. The SiBters have a Talk ... ... ... 67G
XVn. Father Matthew is Oonsolted 674
XVUL The Oat Direct 680
The Squire's Grand-danghters. By Lady Gilbert
GoAPTSB XXIV. The Oonvalescents ... ... ... ... 32
XXV. Misvnderstanding ... ... ... ... 38
XXVI. At Home Again ... ... ... ... 79
XXVn. Banished ... ... ... ... 82
XXVnr. Hie Tronble Deepens ... ... ... ... 88
XXIX. New Arraagements ... ... ... ... 125
XXX. M. Danois' Final Defeat ... ... ... 190
XXXI. Patting Things Straight 198
XXXn. Oondnsion 210
Stain the Qaeen. By Emily Hickey ... ... ... 15
The Channii A Oomedy in Two Acts. By Miss Mahony ... ... 61
Peggy the Protestan'. By Michael Haughton O'Mahony ... ... 241
320390 ^
IV CONTENTS
Storebb — ooniinued,
PAOB
A Voice in the Night. By Richard Berchmans ... ... ... 262
" Rcsee ! Roses ! Roaes I " By Frances Wynne ... ... ... 297
The Little Jew Girl. By M. E. Francis ... ... ... ... 301
The Mighty Magnet. By the Rev. D. Beame, S.J. ... ... ... 329
Two Sonls. By Richard Berchmans ... ... ... ... 388
Tom. A Character Sketch. By John Hamilton ... ... ... 514
The Effects of a Shower. A Parisian Story ... ... ... 684
A Glimpse of the Purple. By Alice Deane ... ... ... 703
SKETGHES OF PLACES AND PERSONS.
The Memory of Theobald Mathew. By the Editor ... ... ... 1
Memories of San Marco. By Eva Billington ... ... 19, 71
Gashel Hoey on the Doke of Wellington ... ... ... ... 98
A New Grsive near " the Old Chapel " ... ... ... ... 104
Aubrey de Vere. By the Editor ... ... ... ... ... 122
Tlie Sisters of Mercy at Rostrevor. By M.R. ..139
My First Visit to St. Peter's. By H. McOivem 160
Irish Exiles and West Indian Slaves. By M. R. ... ... ... 265
In the Black North a Hundred Years Ago. By D. G. ... ... 272
Going to Market. By Magdalen Rock ... ... ... ... 311
"T. P." on Father John O'OarroU, S.J 317
Edward WiUes, Chief Baron of the Irish Ezsheqver ... ... ... 353
Killairey. By Beatrice Grimshaw ... .. ... ... ... 532
Round the World. Letters of a Globe-trotter. By C. T. Waters 601, 692
Oonoemlng the Author of ** Luke Delmege." By the Editor ... ... 661
Thte Convent Garden By a Little Convent Girl ... ... ... 650
ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.
Pity the Blind. ByM. R. 29
Books that Influenced Me. By the Rev. P. A. Sheehan, D.D. ... 109
-An American Poet-Bishop. By the Rev. P. Dillon ... ... ... 421
Easy Lessons in Verse-making. By M. R.
I. Rhyme ... ... ... ... ... ... 339
n. Rhythm 380
Another Last Word for St. Brigid's Orphans. By M. R. ... ... 347
Phases. By Rosa MulhoUand ... ... ... ... ... 466
Dante*s "Vita Nuova." By F. C. Kolbe, D.D 421
Consolation for Mourning Mothers. By the Editor ... ... 448
Tennyson and Catholic Faith ... ... ... ... ... 455
The Bar as & Profession. By Lord Russell of Killowen ... ... 459
St. Monica among the Philosophers. By F. C. Kolbe, D.D. ... 619
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CONTENTS T
Ebsatb ahd Beviewb — continued.
PAGB
John 0*Hagan on Thomas Carlyle ... ... ... 541, 613
Berry and Leaf. By Rev. David Bearne, S.J. ... ... ... 687
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.
Armstrong's BaUads of Down. — ^Ugly, a Hospital Dog. — Our Lady of Yongfaal. — Juvenile Bound Table. — ^Knecht's Scripture Commentary. — ^Rome's Holy Places. — ^Katherine Tjman's Poems. — ^The Madonna . of Painters and Sculptors. — C. T. 8. Publications, &c. ... ... 54
Luke Delmege. — A. Devine's Asoetical Theology. — ^Rev. D. G. Hubert's Sundays and Festivals.— Jesus Living in tiie Priest. — ^Life's Laby- rinth.— All Hallows Annual, &c. ... ... ... ... 11&
Iialor*8 Maples. — ^Harding's Baconian Summary.— Life of Father Pemet. — St. Antony in Art. — ^Year Book of the Holy Souls. — St. John GhrysostonL — Odin's Last Hour. — Reminiscences of Sir Barrington Beaumont, &o. ... ... ... ... ... 173
Wise Men and a Fool.— Corinne's Vow.— The Child-healer.— The
G T. S. Publications.— The Critics on " Luke Dehnege," &c ... 239
Dr. 0'Doherty*s Derriana. — ^Mariae Corona. — ^The Gulden Lily. — Guiming's Aubrey de Vere. — Spiritual Pepper and Salt. — ^The Last Supper, a poem. — ^The Treasure of the Church. — ^Little Book of Wisdom. — Our Lady of Mary and other Poems, &c. ... ... 290
Oarmina Mariana. — Instructions on Preaching. — ^More Home Truths. —
How to Reason. — ^Hymns, Plain Chant and Modern, &c. ... ... 356
North, South, and Over the Sea. — ^The Handsome Quaker. — The Heroine of the Strait. — Slater's Moral Theology. — ^Presbyterian Union.— C. T. S. Publications.— Dr. M'EviUy's Discourses.— The Drunkard in Ireland ... ... ... ... ... 414
Henry's Poems of Leo XIH. — ^Blessed Emily Bicchieri. — ^Book of Ora- torios.— ^Boy-Saver's Series. — ^Altar Boy's Own Book, &c. ... 469
Anglo-Jewish Calendar. — ^Letters to a Young Theologian. — ^Lucius
Flavus. — ^The Cloister. — ^Bemadette of Lourdes &c. ... ... 557
Blessed Emily Bicchieri. — ^Letters from Ireland. — Catholic Truth Society * of Ireland. — ^Madonna, &c. ... ... 598
Life of Robert Emmet. — Comfort for the Faint-hearted. — ^A Literary and Biographical History, or Bibliographical Dictionary of from the Breach with Rome in 1534 to the Present Time. — ^The Date of the Crucifixion. — ^The Crown of Age, Ac. ... ... ... 654
Old and New.— The Future of Phyllis.— German Catholic Novelists.— Mount Melleray Philosophy. — ^The Temperance Reader. — ^In the Days of King Hal.— The Glories of Mary.— Little Manual of St. Joseph. — Political and Moral Essays. — Sermons from the Latins adapted from Bellarmine, Segneri, and other sources, &c. ... 707
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VI CONTENTS
POEMS AND MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS.
PA6B
A nought By 8. M. O. 14
"BntTTiim eb Md oomedet" By Rer. D. Bearne, S.J 28
Doxology. By Emily Hickey ... ... ... ... 31
Asonymities Unyeiled (tenth and eleventh instalments) ... 47, 165
The Yearns Boond. By G. M. B. 51
A Mother's Rebnke 52
Ad Matrem Sanctam Ecdesiam. By Emily Hickey ... ... ... 70
Lines on the Death of an Old Nurse. By M. J. Enright ... ... 78
Enith at Prayer. By A. D 103
Anhrey de Vere. A Sonnet By B. P. Carton ... 121
Morning. By Rev. M. Watson, S.J. ... ... ... — 124
Hie Christ Re-slain. By J. W. A. ... ... ... ... 137
Memento etiam, Dominel By Emily Hickey ... ... ... 169
l%e Grey House hy the Sea. By Agnes White ... ... ... 188
My Acolyte. By the Rev. J. Fitspatrick, O.M.I 189
To a Robin October. By E. P. ... ... ... ... 215
When Will Rudd Rang the BelL By H. S. Spalding, S.J. ... ... 219
Eyes of the Soul. By E. J. R. ... .... ... ... ... 220
" In Darkbess and the Shadoy." By R. P 222
An Excellent Maiden Speech ... ... ... ... ... 223
Gay's Epitaph. By R. P. ... ... ... ... ... 226
At the Procession of the Blessed Sacrament . By Emily Hickey ... 233
After the Qiildren's Practice. By Agnes R. White ... ... ... 261
The Irish Franciscan. By Lady Gilbert ... ... ... ... 270
TheStarwort By E. O'L. 289
Table Monntain. By the Rev. Dr. Kolbe ... ... ... ... 297
Gomel By Agnes RomiUy White ... ... ... ... 310
Going to Market By Magdalen Rock ... ... ... ... 311
The Dream of a Mighty Face. By R. P.... ... ... ... 314
A Dead Singing Boy. By J. W. A. ... ... ... ... 320
A Spirit QUI. ByM. F. Q. 338
During the Procession in Nottingham Cathedral. By E. J. Reynolds ... 346
Meeting of Spring and Smnmer. By Lady Gilbert ... ... ... 377
To Oar Mother of Grace. By Emily Hickey ... .. ... 386
A Prayer. By the Rev. John Fitspatrick, O.M.L ... ... ... 403
Visit to the rooms of St Ignatins in Rome ... ... ... ... 404
He Magnificent Microbe. By E. J. R ... ... ... ... 411
He Poet orders his Monunent By T. H. Wright ... ... 413
Come and Gone. By M. R. ... ... ... ... ... 420
Wings. By the Rev. M. Watson, S.J. ... ... ... ... 434
Before the Tabernacle. By Rosa Mulholland ... ..^ ...,463
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CONTENTS
Vll
POBMB AHD HucBiXAiisous PAPXBft— oontintieeZ.
PA6B
The White Bridge. ByR. P. 467
Two New TranalatioDS of Two Great Hymns ... ... ... 466
Another Belie of llioniaa Francis Meagher ... ... ... 481
Clamor Mens. By R. M. G. ... ... ... ... ... 494
Sweep ! Ghimnej Sweep ! By Emily Hickey ... 506
Oar Tillage Lecfcare. By M. C. K. 608
At the Nuptial Mass. By John Hannon ... ... ... ... 611
The Seven Dolours. By D. G ... ... ... ... 612
In Memory of T. W. Groke, Archbishop of OAshel. By M. M. ... 617
" Oat of the Strong came forth Sweetness." By the Bey. Dr. Kolbe ... 518
To Ireland. By Eleanor Spensley ... ... ... ... ... 631
To the Moon. (Sydney, Wordsworth, Watson) ... ... ... 536
O Mother Mary. By B. M. G. 661
The Venerable John Baptist Vianney. By S. G. ... ... ... 662
Amairgen. By Emily Hickey ... ... ... ... ... 580
The Brntal Vice ... ... ... ... ... ... 581
A Dream Dawn. By the Ber. D. Beame, S.J. ... ... ... 583
Beyond. By N. L. M. 611
To the Most Her. Dr. Feonelly, Archbidiop of Cashel. By GassQensis 612
little St. Qyr. By W. P 631
The Waiting Shepherd. By Eleanor C. Donnelly .. ... 652
In Pace. By Rev. M. Watson, S.J. ... ... ... ... 660
Whither? By Rev. M. Watson, S.J. ... ... 669
Christi, exandi Nos. ByG. M.R. ... ... ... ... ... 686
Night Fall in October. By Kathleen M. Balfe 691
Jesa, Redemptor. The Vesper Hymn of Christ mas. By Emily Hickey 702
A Song. By J. W. A ... ... ... 706
Anrea Dicta ••« Borrowed Plomes Pigeonhole Paragraphs
239, 300, 360, 480, 600
214, 393
.. 227, 286, 476, 658
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By the REV. MATTHEW RUSSELL, S.J.
I. IDYLS OP KILLOWEN: A Soggarth's Secular
Verses. 3/-
a. VESPERS AND COMPLINE : A Sogs^rth's Sacred Verses, a/-
3. SONNETS ON THE SONNET. An Antholosy.
3/-
4. ST. JOSEPH'S ANTHOLOGY. Poems in his
Praise. 3/-
5. ST JOSEPH OP JESUS AND MARY. Priedleu
Papers In his Praise. 3/-
6. MOMENTS BEFORE THE TABERNACLE. 1/-
7. AT HOME NEAR THE ALTAR. 1/-
8. CLOSE TO THE ALTAR RAILS. 1/-
p. LYRA CORDIS: Hymns to the Sacred Heart, ftc.
With Music. -/6
10. ALL DAY LONG: Ejaculations In Rhyme. •/â–
I I. ALTAR FLOWERS s A Book of Prayers In Verse.
â– /- la. LIFE OF MOTHER MARY BAPTIST RUSSELU
Foundress of the Sisters of Mercy in Califbmia.
3/- 13. COMMUNION DAY: Fervorinos Befbre and
After. 2h
As these Books are issued by different Publishers, they may be ordered from the Author, at
St. Stanislaus* College* Tullamore.
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THE IRISH MONTHLY
JANUARY, 1903
THE MEMORY OF FATHER THEOBALD MATHEW
WHEN tibe President of this great College — whioh is now more than ever worthy of its holy and beautiful name, more than ever worthy of the glorious work it is meant to do for the Church of God — when your President was good enough to invite me to address your Total Abstinenoe Association,* he did not leave me free to choose the subject of my remarks, but eiipressly bade me inflict upon you what had already been suggested to me by the celebration of Father Mathew's Birthday in the middle of last month. We may consider this to be the Month's Mind of Father Mathew's Birthday, and I wiU follow almost exactly what was written for the day itself. For you know that ** Lecture " comes from lego and means something read. I will not even omit the trivial anecdote by which I opened the way to more serious matters.
The story is probably told of others also, but I heard it some forty years ago of a former Member of Parliament for Drogheda — which has no member now — a namesake of our present excellent representative of the Stephen's Green Division of Dublin. This worthy man had once the honour of being introduced to Gladstone^E great rival, Benjamin Disraeli, who wrote many novels when he was young and two when he was old. The M.P. for Drogheda, wishing to please the great man, said: '<Mr. Disraeli, my daughters read your novels." Dizzy bowed gravely, and said:
* Some day in November, 1901, in the very beautiful Ghapol of tho Missionary College of All Hallows, Drumcondra, Dublin.
Vol. sxx.— No. 343. ^^ ^ 1
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2 THE IRISH MONTHLY
''That, indeed, is fame/' This, of oourse, was merely a polite sneer; but here to-night we have a case in which this phrase comes aptly in. We are celebrating to-night the one hundred and eleyenth birthday of a man who died half a century ago. '' That, indeed, is fame."
Yes, this tribute of affectionate veneration is unique. Father Mathew stands alone. What other hero of the dead Past is honoured thus, year by year, so long after death? And among the living, who are they whose birthdays are kept ? The children of a household keep the birthdays of their parents anj. of one another, and in a loyal and prosperous country the King's birthday is a festival. All these titles are united in him whose birthday we celebrate. He was a leader amongst men, and he was a father and brother at the same time. He inspired enthusiasm and affection as well as reverence, and his memory, even down to our own day, is loved as well as honoured. This, indeed, is fame.
Many men, and especially men of a certain generous nature and of splendid gifts, have a passionate longing to be remembered when they are gone. It is hard to reconcile the intensity of this feeling, not merely with the true view, but with any view, of the relations between time and eternity. When a man has gone into the house of his eternity, what will it matter to him whether or not his name is to be bandied about on the breath of unborn generations? But if fame were as desirable a thing as poets pretend —
" O &me, fame, fiune 1 next grandest word to God " * —
how enviable is the fame that has fallen to the lot of Theobald Mathew I I lately expressed in public my belief, and I have since committed myself in print to this opinion, that among the Irish priests of the nineteenth century (I said priests, expressly excluding such great bishops as Dr. Doyle and Dr. McHale) only Father Mathew and Father Thomas Burke are likely to be remembered far down into this twentieth century of ours — if we can call it ours — how much of it mil be ours? Father Burke was then more directly before my mind ; as Father Mathew is our hero to-night, I may now add that the Capuchin's chances of permanent fame seem to be far greater than those even of the eloquent Dominican. The echoes of that glorious voice will die
• Alexander Smith.
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THE MEMORY OF FATHER THEOBALD MATHEW 3
out, while the name of Father Mathew will be for ever identified with a noble omsade, and with every revival and continuation of that noble crusade, for the moral regeneration of Ireland.
On the ]Oth of October, 1790, Theobald Mathew was bom in Thomastown Castle in the Golden Vale of Tipperary, five miles west of the Bock of Gashel. And here we may at once note the curious fact that, according to the regulations of the Inland Bevenue, Publicans' Licences expire each year on this very day, the 10th of October, the birthday of the Apostle of Temperance— as if his birth was to be the death of them ! Thomastown Castle was the home of his father's kinsman, the Earl of Llandaff — ^a title which has since lapsed and (strangely enough) has been recently revived, at least so far as the name Llandaff is concerned, for an English Catholic lawyer who is not of the same family and not quite of the same name. It might appropriately have been conferred on another distinguished Catholic lawyer who is of the same name and family, a nephew of our Apostle, Sir James Mathew, who, though a staunch Catholic, an ardent Irishman, a strong Liberal, and a faithful Home Buler, has just, with the earnest approval of the entire public press and people, been appointed Lord Justice of Appeal.
Is this gentle birth worth emphasising with regard to a priest and an apostle ? Yes ; for it may betoken the inheritance of certain natural qualities, and at any rate it exercises a certain influence and secures a certain prestige which is not without its use for one destined to sway the multitude. O'Connell would always have been great, he could not help being a force in the country ; but he would not have been precisely the man that he is in history, he would hardly have filled the place that he filled and fills in the Irish heart if he had not been by birth a sort of Celtic chieftain. His enemies would have been well pleased if they had been able to sneer him down as an adventurer, an upstart, a vulgar, selfish demagogue ; but there are barons and earls and dukes who scarcely know who or what their ancestors were at a time when O'Connell, of Derrynane, was a man of good estate, able (for instance) to send his son Daniel for his education to St. Omer's in France. This tradition of good old blood gave the people a confidence in O'Connell, and gave O'Connell a confidence in himself, that well became the uncrowned King of Ireland. In like manner the Irish
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4 THE IRISH MONTHLY
people may almost unconsciously have been drawn more closely to Father Mathew by that courtliness and charm of manner which were partly derived from the traditions of birth and race.
Lady Elizabeth Mathew, daughter of Lord Llandaff, sent this ohild of benediction in his twelfth year to a good school m Kilkenny, kept by Patrick McGrath. His first lessons had been taught by a schoolmaster called Flynn, who held his classes in the market- house of Thurles. The boy showed very early the signs of an ecclesiastical vocation, and in September, 1807, he entered Maynooth College to study for the priesthood. This great College was very different then from what it has since grown to. What a work it has done, and what a work it is destined to do through the coming centuries t What a short and feeble thing a man's life is, compared with the duration and activity of one of the institu- tions of the Church 1 What is the life-work of the most learned and eloquent bishop or cardinal, compared with what plain and simple Father Hand did in founding All Hallows ?
But the Maynooth career of the Apostle of Temperance was out short very abruptly at the beginning, and for a cause strange enough, nay, almost comical, in one with such a future before him. In his light-hearted, hospitable fashion the yotmg Cashel student invited some of his comrades to a little feast in his room. This was strictly forbidden by the rules of the College under the dreadful name of commessatio ; and the delinquent, being detected by the Dean, was summoned to appear before the President. Very unwisely he did not wait for the decision of this tribunal, which certainly would not have inflicted so severe a penalty as he imposed upon himself. He abandoned his Maynooth course and left the College hurriedly.
He did not, however, abandon his vocation, for soon after we find him in the novitiate of the Capuchin Fathers in Dublin, under the care of a very ho]y man, Father Celestine Corcoran. He was ordained priest by Dr. Daniel Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, of saintly and amiable memory, on Holy Saturday, 1814, some months before the twenty-fourth annual recurrence of that birth- day of which we are now celebrating the one hundred and eleventh anniversary. To begin his priestly work, he was sent by his superiors to the town where his last schooldays had been spent ; but Kilkenny was not to possess him long. He at once acquired great influence as a director of souls ; but some misunderstanding
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THE MEMORY OF FATHER THEOBALD MATBEW 5
OGOtirred with the Bishop, Dr. Kyran Marum, and, although the matter was almost immediately cleared up, the young friar did not alter the arrangements which had been made for his removal to Cork. In Cork he lived ever after, and he often called it the city of his adoption.
These seeming mishaps, these interruptions in his course, these forced changes of his plans, may well be considered providential, as leading on to the real work of his life, which was made known to him in this new and final field of his labours. Nay, there, too, he had to toil unselfishly and devotedly for very many years before this glorious burden was laid upon him. In mighty spiritual enterprises God is wont to make His will known by degrees, and to prepare His chosen instruments slowly and painfully. The foundation must be dug deep if the superstructure is to rise high.
The church in which Father Mathew's ministry was carried on in Cork was a small and poor one, called affectionately the '' Little Friary." hidden away among narrow lanes. The famous Father Arthur O'Leary had built it, and described himself there as ''buried between salthouses and stables." Father Mathew spent seventeen years of his life, and some five thousand pounds that came to him from his family, and as many thousands more as he could gather together, in erecting a beaatiful Gothic church, which was unfinished when his own course was finished, and was only completed in 1890 in honour of the centenary of his birth. But in the Little Friary what work he did 1 Very soon he gained a marvellous influence over the people of Cork — ^through the pulpit, through the confessional, through all the devices of big charity, through his living presence and his hidden life of prayer. He had no remarkable gifts of oratory, but his words made their way straight to the hearts of his hearers. His character, his look» his life, added force to his simple, earnest language, for he obeyed that admonition which St. Bernard addressed to preachers : Pasc^ verbo, pasce vita — ** Feed the people with your words, but feed them also still more your life " — an admonition which someone whose name I do not know * has expanded thus : — Lo ! this one preached with fervent tongue :
The world went forth to hear ; Upon his huming words they hung, Intent, with ravished ear.
* M. W. B. in the Spectator, October 11, 18S4.
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6 THE IRISH MONTHLY
like other lives the life he led,
Men spake no word of blame : And yet unblest, unprofited,
The world went on the same.
Another came, and lived, and wrought.
His heart all drawn above ; By deeds, and not by words, he tanght
Self-sacriflcing love.
No eager crowds his preaohing drew ;
Yet one by one they oame ; The secret of his power they knew,
And caught the sacred flame.
And all around, as morning light
Steals on with silent wing, The world became more pure and bright,
And life a holier thing.
Ah ! Pastor, is thy heart full sore
At all this sin and strife ? Feed with the word, but oh ! far more.
Feed with a holy life.
The Little Friary had come to be known as Father Mathew's Chapel ; and soon his name was associated with another holy Cork institution — Father Mathew's Cemetery. Unseemly bigotry on the part of Dean Magee (afterwards Protestant Archbishop of Dublin) at the burial of a Catholic, similar to that which in Dublin led to the establishment of our beautiful cemetery of Glasnevin, occurred in Cork a little earlier ; and this and the fees which pressed heavily on the poor induced Father Mathew to secure the Botanic Gardens which were transformed into another sort of garden, a garden of the flowers gathered by << the Beaper whose name is Death." To this Thomas Francis Meagher referred in one of those speeches which used to thrill youthful hearts fifty years ago. " In the centre of the beautiful graveyard which he had himself thrown open to the poor of every Church, under the great stone cross, this glorious, good man — all that is mortal of him — sleeps. Beside that cross, dinging to it, kneels the nation whose sorrow he consoled, whose cup of poison he changed into one of living waters, whose head he lifted up and crowned with lilies when she had become a reproach among the nations. As silent as the cities of Tyre and Edom shall Ireland have become
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THE MEMORY OP FATHER THEOBALD MATHEW 7
when in the shadow of that cross, without the city of St. Finbar, the Irish heart forgets the noblest, gentlest spirit that ever soothed it." Thus spoke the brilliant orator who was fated himself to be buried in no cemetery but the bed of the Mississippi. He was drowned in that mighty river, July 1st, 1867, and his body never was recovered.
The terrible scourge of Asiatic Oholera in 1832 afforded the holy Capuchin scope for the exercise of heroic courage and charity. Indeed, his ordinary life exemplified his own impassioned words : " Mercy ! heavenly mercy ! Had the Deity never spoken — ^had He never revealed, by prophet or apostle, that mercy was His will — its innate excellence, the high honour it confers upon us, the delicious, the ineffable pleasure we enjoy in its exercise, would be sufficient to point out to us the necessity of this indispensable duty/'
One of the devices of Father Mathew's unresting and untiring benevolence forestalled in some degree those St. Vincent de Paul societies which now do such admirable work in all our towns, but which had not then been begun even in France by their first foimders, Frederic Ozanam and his friends. When the boys, who had been trained in his own schools, grew up into men, he did not lose sight of them, but organised them into a sort of lay apostlesbip, using them as catechists and as his assistants in visiting and relieving the sick and poor.
On another point he anticipated the system pursued with regard to orphans by the Sisters of the Holy Faith — ^namely, not gathering these favourites of Jesus, these pet lamhs of the Good Shepherd, into large buildings in crowded towns, but finding homes for them individually in the cottages of peasant-farmers in the healthy, holy country. How did Father Mathew forestall this system ? Well, at least in theory, in a conversation which you are now privileged to overhear, though, like Scotfs WaverUy, " 'tis sixty years since." The report of that conversation, from which I am going to give some extracts, was drawn up under the following interesting circumstances. In the summer of 1844, three young men, Charles Oavan Duffy, aged 28; Denis Florence MacGarthy, aged 27 ; and John O'Hagan, aged 22, took a pleasure trip together from Dublin through the South of Ireland. I have in my charge the diary kept by the youngest of these three gifted men, all of whom I had the happiness of knowing intimately in later years. Young as he was, John O'Hagan had already at that time written
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*'Dear Land " ** Ourselves Alone," and ''Paddies Evermore," in that historic journal, the Nation, whose youthful founder was the eldest of the trio. Qavan Dufiy survives alone — ^not (to borrow Macaulay's famous words about the Gatholio Church) : " not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of youthful life and vigour." Sir Charles still survives, while the poet MacCarthy died in 1882, and Judge O'Hagan in 1890. When they reached Cork, they called on Father Mathew, whom Duffy had met in Newry in 1841, where the young Monaghan man (then only editor of the Belfast Vindicator) made a speech, of which Father Mathew printed and circulated thirty thousand copies — a very small item in his portentous bill for printing. Let me give abruptly and disjointedly the Diarist's references to the Apostle of Temperance : —
• " Called at Father Mathew's. . . . Duffy left his card
Scarce had we returned to the Imperial Hotel when the Father himself entered. Conversation between him and Duffy about the teetotal newsrooms. Father Mathew gives a Very melancholy account of them. Made use of one most disheartening expression : * The fact is, everything must be done for our poor people — they do nothing for themselves.' This, I am afraid, is in a great measure true, but the way to cure the evil is to train their minds and impress upon them the necessity of exertion and self-reliance.
Father Mathew departed, having asked us to tea Went
to Father Mathew's. Inside as plain and unpretending as the outside. Small room, no carpet. None there but the Apostle himself and a Dublin priest of the name of Murphy, from Church- street Friary. Father Mathew speaking something, but not much, of his progress through the country. Spoke very warmly of the way he was received by the Scotch."
[After a pleasant account of their expedition to the Blarney Stone, Slieve GuUion's last memorandum on Saturday night runs thus : — " Not to forget that we are to breakfast and dine with Father Mathew to-morrow."]
'' Duffy and I in a double-bedded room, greatly inclined for a soak. Enter Desmond with < Brothers, arise ' [the beginning of one of the Nation poems]. Duffy's reply: 'Comrades, leave us here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn '* — ^it being at that time near
* This is the first line of Tennyson's " Looksley Hall,** which the man who here quotes it calls in his introduction to The Ballad Poetry of Ireland ** a noble and impulsive poem, but certainly no ballad.**
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THE MEMORY OF FATHER THEOBALD MATHEW »
nine o'olook. Up and to the Padre's, half an hour past our time. Cork local dish for breakfast, called ' drisheens/ made something like black paddings ; wishy-washy concern. After breakfast went
to Mass in Father Mathew's chapel Went in a covered
oar with Father Mathew to the Ursuline Convent. More and more struck with Father Mathew's thorough goodness and kind- ness of heart. Passed a row of orphan boys belonging to some institution. He stopped the car and sent 2«. to the usher to buy apples for the boys. Impressed by an observation he made, namely, that he never knew boys brought up in those institutions to turn out well, devoid as they are of all natural ties. Like the miller on the Dee, they care for nobody, and nobody cares for them. Whereas he knew several instances where orphan infants had been sent out to nurse, and their foster-mothers grew so fond of them that they actually perjured themselves, and said they were dead, sooner than part with them ; and that those children, being treated with kindness and affection, grew up good members of Society. He said then, [and here is where he anticipates the policy of Miss Margaret Aylward and Father John Gowan, CM.] that there should be no such institutions at all, and that orphans and foundlings should be sent out to nurse through the country, and be then permitted to remain with their foster-parents, some small sum being allowed for their maintenance. I may as well insert here another remark of Father Mathew's. He says he wonders gentlemen do not plant more fruit trees in their demesnes and lawns, and along the side of the road. They would be as hand- some or handsomer than other trees, and the fruit would be a great luxury for the poor people in hot weather."
The three pilgrims returned to dine at Father Mathew's table with ten others. '' After dinner fruit and coffee but of course no wine," the young barrister notes in his Diary, which I have quoted at such length because it illustrates many points besides the one for which I introduced it. These three Dubliners — Editor, Poet, and Lawyer — Pledge at the Imperial Hotel ; they have several lay friends in Cork ; but during their stay there they breakfast, dine, and sup with Father Mathew. In this random case there are other indications of Father Mathew's generous nature, and his strong inclination towards joy-giving, feast-giving, money-spend- ing, which some one ought to have tried to regulate judiciously.
le
»UBly.
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His heart, big as it was, had no room for oaation or economy. He knew far better how to give than how to acquire or retain. His unseMshnesB and disinterestedness were too dearly mani- fested in his management of the vast organisation that sprang up as if by magic after that memorable 10th of April, 1838, when, exclaiming '' Here goes in the name of God," he wrote " Theobald Mathew " in his first catalogue of pledged total abstainers.
After he had spoken that word, and written that pledge, the blessed contagion of temperance spread like wildfire. In three months the nmnber of his disciples reached 25,000 ; and before the end of that year it had swelled to 156,000, aQd soon it was counted by millions. Here is the estimate of Father Mathew's character and mission formed about this time by a generous Protestant : —
" For myself, whether he be or be not canonized as a saint by the Church of Borne, I am disposed to regard him as an Apostle specially deputed on a divine mission by the Almighty, and invested with power almost miraculous. To none of the ordinary operations of human agency can I ascribe the success which attended his efforts to repress one of the besetting sins of the Irish nation. If I had read in history that such success attended the labours of an unpretending priest, whose chief characteristic was modest simplicity of demeanour, I own that I should have distrusted the narrative as an exaggeration ; but we have been all of us witnesses to the fact that myriads simultane- ously obeyed his advice, and at his bidding abandoned a favourite indulgence."
The writer of these words was William Smith O'Brien, whose fine statue is separated from Father Mathew's by nearly the whole length of our noble O'Gonnell Street. The first statue indeed of the Apostle of Temperance was fitly erected by Cork, the city of his adoption, who entrusted the task to John Henry Foley. It was the last work of that great sculptor, while the statue in the chief thoroughfare of our beautiful Capital was almost the first work of a gifted young Irishwoman, Mary Bedmond — her last work also, for soon after she changed her name in the way that is usual with young ladies, and she seems to have considered her marriage as a divorce from Art, to which she had previously been wedded.
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THE MEMORY OF FATHER THEOBALD MATHEW 1.1
Bat neither soolptor nor painter oonld adequately preserve for ns the bodily presenoe of this holy and fasoinating man. His not unworthy nephew, Lord Justice Mathew, describes his personal appearance thus in the great Dictionary of National Biography :-^ " Father Mathew was of middle height, well formed and remarkably handsome. His complexion was pale, with dark hair and abundant, and eyes of the softest blue. His [expression, somewhat sombre in repose, was remarkable, when animated, for its gentleness and sweetness." With this picture by a kinsman we may join one that was drawn by an observant stranger — ^the Bossian traveller, Eohl, who had a high reputation fifty years ago. He begins like Thackeray, who, in his Irish Sketch Book, describes Fathew Mathew's manner as " simple, hearty, and manly *' : —
'* His movements and address are simple and unaffected, and altogether he has something about him that wins for him the goodwill of those whom he addresses. His features are regular, and full of noble expression, of mildness and indomitable firmness. His eyes are large, and he is apt to keep his glance fixed for a long time on the same object. His forehead is straight, hig}i, and com- manding, and his nose — a part of the face which in some expresses such intense vulgarity, and in others such nobleness and delicacy — ^is particularly handsome, though somewhat too aquiline. His mouth is small and well proportioned, and his chin round, projecting, firm, and large, like Napoleon's."
With these pictures of the outward man may be joined, though it is hardly needed, the account given of his character and disposi- tions, early in his life and also later on. A school-fellow * of his contributed to the Dublin Review of May, 1840, a long article on the Temperance Movement in Ireland, which was then only two years old. After a very long preamble he reaches the Oapuohin Friar, of whom he gives his personal testimony to the following
" The writer of this article has been intimately acquainted with
* I am able to identify this friend as Mr. Michael Joseph Qain, the first Editor of the Dublin Review, with which, however, his connection ceased after the first two or three numbers. He was bom at Thurles, about 1796, the son of a brewer, and, no doubt, a fellow-pupil of the future foe of brewers at Mr. Flynn's school in the market-house. He was a not very successful barrister in London, and died at Boulogne in 1843.
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the subject of this well-earned panegyric from his earliest boyhood, and he can truly say, that even at that early stage of life he knew nobody so much or so generally beloved as the individual who is now the ' observed of all observers ' throughout Ireland. Incapable of anger or resentment, utterly free from selfishness, always anxious to share with others whatever he possessed, jealous of the affection of those to whom he was particularly attached, remarkably gentle in his manners, fond of expressing himself rather in smiles than in language, averse from the boisterous amusements to which boys in general are prone, and preferring to them quiet walks by the banks of a river, or by the side of green hedges, in company with two or three select associates, and yet very far from being of a pensive disposition ; on the contrary, so cheerful that the slightest ludicrous occurrence turned the smile he generally wore into hearty laughter — ^he grew up esteemed by everybody who knew him. Even in his boyhood he seemed never to live for himself; and yet, by not seeking it, he exercised an influence upon those around him which they never thought of questioning. Such was his character in his earliest days. And ^hen the writer of these lines, after an interval of thirty years or more, visited Mr. Mathew in the autumn of 1838, he could discern no change. . . . The perfect simplicity of his character remained untouched ; he was still in mind and heart the boy of ten years old."
This is the tribute paid by a friend of Father Mathew's boyhood. A friend of his last years — John Francis Maguire — sums up as follows his quarter of a century of preparation for his apostleship : —
'' In his confessional, in his pulpit, in the squalid garret, in the haunts of fever, by the bedside of the sinner, in the wards of the cholera hospital, in his munificent charities, in his unostentatious benevolence, in his acts of untold kindness and generosity, in his whole life, lay the secret of his marvellous success — of the miracu- lous progress of the movement of which he had now become the leader."
We need not follow to the end the course of that holy, bene- ficent, and supremely useful life, of which we are to-night commemorating the very beginning. We have recaMed to memory enough of it to convince ourselves anew that the 10th of October,
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THE MEMORY OP FATHER THEOBALD MATHEW 13
1790, the birthday of Theobald Mathew, was a blessed and a happy day for Ireland and the world. But for Father Mathew himself a happier day was the 8th of December, 1856, his true birthday, his entranoe into life everlasting. The mortal life that lay between those two dates has won for this humble Irish priest a high place, which can never be taken from him, in the history of true Christian philanthropy — better still, a high place in the hearts of his people, the Irish race, and of the whole civilised world — best of all, a high place (as we pray and hope and believe) in the Heart and in the Heaven of the merciful Redeemer of mankind.
Our fittest individual and personal tribute to the memory of the Apostle of Temperance will be to become apostles of temperance in our own little way — to do all that we can, by our prayers, by our example, and by every other means that may be open to us, to improve our own small share of this fallen world around us, especially that one heart and that one life which alone are really under our influence and control : —
Thou sooznest and sznitest,
But Christ must atone For a soul that thou slightest —
Thine own.
Let me end with the dreadfully practical remark that the sincere disciple of Father Theobald Mathew can help to prove by his example that total abstinence, which is necessary for some, is easy for almost all, since every mens sana in corpora sano, every healthy-minded and able-bodied Christian man and woman, can do the work of life, and enjoy the pleasures of life, without the aid of those liquors which, though they may be used in modera- tion without sin, work, nevertheless, every day such awful havock among the souls and bodies of men, squandering the hardrcarned wages of honest toil, dooming the drunkard's innocent children to hunger and nakedness, causing every day the temporal ruin of thousands and thousands, causing their spiritual ruin also by keeping them away from the sacraments and sacrifice of the Church, blighting and destroying innumerable lives, and often cutting life short by premature death amid such squalid and hope- less surroundings of sin and shame that one seems almost to do violence to God's justice when one dares to pray : " May God have mercy on their souls."
All sin is folly and madness; but the drunkard's sin is the
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silliest and the maddest of all. Let us pity the poor fools that are viotims of this most miserable and most ignoble vioe ; and let us bless God for plaoing between us and that abyss an impassable distance by inspiring us with those resolutions and principles to which we have pledged ourselves, and which are linked with the holy memory that has gathered us here to-night to celebrate with love and gratitude the one hundred and eleventh birthday of Father Theobald Mathew.
I will only add in the present context that I believe in my heart that the practice of total abstinence will for all of you, and especially for some of you, increase greatly the happiness and the efficiency of the long apostolic life which (please God) lies before you. And so (to adopt and adapt the last words of Cardinal Allen's preface to his excellent book, Souls Departed, out of which I have taken my meditations for this Month of the Holy Souls) — '* Farewell, gentle hearers, and, if I have pleasured you by my pains, let me, for Christ's sake, be partaker of your prayers."
M. B.
A THOUGHT
Life touches life at points we wot not of ;
Light passes from us that we do not see ; The ill we cling to, or the good we love.
The unconscious guides of other souls may be.
We know not all our power ; for oft unseen, And, to ourselves, is oftener still unknown.
The ever- widening influence of the mean Or noble action that we deem our own.
0 mystery of Life in Life I Alone — Yet not alone — by our just God's decree.
Thou Who hast made our spirits like Thine Own, Grant that their every power may lead to Thee.
S. M. C.
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[ 15 ]
ETAIN THE QUEEN
IN the days when Julius Cesar ruled the world beyond the eastern seas, the Milesians kinged it in Erin, and the great Tuatha de Danaan, who for so long had reigned there, were in the world of the invisible, dwelling in stately palaces underneath the earth, fairer than any dwellings that were upon her breast ; and there they were nourished upon mystic flesh and mystic drink. They were gods, and in their light and radiance they had conquered the Fomorians, the gods of night and darkness ; and in their turn they were conquered by the wonderful sons of Mile, who had spied the Western Island from their Great Plain, and had come over and won to the taking and the holding of it. But between the Tuatha de Danaan and the fair children of Mile there was no hatred, neither rancour, and here and there they had mixed their strain, and here and there the ties of fosterage bound some of these with some of those. And small wonder, for the Milesians were one with Nature, as their great bard, Amairgen the White-kneed, had sung. For he sang : ** J am the wave of the Ocean ; lam the murmwr of the waves \ I am the Bull of the Seven Fights \ I am the Vulture on the Bock ; I am a tear of the Sun and the fairest of Planets, and the brave Boa/r of the woods, and the Salmon in the water, and the Lake in the plains, am I" And at times the de Danaan desired much to soar in the air above the dwellings of the children of Mile in the form of fair birds ; and of the first time they took unto themselves this shape I will tell you.
Now Mider of the de Danaan, who dwelt in the palace of Bregleith, had a very fair wife, whose name was Etain. And (Engus, the foster-son of Mider, carried away Etain, and espoused her, and set her in a fair dwelling, and was very tender unto her. And Mider lamented Etain very sore, and Fuammach, the wife that was left tmto him, was angered in her heart thereat. So by her god-power she sent a violent wind to sweep Etain from the side of QBngus, and to whirl her into the land of Ultonia. There did strange things befall Etain, and it came to pass that lo 1 the goddess was bom anew of a mortal mother, and her old life dropt away from her, and all was with her as that old life had never been. So Etain grew to be the fairest, of the fair women of Ehn,
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and the Ard-righ, that is to say, the High-king, Eoohaid Airem, loved her and took her to wife, and she dwelt in love and spouse- head with him at Tara.
But Mider of Bregleith loved Etain with a love undying as the gods themselves, and he came to the queen at Tara, when the High-king was not there, and he put her in mind of the days when he had been husband to her in the world of the gods. But the love and fairness of earth were about the eyes of Etain, and the world of the gods was to her as nought, and she would not go with Mider to the palace at Bregleith. The love of her mortal mate was upon her, and the love of the god Mider was no more to her than the flufEy cloud that had passed at the laughter of the sun. *' I know thee not," she said, " and thou hast no strain that I should know thee ; and none knoweth the begetters of thy fathers ; and the High-king of Erin is my husband, and I change him not for thee."
And Mider smiled as the gods smile, and left her, and was gone.
Now it came to pass on a fair afternoon in the warm summer- time that Eochaid Airem looked forth from the height of his fortress at Tara, upon the great plain around, and saw how lovely the land was, and how fertile. And his heart was glad within him. And while he yet was looking forth, he saw a warrior drawing nigh, and he knew not his face, neither his frame, nor his going. This warrior had upon him a purple tunic, and his hair was of the colour of gold, and his blue eyes sent forth a great light. He carried a five-pointed lance, and a shield with bosses of gold around the rim.
Eochaid bade him welcome, albeit he knew him not. Yet the stranger said that he knew Eochaid, and had known him of old ; and he gave his name as Mider of Bregleith, and he said that he was come to play at chess with the High-king. And Eochaid was content, for he knew that he could play well at chess, and he was accounted the most highly-skilled chess-player in all Erin. But he told Mider that Etain, the queen, was sleeping, and that his chess was in the room where she lay. But Mider said that mattered not, for he had with him his own board and his own men, not less fine and beautiful than those of Eochaid. True it was, for his board was of silver, set at every corner with precious stones in their sheen ; and from out of a bag that was woven of
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ETAIN THE QUEEN 17
shining wire he drew his men, and the men were all of fine gold. And when he had set them on the board, the king bade him play ; and he told the king that there must be a stake for his playing, and he asked what the stake should be ; and the king suffered him to ehoose. "If thou win/' said Mider, ''thou shalt have fifty bay horses, deep-chested, slender-hoofed, and swift." Then the High-king, trusting in the skill that he weened should never suffer defeat, told Mider that an he won he should have whatever the desire of his heart should bid him ask.
And it was Mider who won that game, and Eochaid who lost it.
Bo Eoohaid asked of Mider what thing it might be that he desired ; and Mider said that Eoohaid should give him Etain, his wile. But the High-king claimed the playing of yet another game, the which if Mider won, he should win Etain thereto ; and he asked that a year should go by before that game were played.
And Mider departed, and Eoohaid saw him not at all during that year ; but many a time did he come to the beloved Etain, and made himself sweet unto her, and sang to her with his god- voice of melody exceeding lovely. And in the song he sang to her he oalled her to go with him to a wondrous country where the air was ever filled with music, and the locks were crowned with the flowers of spring, and the body was white as snow, and none were sad or silent, and the teeth were ever white, and the eyebrows ever dark, and the cheeks of the foxglove's hue.
But the god-life was gone away from Etain, and the voice of Mider could not call it back to her, for now was she wholly a mortal lady, with no memory of the undying ones, and she loved her mortal husband with a love that knew but of him alone. And she said that not unless Eochaid's self gave her to Mider would she go with him. And such a thing she well deemed could never be. And Eochaid waited in grief and trembUug till the year should go by ; for the black shadow of fear was upon him, and he kissed Etain in that shadow, and his joy was anguished, and his comfort was smitten with a blight.
When the year was gone by, Mider came back to Tara, and challenged Eochaid to the second game of chess, and he said the stake should be whatever the winner would, and this must be the last game that should be played. And when the god had won, Eochaid asked him what he was fain to have, and he said he was
Voi*. XXX.— No. 343. 0
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fain to put his arms round Etain, and lay his kiss upon her mouth. And the High-king craved yet a delay, and promised that in a month from that day Mider should have the desire of his heart.
Now, when the set day was come, Eoohaid was in the great hall of his palace at Tara, and the strongest knights of Erin were serried thick around him and his wife Etain; and outside were strong men on guard, and the doors were locked and barred that the foot of no stranger might enter in. All that day they watched ; but Mider came not. And Etain, the fair queen and beloved, was by her husband's side. And they watched till the shadows fell and the night drew near, lest the divider of their loves should come upon them. And when the night was come, suddenly they saw how Mider, fair in his god-beauty, was there, and the hall was lighted by his presence as though the strong sun were shining outside. And he spake to the king, and asked for Etain, "for," said he, " thou didst promise to give her unto me." Then the red flush took the cheeks of Etain and her forehead, and she said that never would she go with Mider until her husband bade her go with him. And Eochaid cried out that such a thing should never be, but that Mider should put his arms around Etain and set a kiss upon her mouth, there in the hall where all were standing. " For this," said Eochaid, "have I promised him; and this is mine honour that I should not lie." Thereupon Mider shifted his lance from his right hand to his left, and he caught Etain and lifted her up, as he rose from the floor where he stood ; and they passed out through the roof-hole of the king's great hall. And a great shame fell upon the warriors, and there was a mighty stir amongst them, but nothing could they do ; and they rushed out of the palace, and they saw two swans flying around Tara ; and upon the fair long necks of them there was a yoke of gold. This, as I have said, was the first time ever the gods were seen in shape of birds.
But the love of Eochaid would know no baffling, and lie dared the wrath of Mider, and by the magic of his Druids he attained to the underearth palace of Mider, and he won back Etain the beloved. But for this deed the vengeance of the god overtook the strain of Eochaid, even as our poets have told us.
For when the mortal love strivetb against the immortal, of what avail to win ? For the winning is but in seeming, and dear shall the winner buy his gain,
Emily M. P. Hickby.
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MEMORIES OF SAN MARCO
WHEN wandering through some of the principal picture galleries of Europe, most lovers of art must have often felt how one favourite master holds them with his potent spell, until they hardly have eyes, but for his works, and study those of others only to feel the superior attraction of one. They are swayed by an irresistible charm, and although surrounded by so many masterpieces of perhaps a superior order, often of more advanced technique and more perfect drawing, these fail to teach tbeir lesson, to convey home their meaning as powerfully as those by that other artist, who, perhaps, is but poorly represented by one or two pictures amongst all the hundreds that hang there on the walls.
If this be so, how much more are we able to enter into the spirit and ideal that filled that master's life, to trace the secret spring from which flowed all his inspirations, when his works are seen, not amongst a medly company, in the almost painful promiscuity of a public gallery, but still remaining untouched in the very place for which they were painted, in the spot which was dearest to the master's heart, where he lived, suffered, and prayed. It is then as if the hands of the clock of time were suddenly put back several centuries, and the dead spirit seems to live again in its works, which in their turn speak to us of many a secret of the hidden life of the painter's soul.
This is why a visit to San Marco is unlike any other visit, and here we find far more than an ordinary painter, for we have the. artist united to the saint in the great vocation of the religious life ; the artist whose real name was Era Giovanni, but who is always known as Era Angelico, or II Beato Angelico, the angel painter of angelic visions. Here, the more we study the more we feel how the purity and holiness that breathe through these works, were but the unconscious outflow of a life hidden in God ; and, scrutinize as we may, the impression is always the same. Eew, indeed, are the artists who can bear the test of this close scrutiny. Eew there are who at some time or other of their lives have not faltered and fallen, using God's best gifts for low and earthly aims, rising sometimes in heavenly flights, but to sink again enchained
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by the trammels of the world — ^unfaithful to their high oalling of teachers of men.
With such as these, Fra Angelioo had nothing in common, just as his works, too, are dumb to those whose eyes are blinded by the false glamour of earthly joy. To such as these a visit to San Marco will be but an artistic treat and nothing more, for to lift the hidden veil, however slightly, and see beyond into the mystic meaning of these frescoes, there must be at least a kinship of religious feeling between master and disciple ; the chords of the two hearts must vibrate and answer to the same touch; the sympathy must be mutual, and a spark of ardent faith is of greater use in helping to understand Fra Angelico aright, than all the science of the connoisseur. This last will do much, without a doubt, but it must go hand in hand with the teaching of Catholicism.
For here we come into close contact with the supernatural, following far more the growth of a holy soul, than the progress of an artist ; we are dominated with and overpowered by those very things which usually are the most difficult to realize in the hurry of life, and for once the supernatural seems a more tangible factor than the earthly realities by which we are surrounded. Heaven is very real and very near, as we stand in this peaceful cloister ; the wings of God's own angels seem to flutter round us, to be even closer to us than those of their angel brethren on the walls. And over all falls the shadow of that great peace which is only bought at the price of sacrifice, bought by the voluntary renun- ciation of all man holds most dear, and kept by the consistent practice of that which is harder and most repugnant to human nature. The happiness that is bom of sacrifice is the one kind of happiness that has lasting foundations, that will not crumble and fall in the after years, but stand firm and remain with us, even beyond the dawn of the great joy of the future.
Fra Angelico would have none of earthly delights and honours ; he heard the irresistible call of his genius towards art, but at the same time another voice had spoken to him, telling him of other joys than those won by the fame of pencil and brush. And the holy youth listened and obeyed, and faithful to God's call, placed for ever — as a perpetual barrier between himself and the temp- tations of an artist's life in the world — the white robe of the Dominican and the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
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Bat far from being stilled by the cloister walls, by the primary importance of the higher vocation, the other voice, the call to dedicate his life to art, was to be strengthened and fortified by these same religions ties ; and what he learned, saw and felt in the cloister, was to be outwardly manifested through the medium of the frescoes he painted on the monastery walls. The mystical joys of a soul closely united to God, and detached from all human happiness, was the unfailing source from which be drew all his inspirations.
And to the question as to what was to be his reward for his sacrifice, the answer seems to me to state back through long centuries, coming from other times and from another land, even from the Sermon on the Mount, even from Our Lord's own lips : Beati mundo corde, qtumiam ipsi Deum videbunt. I can never look at Fra Angelico's works without the familiar words crossing my memory. They seem to be in such perfect harmony with the ethereal, purely spiritual beauty of his creations, which could but have emanated from a soul full of purity and holiness, could, in their exquisite beauty, only have been conceived by one utterly detached from all that even savours of earth, by one rapt in the wonders of contemplation, and living already in spirit among the inhabitants of the unseen world, among God's saints and angels.
If the detaOs of the spiritual side of Fra Angelico's life are scarce, we have only to call to mind the lives of other holy men, the supernatural favours with which God is pleased to reward correspondence with grace, and we shall then better understand how his visions came to him ; for they were far more than the visions of an ordinary artist, they were also those of the cloister, those of the holy, humble monk, whose life was divided between prayer and work, who looked upon his art as a sacred vocation, and who, before taking up his brush, would kneel and pray, even with tears ; and the answer to his prayer came to him in the shape of the celestial angels, of the radiant Madonnas which are tenderly smiling down on us from the convent walls. Vasari tells us that he would never deviate from the first idea of his pictures, deeming it to be God's will thus to reproduce faithfully what he had at first imagined. Yes, indeed, in those words : Beati mundo corde, qtumiam ipsi Deum videbunt, is to me to be found the key to the seoret of Fra Giovanni's art ; in them is the epitome of his life.
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And thus did he beoome, through the holiness of his life, oarried into his art, not only a contemplative, mystical religious, but a great teaoher of men, and of him may it truly be said : —
" A second man I honour, and still more highly — ^him who is seen toilmg for the spiritually indispensable ; not daUy bread, but the bread of Life. Is not he, too, in his duty, endeavouring towards inward Harmony, revealing this, by act or by word, through all his outward endeavours, be they high or low ? Highest of all, when his outward and his inward endeavour are one : when we can name him Artist; not earthly Craftsman only, but ijispired ThmkeTy who, with Heaven-made implement, conquers Heaven for -us.''*
The Monastery of San Marco is also admirably in harmony with the jewels it enshrines. The work of one of the great architects of the glorious period of the Quattrocento, it is as pleasing in arrange*- ment, as striking in simplicity, and forms a perfect setting to the religious works of art with which it is endowed. It was a present to the Dominicans from Gosimo il Yecchio, that famous pioneer of Medici fame ; and although a princely gift, it was built rigorously in accordance with the life of poverty to be professed by its inmates. Michelozzo was as well able to raise a monastery as a palace ; for when he restored, or, rather, rebuilt this former home of some suppressed Silvestrini Friars he showed that he under* stood the few wants of an austere order of reformed Dominicans, as well as he knew those of the merchant prince, for whom he raised the splendid palace of the old Via Larga.f To the one he gave space, dignity, magnificence, also thick walls and barred windows, for the Florentines ever loved riot and change ; while to the others, to whom all grandeur and display were forbidden, he built a humble, austere monastery, with narrow, lowly cells, and peaceful quiet cloisters. Here are no forbidding bars or bolts, for the people know that the monk has ever been their best friend ; but there is a spacious library, in which to treasure all the precious manuscripts, so beloved by the great classical students of that day ; and the little garden in the centre of the cloister was there, sweet with the scent of Damascus roses, which wafted their fragance to the cells above; and when Michelozzo had done his work, Fra Angelico, at the bidding of his Huperiors, left the perfumed, flower-strewn slopes of Fiesole, and came down to Florence to bestow on the newly-flnished monastery its crowning glory.
• Carlyle, Sartor Besartus. t Now Palazzo Riccardi.
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It is worthy of notice that eaoh subjeot of the frescoes, with which he covered much of the available wall space, seems to have been chosen with the special object of illustrating some virtue of the religious life; all to have been placed in their respective positions with some deeper meaning in view, which might easily be understood by the brethren as they passed to and fro from cell to choir, so as to be to them an almost hourly stimulus to strive after perfection. It is in the silent little cloister by the entrance that, perhaps, this second meaning is most apparent, for from it access is gained to the monastery within by several doors, above which are placed appropriate frescoes by the hand of Fra Giovanni.
Over the door leading to the sacristy of the Church is St. Peter Martyr, one of the glories of the Dominican Order. He holds his finger to his lips as still admonishing his brethren to observe faith- fully the rule of silence, and never more so than when they pass on their way to choir. On his head is seen the bloody sword- wound which earned for him a martyr's crown, and which, to his followers, is a perpetual reminder of the sufferings inseparable from a life of apostleship — although the end be not the actual shedding of blood for the Church, but the daily toils of a whole life spent in her service until the hour of death. Close by is the beautiful figure of Christ on the Cross, while kneeling at the foot is white-robed St. Dominic ; a favourite theme of Fra Angelico's, as we may know from the many times we shall see it repeated in the upper story. How many holy monks have paused on their way to and fro to kneel a moment at the foot of this crucifix, and how many generations have passed under its shadow 1 The hidden seorets of many lives have doubtless here been breathed forth in whispered prayers, rising upwards in mute appeal to the great silence of Eternity !
The lunette above the entry to the '< foresteria " or hostel for strangers, has an eminently beautiful and appropriate subject for its frescoe : Our Divine Lord in the garb of a pilgrim being lovingly welcomed with outstretched hands by two Dominican Friars. As Fra Angelico painted it, he must himself have had in mind those words of his Divine Master : Hospes eram, et collegisHs me ; and so touchingly and so reverently has he known how to interpret them, that no one can look on the result unmoved. Hospitaliiy conceived in this spirit, ceases to be human and becomes almost
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divine, for, in the stranger knocking at the gate, the monk sees the Person of Onr Lord Himself. And this little painting is the key-note to the innumerable oonvents and monasteries dedicated to the service of the sick, the old and the crippled, to all those who have suffering and want for their only credentials, and who no longer need fear rebuff or be ashamed of their poverty, when they remember Whom this misery entitles them to impersonate, for verily they then become guests whom it is a glory to honour.
The doors that lead into the refectory and chapter-house are surmounted respectively with the figure of Our Lord rising from the dead and showing the wound-prints, and that of St. Dominic holding the book of his rule and the discipline ; but time has laid its defacing hand on both of these rescoes.
It is within the chapter-house that we see Fra Angelico at his greatest, and it is fitting that it should be so ; for here take place the most solemn deliberations of the religious community, and it is a room used only on momentous occasions, when all the brethren are assembled together. Here, too, the new Prior first hears of his election, and for these reasons the painter has chosen this spot for his most solemn theme. The whole of one wall is taken up with the large fresco representing the great scene of our Bedemption. The surrounding border that enframes it has, on the upper half, medallions of the prophets, all holding scrolls in their hands ; while, in the comer to the right of the spectator, is a lovely half figure of the Erythrsan Sibyl. This upper part thus personates the Old Testament prophecies and the pagan groping towards truth in the person of the Sibyl, while the lower border is exclusively dedicated to the popes, bishops, and saints of the Gospel era ; and here, as is to be expected, most of the great saints who have glorified the Dominican Order in the times before Fra Angelico take an honoured place. This work thus forms, in its entirety, an almost condensed history of religion — ^the Old and the New Testament, united by the Mystery of the Bedemption — and suffices to show that the master's theological and Scriptural learning was of no mean order. It may even be that the great Michael Angelo was himself somewhat unknowingly indebted to the conception of this fresco, which he must doubtless have seen, when he put his hand to the stupendous ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But this elaborately thought-out border is hardly noticed
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MEMORIES OF SAN MARCO 25
at first, so great is the fascination of the central piece. Taken as a whole, and not the perfection of each individual figure, it is, perhaps, the most beautiful and simple rendering of the Crucifixion that has ever been painted, and the sanctity of the artist is visible in each detail. Our Lord hangs on the cross between the two thieves ; dose by is the exquisite group of Our Lady and the Holy Women; while on either side are many saints and martyrs. And, not content with the portrait of his beloved founder in the central medallion of the border. Era Angelico has again placed the whole figure of St. Dominic kneeling, with outstretched hands, at the foot of the cross, his halo bearing the little central star that is his distinctive sign in sacred art. A little further off is St. Francis, the stigmata plainly visible ; and near to him is one of the most touching figures of this group — that of a monk, kneeling, who, unable any longer to bear the sight of his dear Lord dying on the cross, softly turns aside, and covers his face with his hands, to hide his tears. When we remember how Vasari teUs us that the custom of the holy artist was to kneel in prayer and in tears before beginning the portrayal of themes such as these, we feel that this can be but an episode drawn from his own pure life.
It is on ascending the stairs that lead to the upper storey that we first come upon one of the exquisite angels that Fra Angelico »o loved to paint, and which are such a feature of his art. It is the scene of the Annunciation, and beneath a vaulted roof, supported on slender columns, the Virgin of Nazareth is seated on a low, rough wooden stool, leaning forward, with awestruck, rapt gaze, her hands instinctively folded in reverence, the while she asks herself what manner of salutation is this. Before her stands Gkibriel, the great Archangel, his hands likewise crossed, while he, too, bends forward, not in wonder, but in homage to his Queen. His long embroidered robe falls softly to his feet, and his great wings are folded behind him.
Oh, those wings of Fra Angelico's angels! Where did he learn to paint them ? Where did he find their wonderful irradi- eacent colours? Was it from the flowers and light of a summer's day? from the butterflies hovering over the Damascus roses of his doister, or from the peacocks, georgeous under the Italian sun, in some terraced garden of Fiesole ? Or did they not rather flit to and fro in his visions of sleep, carrying diaphanous, celestial
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messengers, making the darkness of the night glow with their radiance ?
These wings have hardly ceased their flattering, the sound of the first Ave has scarcely yet dropped from the angel's lips ; in another minute Our Lady will have sunk on her knees, but as yet she has still to hear the heavenly message. It is little wonder that this Annunciation is spoken of with world-wide rapture, and that certain lines from Dante have often been quoted, as alone adequate to describe its beauty. His description of the same scene, harmonizes too perfectly with this rendering, not to be for ever associated together by those who are acquainted with both. Perhaps even, and who can tell ? that the words of the heavenly poet were on the painter's lips, and making music in his heani, the while he limned this frescoe on the wall.*
Hard by is the cell of good St. Antonino ; its little window closed by the same .heavy wooden shutter as all those in the monastery. Where we now carelessly tread, how often have a saint's footsteps passed ! A strange sense of reverence seems to cling to the place, and voices instinctively fall to a whisper, as in a church, for a saint's presence has for ever rendered it holy ground. It bears on its humble, white-washed walls, the Descent of Christ into Limbo, by our artist's hand, and amongst its other treasures are some vestments used by the holy Archbishop, a cast of the mask of his face, and books in his handwriting.
Holy St. Antonino, surely the sweetest hours of your life were passed in this poor cell, and it must have been with a sore pang that, at the Pope's command, you left its peaceful shelter, to take upon your shoulders the heavy burden of the See of Florence I
In the next cell, one of Fra Angelico's most exquisite little gems has found a refuge, having been originally brought here from the Church of Santa Maria Novella. It is well known to all as the Madonna della Stella, so called from the little star resting on Our Lady's head. This tiny easil picture, painted on wood, is of such extraordinary beauty that it is impossible to find words to express the tender grace, pathetic loveliness and wonderful purity, that seem to breathe from it, as the subtle fragrance from white garden lilies. Very tenderly and lovingly does the Mother
• See PurgatoriOf Oonto x. 34-45.
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MEMORIES OF SAN MARCO 27
of God olasp her Divine Child in her arms, the gentle head slightly bowed so as to touch that other little head which nestles so oonfidingly on her shoulder, while the baby hands oling upwards towards her neck. But if it is at once a picture of motherhood and infantile loveliness, at the same time it is the Majesty of the Divine Maternity and of the God made Man that predominates ; through the fragile, graceful forms, through the human veil, the Godhead shines forth, not hidden, as in the works of too many painters. Our Lady's eyes, with yearning sadness, gaze out into the distance, seeing always beyond the blessed present at Nazareth the dark cross waiting on Calvary. But Fra Angelico has not painted her bowed down with grief, though a sword has pierced her heart ; she is the Mother of God and the Queen of Virgins. Through the Divine Child Whom she holds in her arms Bedemption has come to the world, and louder than the throbs of pain at her heart echoes always the glorious Magnificat in thanksgiving for her double title of Virgin and Mother. This is where the Madonnas of Fra Angelico differ so widely from those of Botticelli. Both essentially beautiful types, they are completely distinct, not only in manner but in spirit. Botticelli painted Our Lady crushed and almost overwhelmed with the shadow of the grief the future was to bring ; the crown of glory that the angels, with impassionate eyes, lift above her head, seems almost too heavy to bear, the while that each hour that speeds by brings her nearer to the bitter parting on Calvary. Fra Angelico, the earlier master, also saw and painted the suffering, but he felt too deeply the joy the Incarnation was to bring into the world not to make the gladness triumph over pain, not to make the wonder of the Divine Motherhood overshadow with its glory the earthly form. As the Virgin of Nazareth holds in her arms her God, all else is stilled in the rapture of Dilectus metis mihi, et ego illi.
Botticelli speaks of earth, Fra Angelico of heaven. Perhaps never has it been given for any other artist to realise the joys of Paradise as he has done ; nothing can bring heaven nearer to the soul than some of his pictures. Take, for instance, the Crowning of Our Lady, the subject of a fresco in one of the cells not far from that of the Madonna della Stella. There is something indeed truly unearthly in the supematuralised form of the Blessed Virgin, as die stoops forward with a gesture of profound humility to be
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crowned by her Divine Son, Who, with outstretched hands, slowly
and solemnly, lowers the Grown towards the bent head, and the
pure, ethereally transparent whiteness of her robe lends radiance
to the scene.
Eva Billinoton*
{To be concluded next month.)
" BUTYRUM ET MEL COMEDET '
(ISAIAS VII. 15.)
To bow before Boy-Jesus poor,
Kingly Shepherd and Shepherd-King, Through yonder open stable-door Herds and kings are hastening ; The God of Strength, the Lord of Might, Emmanuel, Sweetness Infinite, Enthroned on Mary's maiden-breast. And lulled by her to softest rest.
One day shall pass to Nazareth
This royal and all heavenly Boy, Of country air to breathe the breath
And taste the peasant's simple joy ; To labour hard throughout the day. Spend happy eves in restful play. At Mother's table take His seat. Butter and honey to bless and eat.
David Beabne, S.J,
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[ 29 ]
PITY THE BLIND
II f MAT would be the use of being an editor of some thirty VY years' standing if one could not smuggle occasionally into print a fragment or two of manuscript of which the natural doom would otherwise be the waste-paper basket ? It is strange that this latter fate did not long ago fall upon a memorandum of certain remarks made on the occasion of some new buildings at St. Joseph's Asylum for the Male Blind, Drumcondra. If it were worth while to fix the date, this could be easily done with the aid of the allusions to the Mayoralty of Mr. T. D. Sullivan and to the visit of the ** Great Eastern " to Dublin Bay as a monster show. « « « « «
It is a privilege to be allowed to second this resolution, especially when it has the good fortune to be proposed by the Lord Mayor of Dublin. Indeed, coming after his Lordship, one feels something like what a little rowing boat may be supposed to feel when tossed about helplessly in the wake of some huge steamer like the *' Great Eastern." But our eloquent and kind-hearted civic father is more than eloquent, more than an orator — he is a poet ; and, if I were limited to a single specimen of his muse, I think my choice would fall on the Death of King Cormac Mac Nessa. Now, the reason why I refer to this grand ballad-poem is because its most pathetic passage is that in which the poor king thinks of all " the life and the motion around him, and no one so stricken as he." Yet he was not blind ; he could see ; for the very rhyme of the couplet tells us that—
** He sat at his door in the sunlight, sore grieving and weeping to see The life and the motion around him, and no one so stricken as he."
More sadly stricken, more utterly forlorn, are they who sit, not in the sunlight, but in darkness, who cannot see " the life and the motion " around them, shut out from the light of day, from the sight of sun and sky, and fields and flowers, and the faces of friends, cut off from nearly all that seems to make up the beauty and the joy of living.
If we could but manage, by thinking of the blessings given to us and denied to the inmates of this institution, to warm our own gratitude just a little, a practical way of proving that
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30 THE IRISH MONTHLY
gratitude in kind wotdd not be far to seek ; and, therefore, I will venture to mention a very homely expedient by which some have tried to realise to themselves the blank void in whioh the blind live. Choose sometime, for instance, the uninhabited side of Nassau-street, and when you have the pathway clear before you for a certain distance, keep your eyes honestly shut, and try how far you can walk on in that voluntary blindness, which, neverthe- less, hardly gives us any idea at all of the far denser darkness, the far completer severance from the world around, in which the poor creatures who are stricken with blindness must grope on, not from one lamp-post to another, but often from the cradle to the grave. To the grave, but not beyond it. In the Besurrection will there not be a special rapture reserved for those who then at last shall see ? And will not heaven itself be a more glorious surprise and novelty for the sightless eyes which during life were sealed to all the charms of this fair world of ours, but which death shall open to a fairer world and to the Beatific Vision ?
But, if I ventured further in this direction, I might be accused of preaching under false pretences ; so I will allow myself to be quite abruptly reminded of a good old song which begins with the startling supposition : '' Oh ! had I a thousand a year ! " I wonder that Bobin Bough, though he is represented in the song as a rather low-minded person, yet I wonder greatly that even he did not include among the pleasures to be procured by that hypothe- tical thousand a year the opportunity of contributing to such good works as St. Joseph's Asylum for the Blind. It is left to you, ladies and gentlemen, to supply that omission ; and I am sure you will be glad to do what you can.
The whole Church militant is one vast Limited Liability Com- pany ; but especially all the religious institutes and hospitals and other charitable enterprises like the present which help to keep up the life and activity of the Church and to extend her beneficent influence — all these are so many separate investments in which the faithful at large are allowed to co-operate by contributing sometimes more than their spare cash. There are many here who, passing the various charitable and religious institutions which adorn and sanctify the streets of our beautiful old Catholic metropolis, are able to put forward for themselves in all humility and thankfulness a claim somewhat similar to that advanced by a certain Dublin carman whom many of you may have heard of. He
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DOXOLOGY 31
was showing some stranger the sights of the city, and, pointing out St. Patrick's after it was restored by Sir Benjamin Guinness, he remarked : " They praise up ould Guinness for putting so much of his money in them buildings, but I can tell you there's a dale of my money in them, too " — for the poor fellow happened to be an assiduous consumer of XX, and thus helped the Guinnesses to restore St. Patrick's, as you, ladies and gentlemen, more directly and in a better wjay will help these good Carmelite Brothers to complete St. Joseph's.
To-day's proceedings will lend for you an additional interest to this historic spot, as his Grace* called it a moment ago, pro- bably alluding to more important events than the marriage which took place here between the brave Celt, Hugh O'Neill, and the fair Saxon, Mabel Bagnall, who (I was glad to learn from Father Meehan since he came into this room) became a Catholic before her death two or three years later.
And so henceforth, whenever you chance to take a drive in this nei^bourhood and come within sight of those fine buildings, you will be able to adopt as your own the observation of that bibulous jarvey aforesaid, applying it to the part which, please God, you will take to-day and hereafter in finishing and maintaining in full effidenoy this noble institution, St. Joseph's Asylum for the Blind.
DOXOLOGY
All praise to Him Whose Father-Hand
Sent light and life through dark and void I All praise to that Eternal Son,
Who died, that death might be destroyed 1 All praise to Him Whose gracious power
Doth strengthen, lead, and purify ! All praise, for ever and for aye,
Unto the Holy Trinity.
Emily M. P. HiCKEY.f
• Most Bev. Dr. Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin, presided over the meeting.
t By a mistake of the Editor this name was affixed in our preceding Number to an excellent translation of the Adoro te Devote^ which, though not written for us, we are glad to have joined to the three or four admirable versions with which our pages have been enriched — Ed. I. M.
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[ 32 ]
THE SQUIRES GRAND-DAUGHTERS
CHAPTER XXIV
THE OONVALESCBNT
WHEN Margaret got up next morning, one of the ideas present to her mind was, that the figare she had seen entering her grandfather's room had not his familiar outlines. Whether this was to be acoounted for by peculiarity of dress or not she did not know, so she waited with anxiety Ix) hear further news from Victor.
" Yes, Mademoiselle, he arrived during the night," said Victor, in low tones, as soon as he found Margaret alone in the salon. *' He is dressing now, and as soon as he is dressed he will ask you to yisit him. Mademoiselle must be very careful not to let him perceive any suspicion in her face, and she must prepare to hear much that will surprise her. She must help him to act his part, so that he may not imagine she has discovered he is acting."
Here was a new fear for Margaret, the fear of betraying to himself her penetration of his secret.
'< He will not, perhaps, watch you too closely, Mademoiselle, for he is assured that nobody has missed him. I have borne his questions, and set his mind at rest on that point.
" ' Did you not hear me come in in the night, Victor,' he said to me.
** * No, Monsieur,' I said, * I did not hear a sound. You must have walked with the^^a^^ of a cat.'
« < If you had seen me,' he said, ' you would have thought I was a burglar. But nobody saw or heard me.'
« ' No one, indeed. Monsieur. But all the world is anxious about your health.'
<" Do I not look ill enough to warrant it, Victor ?' he said, and truly, Mademoiselle, he looks a wreck of himself. Ah, my poor master, what sufferings you endured on that journey in that disguise !"
*' Disguise !" echoed Margaret.
** Yes, Mademoiselle ; he gave me his disguise to be made away with."
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THE SQUIRE'S GRAND-DAUGHTERS 33
Margaret saw in this new piece of information another proof that Victor had been telling her the truth, as she remembered the imfamiliar appearance of the figure that had entered her grand- Mher's room in the night.
"Then he asked for the papers, Mademoiselle, and I was careful to observe what parts of them he turned to. He read the accounts of the murder in Russia, nothing else. His Ups opened, livid, and the perspiration stood in his face. But he read and re-read all that the papers had to say on that one subject, and afterwards they dropped unregarded on his knees.
'^ ' Ah, Victor,' he said, wiping his forehead, ' a journey like that of mine to Austria ajid back takes it out of a man of my time of life. For the future I will tell them they must get a younger man to carry their secret despatches.'
" ' Austria, Monsieur? ' I said. 'Is that where you have been while you were sick ? '
" ' That is where I h%ye been,' he said. ' But you must not breathe it, not even to yourself.' And he looked round the room oddly, as if he was afraid of a ghost.
<* ' That is a terrible a&ir in Bussia, Victor,' he said again, presently.
" 'Ah, is it. Monsieur?' I said, carelessly. 'I never read those nastinesses.'
<' < You are right,' he said, ' and neither will I read them any more. They haunt people afterwards, and give them the blues.'
" Later on he said to me : ' Victor, how did Miss Huntingtower behave about my illness ? Has it troubled her at all ? '
" ' It has nearly broken her heart. Monsieur,' I said. < She has grieved for you constantly. It was vrith trouble I could hinder her from coming to nurse you '
" * Ha I ' he said. ' You are sure she did not come ? '
»* * Monsieur, she could not come without my knovTing it. Do you think she would have been able to conceal her wonder ? No» Monsieur. Mademoiselle Huntingtower is too obedient, too discreet a young lady to insist upon coming where she is assured she must not come.' "
" Would to God she had always been so," murmured Margaret " she might have been spared all this horror, all this deceit."
« Mademoiselle must keep up her courage," said Victor. '' The
Vol. XXX.— No. 343. ,i) .
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34 THE IRISH MONTHLY
secret is our own. The great point now will be to get him safe away to England/'
Margaret was just then oonsoious of no feeling of great disgust at Victor's callousness on the subject of M. Dunois' guilt, his perfect indifference to everything but the sufferings endured by his master in the enforced commission of the crime, and personal danger from its consequences. Her own horror was so great that it rested her for the moment to see no longer the like horror in another's countenance. Victor's matter of-fact coolness acted as a sort of safeguard to her reason. Now that his master had returned safely, and might be taken to England to live there in security, the servant's dismay was at an end. To hear him talk about the matter as he did cast a sort of air of unreality over what had been done, and to deny that the question was one of guilty Margaret's over-excited mind felt a temporary calm while follow- ing his suggestions.
" Will he be allowed to return to England ? " she asked.
*' Yes, Mademoiselle. They have done their worst to him at present. They will allow him to go to England for the sake of their own safety."
Oh, to be there I A wave of agony swept over Margaret as she thought of the woods of Amberwolds. Could she ever delight in them again ?
Later in the day M. Dunois sent his love to Miss Huntingtower^ and would she favour him with a visit, as he was now able to sit up and receive her.
Margaret went trembling into his presence. He was sitting in a great arm-chair, wrapped in rugs, though the weather was warm. His face was pale and haggard, and his eyes sunken. As Victor had said, he looked but the wreck of himself.
** My dear child," he said, extending his hand to her, '* you see me sadly shaken. The attack has been worse than at first I believed. Do not think me unkind or ungrateful in not allowing you sooner to come into my chamber. A sick room is no place for one so young as you."
He said this so naturally, and his appearance and all his sur- roundings looked so like as though a real sickness had been endured by him in this place, that for a moment Margaret's head reeled with the question : Had all that had happened in the last few dajB occurred in a dream, and had she awakened to this harmless reality ?
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THE SQUIRE'S GRAN D-D AUGHTERS 35
" I have been very anzioas about you/' she said, feeling she was speakuxg most truly.
" I fear you have been over-anxious. I see it in your face. My dear, have you really grieved so much for a good-for-nothing old man ? You must get used to the idea, that in all probability I shall not be much longer alive."
A vivid thought flashed across Margaret's brain. If he were dead, would she not be free to tell Lance all about him ? The thought made her shiver at her own wickedness ! She must not wish his death, even though she believed in his crime.
" You will be better when you come to England," she said, trying to speak naturally. She had not been able to bring herself to pronounce the word ''grandfather," by which he liked her to address him. That he stood in such relation to her, was now her miserable misfortune. She thought of the wives, the children of the men whom he had put to death, and the milk of her human kindness froze itself up in her veins.
" And Fifine, Ben6? Have they too got black circles under their eyes with fretting about me ? "
" They have been told that your illness was of no consequence/' said Margaret.
'< Have you not been told the same ? " he asked, looking at her piercingly.
" Oh, yes," said the girl, rallying to the defence of her dreadful secrety *' but I am naturally of a more anxious turn of mind. And, besides, they are happy in Paris, while I am longing to get home."
** We shall go, my daughter, as soon as I am well enough to travel. I have freed you from the General de Y^drasse, at all events, ma ch&rie,"
He said this wearily, and leaned back and closed his eyes ; and Margaret felt a rush of conflicting feelings at battle in her throat. Yes, truly, he had saved her, but at what a cost ! Had he been straight and honest from the beginning, such exertions would not have been required of him. And in saving her from a persecution, which, if pursued too far, she could herself have ended by flight, he had condemned her to unhappiness the length of the duration of which she was not able to measure, nor the depths of which to sound. As her soul went feeling its cold way down into these depths, a cry of revived incredulity in the reality of her terrible position rose to her lips, but was desperately smothered
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there. As ebe sat silent a moment, enduring the throes of her pain, she decided to risk a question, the answer to which might possibly bring her some light, however faint, by which to see the truth.
^* Are we, indeed, free from the General de V^drasse?" she faltered. ** Are you sure he will never return upon us ? "
" * Never ' is a long day, my little daughter. But I have made him a payment which balances affairs between us," said M. Dunois, an appalling grimness, of which he was evidently unconscious, overspreading his features. He was staring at the wall, seeing there heaven knows what, and so did not meet Margaret's eyes of despair while she accepted his words and awful change of countenance as an undeniable confession of his guilt.
*' I think he will no longer try to hinder our return to England, my Margaret. But if it does not disappoint you too much, I will ask you to come straight to Amberwolds. I feel too ill, too worn, to endure London. Take me at once into the peace, and under the shelter of your trees. There, perhaps, I shall get rid of this
fever that clings about me. There "
He broke off and remained staring at the wall. His mind had gone out somewhere into a region where no listener could follow him. ''He is looking at the work he has done!" thought Margaret, shuddering.
" Now, I will ask you, my dear, to leave me for a little. I am easily tired, and you must go and take a walk," she heard him saying presently, and his voice recalled her from the contemplation of horrors which her imagination had called up before her eyes.
How had he accomplished the deed? What part had he taken in it ? Had he looked at the victims, or hurried away before he saw the hideous consequences of what he had done? Oh, cowardly old maa, not to die rather than consent to be the perpetrator of such iniquity ! As she closed his door, having taken yet one more look at his face, she thought, as she walked away from the room, that she had failed to see now, that she had never at any time seen, on his countenance any expression of that savageness which must needs exist in his nature. A variety of expressions, none of which she loved, occurred to her as belonging to him besides the one or two, occasionally appearing, which had encouraged her to cling to him ; but no trace of brutal wickedness could her memory find among them. Then she remembered that she had heard of
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women with lovely faces, and men who looked brave and true, who had been discovered to be criminals in spite of appearances. M. Dnnois's face was not lovely, nor had it exactly a look of bravery and truth; yet what secrets of his nature must it not hide I what capacity for cruelty and deceit t
Sick, and almost fainting with distress, she reached the salon, where she found Victor waiting for her return.
" Mademoiselle," he said, ** excuse me for intruding upon you again ; but there is something I am anxious to say to you. I have been thinking there may be some friend in whom you might be naturally anxious to confide. There is Mr. Dangerfield, for instance "
'' Ah 1 " exclaimed Margaret, sharply, ready to snatch at advice that would counsel her to tell everything to Lance.
" But I warn you, Mademoiselle, to be silent as the tomb. I^ot that I am afraid Mr. Dangerfield would betray us; but
because "
"What?"
" Because of imminent risk iio Mr. Dangerfield himself. M. de Y^drasse would discover that the society had been betrayed ; he is a demon ; he can discover anything ; and Mr. Dangerfield's life would not be worth an hour's purchase.''
Then it was proved how unstable had been Margaret's resolu* tion that she would not tell Lance anything of the secret trouble in her mind. Unconsciously, through all her misery, a httle light of hope must have been glimmering, of hope that she might yet see herself justified in confiding everything to the one person who had a right to know all that concerned her. Seeing the effect that Viotor*s last words produced, it must be supposed that such a glinuner of hope existed. She quailed as if a deadly blow had fallen on her ; stood quite silent for a few moments, realizing the full meaning of what had been said ; put her hand to her head, with a feeling of being stunned, and fell on the floor in a swoon.
*' Lisette ! " called Victor, softly, " Mademoiselle has fainted, after seeing Monsieur. She has been quite too anxious. She has too good a heart, this young lady. Fetch some water and smelling- salts, quickly, and come to the salon."
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CHAPTER XXV
MISUNDEBSTANDING
Lanoe Dangerfield, in the midst of the business happily pouring in upon him, oontrived to make plenty of time to think of his Marigold, and for some days he had been feeling uneasy and dis- satisfied about her. It was not alone that the week spent in Paris had extended into a month, but that Sir Harley Winthrop had followed the party and enjoyed that pleasure which would seem to be Lance's by right, of taking his sweetheart about the brilliant city, and seeing her delight in its wonders and novelties. These unavoidable trials of his patience Dangerfield had borne bke a man ; but the trouble, which he could not now shake of, sprang from the fact that there was something about Marigold's latest letters which he did not understand. Her grandfather was not very well. All the amusements seemed to have come to an end. Sir Harley Winthrop was mentioned no more; but Lance, not having got that letter which mentioned his departure (as well as other matters of more importance), did not know whether he was still hovering round her or not. These letters of hers, which puzzled him, were short, constrained, without spirit. In spite of her desire to spare him, Margaret had been unable to prevent them from reflecting a little of the trouble of her mind. As he spread them out before him one evening, and glanced from one to the other, recognising the same want about them all, Lance said to himself that his darling was unhappy.
Having once arrived at this conelusion, he soon began to accuse himself of neglect in not going to see for himself how she was situated, and what likelihood there was of her speedy return. It appeared to him now that he had sufficient reason for throwing up engagements, and darting across to Paris to get a peep at her ; and, never long about carrying out what he had once resolved upon, he was soon on his way across the Channel. Late in the afternoon of the day after that of Margaret's swoon, he walked up the stairs of the house in the Eue Sainte Barbe. Marigold was not at home. With a longing desire to escape for a while from the walls which had become like a hateful prison to her, she had taken Lisette and had gone to hide herself in the quiet of the sculpture
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gallery at the Louyre ; and Fifine, who had oome m to get ready for the theatre, was alone in the salon when he appeared.
** Oh, you have oome at last to see us/* she said. " How are the oourts and the judges ? I thought you had forgotten our existenc6« If I had a ^nc^, I would like him to show a little interest in me sometimes.'*
" Where is Margaret ? "
" She is out. Qone, I think, to mope by herself in the Louvre Oallery. She has been so dull and out of spirits since Sir Harley Winthrop left us, that she seems hardly to know what to do with herself."
" He is gone away, then. Where ? "
" Tiens / she did not tell you I I thought she told you every- thing. He went off in a great hurry, looking miserable, more than a week ago, and Margaret has been going about like a ghost ever since. And no wonder, indeed, that she misses him. There was a lover to make the happiness of a girl ! So constant in his attentions, so devoted ! But that is the inconvenience of a long engagement to a busy man. A girl has time to grow cool to her careless bethrothed, and she has not her liberty when a better offer turns up !"
Eifine said all this with an impish smile, as she sat opposite to Lance, tapping her to on the waxed floor. In making so misohievous a speech, she had no motive in the world beyond a desire to annoy this young man, who, she knew, was insolent enough to disapprove of her style. It was not in her nature to conceive of the pain her words inflicted on him. He forgot to say to himself, "this is onlyFiflne." But the separation of weeks between him and his love, the fact Sir Harley had been here, and had been filling his place, Margaret's unsatisfactory letters, all the circumstances that had of late been troubling him, laid him open to her thrusts, and enabled her thrusts to make wounds.
She only saw that he had slightly changed countenance, and was pleased to think she had pricked him through the thickness of his parchment-skinned temperament. It was good to see him smarting a little, who could make other . people wince at the severity of his judgments I
"I do not think you are quite a judge of your cousin's feelings," he said, trying to speak lightly. "What would be natural in your case, is hardly to be looked for in hers. You
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think she is to be found in the Lonvre ? I will go there in search of her." And he went.
** What a Gallons creature he is in spite of the passionate look that comes into his eyes ! " thought Fifine. " Oh, how I would like to stick a long pin into him ! He did not believe a word I said. He is too conceited to be afraid of a rival ; but I annoyed him a little by merely suggesting that he could have one."
Fifine's long pin had, however, already entered into his flesh, and the hurt that it was to make was not soon to be healed.
Lance walked straight into the Louvre Gallery, and, after seeking for some time, descried his Marigold, sitting in a retired comer, all by herself. Lisette was wandering about somewhere in the neighbourhood. Margaret had sent her to look at the pictures, wanting to be alone with her thoughts.
She was gazing at the great figure of the Pallas, but with eyes that saw nothing ; and, as Lance caught the first glimpse of her, he was struck by her fixed attitude, and a look of agony on her face turned towards him, such as he had never seen there before. Margaret was, in fact, at work upon a complicated problem which included four questions : how to save Lance from sharing the secret she possessed, how to keep the secret to herself, how to separate her life from his without giving any reason, how to live on after parting with Lance ! She was not able to answer any of these questions.
He approached her slowly, observing keenly the change that had come over her since he had seen her last. She was paler, thinner, older-looking, and that extraordinary look of anguish seemed to alter the very shape of her features. His heart lay a dead weight in his breast. What had happened to his bonnie sweetheart ? A hope flashed up in him that when she saw him coming, that terrible expression of despair would disappear, that she would instantly look like herself again at the sound of his voice.
She was gazing towards him, but above him, at the statue. At the sound of a step drawing near, she lowered her glance absently and saw him.
" Great God 1 " murmured Lance, standing suddenly still, '' she has gone mad."
The cause of this thought was the alteration that took place in Margaret as soon as she saw him approaching towards her. Her
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faoe, whioh he had fehoaght pale before, took a deathly pallor '/ the grief, yisiUe m her eyes, gave way to an expression of terror,- and she rose and recoiled a few steps, throwing her hands as if 'she would withdraw herself from a dreadful apparition.
This movement was made unoonsciously in the first moment of her surprise, and was the involuntary expression and betrayal of her fear of meeting him ; tongue-tied, as she knew she must he, altered as were her ciroumstanoes, unable as she was to explain the cause of the difference he must find in her. It was to her almost as if she had met his spirit after death had parted them> and forbidden her to hold communication with him.
In a second or two another change passed over her. She seemed to recollect herself, a faint smile came over her face, and she advanced a step to meet him. But the image of her, as she stood in the first moment of her surprise, before she had had time to control herself, shrinking from him with fear, dismayed and unrejoiced to see him, had burned itself into Dangerfield's heart.
He took her cold hand in his own, and looked at her searoh- ingly.
" Margaret, what is this ? What is the matter with you ? "
'< Nothing," said Margaret. " I am tired, and grandfather is ill. When did you arrive ? Why did you not let us know you were coming? "
"I did not know myself. I suddenly thought from your letters that something was wrong. And something is wrong. Tell me what is wrong, Margaret."
" Have I not told you that a great deal is wrong? Grandfather has been harassed about business and is ill. And I am tired and longing to get home."
" That is not all. There is something more than that."
She looked at him with a frightened glance, and then turned gloomily away from him.
** Yes, there is something worse than that."
" Something that you will not tell me."
'' Something that I cannot tell you."
" And that has made you afraid to see me ? "
"Yes."
"Oood heavens 1 Marigold, someone has been making mis- understanding between us."
"No one."
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^* You have been told some falsehood about me."
" Nothing of the kmd."
** M. Dunois has been trying to make a division between us, as I foresaw he would do. I know that he has done it."
"Nothing he has said or done has any such effect upon me. He has been persuaded that all efibrts of that kind are useless."
'* Then what, in God's name, is the reason you looked as you did when you saw me coming near you ? "
Margaret shuddered. '' I cannot tell you," she said, with a heavy sigh.
" Marigold, come and walk up and down and let us talk the matter out. There is some mystery at the bottom of all this, and I must have it cleared up. You do not think I am going to be satisfied with the answers you have given me ? "
Marigold moved mechanically, and walked with him along the gallery. A terrible jealous dread had by this time seized on Lance, and he was struggling desperately to get the better of it.
** And so Sir Harley Winthrop is gone. I wonder you did not tell me so when writing."
" I did tell you," said Margaret.
" Then a letter must have miscarried."
" 1 suspected so, as you never alluded to several matters of which I wrote you in the same letter. Strange that it should have been the one to get lost."
" Tell me over again now all that you said in that letter."
" I do not think I can, or need. It would serve no purpose. I was unhappy and anxious, and I said several things that may as well be forgotten. It makes no difference now."
" You were more disposed to be open with me then than you are now. What has caused the change ? "
'* I cannot tell you."
"You admit the change."
" Yes."
*^ And this trouble you will not confide to me."
" I dare not."
'* You think we can go on as before, with a secret dividing us ; a cloud of misunderstanding lying between us ? "
" I fear not," said Margaret, drearily. "Not quite as before. I was thinking of how I could say this to you. And now it is said."
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" Margaret, I cannot understand* You must be talking in your deep, under the influence of a bad dream. You cannot mean that you are so changed in a few weeks that confidence is at an end between us."
" Circumstances have changed/'
Lance looked at her face, half •turned away from him, and on it he saw an expression of despair that wrung his heart. Here he was beside her, unchanged, loving her more fondly than ever. She used to declare that her only possibility of happiness was in his hands, and yet despair had taken possession of her. It must be that she had ceased to love him. Fifine was right. Sir Harley Winthrop
He checked himself, xmable to put the thought into words even in his own mind. It was such a monstrous impossibility that his Margaret could be untrue ! And yet his rival — ^yes, he must con- sider him as his rival — was handsome, attractive, devoted to her ; he had been her daily companion for sotne time, and who could
tell that even Margaret ? The man was wealthy, well placed in
the world ; he could give her a home and position as her birth entitled her to. She had been so young when she gave her promise to him. Lance ; might not her mind have changed during these last few months so gradually as to leave even herself in ignorance of the change till too late to escape from the temp- tation?
As this view of the existing state of things opened up before him, Dangerfield began to feel his heart turn to ice within him, and something like a cloud of fire to sweep across his brain. He, who was always. so cool and discerning in his judgments, who prided himself on being so keen in scenting out the truth, was rapidly becoming possessed by an unjust suspicion, and growing every moment more incapable of judging dispassionately in this all-important case. But being still sufficiently himself to perceive the danger of his state of mind, he made a great struggle to recover his usual grasp of probabilities, and to abstain from attributing the change in Margaret to the influence of another lover, until she, all truthful as she had ever been, should confess that he had ceased to hold the first place in her heart.
" I will not worry you with any more questions now," he said. " I have taken you by surprise. Whatever this trouble may be that is in your mind, and which you find it so hard to tell, think
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no more about it at present ; hut let us come upstairs and look at the pictures. I shall wait patiently till you oan bring yourself to open your thoughts to me. If they are too difficult to be put into
speech, perhaps you will write to me. In the meantime "
Then she followed him silently up the staircase, and into the great picture gallery, listening to his remarks about the pictures as they went along, and making short absent replies that told him her mind was full of that other matter and could not give itself to any passing interest. Her misery was, indeed, so great as almost to stupify her. The longing desire to be frank with Lance, the impossibility of holding intercourse with him without being frank, the urgent necessity, for his own sake, of keeping her secret from him, all pressed upon her like the walls of a dungeon. Her heart was in prison, and she could see no means for its escape. She was terrified and stunned by what seemed to her the utter impracticability of this unexpected situation.
Lance acted his part bravely for half an hour, trying to seem as if he did not notice her strange mood, and thinking he was thus giving her time to overcome it ; but he felt at last, with a great pang, that his efforts were useless. The void between them seemed to grow wider and wider as the minutes went on. She was not hstening to him, nor thinking of him. This was no longer Marigold, this woman who was walking by his side.
'' Shall we go to your lodgings ? " he said at last, abruptly. " Perhaps you can talk to me better there. For, Marigold, we must have this matter out before we part again, even for an hour. I 'don't know whether you are quite aware of how you have been torturing me."
Margaret bowed her head. She could not think of anything to say. What could she say that would put matters straight? They went through the streets without speaking, and, arriving at the lodgings, found the salon empty. Margaret sank into a chair, and began to imtie her bonnet-strings. Lance stood before her in an attitude of waiting and expectation.
'' Well ? " he said, with a gesture, expressive of a great effort at patience.
" Lance," said Margaret, in a tone of anguish, ** I have nothing to tell you. It is something you must never be told."
" May I guess, then? " he answered, in a voice she had never heard from him before. ''Margaret, you will at least answer
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me the trath. Did Sir Harle; Winthrop ask you to marry bim?" " No."
" But he would have done so had you not prevented him ? " Margaret paused before replying. " Do not hesitate. Tell me the truth."
" When have I ever told you anything but truth ? " said the girl, indignantly. ** Yes, I think he would have done so, only I told him of our engagement."
"And you allowed him to go on in ignorance paying you attention ; you accepted his attentions up to the last moment, till you were obliged to confess that you were bound to another man ! What meaning can I draw from all this, except that he has got your heart, and I have got only your promise ! It would have been better to have confessed at once, than to have allowed me to come and draw my own conclusions from your altered manner,
and your unhappy face "
" Lance ! " cried Margaret, throwing out her hands in horror, as if she would stop the torrent of his cruel words by force. But he had given himself up to the fury of jealousy and only saw in her face and action the fullest admission of the justice of his accusation.
" You were afraid of giving me pain,*' he said. '' Doubtless, that is what you would plead, and yet you have only prolonged and intensified my suffering. But what do you know of pain ? You shall not say that I have been selfish towards you, however, or the cause of your unhappiness. I will go now, and Sir Harley
Winthrop will return "
He had lost his senses as thoroughly as any foolish, brainless boy, under the influence of jealousy. The judicial faculty, on which he took his stand, his power of coolly sifting evidence and waiting for the development of the truth, had completely deserted him. He saw only one monstrous, intolerable fact, of which there could be no denial — Margaret untrue at heart, though willing to keep to her bond, to fulfil her promise sullenly and reluctantly after her love had failed I
On Margaret's head his words fell like the blows of a club. She saw how much appearances were against her. If she would not speak and tell the entire truth, how could she clear herself of the detestable accusation? Yet she was doing all this for his
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Bake ; she was bearing tribulation tbat he might not be thmst into a deadly danger. Why oould he not have trusted her after all that had oome and gone ?
She buried her face in her hands, and for a few moments struggled wildly with the impulse to speak, and make all under- stood, let come afterwards what might. But her anxiety to save him triumphed. She remembered Victor's words, ** his life would not be worth an hour's purchase." And her lips remained sealed.
If Lance had half-expected some indignant protest against his words, her silence and her attitude confirmed his unjust belief in her falsehood. A sort of wrathful heart-sickness seized upon him and made him feel faint, as he thought of the woods at Amber- wolds, and of words spoken there, on which he had built all the foundations of his life.
*' And you thought you loved me ! " he said, " and this is your love 1 This is the truth that you used to talk about I "
Her hands dropped from her face, and she started up with a look, which he at once misread as he had misunderstood her other looks and words. Meeting her eyes, he turned on her a large look of scorn and disgust, which she knew as belonging to him, but which was never called forth but by the contemplation of morally contemptible things. He walked across the room and went out, and left her gazing, stunned and stupid, at the closed door through which he had passed.
Turning mechanically, she caught sight of her own poor face in a glass on the wall. That was some other woman surely, and not Margaret. Her mouth set, her eyes dry, hollow and dark, she looked as if she had murdered aU the sweetness in herself, in order to be able to do some yet more desperate deed. If she had con- fronted him with a face like that, she thought, no wonder he had gone out from her presence, shaking the dust from his feet I
EOSA MULHOLLAND GiLBEBT.
{To he continued)
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ANONYMITIES UNVEILED
TENTH INSTALMENT
IN the seyenteenth volume of this Magazine we furnished a key to the authorship of many anonymous contributions to periodical literature. Some of our discussions referred to the initials and fanciful signatures used by writers in the Nation^ Duffy's Fireside Magazine, the Irishman, etc. Apart from this series we were able to name the authors of most of the articles in the Dublin Review, in three papers contained in our twenty-first volume. In the previous volume (1892) appeared the last of the series to which we are now making an addition. Sixty or seventy years ago there was a periodical called the Irish Monthly Magazine — ^almost a namesake of our own, though our name is not in reality that title shortened, but an adaptation of the American use of the word Monthly as a noun standing by itself, not qualify, ing "magazine" or anything else, like the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Monthly, etc. This Irish Monthly Magazine had many members of the O'Connell family among its contributors. The Liberator himself published in it a memoir of his kinsman. Count 0'Ck)nnell. The present O'Connell, of Derrynane, has informed me that his father, Maurice O'Gonnell, the great O'Gonnell's eldest and cleverest son, signed his contributions by the names of " Patrick O'Taf&rail," " Patrick O'Doggrel," " Fionn,' and ** Denis McPinn." John O'Connell, over thes ignature ** Y.," wrote "The Buccaneers," "The Seizure," "The Last Voyage of the Veroluys," and " The Fisherman's Legend." The three girls of this clever household — we must distinguish them by the names that marriage afterwards gave them — were also contributors. The verses in Vol. I., pp. 758, 766, and 838, are by Mrs. ffrench. Mrs. Charles O'Connell's signature was " G." and Mrs. Ellen Fitzsimons, " LN. F." Observe that there is no full stop separat- ing the first two of those capitals, which in reality forms the poet's Christian name. These particulars were furnished to me by Mr. D. O'Gonnell in a letter dated " Derrynane Abbey, February 20, 1888." An editor's motto may be Horace's
" Gondo et oompono quae mox depromere poBsiin " — if mox can cover an interval of thirteen years.
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Mr. D. J. O'Donoghae, who is an expert and an authority on the sabjeoti contributed some time ago to the Dublin Press very interesting annotations upon Mr. Paniel Grilly's researches (pub- lished in Young Ireland) and on our own articles. These we have preserved, but we cannot make use of them now, as we wish to put on record a few original memoranda.
Though the Edinburgh Review and the Quarterly Review still maintain the policy of anonymity which the DubUn Review has of late years abandoned, the authorship of the principal articles is frequently revealed in newspaper paragraphs, or in the AthencBwm and the Academy, It also transpires when the reviewers republish their essays separately. This has happened with regard to many anonymous writings of Mr. Aubrey de Vere. Several, however, of his contributions to periodicals have not been republished in volumes. He was good enough to give me a list of these in October, 1889. The memorandum does not give the date of his criticism on Tennyson's " Princess " in the Edinbwrgh Review ; but the first publication of that poem determines the time approximately : —
" Irish Colonization," Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1850
" Hartley Coleridge," do. July, 1851
" Judge O'Hagan's * Song of Roland," do. April, 1881
" The Veneration of the Sainte," Dublm Beview, March, 1853
" Longfellow's Poetry," do. June, 1853
" The Plague of Controversy," do. June, 1854
" Irish National Education," do. Feb. 1860
" Ireland's Sins and Ireland's Hopes," Frazer's Magazine, 1850
" Longfellow's Poetry," do. April, 1853
No date is assigned for "Thoughts on St. Gertrude" in the Month, " Life of St. Gertrude " in the Tablet, and Fitzpatrick's " Life of Dr. Doyle " in the Rambler. Out of very many pamph- lets, this list mentions '' Constitutional and Unconstitutional PoUtical Action" (printed by McKem, Limerick, 1881), and '< Ireland and Proportionate Bepresentation " (Hodges and Figgis, 1885).
The foregoing items are copied from a memorandum in the author's handwriting. In the same way we are enabled to identify Mrs. Partridge's contributions to the Month during Father Coleridge's editorship. Probably *'F. P." was signed to the poems — namely, "Notre Dame de TEpine" in October, 1875; "At Valentano," December, 1876, and "Post Hoc Exilium,"
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March, 1877. The proee artioles are << AdventTires under the May Laws," June, 1876 ; " French CJonvicts in New Caledonia," July, 1876 ; " Ars in 1877," July, 1877 ; " The Queen of a Bourbon King/' June, 1860 ; <' Last Days of the Old Begime/' December, 1880.
It would be very desirable that editors should at certain long intervals take their readers into their confidence and entertain them with a Uttle friendly gossip about the names removed by death from their list of contributors and the amount of assistance that Maga had received from each. But such frankness seems to be considered incompatible with editorial dignity and reserve — in these islands at least, for France and the United States are less reticent in such matters.
To practise what we preach, let us, from the threshold of our thirtieth year, look back to some of our earliest volumes and unveil some of their anonymities. There is not so much to unveil, for from the first the Ibish Monthly has heen a sworn foe to anonymity. In its early numbers, from July, 1873, initials are more frequently given, in place of full names, than has of late been usual. Thus T.F. is signed to " Occasional Sketches of Irish Life," which unhappily ran only to two numbers — " The Emigrant " and '* The Vagrant." Whatever was the case then, many would now recognise these as the initials of the Bev. Thomas Finlay, S.J. The same initials ought to have been signed to an admirable paper, ** Catholicity and the Spirit of the Age," which was given quite anonymously in our First Number. Other initials in that same number stand for Lady Margaret Domville and for Bobert ffirench Whitehead, then Vice-President of Maynooth. The initials of two Bedemptorist Fathers were appended to poems embodied in one of the papers in that long-past opening number — the Bev. Edmund Vaughan and the Bev. T. E. Bridgett. The £iditor was, of course, responsible for the papers signed by the initials M. B., and also the finals W. L., as well as those that have no signatures, like the announcement in French magazines c ** Pour les articles non sign^s le Gerant."
In the second number appeared a stately and picturesque poem addressed to Ephesus, chiefly as the abode of the Blessed Virgin. The initials J.. Si C. are those of the Bev. John S. Gonmee, S.J. It is much to be deplored that those initials have never reappeared in our pages, excepts when appended, in our second volume, to a Vol. XXX. — No. 343. • e
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beautiful study of Aubrey de Vere's drama, Alexander the Great. The wielder of the brilliant pen to which we owe " Old Times in the Barony," among the publioations of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, has much to answer for in letting it lie idle so long.
Another anonymous contributor to our volume for 1873 was Dr. C. W. Bussell, President of Maynooth, who does not even mark with his initials his ** Jottings from a Greek Prayer-book." '* The Summons to the Council," namely, the Vatican Council, follows this paper. This very spirited poem is signed W. E. — ^that is. Father William Kelly, S.J., the eldest of three gifted brothers. In this volume appear, for the first of many times, the initials S. A., Mrs. Sarah Atkinson, whose name we write with reverence, affec- tion, and gratitude.
Page 219 of our first volume is occupied by a very graceful lyric about Luggelaw. The M. O'F. who wrote it was the Rev. Michael O'Ferrall, S.J., whom some still remember with affection for his amiable qualities and with respect for his varied attainments. The initials J. M. O'B. stand for Miss Julia O'Byan, at the end of one of the most humorous sketches that ever brightened our pages — *' Nancy Hutch and her Three Troubles." The same pleasant pen has, a little later, an ingenious paper on the *' Uses of Hope and the Pleasures of Adversity," which is immediately followed by some delicious blank verse, '*By the Seaside." No one but myself could discover the author of this poem from the letters H. L. appended to it. These are, indeed, the initials signed to several exquisite vignettes in our recent volumes ; but this second H. L., who has hidden herself in the happy silence of Carmel, was not bom till many years after the birth of our Magazine. H. L., at the remote date to which we have gone back, were not initials, but the final letters of Father Joseph Farrell, author of Lectures by a Certain Professor, The remaining revelations to be made about the authorship of articles in our first volume are these : E. D., who addresses a fervent ode to St. Stanislaus Eostka, is Pather Edmund Donovan, S.J., of Galway ; and B. D. D., who has a sweet and subtle poem, " The Leaf and the Eye," was (we change the tense, for he is dead) the brilliant novelist, Bichard Dowling. Finally, we purposely placed, side by side, in the number for Decemb^, 1873, S. M. S. and J. M. C, with their illustrious father, Denis Florence MacOarthy. S. M. S. were the initials of Sister Mary Stanislaus, of the
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THE YEAR*S ROUND 51
Dominican Convent, Sion Hill, Blaokrock; and with the sweet and holy associations of this name we close, for the present, our revelations concerning onr anonymous contributors, having dealt with only the first volume out of twenty-nine yearly volumes.
THE YEAR'S ROUND
Anotheb round is done.
Another year is run, Since thou from me didst turn thy face away To travel where there is nor year nor day ;
And yet I reckon here
Another year. Winter's cold and the Summer's blossoming. Autumn's flush and the wild sweet of the Spring.
O Sun's gold wheel. Are you not tired of turning?
O stars of steel, Give over your cold burning !
Flowers, shrivel and fade.
A grave is made. Sick earth, will you not wither up and die, Since in your bosom cold my love doth lie ?
G. M. B.
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[ 52 ]
A MOTHER'S REBUKE
BOTH son and mother are dead. The son went first. He was a bright, clever lad, full of promise, when I first saw him ; but, when he became a medical student, he fell into reckless habits that in the end laid him in an early grave. He began by being idle and careless as to his studies ; and a complaint of him on this score was sent to his good parents in the country by those who had charge of him in Dublin. His mother, a woman of piety and ibrains, sent him the following letter through the hands of the boy's masters who were first to read the letter before delivering it. One of them took a copy of it at the time — more than twenty years ago. Perhaps some poor young lad, at the same stage of his career at present, may read this page and take the admonition to himself. A few words are omitted : —
" I will not say what I feel — ^the shame, the sorrow for your father. , . .
" How dare you be absent once from your Lectures, you who have nothing but starvation to look to if you don't succeed in your profession ? And speaking of that same profession, look well to it before you embrace it. How will you with your light ways under- take any case ? And your want of study 1 You'll cover yourself with infamy . . . and damn your soul by neglecting your duty. All through levity and want of seriousness. You remember what I often told you about this. And it went so far that I looked upon you as a bane and a bad thing among the rest of my children. Your constant idleness — wasn't that a bad example? Your coming down at ten o'clock in the mornings, and, worse than all, your turning everything serious into vulgar, stupid ridicule ? Do you remember me reading once for you : * Little can be expected from the boy that laughs at everything. Avoid the companion who jests at everything. Such people disparage by some ludic- rous association all objects which are presented to their thoughts, and thereby render themselves incapable of any emotion which can either elevate or soften them. They bring upon their moral being an influence more withering than the blasts of the desert ' ?
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A MOTHER'S REBUKE o':
I copied this out long ago, and I felt whom it applied to at the time. Was I right ?
"It is incoQceivahle to me how persons knowing they have nothing to expect from their parents, knowing it must depend on themselves to get through the world — ^how they will not put every moment of their time to profit. You know you are not fit for bodily labour — ^you are too old to go to serve your time to any business. What are you to do? And there is the name *s
son is going to leave behind him at college. What is the reason of your saying * I went to Holy Communion.' Do you stay so long away that you look upon it as a great matter to get yourself to go ? This is a thing I would not expect to hear from a Catholic boy well brought up. You had better keep company with the good boys of your college, and labour to become serious and sensible. You should go and kneel down and beg your superior's pardon, and I beg of you to do so, and will not be satisfied till you do so.
" Your afflicted mother,
The poor young fellow fortunately got a long preparation for death, and had his good and gifted mother to help him through it. We have, thank God, good reason to hope, while we pray, that the comfort given by the old bishop to St. Monica was given also to this true Christian mother, that the child of such prayers and tears has not been lost, that Jesus again, as at the gates of Naim, has restored the son to the mother.
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NOTES ON NEW BOOKS
1. Ballads of Dovm. By Q^orge Francis Savage- Armstrong. Londpn, New York, and Bombay: Longmans, Green k Co. [Price, 7«. M,]
Inclination and aptitude are the chief ingredients in a vocation ; but the seal of its genuineness is happy perseverance. These marks of a trtie poet's vocation are found in George Francis Savage-Armstrong. He might have made his way sooner to the hearts of his countrymen if Ballads of Dovm had come earlier in the very long catalogue of his works. These works do not consist of mere '^ swallow-flights of song ; " for besides two miscellaneous volumes, Lyrical and Dramatic Poems and A Garland from Greece, the poet has given us a full-length tragedy, Ugone, and a trilogy, Kin^ Saulj King David and King Solomon, which are grouped together (though each is a considerable volume) as three parts of The Tragedy -of Israel, A still loftier poem is One of the Infinite, There are also three Commemorative Odes, and a long and clever satire of the year 1388, Mephistopheles in Broadcloth, We have kept for the last, in our enumeration of Mr. Savage-Armstrong's previous works, the one which is closest of kin to the present. Songs of Wickhw, The author has hitherto been known as the Ppet of Wicklow, and the opening poem of Ballads of Down is an apology for transferring his devotion to the more northern county. An humbler poet once confessed in rhyme that the chief reason why he was fond of Eostrevor was because it was near to Killowen. These two, however, lie side by side : when you reach the end of Bostrevor Wood by the tree-roofed road along the shore of Carling- ford Lough, you issue at once into Killowen. But it is a far cry from Wicklow to Down ; yet the Poet Professor tells us on his first page: —
" I love the fresh bright autumn days
Of mottled skies and luoid weather, For then from Wioklow's fraughan-braes
I hail Slieve Donard's heights of heather ; Far off I trace in outline clear
The peaks of Down in light extended- Twin spots of earth I hold most dear
In one ethereal realm are blended."
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NOTSS ON' NEW BOOKS 55
And so such namea as Portaferry and Ardglass and Tollymore gleam through the pages, and the poet, in his '' Downshire home^ amid the folds of Ulstdr's hills/' is glad to
" Shut out the world. The kindly hearts Of wife and child and friend Are worth the wealth «f all its marts And all its pompa oan lend."
Nay, the learned - Professor tries to pick up the language of the oountry, and writes a great deal in dialect. We fear that hoth in thought and diction he proves himself a stranger. We can only speak for South Down ; but the intervening Mourne range cannot make such a difference, and we suspect that our Balladist's Downese would be unintelligible also to the men of Lecale or the Ards. This very thick volume of verse might judiciously have been lessened by reserving for another volume of a different sort the two long poems, ** St. Patrick and the Druid " and " The Outcast's Tragedy." In the first of these Mr. Armstrong com- petes with Aubrey de Vere, but his theology is not as full and exact. He makes our great Apostle state the Christian doctriijies too crudely, and gives the objections better than the answers. But we wish that we could transcribe the summary of our Divine Bedeemer's life and teaching given on page 269. St. Patrick's prayer at the end deserves to be transferred to our books of devotion.
2. Ugly, a Hospital Dog ; with Recitations and Beadings, By (George H. B. Dabbs. London : Deacon & Co. 1901.
This very attractively produced book is the latest that we have had from Dr. Dabbs. Perhaps the ceasing of Vectis, which many deplore, may give its versatile Editor more leisure for even better work. The most winsome bit of modem literature is Bab and his Friends^ and Bab was only a dog like Ugly. The Isle of Wight doctor has a great deal of the literary skill of his Edinburgh brother, Dr. John Brown. Ugly tells his own story very briefly, and then tells a great many other interesting stories, very cleverly indeed, and with a great deal of variety. The allusions to the cat, Sarah Marks, are kept up well ; and justice is done in the end even to the Secretary, Lemonsqueezer. Medical students will relish tiie realism of the Hospital details. ** Ugly " fills only the first half of these two hundred pleasantly printed pages, the second
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5<S THE IRISH MONTHI^f
half being given to exoellent readings and recitations in prose and yerse. " A Beverie of Diokens '' would ,be my choice among the poems, and ** The Undermaster " among ttie prose sketches.
3. Our Lady of Youghal is the title of an extremely interesting pamphlet, which can be procnred for threepence from the Sacristan of the Catholic Church, Youghal. It contains an eloquent sermon by Father Antoninus Eeane, O.P., illustrated by valuable anti- quarian notes about this image of the Madonna, ending with a beautiful hynm to Our Lady of Youghal, by Father Sheehan, of Doneraile, author of My New Curate.
4. Benziger Brothers (New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago) have published a four-shilling book of stories for youthful readers to which they give the name of Jwoenile Bound Table, The frontispiece gives very faithful reproductions of the signatures of Marion Ames Taggart, Katharine Tynan Hinkson, Mary T. Waggaman, Eleanor C. Donnelly, Ella Loraine Dorsey, Mary G. Bonesteel, Mary C. Crowley, Theo Gift, Anna T. Sadlier, Marion J. Brunowe, Margaret E. Jordan, Clara MulhoUand, Katharine Jenkins, Eug6nie Uhlrich^ Two men intrude among this formid- able female array — Father Finn, S.J., and Maurice Francis Egan, LL.D. These signatures are set in a frame of vignette portraits of the vmters. There is a third male vmter, omitted from the frontispiece — David Selden — whose name meets us here for the first time; and there are three other ladies. All these clever people, with the help of twenty full-page illustrations, combine to produce a very attractive set of tales. This Juvenile Bound Table is sure to be popular during the Christmas-box season, which has set in with its usual severity.
6. The ecclesiastical publisher, B. Herder, of Freiburg, in Grermany, has issued a second and revised English edition of the Practical Commentary on Holy Scriptv/re for the use of those who Teach Bible History, by Frederick Justus Knecht, D.D., Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Freiburg. Very wisely it is not only translated, but adapted from the German. In 1894, when it was first published in English, the German original had reached a twelfth edition ; it is now in its eighteenth. The appro- bations of twenty English and other bishops are prefixed, and it is illustrated by ninety-two pictures and four coloured maps. It consists of nearly nine hundred large octavo pages, into which the excellent typography helps to condense a great variety of matter ;
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NOTES ON NEW BOOKS 67
and, unboimd, it is giyen for the very moderate price of nine sbillingB. But this yalnable addition to solid catechetical litera- ture deserves at once a good binding.
6. We wish that a publisher's name, and also the author's name, had been given with the extremely interesting volume entitled Home's Holy Places : the Booms and Shrines of St. Ignatius of Loyola, St, Ahysius Oomaga, St. John Berchmans^ St. Stanislaus Kostka, and Blessed Antony Baldinucd, The author, who gives only his initials, " P. J. C," has collected with loving diligence all the particulars connected with these holy spots, with which he is evidently familiar. The rooms themselves and all their associa- tions are minutely described ; and, in connection with each, other objects of interest, and the holy memories linked with them, are set down briefly. There are pictures and plans of the rooms and portraits of the saints, and, indeed, F. J. G. has manifestly spared no pains to make his account of these holy places as perfect as possible. The only address given on the title-page is the Salesian Press at Bome, No. 42, Via Portia San Lorenzo. The proceeds of the sale are to be applied to the rooms of the Saints.
7. Only at this moment has come into our hands the richest gift that Christmas is likely to bring to the lovers of poetry : Poems by Katharine Tynan (London : Laurence and Bullen). One has lost count of the volumes of verse which Mrs. Hinkson has published since the Louise de la ValliSre volume appeared in 1885. She has herself gathered into this beautiful book representatives of all the series ; and strangely, but perhaps very wisely, she has not prefixed one word of preface. The nine divisions of the book have title-pages of their own — " Country Airs," 13 in number ; " The Children," 16; "Many Moods," 16; "Shamrocks," only 4 ; " Ballads and Lyrics," 23 ; " Cuckoo Songs," 16 ; " Miracle Plays," 2 ; " A Lover's Breast Knot," 20 ; and " The Wind in the Trees," 31. The last six of these are the names of volumes that we are familiar with. Do the first divisions represent in reality a new volume? If to these we add the early Louise de la Valli&re volume (which seems to be now superseded) and many ungathered poems before it and since, we realise how marvellous has been the output of this rich Irish mine. On this substantial volume of nearly three hundred pages (which the publishers have produced with faultless taste) Mrs. Hinkson may well rest her definitive daim to a high place among the poets of the young twentieth
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58. THE IRISH MONTHLY
century. But, by the way, the name that we have given to her is completely ignored in this authoritative and mature collection of Poems by Katharine Tynan,
8. The Art and Book Company have brought out a new edition of the Book of Spirittuil Instruction, translated by Father Bertrand Wilberforce, O.P,, from the Latin of Louis de Blois, who is so often quoted by St. Alphonsus and others as '' the devout Blosius." It is a holy and beautiful book in its present form. There is also a new edition of Father Edmund Vaughan's translation of St, Alphonsus^ Meditations on the Inca/mation (London : Bums and Gates). The Bev. A. Dekkers has adapted from the French a drama, St. Francis in the World (London : Bums and Gates). The process of adaptation leaves it still very French. We have received from Schwartz, Kirwin and Fauss, of New York, the Fourth Beading Book of their Columbus Series. It is beautifully printed, strongly bound, prettily illustrated, and the selections are very new and interesting.
9. Herder, of St. Louis, Missouri, has published two admirable essays by the Bev. Wm. Poland, S.J. — Find the Ghv/rch and Trm Pedagogics and False Ethics^ of which the plainer subtitle is ''Morality cannot be taught without Beligion." Gld as these subjects are. Father Poland has given them a new life by the vigour of his thinking and writing. Religious Education and its Failures, by Dr« Bellord, Bishop of Gibraltar, has been reprinted from the Ave Maria at Notre Dame, Indiana. Mr. Dudley Baxter has written an excellent memoir of Cardinal Pole (London and Leamington : The Art and Book Company.)
10. The third number of St, Stephen's, A Record of University Life, is a great improvement on its predecessors. If an arrant but intelligent outsider can enjoy thoroughly its spicy paragraphs, its interest must be keen indeed for those who understand every cryptic allusion. There is a good deal of solid discussion in it also. We welcome it heartily for what it is and for what it may become. The Ulster Journal of Archaohgy is published quarterly by M'Caw, Stevenson, and Grr, Belfast. The Gctober number is very beautifully illustrated. It opens with an interesting account of the Bangor Sun-dial, nearly three hundred years old^ In the latest number of the Journal of the Waterford and. South-East of Ireland Archaological Society the most interesting item is the account of Don Philip G'Sullivan, the Siege of
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NOTSS ON NEW BOOKS 69
Dtinboy, and the Betreat and Assassination of the O'Sullivan Beare. The number opens with a list of the members of the Society, in which an asterisk is placed before the names of the ooti£oientioa8 members who have paid their subscription for the year 1901. Under the letter " B " we note that eight have paid and ten have not paid ; but we hasten to add that this discreditable proportion is not maintained throughout the alphabet, in spite of the letter "B," which ought to be ashamed of itself. The Christmas Number of the Annals of St, Anthony, by means of its small but dear print, gives a great amount of good and lively matter. Most of the illustrations are very good. But why is not the name of the Bev. Michael Muilins put to the lines about the Irish language on page 119, and Father Faber's to his well-kn6wn Distractions in Prayer on page 115 ? Our favourites from the ends of the earth are the Catholic Magazine for South Africa and the Madonna of the Australasian Children of Mary. The best thing in the former is *' Barbara Millet," by K., and in the latter " No. 12, Accident Ward," by M. W.
11. The latest publications of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland keep still to the popular penny, although one of them consists of sixty-eight pages in a serviceable binding, the Life of Our L(yrd, by the Bev. F. E. O'Loughhn, C.C. The printer has arranged very well the marginal headings of sections with the references to chapter and verse. This is one of the very best of the C. T. S. pennyworths, and is sure of an enormous circulation. Thirty Simple Meditations on the Incarnation is No. 2 of a series of which No. 1 was Purgatory, and No. 3 will be Bethlehem. No. 9 of Canon Schmid's Tales is The Jewels. Two other addi- tions to the Story Series are The Delinquents by Delia Oleeson, and two little tales under one cover by Sister Gertrude, Loreto College, Dublin — Only a Child and Qod^comforted at Last. The Bev. F. Coffey, B.D., gives an admirable sketch of the life of St. Columbkille, one of the most winsome and picturesque of the ancient saints of Grod. Finally, an enthusiastic welcome is assured for our last two pennyworths — The Greatest Doctor of the Church and Thoughts on Mary Immaculate, when we name the author, the Bev. P. A. Sheehan, P.P., of Doneraile, whose Luke Delmege will, in the new year, rival the fame of My New Curate. Even he has never written more eloquent pages than this panegyric of St. Augustine. Surely the Catholic Truth Society of
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Ireland is beginning the new year well. May it prosper more and more.
12. Though it has only reached us in mid-Deoember, when our New Year Number has almost passed through the press, we must not delay the expression of our admiration for what has been truly described as the most important and the most beautiful book of its dass ever issued by any Catholic publisher in England. The Madonna : a Pictorial Bepresentation of the Life and Death of the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ by the Painters and Sctdptors of Christendom in more than 500 of their Works. (London : Bums and Gates). The text has been translated from the Italian of Adolphus Venturi, whom a manifestly competent critic, reviewing the original in the Civiltd Cattolica of June 1st, 1901, calls '' un profondo conoscitore dell' arte.'* It has ahready been translated into German. This English translation has the good fortune to be introduced by one of those thoughtful, most uncomr monplace, and exquisitely written essays which we have learned to expect from the pen of Alice Meynell. This introduction is so brief that one even grudges the spaces allotted in it to extracts, beautiful as they are, from Francis Thompson, Coventry Patmore, and Dante Bossetti. These splendid pages, it appears, are techni- cally called " medium quarto," which is a very modest expression for a folio of such ample dimensions. Four hundred and fifty of these are devoted to the history of all that Christian Art has done to honour the Mother of God, from the unknown painter of the Catacombs down to Correggio and Titian. The events of the Blessed Virgin's life are taken in order — Nativity, Presentation, Espousals, Annunciation, Visitation — and, after Our Lord's birth, the Mother's share in all her Son's life and death, and then her own Assump- tion and Coronation. In each of these chapters the order of the illustrations is chiefly chronological, following (as Mrs. Meynell says) " the history of the Image of the Virgin Mother, shown to us in Art, and particularly in Italian Art, as the centre of the labour and the love of seven centuries." The price of this most sumptuous of gift-books is 31s. 6d,, a very moderate price for so magnificent a work.
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THE IRISH MONTHLY
FEBRUARY, 1902
THE CHARMS
A COMEDY IN TWO ACTS BY MISS MAHONY
Dbamatis Persons
Widow Hayes. . .A Wise Woman.
Lady Alice .... The Landlord's Wife,
Ellie A Yming Woman,
Martin Joyce . . .An Old Farmer.
Scene. — The Outside of Widoto Hayes's Cottage.
ACT I Enter Maktin Joyce and Ellie frcvi opposite sides.
Martin. God save you, Ellie.
Ellie. God save you kindly, Mr. Joyce.
Martin. And what brings you into this part of the world, if a man may make bold to ask ?
Ellie. Sure, 'tis myself might be asking you the same ques- tion, Mr. Joyce. Isn't this place more out of your way than it's out of mine ?
Martin. Oh, 'tis easy for young people to be talkin', but you can see for yourself that an old man like me, that's had the cares of the world on him this many a long day, would have trials an' troubles that 'd maybe make him glad of a bit of help from a wise woman like the Widow Hayes. But it's different for you, my
Vol. XXX.— No. 344. f
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girl, that's only twenty years old, and not six months married to the very young man that yourself fancied.
Ellie. As for that, Mr. Joyce, we've all got our own troubles. Sure you didn't wait to come to the age you are, to have me tell you that.
Martin. You're about right there, my girl. It's near eighty years since I found it out for myself. But whisper, Ellie. [Draws near her, and speaks in a low voice,] Whatsomever a man like me may do, I don't like to see your mother's daughter going to consult a witch.
Ellie. It's a shame for you to miscall her like that, Martin Joyce. Isn't it well known to yourself and to everyone for miles round, that Widow Hayes is no witch, but a right down clever woman, that understands the uses of herbs, an', an' — many other things of the sort ; sji* from her own knowledge can make up charms that'll cure both sickness an' sorrow.
Mabtin. An' what's that but a witch, I'd like to know ?
Ellie. Now, Martin Joyce, you know as well as myself, an' better, that a witch only works by wrong means an' for bad ends. Widow Hayes is a good, religious woman. She has been at Eilfarren for the best part of a year now, an' I don't think she has missed Mass a single Sunday or holiday ; an' if you'd gone to the Station at Easter you'd have seen her there : an that's more than can be said for some people. As poor as she is, she's good to them that are worse off than herself ; an' she never refuses her time or her trouble to the sick an' sorrowful. Do you mean to say that the like of her can be in league with them that we mustn't name ?
Lady Alice [who has entered tmperceived]. That's a good girl, Ellie. I'm glad to hear you taking the part of the absent.
Ellie [turning round in confusion]. My lady I I'm sure I beg your ladyship's pardon ! I didn't hear you coming. I was only saying
Martin. My service to your ladyship an' to his honour. I hope he's well ?
Lady Alice. Quite well, thank you, my friend. I suppose you, like myself, have come to consult the wise woman. I hope that nothing of any importance has gone wrong, either with you or your young neighbour. But indeed her pale face tells its own Btory ; and now that I think of it, I have heard rumours about you that I must say surprised and grieved me.
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Maktin. Oh, my lady, people don't come to ooDsult a witch without cause.
Lady Ajlice. This good woman is no witch, Martin. Do you think if she were, you would see me at her door ? No, indeed. She is much more like a saint than a witch ; she is pious and charitable, and her experience and advice are at the service of all who need them.
Enter Widow Hayes /row the cottage.
Widow Hayes. God save you, neighbours. Your ladyship I I take shame to myself when I see you standing there, waiting for me. Won't you come into the house an' sit down ; an' let me bring you a drink of new milk after youj' walk ?
Lady Alice. I beg of you, Mrs. Hayes, not to let me be any trouble to you. I like to breathe the morning air among your roses and geraniums. But, perhaps, my good £rlends here may have something to say which is intended for your ear alone. If you will allow me, I will go and sit on that bench nean: your bee- hives and rest, and watch the bees while you attend to them. They were here first, you know.
Withdraws, motioning back Widow Hayks, who is about to accompany her.
Widow Hayes [to Martin], Well, then, Mr. Joyce, what is it that you want me to do for you ?
Mabtih. I am come, ma'am, to ask you for a charm.
Widow Hayes. A charm, Mr. Joyce ? What can have put it into your head that I can give charms ?
Mabtin. I've heard tell many a time, that you have a charm, a mighty powerful one again' — again*
Widow Hayes. Against what ?
Mabtin. Again' drink, then, if you will have it ; not that I am what you could call a drunkard. I never, till lately, took more tiian one pint of porter in the day ; an' no one could throw it in my face that he had ever seen me a bit the worse for drink ; but, you see, latterly I felt myself grovdng weak like, whichjis only to be looked for in a man of my age— eighty- two come Hallow Eve, of all days in the year — and I began to take a little drop^of spirits, an' soon, not finding that enough, I came to taking a glassful, and now
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Widow Hayes. An' now? Now I suppose you take two glasses full.
Martin. That's just the way it is. The cup, at home, that my grandson won at the hurling match, holds just two glasses, an' I must have the full of that twice every day. They tells me that of an odd time I shows for it, an' that I'm getting a bad name among the neighbours ; an', you see, it'd be a pity for a man like me to lose his character at the end of his days ; so if you'd give me the charm ; leastaways if it 'ud be any good ; for you see I must have the cup full up, morning an' evening, or I'm good for nothing, like.
Widow Hayes. An' so you shall. If you'll promise to use my charm, you may take as much whiskey as the cup will hold, morn- ing an' evening ; but no more, mind.
Mabtin. Come, that '11 make it square. [Widow Hayes goes, into the cottage.]
Ellie. If she has a charm that'll cure the love of drink, 'tis she'll be the wise woman, sure enough.
Martin. Indeed, then, she will. I wonder will I have to drink the charm, or only to wear it.
Ellie. You'd fancy that a charm again' drink would be some- thing to drink. Whisht ; here she is, coming back.
Enter Widow Hates, holding a small leathe)^ bag.
Widow Hayes. Look ; I am going to give you this little bag of round, polished, white stones ; an' you must give me your word that you'll drop one every day into your cup, an' that you'll take care that the stone once dropped in will never be taken out. Will you promise this ?
Martin. With all my heart. What you ask is easy enough. You may depend on me, ma'am.
Widow Hayes. Gome back this day month, an' tell me how the charm works. I'll be wishing to know.
Martin. Indeed then, I will. Whether you're a witch or whether you are not, I like your advice, an' I'll surely take it. Good morning, ma'am, and good luck. Good morning, Ellie.
[Exit.]
Widow Hayes. An' now, Ellie asthore, what's the matter with you?
Ellie. Oh, Mrs. Hayes, I'm in dread you won't find it so easy
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to help me. Sore 'tis not for myself that I wants the charm ; 'tis for another.
Widow Hayes. Well, tell me all about it at any rate. EiiiiiE. You know, Mrs. Hayes, I got married last Shrovetide to Paul Glery. He's a fine tall boy, an' has good wages, an' all the girls were envying me, an' at first we were as happy as the day is long; but, after a bit, he changed — his real temper showed itself — an' now he does nothing but give me abuse from morning till night. My life is that miserable with him that I don't know what to do, or where to turn.
Widow Hayes. You're in a common enough case, my poor chUd, but we'll see if nothing can be done for you. Does Paul drink, or is he near; or, again, does he be wasteful of his money?
Ellib. Oh no, ma'am, nothing of the sort ; there couldn't be a better or a steadier man than he is, if it wasn't for the temper. God be good to us I If you saw him knocking about an' smashing the bits of things in the house, when the temper gets the better of him ; an' once he took a stick to me. [Cries,] I'm afeard he'll be the death of me, some day.
Widow Hayes. Does the fit of temper come on him of a sudden ?
Ellie. No. He begins by being put out about something or another ; a trifle it does be, mostly. He says a cross word, an' then I answers him ; an' it goes on from bad to worse.
Widow Hayes. I see the way it is. WeU, I'll give you something that'll cure his temper.
Ellie. 'Twon't be a bit of use. He won't take it, I know. Widow Hayes. We won't want him to take it. 'Tis yourself wUl use the charm, an' the effect '11 be on him. Ellie. That's queer.
Widow Hayes. 'Tis queer ; but all the same, it's the truth I'm telling you. [Goes into the cottage and returns with a long-necked bottls.] Here's a flask of charmed liquor. Whenever you see him going to lose his temper, take a sup of this into your mouth ; but mind, it will lose its virtue if you swallow it while there's a sign of the ill humour left on him. You must go on with this for a month without stopping, an' when the month is up come back an' tell me if there's any improvement in him.
Ellie. It seems to be a queer sort of remedy, but I can but
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try it, an* if it works right 'tis myself that'll be praying for you all the days of my life. Good-bye an' good luck to you, ma'am. Be-enter Lady Alice. Lady Alice. And now, Mrs. Hayes, it is my turn. I am come to ask your advice, for unless you can suggest something I see nothing but ruin before us. My husband's means ought to be sufficient for the needs of our family, and still we are getting deeper and deeper into difficulties every day. Our expenses increase in an unaccountable manner, although we are not extravagant. It seems to me that we incur no unnecessary expense, and yet I know families who live comfortably on half our income, while ruin stares us in the face. Can you, my good friend, give me any help in my difficulty ?
Widow Hayes. I have known the like before, my lady, and though I pity yoa from my heart I tell you not to be fretting ; I think we will l)e able to find a way out of your troubles. You may have to do with fewer servants, but there's an easier plan we can try first. I am going to give you the loan of a little box that I have known to be useful in such cases. If you do as I tell you, you will find it a blessing to you and yours. [Exit, returning with the hoxJ] I only ask you to promise that every day for the next month, between sunrise and sunset, you will carry it into every room in your house, and let it rest five minutes in each, from the topmost garret to the lowest cellar. Will you promise ?
Lady Alice. I cannot see the use of it, but as I feel sure that you mean well by me I will obey you implicitly. I will come back this day month and bell you the result of the experiment. Grood-bye for the present then, and thank you.
Widow Hayes. God be with your ladyship. Exit Lady Alice. Widow Hates goes into the cottage.
ACT II
Widow Hayes sitting at the cabin door knitting, and singing softly to herself. Enter Ellie.
Ellis. Good morning to you, Mrs. Hayes. You see, I haven't forgot my promise, an' sure 'tis to thank you I've come, from the bottom of my heart.
Widow Hayes. 'Tis glad I am to hear that same, asthore. I
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didn't need to ask if the oharm worked right, though, for 'tis well an' happy you looks this day.
Ellie. Oh, I'm that happy, Mrs. Hayes, an' so is Paol, that you wouldn't take us for the same people at all. Paul's temper has got so much better we hardly ever have words now, an' if he does be beginning to get a bit cross I have only to run to your bottle an' take a sup of it, an' it'll be all right in a minute.
Widow Hates Ismiling]. I expected no less. 'Tis a remedy that I've never yet known to fail.
Ellie. But, Mrs. Hayes, ma'am, the bottle is just empty ; an' won't you give me another little taste of the stuff; I'm afeard to be without it, seeing the good it done. Only I know you never takes money, it's asking you to let me buy some I'd be. I have a little bit of money from the stockings I do be knitting, an' the the hens ; but, at any rate, I can beg of you to give me a drop more of it.
Widow Hayes. 'Tis I can do that same, sure enough ; or wait, you're younger than me. The well is there in the field beyond, under the hawthorn ; go an' fill the bottle yourself.
Ellie [looking round in surprise]. What well ? What do you mean, Mrs. Hayes ? Where's the well ?
Widow Hayes. The well that you gets your pitcher of water from, every day of your life, asthore* The bottle was filled with water from that well, an' I give you my word that ne'er a drug nor a charm was in it at all.
Ellie. Now, ma'am, its laughing at me you are.
Widow Hayes. If it's laughing I am, 'tis at seeing you so innocent, child. Don't you see that having the water in your mouth prevented you from answering Paul when he'd get a bit annoyed, so that the anger had time to cool down on him, instead of being made worse by your answering him ? Don't you know there does always be two to a quarrel ?
Ellie. Yes, an' sometimes three or four, for when I used to complain my mother or my aunt would often come an' take my part ; an' then you can fancy the uproar there would be.
Widow Hayes. An' now there is peace and quietness. You see that it's in your own hands. The true charm is — silence. [Enter Martin Joyce.] Good-morrow, Mr. Joyce. I needn't ask how you are, for it's young again you seem to be growing.
Martin. Young an' gay, ma'm ; young an' gay ; an' if I am
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it's thanks to you an' your good advice. But don't fancy that you were able to take me in, Mrs. Hayes. I found out quick enough what sort of a charm was in the little round stones. I didn't live to be eighty-two, as I told you, last Hallow Eve, without finding out that the more stones you put into a glass the less whiskey 't will hold. You can't take me in so easy as that, ma'am.
Widow Hates. But you used the charm, didn't you ?
Mabtin. I promised you that I would, an' I'm not the man to go back of my word. I used them to the last one ; an' I've brought myself by means of them to do with one spoonful of spirits in the day. 'Tis not worth while to stop at that, so from this day out I'm going to give it up altogether. I'm going this evening to the priest to take the pledge. But why didn't you tell me plainly to lessen the quantity a bit every day in place of giving me a bag of pebbles, as you would to a child ?
Widow Hayes. Would you have followed my advice, Mr. Joyce ?
Mabtin. Well, maybe I wouldn't. I suppose you're right. However, 'tis all for the best, an' I'll keep my word now that I've given it.
Ellis. Here's her ladyship. [Enter Lady Alice.] [Curtseying.] God save you, my lady.
Widow Hayes. You're kindly welcome, my lady.
Lady Alice [to Elite and Martin who are about to withdraw] . Don't go, my friends. I have come, Mrs. Hayes, to thank you, most heartily for the loan of this box, and to beg of you to leave it to me a little while longer.
Widow Hayes. Then it was of use to you, my lady ?
Lady Alice. Of the greatest use. It has enabled me to reform my entire household. In every corner of my house I found waste and disorder, and, sometimes, even dishonesty. If 1 were to tell you of all the mismanagement I have discovered by means of this precious casket 1 But much has already been remedied. I have dismissed incorrigible offenders, who were, happily, very few ; most of my servants having merely fallen into bad habits from being left to themselves, and these habits I have now set myself steadily to correct. The result of all this is a diminution of at least one-third in my household expenses ; and I hope, if you will be good enough to leave me the box for another month or two, to have ever3rthing in such order as to be able to do without it. My husband, who is
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much pleased with the improved state of affairs, joins me in this request.
Widow Hates. You can keep it and welcome, my lady, but it's not in the box that the virtue lies.
Ladt Alice. Not in the box I Then it must be in the contents.
Wmow Hates [taking a key from her pocket and unlocking the box.] Your ladyship sees that is empty. You must have many a box in your own house that would do just as well if it was used in the same way.
Lady Alice. I don't understand.
Widow Hates. You had to take the box into every room in your house every day. It was in that way you found out the waste an' disorder, an* destruction, that was going on unknownst to you. Take anything at all, or go empty-handed into every corner every day, and you'll always find something that isn't quite as it ought to be ; that'll be the better of a little looking after, a little more care, or may be even the least little bit of fault-finding. That's the only charm that was in the box, my lady.
Ladt Alice. Well, Mrs. Hayes, yoii are a real wise woman, and I will try to profit by the lesson you have taught me, in this and other things. I hope you, Ellie, and you, Mr. Joyce, are as much the better of Mrs. Hayes's advice as I am.
Both. Indeed, then, we are, my lady.
Ellie. 'Tis she that's made Paul an' me live happy together.
Mabtin. An' *tis she that's saved me from becoming a drunkard in my old age.
Both. Good luck an' long life to her, an' may she help many another as she's helped us.
Ladt Alice. Amen.
Curtain.
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'AD MATREM, SANCTAM ECCLESIAM"
0 MT Mother, fair exceeding,
With the lovely smile august, And the true lips, ever pleading
For the holy things and just, To thy little one's great needing Thou hast bent thy gracious heeding, And hast bidden her to love thee, as she must.
For thy love of love has won her.
And the Voice Divine has said, " 'Tis thy Mother, look upon her,
Mother of My quick and dead ! " And the radiancy and honour Of thy chrism, O glorious donor. And the blessing of thy mouth are on her head.
Storm-clouds far away have drifted. Chased by splendour of thine eyes.
And, with peace and joy fair-gifted. Here, thy little child, she lies,
By thine arms of comfort lifted
Where, upon the Bock unrifted, God hath set thee. Bride of Jesus, perfectwise.
In that peace and joy's bestowing. Thou hast spoken to my heart. Saying, " Child, in all thy going
Let thy brothers' needs have part. For my strayed, for my unknowing. For my holy saved, still owing. Mine to love and suffer, pray and trust, thou art."
Emily M. P. Hickey.
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MEMORIES OF SAN MARCO
II
IT is little wonder that an artist who oould render scenes such as these, should only portray, with visible effort and inadequate intensity, the evil side of human nature from which he himself must have turned with such loathing ; and as he is to be seen at his best when he handles his favourite themes of angels and saints, so he is at his weakest when he attempts the horrors of hell and the lost. His Last Judgment, now in the Belli Art! is a case in point, for here, in wishing to render the entry of the lost souls into hell, and the various punishments allotted to their respective sins, he falls short of his usual power of drawing the spectators within the magic circle of his own powerful individuality, to the almost total temporary suppression of their own, and his work, instead of evoking feelings of terror, appeals almost to the sense of the ludicrous, so unrealistic are the attempts of the demons to torture their newly-found companions. The side of the picture devoted to the joys of the Blessed, is, on the contrary, perfectly ideal in treatment, and the guardian angels who glide forward to welcome with the kiss of brotherhood those they have watched over so long in life, could only be conceived by a Fra Angelico. So, too, the lovely maze of angels, holding monks by the hand, and teaching them to tread celestial measures over the fair, flower-covered fields of this Dantesque heaven.
But to return to San Marco : the somewhat larger outer and inner cells at the end of this corridor have a peculiar interest attached to them as having been set aside for Cosimo il Yecchio himself, when he came hither for a few days to taste of the peace of the monastery he had foimded, and to turn aside for a brief space from the unceasing turmoil of the outside world, so as to treat of the business of his own soul with the holy inhabitants of this quiet cloister. On the walls Fra Angelico painted the Adoration of the Magi ; perhaps because the Church of San Marco, a gift of this same Cosimo, was consecrated on the dety of the Epiphany, and certainly also a subject peculiarly suited to the meditations of its inmate, for who could be more in want of humility than the prince who stood at the head of the haughty
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Florentine Eepublic ? Himself a wool merchant by lineage and a banker by trade, he had risen by his own talents to be the equal of kings and princes, treating with them almost on the footing of a royal sovereign ; head of a regal democracy, and the power surely invested in his own family. Many things which it were well to Remember, but which were too prone to be forgotten amid the cares of the State and the splendour of the Medici palace, must have come vividly before Cosimo, as he sat conversing with St. Antonio in the bare little cell, having for its only ornament this painting of the Three Bangs in adoration before their God, found thus in the semblance of a little Child, a stable for palace and a manger for bed. And as he gazed, the ambitious thirst for earthly honours must have died away before the greatness of Eternity, and the memory of the time spent in exile at Padua mast have lost much of its bitterness.
Cosimo, Pater Patrice^ was not the only inhabitant of the palace in the Via Larga who was to c^me to seek for peace within these walls. There were others who, in later years, under the splendid rule of Lorenzo il Magnifico, had the daily entry of that palace, and were there to be found as honoured guests, not on account of rank or wealth, but because of their great learning ; and these, too, found at last their way from palace to monastery gate. For then all Italy was swept by the great wave of the revival of classic literature ; the dead languages were made to live again ; all that related to the times when the gods were young. Was studied with passionate ardour and unbridled zeal ; Plato had as fervent worshippers as in the old Grecian days. A current of Paganism passed over the city, and, neglecting the study of the truths of Christianity, men were content to spend long years bending over the manuscripts of the Pagan philosophers, seeking wearily for that light which was to be found so easily in the Christian doctrine they neglected, and living thus, they found not rest. Draining the cup of knowledge to the dregs, they still thirsted but something more, and the great linguist, Pico della Mirandola. spoke well when he said to Angelo Poliziano : '* Fool that you be ! why weary yourself by seeking in science that which you can only find in Divine love ?"*
So at the last, these two great humanists chose to be carried
* See Vie de Li^on, by Audin.
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cold in death among the monks of San Marco, whom perhaps they may have despised in life, as not being disciples of Plato, and there» beneath the stones of the old church, they were well content to sleep their last long sleep, while tbe white-robed monks chaunted over them during the watches of tbe night. Thus tbey lie, at rest at last, their souls long since passed into the mystery of Eternity, there to find the perfect knowledge they had striven too hard to obtain on earth.
Before these things had happened, Fra Angelico had long gone to join his angels, and the monastery was rendered again famous^ not by his heaven-lifting frescoes, but by the trumpet voice of the great preacher, Savonarola, whose words were to stir all Florence as never had she been stirred before, were to lead ultimately to bitter party strife, and whose name, even now after the lapse of so many centuries, is still the centre of many discussions and different judgments. It was from him, then Prior of San Marco, that Poliziano, the Medici favourite, craved for permission to lie dead in that Dominican robe he had not worn in life ; and it was at his voice tbat, stirred to the very depths of his soul, the mundane artist, Bartolommeo, rose as from a trance, and, after burning all those studies which smote his conscience with remorse, knocked at San Marco to seek to be received as one of the brethren, and there passed the rest of his life, only now using his pencil and brush for religious subjects, like the saintly master whose works he must have learnt to love so well, but whose religious fervour he could never equal, for had not Fra Angelico chosen, from his earliest years, the better part, and thus had but memories of holy, innocent hours, unhke tbe other, who had studied his art in the midst of the pagan brilliance of the Florence of the latter days of the fifteenth century ?
It was in the great library, lined with cedar presses, and filled with the four hundred choir books bestowed on the monks by Cosimo il Vecchio, that Savonarola took refuge when an angry mob was clamouring at the doors on the day he was to leave this peaceful retreat for ever. At the end of the long corridor to the left are to be seen the cells which he inhabited, and which still contain many memories of him ; here are preserved his crucifix and rosary, and also the chair he used ; while here, too, is hung his portrait by Fra Bartolommeo, and on the walls of the larger outer cell are two frescoes by the same hand.
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In a oell in this same passage is Fra Angelico's most beautiful rendering of the scene on the Resurrection morning, in which the wonderful passing movement of our Divine Lord so perfectly accords with the '' Noli me tangere»" that in gazing on the frescoe the words seem almost to be heard anew in the silence. The gesture says so plainly that not now must St. Mary Magdalene stoop to kiss the feet of her Saviour — for her there are many years yet to be passed in the grotto of Provence before she be called to the bliss of the Beatific Vision. But, according to the legend, as she sprang forward with the cry of '' Eabboni '* on her Hps, the spot on the forehead which was touched by our Lord, as He gently motioned her back with the "Noli me tangere," was preserved after death from corruption, sanctified as it was by the Divine contact. When all else had long since crumbled to dust, this spot was still discernible on the skull, which is the great treasure of the Sainte Baume.
St. Mary Magdalene has not only been painted by a Dominican artist ; near our present time one of the greatest orators of that Order has vmtten, as only he knew how, the history of this same Sainte Baume, so jealously guarded by his own monks, and the frescoe of Fra Angelico may well be said to be completed by the work of P^e Lacordaire. Each in its way, they are two precious jewels laid at the feet of her who loved much.
The frescoes which adorn the cells on the other side of this passage, all bear the same subject slightly varied ; a crucifix with the figure of a Dominican at the foot. They are supposed to have been in part executed by Fra Angelico's pupils, but if so, it must have been under his immediate guidance, for they bear indelibly the stamp of his own conception. Some would fain see in them the hand of Fra Benedetto, that brother so closely united to the Master by the double ties of nature and the religious life ; but although they both entered the monastery together, and, after Fiesole, were both in San Marco for some years, there is no certain proof that the one shared the artistic talent of the other, and if Fra Benedetto had been also a painter, it seems probable tbat his name would have been handed down in the annals of the monastery as something more than the scribe who so beautifully penned many of the choir books in the Library.
These cells were dedicated to the use of the '* giovanetti," or young monks fresh from the novitiate, and the repetition of the
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same subject may have been chosen with a special reason in preference to the varied scenes painted on the walls of those used by the older brethren. For youth is often a time of struggle, and the calm of later years has not yet come. The " fiat " has been said, in answer to a vocation call, but although the sacrifice has been cheerfully made, and the gates of the monastery stand for ever between the soul and the world, the heart is often still bleeding with the pain of separation from those dear ones who stand without, and long habit has not yet made more easy the hard exigencies of a severe rule. Fra Angelico well knew that there is no peace and comfort like that to be found at the foot of the Crucifix, no suffering which is not less hard to bear at the sight of that supreme suffering. So in each cell he placed this picture of the Figure hanging on the Cross, and that of the Founder, or some other saint of the Order, at the foot. Through the long, hot days of summer, in the cheerless cold of winter, under the brilliant sunshine, or in the uncertain light of the chill moonbeams, the young monks had always this figure of their dying Saviour before their eyes, alone unchangeable in tbe midst of perpetual change ; and when youth, heavy with sleep, would fain have dreamt on, as the bell, calling to choir, loudly woke the sleepers in the silence of the night, they saw, in the strange moonlight, those eyes gazing at them from that Figure on the Cross, watching, suffering always, never closed in sleep, and at the sight courage and love must have been intensified ; sacrifice must have become light as they felt themselves overshadowed by the great love and mercy of those outstretched arms, and, looking on the pierced hands and feet, nothing any longer could seem hard that enabled them to render in a measure love for love. So closer and still closer did they cling to the rule of St. Dominic, until in their turn their time of youthful trial and probation passed, and bearing ever in their hearts the image of the Crucified, they, too, went to inhabit those cells, made radiant with saints and angels, until they seemed a very entry of Paradise, a perfect resting-place for the evening of life.
It may naturally be asked, where is the cell which Fra Angelico himself inhabited ? But, strange to say, among so many varied memories, he who so beautified San Marco has left no personal trace other than those frescoes, living key-notes to his soul, within its walls, and it is best so, for where all speaks of him and his
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beautiful spirit, there is no need of any special spot dedicated to his memory, and it is his name y^hich, to all lovers of mystic art, is the most indissolubly linked with that of San Marco.
Yet it was not in his own beloved monastery, so endeared to him by memories of St. Antonino and the works of his own hands, not here in his own dear Tuscany that his long pilgrimage was to draw to a close, that death was to come and lift for ever the veil of human life that hid from his longing eyes the secrets of Eternity. In Tuscany had he first woke to life ; Tuscany, again, in the eighteen years at ancient Fiesole, had received the first- fruits of his religious and artistic youth, as later, Florence, its capital, was to receive the perfect gifts of his mature manhood ; but here in Tuscany was he not to sleep his last sleep. The Eternal City, the home of all that is best in religion and art, was to place the consecrating seal on his talent. Called to Bome by the command of the Vicar of Christ to be entrusted with the decoration of a chapel in the Vatican, he thus received his final recognition as a master among artists, and there, too, his work on earth done, was he to hear the last great summons ; his last days on earth were to be spent in the great centre and home of his Order, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, and afterwards he was to be laid to rest in the holy soil of Eome.
And it was well fitting that the humble monk who had passed much of his life in the company of such saints as Blessed John Domenichi and St. Antonino, and who had also himself rendered yeoman service to his Order by carrying, through his works, its fame into many lands, should at last be laid in the great mother church of the Dominicans ; and by the holiness and beauty of his life he was well worthy of the honour of being laid in the dear Boman ground, sanctified by the blood of so many martyrs. Under the high altar of the church lies the body of sweet St. Catherine of Siena, and the burning lamps shed a soft and fitful radiance round her tomb. Those who, after having knelt to pray, turn aside into the left-hand chapel, may notice on the wall a simple marble slab on which has been carved in bas-relief the head and shoulders of a monk ; beneath is the name of Fra Angelico. The simplicity of this stone is more in accordance with his life than could be the magnificence of any great monument; the white habit he had loved so well still watches over his resting place, and, as in far away San Marco, the chant of the Salve Eegina is daily echoed
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through the still yastness of the place — ^that ohant, whioh pro- bably was the last sound to fall upon his dying ears when his eyes, already closed to the things of earth, were opening on the rapturoos wonders of Eternity. The consummation of the longing o{ his whole life had come to pass, the pure soul had gone to be for ever united to the Divine Master he had served so lovingly ; the bright visions had become untold realities ; life on earth was over,
" e da esiglio venne a questa pace." *
And what now of the monastery of San Marco itself? In obedience to a tyrannical and unjust law, its holiest places have been invaded, the brethren driven forth, and the building which once knew them turned into a museum. The inviolable privilege of the cloister has been ruthlessly desecrated, and all come and go, as best they please, to gaze on those frescoes whioh were paint^^d but for the eyes of the monks, to enter those cells which were built but to be tread by consecrated feet. Yet, do what they may, while the walls stand they will still keep the stamp of austerity and peace, and nothing can deface the religious feeling which still clings to each stone of the place. It still seems to belong more truly to the monks than to the idle, indifferent crowd which too often fill its cloisters.
In the early morning hours, when the place is almost deserted, it would seem no longer strange to see the friars once more come fti^d go, pale and ghost<like figures, as in the far-off days of painter and preacher. The silent refectory seems still waiting to receive them, to see them again sitting round the board, as they sat in the time of St. Dominic, in Borne, on the day the angels came and ministered to them, giving them Heaven- made bread, in return for those poor loaves they had bestowed in alms. When Fra Angelico painted the exquisite little " Providenza " in the Predella of the C!oronation of Our Lady, now in the Louvre, he had but to add the two beauteous angels from his own imagination ; the rest was the daily scenes he had before his eyes, when he sat in this refectory and listened to the brother who read from Holy Writ in the small pulpit half-way up the wall.
Those even who are the most material, the most preoccupied with their own small cares, cannot remain completely indifferent as thQy visit San Marco. It is not possible that some faint perception
*ParadMO,X. 129. Vol. XXX. — No. 344.
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of a beauteous ideal should not dawn upon them, that some longing for the peace of the spirit world should not touch them, and that in entering this ancient home of those who voluntarily renounced life's sweetest flowers, to take instead the crown of thorns, they should not feel, in some dim, uncertain way, that there is something in suffering that is greater than joy, since men, such as those, have welcomed it as their daily guest, and that in a life devoted to the service of others, by prayer or work, will alone be found the answer to the mystery of the blessedness of pain.
E. M. B.
LINES ON THE DEATH OF AN OLD NURSE
Oh, simple faith, that knew no flaw or fading, Oh, loyal heart, that's earth to earth to-day !
Oh, tried and true, 'mid fortune's shine or shading. Thy children sit and mourn thee far away.
Virtues were thine, the purest and the rarest ;
Sweet be thy sleep, though we may not behold Thy place of rest — thou, who hast won and wearest
The snow-white robe, the harp, and crown of gold.
Joy for thee, faithful friend, the darkness over ;
Green be the spot where all that loved us lies 1 — Sure, well we know thy heart shall round us hover,
To watch iEi.nd love thy children from the skies.
The world passed on — ^thou look'dst on life uncaring ;
The wide, wide world held us alone for thee : We'll miss thy voice in our last sad wayfaring —
Thou emblem sweet of " Old Fidelity."
We miss thee in our sleeping and our waking : We'll miss thee evermore till Time is past —
Midnight and eve till our last dawn is breaking, And God, and Heaven, and them are found at last.
Maby Josephine Enbiqht.*
* She, too, died a few years ago, and the last of these liDee, we pray, was verified.
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THE SQUIRE'S GRAND-DAUGHTERS CHAPTBE XXVI
AT HOME AGAIN
IT is winter again at Amberwolds. The woods are bare, and a bleak wind sighs round them and through them all day long. The great Abbey has a lonely look, raising its aged and gray crown above the brown trees on the height, or at least Margaret thinks so, as she walks along the same path on which we found her at the opening of our story. That wintry look of the Abbey was then familiar to her, and was an accepted, but little-marked, feature in the landscape. The weak curl of smoke from its chim- neys then seemed typical of the one faint thread of life dwindling away within its walls. She recalled how the moment when her happy talk with Lance had been interrupted on such a day as this by the boom of the old church bell, telling that that slender thread was broken. Since then, what a different aspect that great gray pile above the woods had taken in her eyes ! How all last spring and summer it had been flooded with sunshine and filled with flowers, irradiated through and through with hope and happiness 1 Within its walls she had welcomed Lance ; basked in prosperity, hand in hand with him ; planned great things for his future ; rested blissfully in her wilful belief that the fortunate change in her circumstances meant good things in store for him.
What spring days those had been when he came to her from London, full of trust, to idle away the hours in delightful com- panionship—days each as perfect and as fragrant as a newly-blown rose. Well, the roses were all shed and gone, the sunshine was extinguished, the thrilling voices were silent. Winter had come, and the great gray house up on the height had now, in her eyes, more than the dreariness it had worn in old Lady Huntingtower's time. More, for now its shadow seemed to stretch long and dark over the village, the woods, the whole surroundings of life. Hap- piness was nowhere ; was blotted out for evermore.
As she walked slowly along the familiar path, all the events of the last few months passed in a weary march through her mind, now too well accustomed to contemplate their hopeless fataUty,
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80 THE IRISH MONTHLY
The whole story of her grandfather's life had become clear to her since she had been awakened to a knowledge ot the existence of the terrible societies which had entangled and destroyed him. She now heard, saw, and noted much in the world around her, which showed her that his was not a marvellous nor an isolated case. Only why, oh why could he not have stayed in France, and forborne to draw her young life into the troubled current of his own ? She had been a happy girl before he came here with his wealth and his squireship. Now, he and his crime had murdered her future and ruined her peace of mind. The most urgent and inexorable reasons existed, and must exist, why bhe should con- tinue to maintain that reserve towards Lance, which had so maddened him with jealousy, so completely effaced his confidence in her. She felt also, that all her conduct seemed to give a tacit acquiescence to the conclusion he had arrived at respecting her. She had made no protest of her indifference to Sir Harley Winthrop, of her still faithful love for himself. Struck dumb by "the impossibility of clearing herself in his eyes, and explaining or justifying her behaviour, she had simply allowed the storm to sweep over her where she lay, prostrate in the dust.
To Lance's letter, written her in Paris after that miserable interview, she had been forced to return such an answer as had only made matters worse. Word it how she would, it accused her, even in her own eyes. Nothing could put things straight but the absolute truth, a full detailed account to be given her lover of the events of that week in the Bue Sainte Barbe, a confidence which should put him in possession of the information given her by Victor. And that, she told herself a dozen times a day, was as impossible to her tongue as murder to her hand. Even if she were capable of betraying her grandfather's guilt (and, under other circum- stances, she felt she might have been drawn into sharing her knowledge of it with Lance) she could not, dare not, would not place the man she loved in hideous danger by possessing him of the secrets of a fiendish association of men, who would blot him out of the way of their expedience as ruthlessly as an ordinary person would crush an obnoxious insect in his path. No, there was no outlet from the dungeon of trouble into which her heart was plunged. Lance would, in time, learn to forget her. After some time, his pain would give way, his busy life would engage him, absence would gradually blot her seemingly unworthy image
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THE SQUIRE'S GRAND-DAUGHTERS 81
from his mind ; he would meet and love some other, who would have all that truthfulness and transparency of character which he prized so much, which he had once praised in her, and which he believed he had seen to fail and disappear in her. He would marry and be happy, and she should know him no more.
She had often asked herself during the past few months whether it was her fault or her misfortune that she had got herself into so helpless a position. Sometimes the whole chain of circumstances that had so risen up and hemmed her in seemed altogether fatality ; at other times it appeared to her that her own wilfulness, in re- fusing to be guided by Lance, refusing to distrust as he had distrusted, to be as cautious in her conduct as he had recommended her to be, was the sole cause of her tribulation. Had she refused to go to Paris with M. Dunois, insisted on rather returning to Amberwolds, and staying there till his business abroad was finished, in that case she should now be in utter ignorance of his secrets, and her happy relations with Lance would be unbroken and secure. Or, if she had confided her uneasiness to him or to Mrs. Meadows, her mere uncomfortableness in the company which he kept in Paris, and had been carried off home, even at the risk of his displeasure, before she made her fatal discoveries ; if she had thus acted, all might now be well, between her and her lover at least. At this point her self-reproach and regret were so in- tolerable that she tried to take a different view of her own conduct. In the end, she always wound up her reflections with a weary acknowledgment that the past could not be undone, and that wisdom had come to her too late. She had made herself one with her grandfather, and had thus become part of his secrets. His evil-doing and his mystery wrapped her about. She could not free herself from them without treachery ; could not throw