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 CONTENTS, 
 
 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 3 
 
 LISETTE'S DREAM, 6 
 
 THE THREE ROSES, 26 
 
 THE TILERY, 48 
 
 THE HEGELIAN, 67 
 
 THE SPRINGS, 83 
 
 A POOR BOY, 97 
 
 THE GALLEY-SLAVE, 120 
 
 THE DOVECOT, . . '.-. . . ... . . 128 
 
 MARIETTA 146 
 
 THE SCULPTOR, 154 
 
 THE ARBOUR, 165 
 
 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS, 177 
 
 PART I. 
 
 TO WHOM I SPEAK, 181 
 
 OF WHOM I SPEAK, 196 
 
 THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I REST, 202 
 
 THE PARADISE WE FEAR, 221
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE SUPKEME TYPE 1 A RISEN SAVIOUR, 231 
 
 THE SLEEPLESSNESS OF THE SOUL, . . . . . 242 
 
 PERSONAL IDENTITY, 253 
 
 THE ETERNITY OF LOVE, 265 
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, 276 
 
 PART III. 
 
 THT WHOLE CREATION SIGHETH, 287 
 
 THE COMING OF CHRIST, 296 
 
 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 303
 
 THE NEAK HORIZONS
 
 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Una donna soletta, che si gia 
 Cantando, ed iscegliendo fior da fiore, 
 Ond'era pinta tutta la sua via." 
 
 DAJJTE. 
 
 |HE night is far spent; many of the stars that 
 shone in the sky have disappeared behind the 
 mountain, the dawn pales those that remain. 
 My thoughts revert to the early hours of evening, and rest 
 on some simple figures whose path my steps have crossed. 
 From those hours rise spring-tide emanations, rise I know 
 not what scents, what dewy freshness that revives my 
 heart. The figures I speak of are not all young, not all 
 beautiful ; no ; they have merely the charm of reali ty. 
 Their sober, simple outline stands out after the manner of 
 the old masters from a clear and transparent ground. 
 
 I am one of those who love the things that are past ; 
 things that, quitting as it were our terrestrial region, rise 
 to mid-heaven in a limpid atmosphere that lends them an 
 infinite charm. 
 
 About to emerge into the brilliant light of day, I linger 
 for an instant; my gaze follows shadows soon to be effaced; 
 profiles, some frank and fair, others a little sad; these
 
 4 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 singing on in their spring, those dreaming on in their 
 winter; some full of mystery, others very simple, and 
 such as we see every day. And there are landscapes too ; 
 sometimes two trees and a few leaves, vividly green against 
 the blue, like those in which Perugino framed his holy 
 families ; sometimes the thick forest, the vigorous growth 
 of the July grass, the woodland songs, the flowers in full 
 blossom. 
 
 It is all this that I would contemplate, muse on a little 
 during that short uncertain hour which folds back its veil 
 before the splendours of the morning. 
 
 There is nothing here for utilitarians, nothing for so- 
 called realists, for lovers of the dramatic, for acute con- 
 noisseurs ; nothing, indeed, I believe, for any but me and 
 those like me dreamers, satisfied with little, whom a 
 great poem scares, but a flower half-opened, a holiday bee, 
 a rustic outline, can throw into infinite reverie. 
 
 If this once begins, there is hardly any end to it. It is 
 not a series of pictures, it is still less romance. What, 
 then 1 Truly, I do not know. It is that unknown some- 
 thing which sings within, the wide undulations of whose 
 voice expand as we advance, and sometimes 'blend ideal 
 melodies with the most common details of the most prosaic 
 life. It is that something which is artist too ; whose pen- 
 cil can, while our bodily eyes turn from the grocer's shop 
 to the tavern at the corner, flash out upon us the green of 
 the meadow, the darker green of the forest, the ruddy gold 
 of the sunset, the pale gold of the sunrise, passing over the 
 spirit of life with the spirit of poetry. And it is, besides, 
 that hidden poet who, as we are moving on wearily through 
 life as it has been made to us, keeps repeating in the 
 depths of our soul strange words, words replete with wild 
 harmony, words that the gentleman with whom you are
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 chatting would hardly understand, nay, that you yourself, 
 alas ! in your common-sense business hours, would treat as 
 mere fancies, although they charm you, soothe you, trans- 
 port you into serene regions where you would live, where 
 you would gladly die. 
 
 It is just this that I have to impart to you. The hand 
 will be inexpert, the voice often trembling ; the poor poet, 
 frightened at his own boldness, will perhaps stop short ; 
 the play-biU. is promising, the piece poor. What matters 
 it ! The reader is the true author. I may stammer ; your 
 genius will sing : I may let you fall on the way ; your 
 imagination, light-winged messenger, will bear you further 
 than my steps could reach. 
 
 Every book is, in fact, a journey ; a journey in which 
 we find little more than we ourselves bring ; the richly 
 provided, richly acquire. I do not possess very much ; if 
 you have kindliness, some love for God's nature, the dower 
 of capacity for simple pleasures, come, let us take our way 
 through this meadow, by the side of that stream ; we two 
 together, our fortune is made.
 
 LISETTE'S DREAM. 
 
 IT was by that very meadow, and by that stream, 
 I took my way, one fine May morning. 
 
 The grass was thick and tall, the starry prim- 
 roses were over, the blue clusters of the squill withered 
 long ago, the last petals of the fruit-trees were lost in the 
 thicket as they fell, the summer gained the victory over 
 the spring. But this had not been without some sharp 
 encounters ; tussles, as our peasants say. 
 
 The blackthorn, the first, had had many a tussle then 
 with drifts of soon melted snow, the hawthorn with cool 
 showers that soaked the red twigs of the hedges, the cuckoo 
 and the blackbird with a return of cold winds blowing over 
 the scarcely unfolded leaves ; but, spite of storm and frost, 
 the April days beautiful lengthening days, pressing back 
 with both hands the shades of morning and evening had 
 marched on young, triumphant, crowned with lilacs ; while, 
 at the touch of their fingers, the hedges, the apple-trees, the 
 ground, burst into blossom. And now summer was at 
 hand ; her warm breath was already felt on the buttercup- 
 covered meadows ; while, from the neighbouring mountains, 
 from the snowy summit of the Jura, came still a keen, re- 
 viving breeze, the virgin kiss of the departing spring. 
 
 In our country each flower in succession has its own 
 absolute reign. The sun, looking through the windows of 
 the fantastical dwellings assigned to him in almanacs the 
 sun, according as he inhabits the sign of the Ram, the Bull,
 
 LISETTE'S DREAM. 7 
 
 the Twins, or the Scorpion, covers our valleys, far as eye 
 can reach, with white crocuses, then yellow primroses, then 
 hyacinths, then lilac-tinted cardamines, then golden ran- 
 unculuses. There is almost always one sheet of colour, 
 splendid in its uniformity. It is true that in March, by 
 the hedge side, balmy violets and fumitories ; along the 
 brooks, and at the foot of the oak-trees, rosy white anem- 
 ones ; do what they can to blossom in tufts. The observant 
 eye may, indeed, detect them in their nests, but they do 
 not affect the general aspect of the valley, which always 
 presents a dazzling carpet of one single shade, till towards 
 the end of June it is enamelled with every hue, radiant 
 with every kind of brightness, each flower opening, display- 
 ing itself, scattering fragrance on its own account. 
 
 There is, indeed, in May at the very time I was taking 
 this particular walk a short season when green is the 
 dominant tone ; a harsh, crude, uncompromising green, 
 without any softening touch of red or yellow, or any deli- 
 cate silvery light. This green is somewhat oppressive, I 
 might almost say sad. 
 
 It was so that morning. The grass I walked on had 
 such a glaring brightness ; the leaves of the hedge, whether 
 hawthorn leaves, sweetbrier, willow, or alder, were all so 
 varnished and brilliant, you could hardly look at them. 
 On the mountain side, the bright verdure of the beech so 
 prevailed over the sombre foliage of the pines, spread so 
 lustrously and positively on every side, rose so boldly up 
 to the pasture-land, itself so decidedly verdant too, that, 
 apart from the cupola of snow upon the very summit, one 
 could see nothing but this intense green, which seemed to 
 repress thought. 
 
 And yet there were the walnut-trees, the great walnut- 
 trees, which were not green. They, at least, protested ;
 
 8 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 opening out, at the extremity of their smooth, whitish 
 branches, bunches of purple and aromatic leaves. 
 
 Then there was the brook, whose perfectly pure waters 
 ran over a now smooth, now stony bed, sometimes en- 
 countering a little ' moss-covered block, round which they 
 broke, singing those eternal songs that ears like mine could 
 listen to by night and day. 
 
 Then, again, there were the bees ; young bees, of a 
 lighter brown, a more delicate velvet ; inexperienced, lost 
 in some flower-chalice, intoxicated, and overtaken, far from 
 the hive, by the dew and the evening chill 
 
 Ah ! how many of those thoughtless ones did I save, 
 fishing them out from the eddies of the brook, in a large 
 leaf or the hollow of my hand ! How many I collected at 
 sunset, wings wet, benumbed, half dead, placing them in 
 some warm shelter, safe from the lizard, or else on some 
 dry bough looking to the east, that the early rays might 
 restore them to life ! How many I took back to the hives, 
 and tried to get them admittance there ! Alas ! it is the 
 same with bees as with us ; the ladies of the hive came 
 out, felt the intruder all over, turned her round and round, 
 and pushed her out of their community. The more suffer- 
 ing the creature, the more severe the reception ; while the 
 latest comers, those belonging to the last swarm of the 
 last hive, boldly thrust the victim through with their 
 stings ; then, dragging her by her legs to the edge of the 
 platform, let her fall into the field of death below, amidst 
 the drones, their defunct husbands. 
 
 Whether it was owing to the green or the drones, I know 
 not ; but that morning I went on my way sadly. The 
 glory of the spring did nothing for me. 
 
 Do you know hours when the demon of analysis, the 
 bad angel of our age, brushes against you with his cold
 
 LISETTE'S DREAM. 9 
 
 wings 1 Do you know what it is to explore your affec- 
 tions, your thoughts, and to say of them all, "What do they 
 profit ? 
 
 The young are more subject to this complaint than the 
 old. Which of us has not descended those desolate slopes, 
 has not seated himself weeping in that sterile valley, which 
 the sun has forsaken, has not remained there, counting his 
 wounds, finding a fatal pleasure in saying to himself that 
 all is over, that happiness is wrecked, faith extinguished, 
 faculties weakened, tenderness dead ; that life, like a faded 
 flower, has let fall petal after petal, and that there is nothing 
 more to be done but to let old age come, and then death. 
 
 At such times it seems as though we were wander- 
 ing in one of those ruined planets, those extinct worlds 
 whose lurid light still traverses the sky. Then we see 
 things as they are, or rather as they would be, if the won- 
 drous brightness of day, if perfume, harmony, blue atmo- 
 spheric depths were all taken away from us. and our earth 
 left bare. Everything becomes dry, hard, resolvable into 
 problems, the positive solution of which destroys our last 
 illusions. The task which charmed me with its time- 
 speeding magic, it has no use, teaches nothing, is worth 
 nothing ! Those melodies which wafted me into realms of 
 serenity, they are flat, monotonous, wearisome ! My pencil, 
 nothing either ! My friends, my beloved, that image closest 
 to the heart ; oh, it is here that the abyss yawns ; here 
 there is dead silence, and the demon speaks in his doubt- 
 ing voice : Your father, your child, your wife ! you are 
 their treasure, you are the breath of their soul, the days 
 they live away from you are days of heaviness ; if you are 
 late, they are anxious ; if you suffer, they are sad ; if you 
 died, they would die too ? No ! they would not die ; they 
 could do without you ! You believe yourself essential, you
 
 10 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 are not ; you believe that you give happiness, others would 
 give more ; you think that were you taken out of their lif e, 
 that life would be shattered. Not so. It would resume its 
 course, would pass through other regions, other flowers, to 
 blossom under other skies. The thought of you, passion- 
 ately cherished at first, would recede towards the distant 
 horizon, would remain suspended there, and only rare inter- 
 vals and hours of sadness would lead them back to you. 
 
 No one is indispensable to any other ; there is but one 
 thing imperishable, and that is the need we have of being 
 happy at any cost. 
 
 We have more vitality than the hydra. Cut, cut away, 
 lop off here and there, strew the ground with our limbs, 
 leave only a bleeding trunk ; it will writhe, then it will 
 stanch its wounds, then it will glide into some new path, 
 under the leaves, amidst the grass, it will find some shady 
 retreat, and it will live. 
 
 This is worst of all, to own to ourselves that we can be 
 mutilated and yet survive ; that after such severance the 
 wound can close ; after the thunderbolt the sky grow clear ; 
 that with the heart torn out we may walk on without any 
 unbearable pain ; that failing a lif e interpenetrated with 
 love, we can create for ourselves a narrow quiet existence, 
 where mere mind or matter prevails according to individual 
 temperament, that the day may come when we honestly 
 confess to be better off after than before the storm, and to 
 journey on more comfortably alone ; a day when a horrible 
 egotism may sit a victor on the ruins of all our past. This 
 is the supreme misfortune ; to find ourselves at last alone, 
 self-contemplating, self-satisfied, self-conscious that self is 
 our all in all This is the source of mortal disgust and 
 sovereign disdain. 
 
 I was going along, a bitter smile upon my lips, a bitter
 
 LI SETTERS DREAM. 11 
 
 indifference at my heart, reduced to despair, as negation 
 after negation fell on me like blows from an axe; when I 
 chanced to raise my eyes and saw the country, saw it 
 magnificent, exuberantly fresh ; saw the barley fields that 
 promised harvest, the young bunches of grapes that pro- 
 mised the vintage ; saw the tufted fields, the orchards, 
 laden with fruit, the bees and the butterflies flying off in 
 quest of pillage, the peasant going to his work. The earth 
 is beautiful, I said to myself, the earth is good ! Then I 
 raised my glance up the mountain side, higher than the 
 beeches, higher than the pines, higher than the chalets, 
 than the pastures, up, up to the snow, up to that sparkling 
 cupola whose white outline sharply cuts the deep blue sky, 
 up to that region of Paradise ! O ye heavens, ye are 
 great and glorious ! My God, thou art the mighty One, 
 the Eternal ! Love ! It is only that which I have been 
 ignoring all this while ! The love of God, the love which 
 came down to us, the love which defies time and space, the 
 immortal, imperishable love Thou hast put into the heart of 
 man ! 
 
 Our years will pass, our faculties fade, our loved ones 
 depart ; nothing of us will remain save poor old withered 
 bodies that drag themselves into the sunshine ; all will 
 die. No, all lives, love though buried beneath the snows 
 of age, love glows unextinguished. It breathes in wordless 
 prayers, it looks back to cherished memories, forward to 
 the land of promise. The cheeks are wrinkled, the lips 
 wear a smile the vigorous call childish, the eye is dull ; we 
 seem to have merely a pale effigy, aimlessly wandering 
 amidst a new generation. Do not think so ; below the 
 surface there are tears, strong hopes, there is a whole vast 
 world, there is a human heart, there is the Infinite. 
 
 Nothing that has ever truly lived is lost, nothing use-
 
 12 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 less ; not a sigh, a joy, or a sorrow which, has not served 
 its purpose. Our tears are numbered, the fragrance of our 
 innocent pleasures mounts heavenward as a sweet-smelling 
 savour. Let us take courage ; honest labour, upright 
 thoughts, healthy emotions endure. Let us give, love, 
 become as little children, so shall we reach self-forgetful- 
 ness, that supreme possession, that dominion over the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 Yes, so it is ; in our day there are young people who 
 are old, having exhausted everything ; who are indifferent, 
 sceptical, weary as a traveller at nightfall. And there are 
 old people who are young, ready-witted, with sparkling eyes 
 and energetic hearts, easily pleased, open to innocent enjoy- 
 ments. And such as these, this spring blossoming so 
 near death, this union of simplicity and native dignity, this 
 green intellect, this indulgent benevolence, this ready cheer- 
 fulness, have a charm for my nature which almost excites 
 emotion. 
 
 It was just such an old woman as this that I was going 
 to see. 
 
 Before entering the village, I stopped a little on the hill. 
 On one side, the valley stretched out in its green attire 
 very far below to the blue lake ; further still, full of 
 vapour, to the white Alps. On the other side, behind the 
 village, the mountain sloped down to the highest houses, 
 all dotted with beech and fir, with orchards intermixed ; 
 and as I had climbed to some height, I found those trees 
 still blossoming which had done flowering below. 
 
 There was no longer that glaring green which had thrown 
 me into such a strange train of thought. The dome of the 
 apple-trees rounded itself rosy- white, relieved here and there 
 with crimson buds j the pear-trees rose in silver pyramids, 
 immaculate, almost hard in their brilliancy. There was an
 
 LI SETTERS DREAM. 13 
 
 infinite variety of hues. The branches, laden with gar- 
 lands, surrounded with humming bees, stooped down into 
 the grass ; the topmost flowers kissed the lowest ; not a 
 leaf dared to shew. The hawthorn displayed all around 
 its small stars spotted with purple stamens ; through its 
 gaps you saw roofs ; bright panes of glass ; and on the hill, 
 near those lazy rocks sunning themselves up there, blackened 
 spaces shewed where the woman had been beating out the 
 hemp last autumn. 
 
 The goats were just setting out for the mountains ; little 
 boys driving them along the wood-paths ; you could hear 
 their bells ; a kid, perched in the middle of a bush, gave 
 a startled glance at the grand procession, then returned 
 eagerly to nibble the young shoots about him. The pea- 
 sants were all at work in the country ; the village was 
 deserted. 
 
 How charming a village is ! how charming those foun- 
 tains, with wooden basins ! if the village be rich, with stone 
 ones, with the water trickling down and running over. 
 
 In the evening, the cows come heavily by, drink slowly, 
 and return to their stalls, scattering sparkling drops from 
 their cool, wet muzzles. The pleasant smell of hay is 
 wafted from the open barns. Women come and go, and 
 wash vegetables at the fountain ; men, seated before their 
 houses, sharpen their scythes, and fill the air with metallic 
 notes ; children sing and dabble, and heap up handfuls of 
 fine sand j hens seek their food with that little, anxious, 
 monotonous cluck, that protest of a good housewife, who 
 sighs each time she puts by a millet seed ; cocks, proudly 
 thrown back on their tails, send forth a warlike cry, which 
 gets repeated by all the sultans near. 
 
 But on the day I speak of, it was morning ; the village 
 was silent ; you only heard beneath a heap of fagots, in
 
 H THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 some mysterious corner, the self-complacent cackling of the 
 laying hen. 
 
 To reach Lisette's house, (it was to her I was going,) I 
 had to pass through a barn. Now, barns give me untold 
 satisfaction ; I feel at home in them ; my heart expands. 
 My hand is scarcely on the latch of the little door, with its 
 two separate halves ; my foot has hardly touched the floor, 
 covered with newly-mown grass ; I have hardly inhaled 
 the perfume of last year's hay, heaped up on both sides of 
 me, when I feel a perfect flood of happiness. Am I re- 
 lated to the cattle ? Perhaps so ; to those oxen, for in- 
 stance, whose noses are pushed right and left through the 
 open rack, into the hay-loft, enjoying as well as I the sweet 
 smell of the new grass. I have not the least objection to 
 claim kinship ; but so it is, that my heart leaps again, and 
 I thank God, who has made meadow, skies, oxen, barns, 
 and me. Everything is beautiful, everything is wondrous ! 
 Life is an ineffable gift : death, a triumph. Men are 
 brothers : the poor, precious friends. To give pleasure, 
 to dry tears, it is heaven on earth ! All ! for once good- 
 bye to analysis ; this is not to be defined, scarcely to be 
 understood ; it is a sudden radiance, the illumination of 
 the soul ; it is a hymn that bursts out at once in all direc- 
 tions. I have often thought that woods, fields, nests, 
 moss-covered hollows, sent up just such an anthem to the 
 Lord. 
 
 Having passed through the barn, here we are at Lisette's, 
 in her dark, flagged kitchen, with a large chimney, into 
 which the fowls sometimes adventure themselves ; then we 
 pass in her bright, cheerful room, with a window looking 
 on the street. It is here Lisette is to be found. 
 
 Close to the lighted stove, (for it is still cold, and one is 
 glad of fires in the morning, before the sunbeams shine
 
 LISETTE'S DREAM. 15 
 
 through, the cloudy panes of glass,) close to the stove, sits 
 Lisette's old husband, half sleeping, half musing, his hands 
 resting on the iron pot about to boil, his head on his hands, 
 his white knitted cap drawn over his eyes. 
 
 Generally, when he sees me, Lisette's husband rises, 
 stretches himself, scratches his forehead, says " One must 
 be looking after the cows," and goes away. 
 
 I think that his wife and I taken in combination, that 
 is to say weary him. His wife is a thinker : he can 
 excuse this, as long as she is silent ; when I arrive, we 
 talk. This worthy man, who, during the whole of his 
 fourscore years, has discerned little more than the four 
 seasons succeeding each other ; hay-time, harvest, vintage, 
 then ploughing and sowing, then finally death, repose, not 
 to say annihilation, this good man of ours mistrusts us. 
 He perceives vaguely that we speak a strange language ; 
 thoughts stir there which disquiet him, questions that 
 embarrass ; a certain consciousness of inferiority comes 
 over him, he never has it at other times. The humble 
 old woman has never been aware of the keen intelligence, 
 the depths of thought within her. " Stuff and nonsense ! J ' 
 mutters the good man to himself; opens the door, and 
 disappears. 
 
 Lisette, as well as her husband, has run her fourscore 
 years or thereabouts. Lame of one leg, but erect and well 
 made, there she is on her old, straight-backed arm-chair. 
 Pretty children her grandchildren surround her, formid- 
 able hunches of cake in hand. "Just go and play out 
 there in front," says she ; and they disappear, like a flight 
 of starlings. 
 
 There is nothing now in the room but the bed with 
 chintz curtains, with great blue branches, on a red ground ; 
 some walnut chairs, weU polished; the stove, the table
 
 16 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 with turned legs, the great press, carved in a former age, 
 and the old woman seated near the window, close to her 
 pot of green marjoram, close to her rose geranium which 
 bushes out in a cracked earthen pan. 
 
 Poor as are the adjuncts, the figure is charming. Slender, 
 as I said, rather thin, with noble features, a pale com- 
 plexion, colourless without being withered ; gray hair 
 almost hid under a cap of the thick lace our great-grand- 
 mothers used to wear ; black eyes, as young as they were 
 at twenty, soft, limpid eyes, which look into, and allow 
 you to look into the soul. A smile completes the face. 
 It is not an inadvertant, it is not a triumphant smile ; it is 
 a smile in which blend such freshness, such exquisite deli- 
 cacy, such sweet graciousness, that, once seen, it floats 
 eternally in the memory. I shall be laughed at, but I have 
 never seen more than one mouth that reminded me of 
 Lisette, and that was the mouth of the Joconda. Lisette's 
 had the same sudden brightness, and ineffable fascination, 
 minus the wild flash, plus the angelic goodness. 
 - Lisette was a spiritualist ; there are such in villages. 
 She had been an excellent manager in her day ; had baked, 
 fed her cattle, worked hard in hay-time. She had taken 
 her part in the vintage, wielded the rake, dug the garden, 
 spun enough to fill all the presses in her cottage from top 
 to bottom. On washing-days, the hedges round were rich 
 with her treasures j no one more apt to labour, more pru- 
 dent as to expense, but while her arms were employed her 
 brain was active. And now that all she could do to amuse 
 herself was to mend clothes, or wind thread, thought had 
 got the upper hand. 
 
 Lisette had a soul; she was conscious of it, nay, she 
 was anxious about it. This is not common in our days, in 
 the country any more than in towns. Lisette belonged
 
 LISETTE'S DREAM. 17 
 
 to that austerely-brought-up generation, kept under by their 
 fathers grand, grave men, who governed by a look, -with- 
 out waste of words. They had strong natures, and lived 
 soberly in their sheltered nooks. No network of good 
 roads joined, as now, hamlets to villages, villages to cities. 
 Local papers had scarcely an existence. Ten years might 
 pass without a new book drifting into their dwellings. 
 Nevertheless, the peasant read on Sunday winter nights , 
 read the Bible, that history of nations, that philosophy of 
 the heart, that divine poetry, that speech of God to man ; 
 and he made his children read it, their little fingers follow- 
 ing each word, and that generation, growing up thus be- 
 neath the shadow of Judea's palm-trees, in direct relation 
 to the God of heaven, fed on faith, early subject to duty ; 
 that generation had a character at once gentle and coura- 
 geous, calm and reflective, poetical and ideal, such as our 
 age most certainly will not transmit to its children. 
 
 Lisette had grown up under that system, had breathed 
 the very air of the East. For her, Euth and Naomi, 
 Sarah, Moses, and Rachel who would not be comforted, 
 were personages more living, more real than the great 
 Napoleon and his twelve marshals. 
 
 She had no very distinct recollection of the Revolution 
 of '89 ; its terrible echoes had but faintly shaken the 
 mighty wall of the Jura. All the noise made in France, 
 the days of July ; many other glorious days ; insurrec- 
 tionary cannonades ; popular cry of a Republic ; acclama- 
 tions of the Empire, all these died away on the moss of 
 the forests, in the thick tangle of the beech-trees. The 
 winter blasts through the pines had a louder voice, an 
 eternal wail that prevailed over them all. 
 
 Above the beautiful region she inhabited, and beyond 
 
 the limits of her actual life, a world had opened out to 
 
 B
 
 18 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 Lisette, even from her earliest days. It was the Hebrew 
 world. There the camels and caravans of the Ishmaelitish 
 merchantmen passed through the desert ; there Hagar 
 wept under the palm-tree ; there the transparent waters of 
 the Red Sea stood on a heap ; there more golden sheaves 
 and richer ears of corn waved on the fields of Bethlehem 
 beneath a softer breeze which had kissed the pomegranates 
 in blossom. There, too, smoked Mount Sinai ; there stood 
 Moses, his face bright with mysterious radiance, breaking 
 the tables of the law before the dancing and delirious 
 people. 
 
 Even as a child, when she used to take the cows to feed 
 in the forest glades, the wild strawberries having been 
 once gathered, and small gardens planted here and there, 
 Lisette would sit down beneath some spreading pine, on 
 the smooth surface made by its falling spikes, her eyes 
 wandering from the black to the brindled cow, and in that 
 wood-enclosed pasture she would begin to dream. She 
 dreamed of Jacob's flocks, of Leah, of the wondrous 
 ladder; with the intense gaze of her soul fixed on the 
 depths of past ages, deriving thence the simple faith, the 
 fresh purity of the time when man was young upon the 
 earth. She spoke to God ; God spoke to her. 
 
 Had an angel, palm in hand, appeared before her there 
 under the great pine, it would not have surprised her ; she 
 would have prostrated herself; would humbly have laid 
 her basket of strawberries at his feet. Oh, if it might but 
 have been ! 
 
 How often Lisette had steadily contemplated the in- 
 finite sky, to catch some golden beam descending on her 
 straight from Paradise ! If the juniper bush that shadowed 
 her strawberry plants had suddenly kindled with super- 
 natural flame, Lisette would have approached as did Moses;
 
 LI SETTERS DREAM. 19 
 
 putting her slices from off her feet, she would have received 
 the divine command with a simple heart. 
 
 Was Lisette then a visionary 1 By no means ; she had 
 too much common sense for that. With her bodily eyes she 
 never saw anything but the fields, the cows, and the blue 
 sky overhead ; but she believed, moved, and lived calm and 
 thoughtful in the realm of faith. 
 
 Her piety had a touch of austerity and timidity ; there 
 was a reserve about her which rather reminded you of the 
 women of the Old Testament than of the New. She had 
 a great fear of offending God ; she loved from afar, very 
 humbly, reverence almost veiling love. Brought up rather 
 on the precepts of Moses than the revelation of Christ, you 
 would have taken her for one of the Israelitish women who 
 followed Miriam when, sounding the cymbal with a tri- 
 umphant hand, she celebrated Pharaoh's defeat. Or again, 
 she resembled that Shunammite intent on hospitably receiv- 
 ing the servant of the Lord : modest, with burning heart be- 
 neath all her reserve, who, when her son died, laid him on 
 the prophet's bed, then boldly went to seek the man of 
 God, and say, " Did I desire a son of my lord 1" 
 
 Lisette's serious aspect, serious and serene, recalled those 
 times. She possessed fervour, judgment, veneration; be- 
 neath her gray hairs the ingenuity of her girlhood ; a clear 
 mind that saw death coming, a delicate conscience, that 
 mere honesty did not satisfy j a native intelligence always 
 turning over grave problematical questions. She teased no 
 one, nor agitated herself ; everything in her was sober and 
 sagacious ; only when she spoke of her end, her smile was 
 rather sad, and with a most loveable shake of her head, she 
 would say " Well, I hope indeed but can God really for- 
 give me 1" 
 
 Now, Lisette's sin, you may well believe, was no crime ;
 
 20 TEE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 it was the sin of us all your sin, alas ! and mine ; petu- 
 lance, a warm temper, a few hasty words, many years spent 
 without much thought of God ; a heart unapt to lay hold 
 on Him ; easily turned away. 
 
 The majority call this virtue. Not so Lisette ; she saw 
 things too clearly. Her searching, logical mind was not 
 one to be lured by a toy, or satisfied with a show. If 
 diverted a moment, it was sure to return. 
 
 Lisette had never trifled with that deep need of holiness, 
 that thirst after truth which kindles sooner or later in all 
 elect souls. She was incessantly occupied in contemplating 
 the mystery of death, and of what comes after it. 
 
 " Do this and live," cried to her, from the summit of Sinai, 
 the voice that thundered amidst the lightnings. " Only be- 
 lieve I" said the voice which speaks from the bleeding cross. 
 
 Lisette believed, hoped, loved ; but her pale face, turned 
 towards the desert, bore the impress of a holy terror ; her 
 heart dared not expand ; she sat trembling on the threshold 
 of Eden, and sometimes saw the naming sword of the 
 cherubim turned against her. 
 
 It was of this we were conversing. 
 
 She shewed me the awful Jehovah ; I pointed her to 
 the God of Abraham : she spoke to me of sin ; I spoke to 
 her of pardon : she said to me, I have erred too much ; I 
 said to her, He has suffered more. 
 
 Do not be alarmed, I am not going to treat you to 
 theology ; not that I despise it, but I should be awkward 
 at it, Lisette, too. For my part I hold in reverence all 
 who lead a life of thought, theologians as well as others. 
 To eat, drink, sleep, dress well, and to-morrow die, has 
 never prepossessed my fancy much, nor Lisette's either. 
 To go through life like a great burly drone, knocking up 
 against flowers, burying his proboscis in their cups, with-
 
 LISETTE'S DREAM. 21 
 
 out looking or wondering at anything, without even in- 
 haling the perfume of the blossoms he pierces, then, when 
 evening comes, to die congealed beneath the leaves, or to 
 be killed in a matter-of-fact way by a bee who has done 
 with him, whatever may be said for it, neither Lisette 
 nor I find any sense or any poetry in a course like this. 
 But dreamers I do not mean by this empty dreamers ; I 
 mean the dealers with ideas, those who go digging into 
 some rich vein, deep down in the mine, or soar on daring 
 wing beyond the skies, these, however poor their condi- 
 tion or their outward man, we Lisette who knows none 
 of them, and I who know but few hold these to be true 
 sages, great poets. In fact, it is just they who take the 
 world in tow. Not easy-going people, elastic, satisfied with 
 themselves and with all else, because seeing little beyond 
 their particular peck of oats ; but souls with vigorous 
 griefs and mighty joys, men of the day-time, who want 
 light everywhere, who prefer suffering to a truth-haunted 
 sleep, who feel themselves travellers, pilgrims, wrestlers, 
 always under arms, on the march, in the battle ; often 
 bruised, harassed, losing courage, but sometimes visited 
 by such fulness of joy, believing so boldly what they do 
 believe, reigning so absolutely in the realm of soul, sowing 
 so richly the soil they tread, conquering so triumphantly 
 the adverse circumstances barking at their heels, that as 
 we see them pass we feel that they are indeed the masters, 
 the living men, and all others slaves, dead ! 
 
 I say all this to explain Lisette to you. She was a do- 
 mestic creature, easy to live with, peaceful, smiling} espe- 
 cially to children ; a superficial observer would have taken 
 her for the type of serenity. But inwardly in a very fer- 
 ment of thought, satisfied with difficulty, never satisfied 
 with false reasoning. And as she knew nothing of society,
 
 22 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 politics, or science, the great problem of Eternity hung 
 ever motionless before her, one side lit by faith, the other 
 shadowed by doubt. 
 
 " I am sad," said Lisette to me. " Listen j you will 
 laugh, but I have had a dream." 
 
 " Dreams are liars," answered I, foolishly enough. 
 
 " Oh, dear no ! Dreams are not all true, I know, yet 
 Joseph dreamed ; Pharaoh saw the seven fat, then the 
 seven lean kine come out of the rushes of the river ; it was 
 God who made him see them." 
 
 " Yes, God can employ" 
 
 " The Lord has many messengers," she broke in ; then 
 she shook her head. " It has left a gloom upon me." 
 
 " Come, tell it me, Lisette." 
 
 " You will laugh ; but it 's no matter, I am going to tell it. 
 
 " I was walking in a meadow, towards evening ; the sun 
 was down, the plants drooped, clouds of dust rose from the 
 road, a wide, smooth road ; much quality went along it, 
 coaches, riders, merchants, gentlemen, men walking behind 
 their cows, poor people, too a crowd like a fair. They all 
 went one way ; I did not trouble myself about where it led, 
 did not seem much to care, it was as though I understood 
 without knowing I am tiring you." 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 " Old people are slow." 
 
 " Take your time." 
 
 " I had not chosen that road, yet I went with the rest. 
 I walked on the grass easily enough, though I was in a 
 great hurry. 
 
 " On one side, under the thorns, I saw a rough path ; 
 one of those mountain tracks full of brambles and stones, 
 felled trees that one had to stride over, roots on a level 
 with the ground in which the foot caught. There was no
 
 LISETTE'S DREAM. 23 
 
 crowd there ; every now and then some heavily-laden 
 traveller, some woman, looking harassed and sad. They 
 sat down, or rather all but fell ; then they looked to the 
 top of the hill, took courage, rose, settled their baggage 
 better on their shoulders, and bending under it, dragged 
 on amongst the stones. 
 
 " The others, those on the highway, had not taken any 
 notice of me ; these gave me sad looks, but said nothing. 
 I was uncomfortable ; it seemed as though they were 
 mourning over my fate. As for me, badly off as they were, 
 I did not pity them, never thought of doing so. 
 
 " I said to myself, Suppose I go to them ! I did try. 
 I went aside, and got upon the path; the stones rolled 
 down. I felt weary, as if I had been beaten ; I hurt my 
 foot against a pebble, and returned to the meadow. Then 
 those in the path looked at me more sadly than before, 
 and went on. 
 
 " I had a weight at my heart. But evening was closing 
 in ; there was nothing for it but going on, though as I went 
 I trembled. A fear came over me. All at once it broke 
 upon me that we were all going towards death. Then I 
 tried to get back into the path ; but there was no longer 
 any path, any travellers, only the great green meadow 
 stretching far as eye could reach, and I was walking alone 
 in the middle of it. 
 
 " I beg your pardon !" 
 
 Lisette was in tears ! Then she recovered. 
 
 "At the end of the great meadow, I saw a beautiful 
 dwelling ; a square house, very large, very high, not one 
 side larger or higher than the other. This house was of 
 gold, bright as the sun at noon ; the grass went close up to 
 the Avails ; the setting sun shone through the clear windows, 
 and fell upon it.
 
 24 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 " A great rush of joy came over me ! I was happy ! No 
 one had told me so, but I knew quite well that this dwell- 
 ing was the Paradise of God. When I came close to it, I 
 looked for the door ; there was none on that side ; there 
 were only the large windows, with their bright panes, 
 transparent as water, the red sunset darting through them. 
 I went round the house ; no door. I went round again ; 
 none. There was only the grass and the windows. I felt, 
 searched about. Fear came over me again. At last I 
 returned to the front, and looked up. Behind one of the 
 windows of clear glass, I saw an old woman like myself, 
 only handsomely dressed in black silk, with white hair, 
 and a severe, though sweet look, sitting up and knitting. 
 She went on knitting, without seeing me. She looked 
 very happy. I cried out, or seemed to do so. Then she 
 turned towards me. ' You have made a mistake,' she said ; 
 ' you did not take the right road. You will not get in, 
 my daughter.' Then, with a calm face, she took to her 
 knitting again ; and as for me, I fell dead." 
 
 You are inclined, perhaps, to laugh ; if you had seen 
 Lisette, you would not have been so. She was pale ; fear, 
 that fear of God which hath torment, had got hold of her. 
 She turned and re-turned her dream in her mind. She 
 could not treat it lightly; she was too pious for that. She 
 could not pray; the servile dread of the slave paralysed 
 her heart. 
 
 " Lisette," I said, " you have told me a dream ; I will 
 tell you a story, a very short one. 
 
 " One spring day in Judea, just as the corn was ripening, 
 a crowd was coming out of the city. With much tumult 
 and loud cries, they were leading three men to execution. 
 Of these three, two had killed, stolen, pillaged ; they were
 
 LISETTE' S DEE AM. 25 
 
 thieves : the other had announced God's pardon; it was 
 Jesus. 
 
 " They nailed them to the cross. One of the criminals 
 insulted Jesus; the other, suddenly struck, said 'Dost 
 thou not fear God 1 as for us, we are punished justly ; but 
 this man !' Then turning to Jesus, ' Lord, remember 
 me!' He got in safe, Lisette ! What road, then, had he 
 taken?" 
 
 Lisette kept a solemn silence ; a divine light dispelled 
 the shadows on her brow. 
 
 "Neither the highway, nor that terrible mountain path, 
 had he, Lisette?" 
 
 Lisette looked at me ; her beautiful black eyes shone ; 
 the sweet, pure smile played round her mouth. " He be- 
 lieved," she said. 
 
 That day we philosophised no more. 
 
 Her husband came back ; the children ran in ; the hens 
 popped their beaks in at the half-opened door. Lisette 
 returned to her winding ; I to the road that led down into 
 the valley. 
 
 At the present time, many winters have passed since 
 Lisette entered the golden house. 
 
 Does she knit on, from age to age, impassive in her 
 beatitude, by the side of that matron with the silver hair ? 
 I do not think so ; I believe her living, active in heaven as 
 011 earth. All anxiety over, immutable happiness, supreme 
 life, reveal their mysteries to her ardent soul
 
 THE THEEE EOSES. 
 
 [HKEE roses early faded on earth ; three roses 
 which bloom in heaven. 
 
 They were three ; their name was Eose ; they 
 died before they were twenty. 
 
 They belonged to the same family; were, I believe, 
 cousins ; but they hardly, if at all, knew each other, be- 
 cause of their difference of age. When one was being 
 carried to the grave, the other, flaxen-haired and laughing, 
 was playing in her spring-time along the roadside. 
 
 I saw the first when she was quite a child. She lived 
 with her father, her mother, and a brother younger than 
 herself, in a farm on the border of a wood. 
 
 We shall not have to go far into the wood. I only want 
 you to know that the farmhouse was spacious, well-built, 
 turned full towards the east; with a roof that projected 
 like a cowl, as though the better to protect the family; 
 that a splendid row of hives filled the garden with their 
 humming ; that the garden itself had rose-trees that were 
 a perfect spectacle, red poppies, heart' s-ease, marigolds ; 
 that the vine, with its golden leaves, had crept to the 
 granary; and that the wood of planted oak-trees vener- 
 able oaks, their stems lost in the coppice below was the 
 home of all the bees in the country. They formed a great
 
 THE THREE ROSES. 27 
 
 aviary, open to the sky, where, from daybreak, blackbirds 
 whistled, and tomtits, chaffinches, wrens, robin-redbreasts, 
 and the whole tribe of vocalists, kept up such a chatter 
 that the nightingale, though he bred there, had some diffi- 
 culty in maintaining his supremacy. However, when he 
 lid set to in good earnest, you heard no one else. He 
 filled all the forest nooks with his loud gushes of song. 
 
 There is one exquisite hour in an oak-wood; that par- 
 ticular moment in spring when the underwood is all green, 
 while the old trees are not yet fully out. At their feet 
 there is an inveterate entanglement of honeysuckle, elder-, 
 bushes, clematis, all vigorous, full-grown, in the first glory 
 of their first leaves, with tall plants intermingled ; while 
 above, at a great height, spreads the light dome of the 
 mighty trees. Look where you will, it is luminous ; there 
 is above you, rather a green cloud an emerald transpa- 
 rency than decided verdure. The very atmosphere is 
 green ; green seems floating in the air, blending with the 
 blue of the sky. There are none of the intense tones of 
 summer ; none of the warm colouring, the broad, massive 
 touches of July; everything is distinct, everywhere there 
 is shade ; and against the soft green of the young foliage 
 you can trace the bold outlines of the dark trunks and the 
 gnarled branches of the oaks. 
 
 In these woods, Rose and her brother gathered glorious 
 nosegays ; in April, of the periwinkle, which covered the 
 ground with its blue stars; in May, of the lily of the 
 valley, which hides itself beneath the brambles, and grows 
 in the shade over the roots of the old oaks. Oh, delight 
 of being there well concealed ! of creeping along in spite 
 of a thousand scratches ! and while the nightingale dwells 
 upon some wondrous note, all the other birds warbling too, 
 of looking for, step by step, then suddenly coming upon, a
 
 28 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 very show of select treasures ! " Are not there lots of 
 them?" " Shall I shout to my brother V Conscience de- 
 liberates ; meanwhile the hand is busy; it gathers, gathers. 
 There they are, those darling lilies ! pure, modest flowers ! 
 There they are ! very straight, very strong ; with their 
 little reversed urns, the lowest in blow, the highest in bud. 
 There are others on the mountains; delicate, differently 
 shaped, more ethereal in their perfume ; but they are not 
 the true lily of the valley; the genuine, the old-fashioned, 
 the lily of the valley of our songs, of our grandmothers. 
 So they are left ; the wood-pea too, with its changing 
 colour, the orchis, everything but the lilies are left. The 
 fingers can scarcely close over the bunch gathered. What 
 a smell of spring ! the very ideal of freshness ! You would 
 say that it contained all the magic of the month of May; 
 the clear sky, the young foliage, the birds' song. 
 
 Little shouts are interchanged. 
 
 " Have you found some 1" 
 
 Yes." 
 
 "A good place?" 
 
 Silence. 
 
 There is no pursuit where selfishness shews itself more 
 plainly than in this pursuit of lilies of the valley. One is 
 silent. To say no, would be a falsehood ; to say yes, would 
 be to lose one's prize. So we make all the haste we can ; 
 if scrupulous, we murmur something very vague indeed ; 
 and the treasures secured, we slip away, far away, to some 
 other fragrant hiding-place, all covered with white bells. 
 
 In this manner Rose went through the wood; and when 
 she reached the high ground, where the lilies do not ven- 
 ture, she got uneasy, and called her brother, who came, 
 with trousers torn, and three poor sprigs in his hand. 
 
 " All that !" she said, and then shewed her great bunch.
 
 THE THREE ROSES.. 29 
 
 "Oh!" sighed the little fellow; and his poor flowers 
 dropped from his fingers. Then they walked on that short, 
 smooth, elastic mountain sod, which spreads itself out, as 
 it were, at random. 
 
 This open ground belongs to no one in particular ; it is 
 a common, where on Sundays old and young walk, in the 
 week, sheep graze, a hall of verdure, shaded here and 
 there by some ancient oak ; neither field nor meadow, only 
 turf, trees, mountain flowers ; a place of which no one 
 says, " It is mine," " It is John's," " It is Peter's," it is 
 the domain of the poor, of children, of all ; it is the one 
 little spot which Poetry, driven out by potatoes, may claim 
 as her own. 
 
 Rose wandered there, arranging her nosegay ; her 
 brother trotted and gambolled about. Neither of them 
 looked at the Alps on the horizon, or the blue lake in the 
 distance, motionless in the midst of its green cup. They 
 did not listen to the bells that were ringing that grave 
 harmony, dilating in the air ; they hardly felt the morning 
 breeze careering over the country ; the sloping turf, that 
 grew wilder, and began here and there to be dotted with 
 pines ; the great mountain blocks, the hamlets surrounded 
 with orchards ; the scattered houses of various styles ; all 
 this, that would have delighted a painter, they were hardly 
 aware of. They walked on at random, wrapped in a ray of 
 soft yellow light, apparently unconscious of the magical 
 scene around. 
 
 And yet it is these May delights ; this free breath of 
 the woods ; it is the scent of the pine, the perfume of the 
 lily ; the sides of our valleys, shut in by the peaks of our 
 Alps, the dark sides of Jura, it is all this, on the plains 
 of laughing Italy, which rises to the heart of our sons, and 
 causes them to desert or to die ; it is this, too, which, in
 
 30 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 the midst of cities, comes and whispers to them I know- 
 not what enchanted words, which tarnish all the luxury 
 around, and make their tears flow. 
 
 On Sunday, the court of the old manor-house was 
 opened to the village children. Eose and her brother ran 
 off there in haste, through vineyards and meadows. That 
 was the place for amusement ! Good people, those people 
 of the manor-house ; no pride about them, visionary, let- 
 ting every one have his own way. 
 
 The children in troops there were at least sixty of them 
 seated on benches, under the shade of great plane-trees, 
 their legs hanging down, and swinging to and fro to mark 
 the rhyme, sang plaintive songs. Verse followed verse 
 simple, and rather sad accompanied by the monotonous 
 music of two fountains ; then the children darted off all at 
 once, like a flight of starlings, no one knew why, and 
 formed great circles, enclosing the whole court, singing 
 catches "C'est le chevalier du guet; cfest un beau chdteau" 
 &c. which were still plaintive, so surely is there melan- 
 choly at the root of all things, even of pleasure. Suddenly 
 the circle would break up ; then came wild races, screams, 
 joy in simple existence. 
 
 Eose, a little frightened, played by herself in a corner, 
 making discreet little springs and jumps of her own. Her 
 brother threw himself into the midst of the games and 
 dances, and, shaking his curly head, bounded as the lambs 
 bound amongst the wild thyme. 
 
 When evening came, all went home again ; the others in. 
 troops, these two alone. Eose and her brother passed 
 timidly, for it was nightfall under the white church, 
 under the cemetery. The moon, shining in the sky, ac- 
 companied them with her soft glance. They quickened 
 their step as they got near the wood.
 
 THE THREE ROSES. 31 
 
 Here are the gardens ! here are the beans ! here are our 
 cabbages ! They recovered their voices ; nay, the brother 
 returned home like a hero, bellowing out in his deepest 
 tones some rough vintage song. Once at home, there was 
 the bright fire, the mother, and they recounted all the 
 wonders of the manor-house. 
 
 One Sunday, neither the brother nor the sister came. 
 
 The boy was stretched out in his little bed, at the 
 foot of his parents' large one. Beside him sat his father, 
 gloomy, hollow-eyed, and speechless. The mother was on 
 her knees, raising her child. Rose looked on, wondering 
 and silent. 
 
 Death was hovering round the child's brow. His com- 
 plexion was not livid, his features were not drawn; but 
 by the glory spread over the face, by the eye swimming 
 in ethereal brightness, you knew well that he was about 
 to go. 
 
 "Mother, mother!" he said, looking through the open 
 window at the sky. His mother leaned forward, and 
 grew pale. " Mother, I see beautiful angels ! Do you 
 see them, father?" Then he stretched out his arms, and 
 passed away. 
 
 Years, too, passed away. 
 
 Rose was growing up. She was a young girl hand- 
 some, sensible, sedate, leading a retired kind of life. You 
 met her sometimes when they were thinning the vines, 
 her petticoats tucked up, a load of vine leaves lightly 
 balanced on her head. With one finger she steadied it ; 
 the branches, with their indented leaves, fell round her, 
 veiling her slight figure; she walked with that firm, 
 modest, active step, which carries young working girls to 
 their home. If you happened to stop her for a moment, 
 her cheeks crimsoned, she looked at you innocently, then
 
 32 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 returned a few timid words, neither bold nor awkward ; 
 then went on her way, and you asked yourself what wood- 
 nymph had brushed you by with her robe. 
 
 Her eighteenth birthday came ; the village band came 
 too, one fine July twilight, after the harvest was over. 
 
 The violins came, scraping ; they were heard from a 
 distance ; they came all through the village, through the 
 wood ; the young men walking after them, then the girls. 
 
 " I'll run away !" said Rose. 
 
 " Simpleton ! " returned her mother, half through timid- 
 ity, half for fear of any talk. 
 
 The clarionet sounded gaily, the notes dropped off like 
 pearls, capered with a shrill falsetto, which made the woods 
 laugh again. Rose was agitated ; she felt her feet dance 
 under her. Her heart beat, her eyes shone, and yet she 
 could have wished herself on the very top of the mountain 
 far away ! 
 
 The band came nearer, the playful character of the tune 
 was distinctly heard an old-fashioned German waltz, an 
 irresistible measure. Yet Rose was inclined to cry; it 
 was as though the peace, the ignorance of her youth, were 
 flapping their wings as they flew away. 
 
 Soon you could distinguish laughter, you heard the 
 rustling of leaves, you saw the procession come winding 
 through the branches. 
 
 " Mother, the beautiful angels !" What voice at that 
 moment repeated those words to the heart of Rose 1 Why 
 are mournful images so often conjured up by a burst of 
 laughter ? Rose drew back. 
 
 " Mother, tell them not." 
 
 But her mother, a simple creature, was not given to 
 take the initiative ; and, besides, Rose was eighteen 
 ought she not to go with the rest? if she kept apart,
 
 THE THREE ROSES. 33 
 
 folks would say that she was proud. And here was the 
 band, here were the young men and the girls deploying 
 at the door. 
 
 " Now then, Eose, we are come for you. The whole 
 village, you see. You can't think of affronting us !" 
 
 And as Rose seemed to shrink, two or three of her 
 young friends came forward from the rest. 
 
 " Come, Eose !" they said, taking her aside. "We are 
 going, as you see ; don't vex the others ; if you knew how 
 good-naturedly they have all come for you ! Can there be 
 any harm in amusing ourselves a little 1 " 
 
 As they were talking, they led her on. The band fol- 
 lowed at a little distance, then the young men, then, 
 further off, the girls. Soon they found themselves under 
 the oak-trees, on the fine mountain-sod. They began to 
 dance. Was Eose happy 1 There were, indeed, a few 
 moments of rapture. All made much of her ; every now 
 and then she had fits of nattered vanity. And yet she 
 was ill at ease. She recalled her little room, her evening 
 hymn on the garden bench, while the moon rose slowly 
 behind the oaks, her silent walks with her mother, the 
 freshness of the fields on the border of the wood. I do 
 not know whether she prayed or not. Sundays do not 
 end well so. 
 
 At intervals there were others of the same kind. Eose 
 found little pleasure in them. 
 
 Young girls that Jesus has once visited may, indeed, 
 wet their lips at the cup of idle pleasure ; they cannot 
 drain it. One who has enjoyed long communing with 
 God, who has fed upon the strong meat of Scripture, who 
 early in life has bravely fought with the enemy that lion 
 greedy after his prey -such a one is not long detained 
 by false pleasures. She finds there too many snares, too 
 
 c
 
 34 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 many disappointments await her ; she sighs too much for 
 blessings lost. 
 
 For the world what I mean by the world, is not to be 
 confounded with the gaiety that befits youth, with fresh 
 laughter and innocent meetings, the radiance, the har- 
 mony, the frank outbursts of healthily happy hearts. No ; 
 it is frivolity, dissipation with its sad commonplace of 
 paltry jealousies, spiteful comments, over-excited vanity. 
 It is the heart departing from God, saying to the Father, 
 " Give me my portion, that I may enjoy it at my ease 
 far from Thee." 
 
 Eose, uneasy and dejected, was doing this. 
 
 The Angel of Death touched her. 
 
 It was a tedious illness, with unexpected changes for the 
 better, then sudden relapses; yet Rose had again found 
 happiness. Long weak, then confined to bed ; peace shone 
 upon her brow. She went slowly down youth's flowery 
 slopes ; she went the way of all the earth, but heaven had 
 opened to her. A little sad at leaving her father and her 
 mother, she had a fund of secret joy in her heart. But 
 this had not been won without some struggles some efforts 
 to clutch again at life. There were days when earth seemed 
 beautiful, Death cold, when that unknown thing, the pas- 
 sage between the two, frightened her. These days came 
 to an end, others rose radiant, when heaven was so near, 
 the hand of Jesus so strong, that the young girl seemed to 
 walk on lightly, modestly, and firmly, as when in former 
 evenings she followed the homeward path, her head crowned 
 with vine branches, and bathed in the glow of sunset. 
 
 One night, the last, she asked she, who would suffer 
 anything rather than wake her father and mother asked 
 them both to sit up with her. 
 
 " See, father ; see, mother, I am going away. God has
 
 THE THREE ROSES. 35 
 
 been very good to me. Ever since that Sunday I was un- 
 happy in myself. If I had got well, perhaps I should have 
 gone back with the rest. Where I am going God will 
 keep me. It is very beautiful there. Do not cry. You 
 will come there, father ; you will come there, mother." 
 
 That was all. Hose had never been much of a talker. 
 tShe was " close," as our villagers call it. 
 
 When, the night nearly spent, two struck on the old 
 wooden clock ; when the first streak of morning, rather a 
 pallor than a light, glided in the east between the Alps and 
 the sky ; when came that shudder of the dawn which de- 
 taches so many lives ; that dubious hour, when watchers by 
 the sick feel their eyes grow heavy ; that mysterious hour 
 when the dying cease to struggle, and the unseen hand cuts 
 the thread, Eose, with one bound, leapt from her bed. 
 
 " Father, your arm ! " she cried. Then she walked up 
 and down, trembling, supported by her father, who had 
 waked with a start out of his sorrowful sleep. Rose stood 
 still before the window which looked to the east ; the 
 earliest blackbirds were beginning to sing in the wood ; 
 she saw the reddening horizon ; wonder was painted on 
 her face, something of timidity, too ; but the prevailing ex- 
 pression was happiness. 
 
 " Is it that, father?" 
 
 Her father clasped her tightly, then carried back the 
 body to the bed. 
 
 Two evenings later, the white dresses were again seen 
 winding through the wood paths, under the oaks. 
 
 In the farmhouse, on the bed, reposed the most beauti- 
 ful corpse it was possible to see. 
 
 The young girls entered silently, crowding in at the end 
 of the little room, near the door, looking on with wide- 
 opened eyes ; the youths stood without
 
 36 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 Rose had on her Sunday dress ; her first communion 
 veil was thrown over her head, leaving her face bare ; the 
 features were marble, the eyes half open, the expression 
 grave, almost austere; only the hand of Jesus had impressed 
 on them the peace of heaven. Her hands were crossed. 
 Above them, on her breast, God's book, which had con- 
 soled her ; at her feet, the white crown which her young 
 companions had brought. 
 
 The mother made no ado, nor the father either. Not but 
 what their anguish was great, but it was God's doing. 
 God ripens and destroys the crops ; God gives our bread 
 and takes it away. He knows why; He is our Father; 
 what have we to say ? 
 
 They placed Rose in the coffin ; they put the garland on 
 it ; the youths carried the bier ; the young girls followed ; 
 this time without violins, without clarionets, they took the 
 road to the wood. 
 
 Three Sundays after, on the turf, not far from the church- 
 yard, the young people were dancing. 
 
 II. 
 
 The first Rose faded, another came. A white rose ; one 
 of those roses with a foreign perfume ; a hot-house rose 
 that our winters kill. 
 
 Even as a child she was peculiar ; liable to bursts of im- 
 moderate mirth and immoderate depression ; at both these 
 alike, her father, a discreet, deliberate man, frowned. Her 
 mother took her part in her father's presence, but secretly 
 she scolded her too. 
 
 Awkward at her work, unpractical in daily life, Rose 
 would wander about dreamily ; sometimes she had fits of 
 laughter; sometimes she shut herself up unsocially in a
 
 THE THREE ROSES. 37 
 
 solitary corner, with lips compressed and a gloomy ex- 
 pression. She grew up amidst reprimands ; but she pre- 
 ferred her mother's lectures to the tacit discontent of her 
 father, a worthy but austere man, who truly loved her. 
 
 Her parents were tolerably well off, but still they had to 
 work. As for working in the fields, this Rose plainly could 
 not do that ; tall, slender, pale as she was, with preter- 
 naturally large deep eyes, a transparent aquiline nose, the 
 nose of a princess, and fair hair which surrounded her with 
 a golden halo. They determined to make a lady of her ; 
 she was one already. 
 
 At school she was no better off than at home. She had 
 to learn ; she went on dreaming. 
 
 At last 
 
 "My girl," said her father, "we have had enough of 
 masters ; your portion has been spent on your education ; 
 you have lots of learning, gain your bread, my child ; you 
 could not, or you would not, do so in the field ; take to 
 teaching in your turn." 
 
 Rose left home. Very hard the life of a stranger in a 
 strange house ! There are mother's kisses, mother's scold- 
 ings for the children ; there is nothing of the kind for the 
 governess. She is looked at coldly, and if she has faults 
 one remarks them to one's-self, one does not tell her of 
 them. 
 
 Rose suffered less, though, than in her village life. She 
 was in the midst of the great world of which she had so 
 long dreamed. Still hers was an unsocial, reserved nature, 
 with wants that earth does not satisfy. She expected too 
 much from life, when disappointed she shrunk within her- 
 self, and silently turned her proud head away. She did 
 not succeed in practical matters, went from one family to 
 another, earned little, spent much, being generous to the
 
 38 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 poor, and self-indulgent too. Sometimes she returned to 
 her father's, discontented, taciturn, dressed like a fashion- 
 able lady. Her father was cold in manner to her, her 
 mother gave her good advice, and Eose went away again. 
 
 She had an upright heart, a straightforward mind, the 
 purity of crystal, only there was the secret frown of a con- 
 stant depression on her brow ; telling of a missed vocation, 
 of a wasted life. One spring she returned ill, but, as her 
 cheeks were very rosy, and her eyes flashed bright, her 
 father did not take much notice of it. Besides, Rose got 
 soon tired of the village. The forest had nothing to say 
 to her she had not, as a little child, gathered strawberries 
 in July along its fragrant borders. The meadows were 
 gloomy ; she had never with her sisters driven thither in 
 October the red cow, the black, the brindled. The Jura ! 
 oh, that dark Jura ! it was like her discontented father, it 
 made her shiver. 
 
 Eose, though an invalid, took another flight ; she went 
 to a hot climate, which speedily kills the delicate. 
 
 When she returned, December had cast its winding-sheet 
 over the earth. She was taken out of the carriage half 
 dead. This time her father felt how ill she was, and how 
 much he loved her. They took her into the best room, 
 her mother gave her her own large, green-curtained bed. 
 Eose was colourless, worn out by a hollow cough, but 
 sometimes fever flushed her face ; it bloomed as the Alps 
 do at sunset, only to look like them the paler afterwards ; 
 her large eyes and her abundant hair were all that re- 
 mained to her. 
 
 I do not know what was going on in her soul, but I be- 
 lieve that there was a great conflict there. She remained 
 stiff, haughty, reserved. She was quite aware that she 
 must die, but death dissatisfied her as life had dissatisfied ;
 
 THE THREE ROSES. 39 
 
 God was accomplishing His own work in her quite alone ; 
 later it became evident He was leading her apart along 
 those rough paths where He leaves us in full sight of our 
 own selves, a prey to our own will, our own desires, till 
 broken down we fall on our knees, arms outstretched, call- 
 ing loudly on Him who saves. 
 
 As for visits, Rose cared little for them; besides, her 
 young acquaintance, being afraid of her, kept back. Her 
 father, who had been moved just at first, relapsed into 
 silence ; dying, his daughter suited him no better than she 
 had done when well There was no expansion ; there 
 were no caresses. Rose seemed frozen ; a kiss would have 
 dissolved the ice, but she did not offer one, and no one 
 else dared to do so. She laid the blame of her unhappy 
 existence on all around her ; on her father, the village, on 
 God, who had made her as she was. As to whether she 
 regretted life or feared to die, no one could say ; she 
 listened to the Bible, to prayer, to everything with closed 
 lips, her large eyes flashing out of their sunken orbits. 
 Only her mother, watching narrowly, sometimes saw great 
 tears suddenly gather there and overflow ; then she would 
 clasp her in her arms. Rose only turned her head away, 
 buried her face in the pillows, and answered nothing. Her 
 father murmured: "My daughter, my daughter!" A 
 thrill would pass through her weak frame, a transient 
 light ; then Rose, sad, with brow paler than ever, but lips 
 still closed, would resume her proud look and dream on in 
 silence. 
 
 No one had dared question her as to her faith. " She 
 believes," her mother would say ; a mother's eye can see 
 to the bottom of the heart. 
 
 There was an unnatural stillness in the air. In that 
 quiet room, entered and left so noiselessly, where meals
 
 40 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 were taken at regular hours, where in the evenings the 
 father sat reading to himself by the lamp-light, while the 
 mother sewed, there brooded a deeper sadness, a more in- 
 tense woe than bursts of weeping ever expressed. 
 
 The darkest despairs are the most silent ; and it was 
 one of these which the heart of Rose concealed ; no dis- 
 appointed love, no foolish hopes deceived. No; but let 
 her thoughts turn where they would, from her first days to 
 her last, she could not find one happy moment, not one ! 
 And now where was she going 1 What would be her fate 
 in presence of that God from whom she had asked nothing, 
 had received nothing 1 In her hours of pride, indeed, she 
 tried to contend with Him, but her daring only left her 
 more desolate, the darkness thickened, she was appalled 
 at herself. 
 
 One evening it was getting dark, the wind was driving 
 the snow-showers along the deserted streets; you heard 
 nothing except the wooden shoes of some belated frequenter 
 of the public-house. It was cold, gloomy ; the lamp was 
 not yet lighted ; the father was musing, his back against 
 the stove; the mother, with her elbow resting on the 
 window, watched the falling flakes, one side of her face 
 whitened by their reflection. Rose was motionless in the 
 large bed, breathing unevenly ; she seemed dozing. 
 
 All at once, " My father, my mother !" Could that, in- 
 deed, be Rose's voice ? had it such touching inflexions ? 
 
 " Come, come, dear father, and you, mother, too !" 
 
 Her father staggered; he felt as though something 
 heavenly had lighted in the room, Ms limbs shook as he 
 approached the bed ; the mother was kneeling there already. 
 Half raising herself, Rose was looking at them ; oh, never 
 in her best days had she looked at them so ; her trembling 
 hand sought theirs !
 
 THE THREE EOSES. 41 
 
 " Pray, pray, my father ! Father, forgive me. I love 
 you ! Oh, what good it does me to tell you so ! I could 
 
 not before I have been a bad daughter, my father, 
 
 proud, exacting ; I have not made you happy. .... Kiss 
 me, mother ; my father, my father ! " and she clasped him 
 in her arms. 
 
 Her father and mother wept ; her father most ; there 
 was a something of remorse, a more intense tenderness 
 wringing his heart. 
 
 " Poor child ! " sobbed the mother ; " must thou, then, 
 indeed go ? " 
 
 " Say blessed child, say redeemed ! O my mother, this 
 is the first happiness I have ever known ! Jesus has found 
 me ! Mother, it is sweet to die ! " 
 
 What kisses, what forgivenesses were exchanged ! what 
 fervour of heart kindled between these three poor souls 
 who had believed they did not much love each other! 
 Their daughter, so beautiful, so gentle, so dutiful; their 
 daughter, as they had dreamed her, was actually there, 
 their arms were round her, their eyes fed upon her face, 
 and she was about to die. 
 
 But as for her, an ineffable rapture filled her heart. 
 Heaven awaited her ; earth, before relinquishing, lavished 
 on her all its treasures. In an instant, like one who gleans 
 in haste, her hand snatched all the richest sheaves. A 
 moment is as a thousand years to one about to enter on 
 eternal day. She had reaped all ; she regretted nothing. 
 Of the love of her father and mother, nothing henceforth 
 could ever deprive her ; the love of her God shone round 
 about her. In this glory she departed. 
 
 The Lord has sudden unfolclings, such as these, for souls 
 long closed. For beaten-down stalks He has looks which 
 ripen into a golden harvest; He has warm rains for
 
 42 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 parched-up ground ; He has royal compassions, at which 
 the hosts of angels break into hallelujahs of praise that 
 ring from heaven to heaven. 
 
 III. 
 
 They had all been working hard : in the meadows get- 
 ting the hay in ; in the vineyard, cutting the leaves ; in 
 the fields, tying up the sheaves. July was drawing to a 
 close. 
 
 " I don't know," said the mother to me, " what ails my 
 Rose. She has fretted too much for the father ; she has 
 over-tired herself. It will be no harm though, I am sure." 
 But evidently her heart was heavy. 
 
 On the morrow, the doctor paid a visit to the little room. 
 One reached it by a wooden staircase outside the house ; 
 the window got all the sun, and looked on a small garden. 
 A young girl sat there sewing away as fast as she could, 
 a slender form, with a fair, innocent face. Her mother 
 was standing a little behind her. 
 
 When the doctor entered, the young girl looked at him 
 in amazement, rose, blushed deeply, then suddenly dropped 
 down again on her chair, in all the bashfulness of sixteen. 
 
 She had never left her mother; had never been to 
 dances ; never run about the roads in the evenings, hand 
 in hand with other girls, singing rounds as long as the 
 moonlight lasted ; not that she was unsociable, or proud, 
 but she knew better things than these ; and then she loved 
 her mother, she mourned her father. To sew in her little 
 room, to weed the garden, cut the vines, make hay, beat 
 hemp in autumn, go to church on Sundays, sing hymns, 
 return to sit on the benches of the school, where, as a child, 
 she had been taught to love God, these were her delights.
 
 THE THREE ROSES. 43 
 
 These delights were so true and holy, that never face 
 beamed with more serene brightness than did hers. 
 
 But this visit of the doctor wearied her. She sick, 
 indeed ! Certainly she felt tired, she did not eat ; but was 
 that any reason for bringing that fine gentleman here ? 
 
 I have always thought that the scene, put, just as it was, 
 upon canvas, would have produced one of those touching 
 pictures for which amateurs pay their weight in gold. 
 The doctor, a man in the prime of life, with lip defined 
 by a delicate moustache, bright brow, keen eye, firm and 
 smiling mouth, was examining the young girl. Rose was 
 seated in the full sunlight, she cast her long-lashed eyelids 
 down ; sometimes, though, she raised them, and then her 
 limpid glance was fixed on the doctor without any timidity; 
 her mouth was almost severely grave, only when some sally 
 of his made her mother laugh, a smile, gayer than a sun- 
 beam, passed over her lips, then a deep flush rose to her 
 cheeks ; then again she sat stiff and motionless, as though 
 she were about to have her portrait taken. 
 
 The visit over, the doctor left. The mother, who was 
 uneasy, followed him into the kitchen. 
 
 " She may recover," said the doctor. 
 
 "She is very ill, then?" 
 
 " She may recover." 
 
 The prescription written out, he left, walked on some 
 way, then, turning to me, he said, " But she will die." 
 
 I often saw her after that, that rustic Rose, that sweet- 
 brier of the woods, that never opened out fully save to God 
 and to her mother. 
 
 Her soul had the transparency of a crystal ; she had its 
 sharp angles too, something which might have been a little 
 hard, but that her native sweetness, and the humility of 
 the Christian softened it down. Truth came nakedly from
 
 44 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 her lips. She told you what she liked, and what she did 
 not like, without any circumlocution. She only knew the 
 yea, yea, nay, nay, of the gospel, and with that she had so 
 much graceful ingenuousness, cordial affection. Hers was 
 one of those individualities mightily developed by the 
 Bible ; uniting all the simplicity of the village, the inex- 
 perience of her age, and of her retired way of life, with 
 extremely delicate perceptions, keen discernment, and great 
 knowledge of her own heart. She shewed sometimes the 
 blank amazement of a bird that has just left the nest ; she 
 cast a stupified glance upon what of the world came within 
 her notice ; at other times she would utter some deep say- 
 ing that a master-mind might have gladly claimed. 
 
 Rose was no maker of speeches, but when one brought 
 her flowers or fruit for the time soon came when she could 
 not gather any for herself her face lit up, her pretty teeth 
 sparkled ; she would say, with a blush, " It is too much," 
 then look at her mother, and one felt that for such a look 
 one would willingly despoil orchard and garden. 
 
 There are hours of fugitive joy, there is an efflorescence 
 of happiness on pale faces, which infuses heavenly felicity 
 into one's heart ; how one blesses God when one has been 
 the means of calling these forth ! what deep disgrace to do 
 this so seldom ! and yet how slight a thing may have the 
 desired effect. 
 
 Kose suffered tortures ; death had to wrestle with all the 
 strength of sixteen. She did all she could to conceal them, 
 but it was hardly possible ; it was as though she were 
 broken on the wheel. At such times she would clasp both 
 her arms round her mother's neck, and hide her face in her 
 breast ; then she would raise herself, and look into her 
 eyes with her clear, confiding glance. Her mother turned 
 away, and wept.
 
 THE THREE ROSES. 45 
 
 Never were there greater sufferings in any poor body, 
 never greater peace in any soul It was one of those 
 easily detached lives that the Lord just touches and which 
 fall off like a vestment. This mother was a widow, this 
 daughter was in all the brilliancy of her first youth, they 
 loved each other, and yet they tranquilly advanced the 
 one torn to pieces, but submissive ; the other a little sad, 
 but composed towards that turn in the road where they 
 had to bid each other farewell It was done simply, with- 
 out much speaking, without any transports. The daughter 
 saw plainly that she was going to die, the mother had 
 known it long. Rose had asked no questions, her mother 
 had kept nothing back ; they walked on side by side, day 
 after day; the last day would come when God pleased. 
 
 These hidden existences are nearer to heaven than ours. 
 These lives, which unfold so quietly, are better prepared 
 for a sudden close. They have not so much to leave, they 
 are more accustomed to receive everything, good and bad, 
 directly from the hand of God, the soul's relations with 
 Him are more simple, the habit of obedience more strongly 
 formed. 
 
 There was nothing triumphant about the departure of 
 Rose. Some deaths are glorious ; hers advanced quiet, 
 modest, a little austere like herself, at times illuminated 
 with rays from above. 
 
 Neither mother nor daughter troubled themselves about 
 an earthly future. Her mother would say 
 
 " Afterwards, why, I shall be dull enough ; but I shall 
 not be alone, nor long in this world." 
 
 Then Rose would look at her. " He will not forsake 
 you, mother." 
 
 She had always pretty children about her the children 
 of a brother and sister settled in the village. Little boys
 
 46 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 with merry faces, very noisy fellows, but quiet there ; a 
 cradle, and under green cloth curtains a fresh little face, 
 smiles without a cause, and mottled hands, beating the 
 coverlet. Then the brow of Rose would flush with vivid 
 light, her eyes swim in ecstasy, her heart bound high; you 
 would have taken her for one of Perugino's Madonnas; she 
 had the same pure outline, the same repressed ecstasy, the 
 same fulness of holy love. 
 
 Flowers, too, charmed her, and she always had them in 
 profusion ; wild flowers, gathered by her former compan- 
 ions, and stuffed into great burly jars ; in April the peri- 
 winkle, in May the lily of the valley, in June the honey- 
 suckle, in July the sage, the pink, the red poppy, with the 
 corn-flower, the sweetbrier, the mignonette, mixed with a 
 few green ears of corn. Rose would take them one by 
 one, and look at them long. " They are beautiful they 
 are sweet ! . . . . Last year I used to gather them myself, 
 great aprons full of them." Then she grew silent ; then 
 suddenly raising her eyes, and looking at her mother, " You 
 must not cry, mother, I 'm not fretting over myself." 
 
 And yet Rose had her heart-sinkings, had hours when 
 her heart turned back towards life. There would come 
 across her images of health, of pleasure, even of those noisy 
 pleasures which she had refused. But this did not last. 
 " I am very wicked," she would say ; she clasped her hands : 
 her calm returned, 
 
 One day, quite confused, she said, " Could you believe it, 
 mother 1 I am thinking of my white frock, my first com- 
 munion frock ! I have only worn it once, mother. . . . You 
 will put it on me, will you not V 
 
 The mother, with wrung heart and closed lips, stood at 
 the foot of the bed, ardently looking at her child. 
 
 " Will they give me the crown ? the beautiful crown, with
 
 THE THREE ROSES. . 47 
 
 roses, orange flowers, and hawthorn?" . . . The tears ran 
 silently down the mother's face. "You will keep it, mother?" 
 
 This was the last sigh after earthly things ; afterwards 
 came on the agony, afterwards the Lord drew near ; the 
 young girl felt her heart beat with holy impatience to de- 
 part ; happiness overflowed her ; always sincere, she did 
 not exaggerate the strength of her faith ; but she was in 
 haste her eyes shone. 
 
 The hour struck it was in the night ; with a voice still 
 firm, looking at her young friends gathered round her bed, 
 sad and aghast : " Give your hearts to Jesus," she said ; 
 then let her head fall on her mother's breast. That was all 
 
 When the morning came, the village awoke. It was 
 baking day ; at dawn the oven-tenders came to call the 
 women, by tapping against the window panes ; the oxen 
 went heavily along to the fountains, the mowers betook 
 themselves to the meadows, the children to school ; the 
 larks singing deliriously rose into the light of the beautiful 
 sun. 
 
 On earth there was nothing changed, only a mother that 
 wept ; nor was anything changed in the little room, only 
 a beautiful white crown, framed and glazed, was suspended 
 on the wooden partition close against the bed.
 
 THE TILEEY. 
 
 |T is an outlandish house, situated far from any 
 village ; a man and his wife live there, young 
 people, quite alone, but for three children, boys. 
 
 This man and his wife make tiles. Their dwelling nes- 
 tles at the bottom of a little valley by the side of a brook. 
 The tenants of the tilery for it does not belong to them 
 have for their solace, on their right, a view of the wood 
 which slopes down to the stream, very thick on the crest 
 of the hill, with oaks that emerge from the rest of the 
 verdure ; less dense, towards the low ground, single trees 
 standing out, and plenty of brambles between them. To 
 the left, our good people, from their deep hollow, may con- 
 template at their ease ground which rises in great undula- 
 tions like a natural park ; hollowed here, swelling there, 
 devoid of trees, up to an old castellated dwelling which 
 stands on the highest of these rounded slopes, and looks 
 down at them through its few windows. Beyond, the Jura 
 cuts against the sky, with its lofty dome, black at the base, 
 still clearly defined, but becoming almost ethereal at its 
 summit. A little more to the north, and slightly receding, 
 as if the better to throw out the sombre hues of the moun- 
 tain, a wide amphitheatre of- rocks opens out in broad, bold 
 masses, with picturesque yellow clefts, and forms an abrupt 
 barrier, crowned through its whole length by an edge of 
 firs, standing out like delicate etchings against the sky. 
 
 You think such a dwelling as this melancholy, but it is
 
 THE TILERY. 49 
 
 not so ; retired, out of the way it certainly is, but so much 
 sunshine smiles there, so many light-winged dragon-flies 
 dart to and fro under the leaves that shade the brook ; so 
 many blue and yellow butterflies sport in the meadows ; so 
 many birds sing in the woods; you inhale such fresh 
 breezes there, you are so firmly planted in the very heart 
 of nature as God made it, that positively I never go there 
 without feeling that I would willingly remain. 
 
 You may reach the tiler's house either by the valley or 
 by the wood. This morning I take the valley, scarcely 
 knowing why. 
 
 Have you any time to lose 1 I have for my part. We 
 shall see the valley by and by, since that is the way we are 
 to go, but we may take our time, there is no hurry. Come 
 first with me up this steep path, and let us walk a little 
 in the wood. 
 
 This break-neck path would be the delight of a painter, 
 with its red surface, ravaged by the rains, falling rather 
 than descending from the plains above, with a bristling 
 hedge on one side, on the other a green field. When a 
 shepherd with his flock rears himself up there at the top 
 in seeming gigantic proportions, walking with crook on 
 shoulder, while the air is filled with plaintive bleatings ; 
 or again when the sheep, spread out like a white avalanche, 
 with black spots, the picture is complete ; one of those 
 exquisite scenes, not taking much in, indeed, not aiming 
 at sublimity, but presenting at a given moment a few of 
 those simple effects, these humble, nay, trivial incidents, 
 over which colour, accuracy, and purity of style throw an 
 ineffable charm. 
 
 After the path comes the plain, arid enough, half com- 
 mon, half poor pasture. The soil is clayey, the sun beats 
 down on it fiercely; there are no bees flying about, no 
 
 D
 
 50 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 grasshoppers jumping there, no juniper bushes to shelter 
 the thrush; it is one of those torrid zones which one 
 traverses, looking out for some green to rest one's eyes on. 
 The valley which opens out below, the one we are going 
 to take by and by, opportunely offers the silken show of 
 its culture to our gaze : the pink spikes of the sainfoin, the 
 golden rape, the purple clover, the waving barley, and 
 meanwhile a keen air, a north wind that has been sifted 
 through the forest, passes through the burning atmosphere, 
 and fans our faces. 
 
 Here first we come upon the pines ; they grow in clus- 
 ters, little grassy pathways winding round their stems. 
 They have sown themselves at various heights, and accord- 
 ing as they spring from the level where we stand, or rear 
 themselves from the slope which sinks down to the valley, 
 they reveal from root to crown a deep intensity of green 
 which absorbs the sunlight, or they only shew their pointed 
 summit sharply outlined on the landscape. 
 
 On the other side of the valley, now hidden, now dis- 
 closed, you see the cottages of the nearest village ranging 
 themselves along the top of the hill, and with the slender 
 spire standing out against the dark mass of the Jura ; you 
 might almost think they leant up against it, you would say 
 they were a white carving on a black ground, but for the 
 transparency of the atmosphere, but for a certain aerial 
 perspective, certain limpid vapours, rather air rendered 
 visible than mist, which surround them with light, and 
 convey the impression of a strip of unseen level ground 
 between the village and the mountain. 
 
 There are hours, evening hours, when the sun, concealed 
 behind the ridge of the Jura, darts such a glory of rays 
 between its rounded shoulder and the rock battlements; 
 when such streams of light pass through that spacious open-
 
 THE TILERY. 51 
 
 ing, when the serrated outlines of the amphitheatre are so 
 royally bright ; when that side of the mountain which hides 
 the sun melts into such solemn tones, that the soul remains 
 wellnigh overpowered in presence of one of the grander 
 spectacles of nature. 
 
 But now the sun is in the east ; it is rising higher and 
 higher, each tree casting a long far-spreading shadow on 
 the earth. 
 
 The pines are in flower. Do you know the flower of 
 the pine 1 I fancy that it was from it that the old gods of 
 Olympus used to extract the odorous resin with which they 
 perfumed their nectar. The pines, far as the eye can reach, 
 lift up their little wax candelabras virgin granulated wax 
 Each branch bears its own ; it seems as though the forest 
 were preparing some marvellous illumination for the fairies, 
 and when a puff of wind comes, and the boughs swing 
 slowly, the golden dust of the pollen floats around in soft 
 clouds, and sinks gently down upon the moss. 
 
 But we are still walking on this debatable ground, which 
 has suddenly widened out ; on the clayey soil where grow 
 a few sparse cereals bending to the breeze. 
 
 The forest, the real forest, lies before us. Do you wish 
 for songs 1 let us go under the old oaks. Do you prefer 
 silence, with a vague stir in the air 1 let us keep below the 
 pines. 
 
 First of all then, under the oaks. There, where the 
 grass grows, and brambles interlace ; where the sweet-brier 
 stops up the way, and creeping plants abound ; there along 
 that shining track where footsteps have trodden down the 
 vegetation. 
 
 There it is that you are fairly lost ; there that exhale all 
 round nameless perfumes, fresh emanations of the earth, of 
 the old trunks, of the young foliage. The very light is
 
 52 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 green, the shade all interpenetrated with sun. Not a 
 breeze, except every now and then indeed a mere puff, you 
 know not whence, which just lifts the branches, wafts here 
 and there still sweeter scents, then dies away, and leaves 
 you half intoxicated with perfume. 
 
 What charming mysteries there are in these nooks ! 
 Millions of insects, all dowered with intelligence, dressed 
 for a festival, displaying, between the blades of grass, the 
 purple, the ebony, the ultramarine of their elytra, their 
 armour of malachite and gold, delicate antenna, and little 
 feathered crests. There are artizans among them, who 
 lead a hard life, hewing, sawing, storing night and day. 
 There are idlers who go to and fro, climb to the top of a 
 stalk, look upon the world below, move right and left 
 without any particular purpose ; take things as they find 
 them. There are thinkers, too, motionless for hours be- 
 neath a sunbeam. There are bus/bodies who fly in haste, 
 make sudden starts, long journeys, and prompt returns 
 without very well knowing why. There are musicians 
 who, for hours together, go on repeating their monotonous 
 song. There are swarms of ephemera waving hither and 
 thither in some brilliant spot, neither too high nor too low, 
 seeking no sustenance, in a very ecstasy of life, light, and 
 harmonious motion. 
 
 It is good to be here. The path glides under the bushes ; 
 flowering branches strike against your face. As you advance, 
 a low cry, a rapid flight, reveal to you nests that your 
 hand sets gently rocking as you divide the branches before 
 you. From every nook burst the brilliant notes of the 
 maestri of the wood. Redbreasts, blackbirds, chaffinches, 
 wrens all except the nightingale, who finds the cite too 
 wild ; except the lark, who prefers the open sky of the 
 fields ; except the quail, who hides her brood in the hay ;
 
 THE TILERY. 53 
 
 all at the top of their voice ; all with throats proudly 
 distended, sing, trill, call ! It is a glorious fulness of har- 
 mony, which affects you like the vibrations of the sunlight. 
 
 Marvellously fresh is the song of the blackbird. In 
 spring infinitely varied in its tones, it gets shorter as the 
 summer advances, until, by the time his nestlings are 
 hatched, he loses his notes one after the other, and remains 
 cut short, rather quizzical, rather embarrassed, and a good 
 deal amazed that he can go no further. And while the 
 blackbird whistles at random on the top of a great oak-tree, 
 the redbreast, perched below on some thick bush, throws 
 off a very rain of diamonds and pearls, scatters in the air 
 his crystalline notes all full of light and fancy. Lower 
 yet, beneath the brilliant concertos and bravura songs, 
 there are murmurs more intimate and charming still ; the 
 whispered talk of an enamoured pair ; the chirping of the 
 mother to her young brood. The rest is a mere affair of 
 display ; here there is soul ; here there are endless narra- 
 tions, little cries of joy, sage counsels, innocent surprises ; 
 sometimes, but rarely, bursts of anger ; lovers who lose 
 themselves in ineffable repetitions ; children who speak all 
 at once, and little melodious beatified sighs, as if a bird's 
 heart was not large enough to hold so much happiness. 
 
 And now we reach the clearing a wide space, twilight; 
 no more brushwood, only luxuriant grass ; here and there 
 an old oak, with rugged trunk and strong knotted branches. 
 A wide dome circles above ; all round stands the green wall 
 of the wood ; at intervals a stray sunbeam ; within it a fly 
 passing to and fro ; absolute stillness and calm. We have 
 left the wood-songs in the coppice; the cuckoo's plaint 
 alone is to be heard afar, from one hiding-place to another ; 
 here it comes to us muffled, does not trouble the silence. 
 
 A dead tree is lying in the shade ; it is cool here, let us
 
 54 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 seat ourselves. Fit retreat for a philosopher ; fit occasion 
 for communing with one's-self. Commend me to these 
 green studios, these sylvan fortresses, this deep isolation. 
 What enterprises the soul enters on here ! what deeds are 
 planned, what mighty things are done ! how the world gets 
 shaken, overturned, made and remade at one's will ! If 
 you have a fancy to be king, emperor, great Mogul, or 
 only the first poet of the age, to be any kind of genius, 
 whether in music, painting, rhyme, or reason, go and seat 
 yourself a while on the prostrate trunk in the forest glade. 
 You will see all the glories of the world pass before you ; 
 you will engage in terrible battles; you will come in for some 
 rude blows ; nothing is to be conquered without trouble ; 
 but I know not how it comes to pass, you will always be 
 the hero, always the victor. As for me, inveterate idler 
 that I am, I think of nothing. There are people who 
 dream, and know what about ; some idea or other is always 
 running in their head ; some image moving before and beck- 
 oning them on ; for me, nothing of the kind. I lie at full 
 length under the branches, I inhale the aroma, I look at 
 the lacework of trees against the sky ; I admire the mys- 
 terious harmony of green with blue; I rise as high as I 
 can into the infinite azure depths ; I feel that existence is 
 sweet; my soul floats suspended in ether; I am neither 
 asleep nor awake, only it seems to me that I have some 
 comprehension of the immensity of God. 
 
 Oh, liberty, liberty ! to live the healthy life of the woods; 
 to encamp in the forests like those gipsies who have left 
 that red rag hanging on that shoot of sweet-brier ; to see 
 the sun rise between the leaves ; to see the moon march 
 on through the oak-trees ; to come in for the dew of morn- 
 ing ; to wander without hindrances ; to be satisfied with 
 little ! There is so much hard work in our stone houses,
 
 THE TILERY, 55 
 
 so heavy a load of care, so many difficulties in moving a 
 finger, so much bondage to custom, such crooked artificial 
 natures, so little aptness for true enjoyment ; and here, two 
 steps off, is absolute independence, self-possession, free mo- 
 tion, existence such as God created it in Eden ! 
 
 Nay, we are no longer in Eden : we are in a land of 
 pilgrimage ; a land of toil, with great clods to break, hol- 
 lows to fill up, fallow ground to till ; by and by will come 
 the rest of evening. No, we are no longer in Eden ; these 
 traces of the axe in the forest glade tell it me too plainly. 
 
 My tall, beautiful oaks ! Have not they been cut over, 
 laid low on the ground, with all their foliage, in the glory 
 of their summer ! Have they not had glaring spaces, awk- 
 ward gaps made in them ; have not their secret retreats 
 been profaned, the mysterious hiding-places of the squirrel 
 laid bare ! When I see these mutilated trunks, this red- 
 dened wood from which the sap is flowing ; when I see 
 the glade gain upon the wood, the pasture on the glade, 
 the arable land on the pasture, I say to myself, that the 
 time is coming, is at hand, when, in our country, you will 
 seek for the forest in vain. 
 
 Despoiled of their woods, of their fruit-trees even for 
 everything is turned into money will our valleys and 
 hills, bare as my hand, lit up by one same sun, washed by 
 one same rain, swept by one same wind, be more beautiful, 
 be worth more 1 Let wise heads determine ; but for my 
 part, I have great confidence in the wisdom of God. No 
 rills without woods, no birds without branches, no music 
 without birds. I do not speak of our harvest devoured by 
 insects. But is it nothing to have beauty, grace, melody 
 everywhere 1 What sort of a race will remain to you when 
 you have weaned it from poetry? People will go on 
 working, eating, drinking, saving money, it is true; but
 
 56 TIIE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 no more noon-day rest beneath, the walnut-tree, no more 
 hawthorn wreaths snatched in passing, no more walks in 
 the wood on Sunday evenings, no more strawberries gathered 
 at the foot of the mountain in those green nooks, shut in 
 by pines; the moon in rising will shine no more through 
 the tall pear-trees, no more lily of the valley will be 
 gathered in great handfuls to perfume the little cottage- 
 room all the week through. 
 
 Does man li ve by bread alone ? Jesus has said that he 
 does not, that he has need of the Word of God as well 
 With the exception of the one Book, written by His 
 supreme hand, I know few of such sovereign power; I 
 know few words as penetrating, few that so effectively 
 touch the heart, as do the simple influences of a nature 
 untouched by our hand. 
 
 As for me, these words contain a large part of my life. 
 As a child I followed the steps, now, alas ! effaced, of a 
 grandfather, a mother, and many others. These dusky 
 avenues have heard many a cry of joy ; many a fine story, 
 lasting as long as we were in the forest, has unfolded itself 
 along these winding paths. What fun it was when all the 
 party chanced boldly to plunge into a swamp ! What de- 
 light when, the great drops of rain falling one by one, we 
 took refuge under the shelter of the oaks ; the earth exhal- 
 ing its healthy perfume ; every opening in the leaves 
 becoming a gutter, then the branches bending, then the 
 shower turning into a cataract ; we were wet through, we 
 were, oh, how happy ! 
 
 The forest is still the same. In the spring the bee- 
 orchis displays her velvet robe at the foot of the great 
 pines; in the summer, the pink, with slashed petals of 
 gray hue, balances itself at the end of a slender stalk 
 singular flower whence exhales a perfume that makes the
 
 THE TILERY. 57 
 
 very heart faint. The shade is the same, the freshness 
 great as ever, that rarefied freshness through which floats 
 a passing aroma that soon dies away again, like those wan- 
 dering notes that rise in wide expanses of country, then 
 suddenly lose themselves without one's knowing whence 
 they rose or where they died away. 
 
 Nothing has changed ; only I have been going on. Be 
 it so ; this immutable aspect of nature, the perennial char- 
 acter of seasons, flowers, birds' nests, I like it ; it does me 
 good. But some are soured by it, find in it almost an 
 insult to our sorrows. It is no more so than the equable 
 azure of the sky, the star-lamps kindled every night. It 
 is the eternity of God's goodness, the eternity of youth ; 
 the eternal ideal affixed by the Lord's hand on creation's 
 brow. And then are there not children, even while we are 
 young ; young lives while ours are declining ; strong men 
 rising round when we have to die 1 Is it not well that 
 they should inhale the same flowers, rejoice in the same 
 sunshine, quench their thirst at the same fountains ? 
 
 This is why these blows of the axe upon the oaks resound 
 so in my heart. 
 
 Let us return by the path under the pines. 
 
 Every soil makes its own tree, every tree makes its own 
 fauna and flora, and, by a wonderful reaction, its own soil 
 too. Here the ground is swept clean; brown, smooth, 
 covered with dry, needle-like leaves j it is all that a brier 
 can do to grow in open spaces. The stems rise tall and 
 slender, armed at their base with small sharp branches ; 
 higher up, with bristling tufts, proudly indenting the sky. 
 The air plays freely round ; no deep shade, only the light 
 is softened as it strains through. Sometimes a single pink, 
 lost in the grass, sends out a transient emanation on the 
 breeze. The roots of the pines, clothed with bark like the
 
 58 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 branches, intersect the path like irregular flights of steps. 
 The walk, I know not why is it the confirmation of the 
 soil, or have the pines something to do with it? has 
 assumed a mountain character. The breeze is keener ; the 
 spirits grow more elastic. Behind the colonnade of trees 
 you see the country spread out in different levels; now 
 hollowed into wide valleys, now rising into plateaus, as far 
 as the Alps. At the bottom, through the fields, the high 
 road divides the district by a line that shines in the sun. 
 It runs straight, then branches into rays, with thin threads, 
 that lose themselves at the horizon. Far away, the Alps 
 rear their frozen ramparts : the thick wood hides the Jura. 
 You only hear the cry of the labourers, who, the moment 
 the hay is got in, break up the ground to prepare it for 
 autumn, their loud voices spreading over the plain ; grating, 
 mournful, like the voices of men who lead a hard life. 
 They reach the pines, and break against them into a soft- 
 ened tremulous sound. Sometimes the bells of some small 
 vehicle trotting along the road scatter little sparks of sound, 
 that mingle with the trills of the cricket in the clover, 
 that is all. Above the forest you may see some night bird 
 flying heavily along, escorted by all the winged hosts of 
 the wood. Then what an outburst there is of hooting and 
 screams of derision, till he is conducted into another can- 
 ton ! At your feet a travelling snail or adventurous cricket 
 crosses the path, on his way to visit his relations in the 
 fields. 
 
 It is not yet the season of grasshoppers. Later, they 
 will leap in thousands wherever your foot treads, green as 
 a July apple, or gray and earth-coloured, or brown with 
 scarlet-lined wings ; with their lively expression, their goat- 
 like profile, and tfieir prominent eyes, they will chirp away 
 in the newly-cut grass.
 
 THE TILERY. 59 
 
 Nor is it the time of fungi either ; those grotesque crea- 
 tions which dot the wood with their vivid colours as soon 
 as October has deflowered the glades. They are a singular 
 race, and full of mystery. There are good and bad among 
 them. I am not speaking of their poisonous properties, 
 but of their outward shape and bearing. Some are deli- 
 cate, milk-white, planted in circles, as if to mark the spot 
 where fairies danced last night. Others are solitary, 
 blackish, livid, treacherous-looking ; planning some crime 
 apart. Those purple, lined with orange, display their 
 magnificent attire in the midst of a crowd of gray knobs, 
 that stand round at respectful distances ; pachas in their 
 harems ! These, bright as silver, smooth as silk, a satin 
 dome above, ivory gills below. There are some rainbow- 
 coloured, some of pale gold. Whence do they come ; 
 whither do they go ! When the mists of autumn hung 
 heavy on the earth, what sun purpled them, painted them 
 sulphur-coloured, gave them their mother-of-pearl irides- 
 cence ? Why does the cow who browses the latest plants, 
 and munches up the frost-bitten leaves; why does the 
 sheep wandering under the bare oak-trees, leave these un- 
 touched 1 I do not know why. 
 
 But the mid-day heat scorches the country ; it is getting 
 late, let us go down to the valley, for it is there, indeed, 
 that our way lies, as you already know. 
 
 Here we are by the brook. We enter the intense shade 
 cast by rocks, all clothed with wild cherry-trees, mountain 
 ash, maples, and hazels. The flowering bramble hooks 
 itself on to everything; the brook runs on beneath the 
 willows between lichen-covered stones. Down there it is 
 almost dark; a beautiful gloom surrounded by light. 
 Sometimes the king-fisher skims the water with his wing ; 
 follows its course like a flash of blue lightning, too quick
 
 60 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 for the eye. An old pollard bends its stem across. Out 
 of the middle of its crown shoots the young cherry-tree, 
 sowed there last year by the hands of some child at play. 
 The brook leaves the shade, crosses the road, widens in the 
 sunshine. It is here that the young haymakers bathe their 
 bare feet. Next it sets off running through the meadows, 
 sometimes in sight, sometimes concealed beneath arcades of 
 bushes. 
 
 There is no road through the valley, merely a track. 
 On both sides are steep rocks, to the left clothed with 
 brushwood, to the right with old oak-trees, flinging down 
 festoons of wild vine, and balmy clematis. Then the rocks 
 disappear, and the valley throughout its length is enclosed 
 by the wood on the east, by the green rising ground to the 
 west, with the Jura and the rocky amphitheatre closing in 
 the horizon. 
 
 I do not know any retreat richer in flowers than this. 
 
 Not a breath of air. The sun darts fiercely down, but 
 the grass keeps green, the murmur of the water, its fresh 
 gurgle, its limpid whispers seem to spread moisture round. 
 No seed is brought here by the hand of man ; the birds, 
 the wind, when it chances to pass by, are the only 
 sowers. 
 
 There are successive flower-shows here, and each has 
 its own one plant. Blue salvias ; columbines, with their 
 lovely hanging bells, that tremble every time a butterfly 
 touches them in his flight ; a profusion of yeUow coronella, 
 then small red starry pinks ; and near the brook, the white 
 feathery fragrant tufts of the meadow-sweet, with some 
 green insect slumbering in their midst. 
 
 As soon as a cluster of alders bends over the water, the 
 honey-suckle throws its night-scented tufts from stem to 
 stem. Then beneath, you find secret bathing-places ; little
 
 THE TILERY. 61 
 
 shady bays, where the current hardly stirs the leaf that 
 hangs lowest. 
 
 Here at noon come the village youths, here cries of 
 joy are heard, here the water is thrown up in fountains, 
 falls in sheets, and dripping feet soak the meadow-grass. 
 
 But at this present hour there is perfect silence ; the 
 silence of mid-day in June. Only, beneath some wild pear- 
 tree, you may see the mowers stretched at full length, their 
 straw-hats over their faces, or their faces buried in the 
 grass. 
 
 Onward. The fleece of the hemp is swelling, it is ex- 
 quisitely sweet. The old bridge throws its arch from side 
 to side ; one stone has detached itself, perhaps thirty years 
 agoj a willow grows on it, it lies in the water, moss-covered, 
 like an emerald in the sun. I fall into a dream, the stone 
 changes to an island, the sprigs of moss are palm-trees ; I 
 land I am in the East ! . . . 
 
 Onward still. The ground is wilder, has fewer flowers. 
 Eeeds rattle ; the valley narrows, the swampy soil shakes 
 beneath one's feet. This portion of the forest, only half 
 cleared, still amazed at the broad daylight, exposes its 
 stumps to the sun. It is covered with tall, large-leaved 
 plants. The brook glides over a clay bottom, grows wider, 
 has no more sheltered creeks. A sudden turn, here is the 
 tilery seated in its solitude. 
 
 It consists of little more than a shed, beneath which dry 
 the tiles, a bit of a house opposite, under the same roof, 
 a low window, a door with a porch and in front a bare 
 garden, where grow some cabbage-stalks and some rows of 
 kidney beans. 
 
 Not a creature about, the children have run away at our 
 approach. No poultry ; the small farmers, to whom the 
 neighbouring fields belong, would not suffer them. No cow;
 
 62 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 there is no hay for one. In the stable there is a goat, for 
 which the boys go at nightfall to gather young shoots in 
 the wood ; there is an old horse, too, half blind, half lame, 
 who gets harnessed to the old cart, and carries the tiles to 
 the customers. 
 
 We will enter the kitchen ; the floor is earthen ; not 
 much to be seen in it, just enough to prove most decided 
 poverty. A few plates in the rack, a few iron spoons and 
 prongless forks, a dinged saucepan, on the hearth nothing 
 but a broken trivet. No flitches of bacon, no wreaths of 
 sausages hung in the chimney ; only a string of onions, 
 and on the table an earthen tureen, where smokes some 
 thin soup or other, and three pieces of black bread neatly 
 cut. Yet everything is clean : the rush broom has been all 
 round ; the bareness is orderly, is not pitiable. Where 
 destitution has got the upper hand, things are not so well 
 arranged. 
 
 At the sound we make, the bed-room door opens gently, 
 a man comes out a puny figure, timid-looking, with a 
 moist, kind eye, a rather slow, quiet manner, and a happy 
 expression. 
 
 "Well, James." 
 
 "I beg your pardon, ma'am. We sent for you. She 
 has been dreadfully ill ; just now things are better." 
 
 "And the child?" 
 
 " Oh ! " and James gave a simple kind of laugh ; " the 
 child ! It will be like the others." 
 
 At that moment three chubby faces, three curly heads, 
 little rogues half undressed, furtively advance to the outside 
 of the window, and look through at the tureen. 
 
 "Those?" James nods his head. "Very well, James, 
 eat your soup; I have something to do here; you will 
 come in by and by."
 
 THE TILERY. 63 
 
 James is not in the habit of disputing, he stands still a 
 moment, and beckons to the boys, who come in just as we 
 pass into the next room. It is the bed-room, there is no 
 other ; bare as the kitchen ; barer if possible ; only it is 
 very clean, very bright, and it has a boarded floor. Just 
 at this moment, however, the light is a little obscured. 
 James has hung up some old aprons in the windows. The 
 red-curtained bed leans up against the wall ; a walnut-wood 
 cupboard, the family wardrobe, stands opposite; by the 
 two windows are two chairs ; no table ; and that is all. 
 
 In the bed lie mother and child ; she, as robust as her 
 husband is weakly, with an eye as bright as his is subdued. 
 A strong nature, with a wild light in her glance, something 
 about her unusual, outlandish, like her house. 
 
 " This is how you behave, Jane 1 On the very point of 
 death without letting people know ! " 
 
 Jane lifted herself up with an abrupt gesture. 
 
 " It 's like that always, but this time I thought the end 
 was come." 
 
 Her voice was firm, her accent decided ; it was only the 
 trembling of her arm that betrayed her weakness. 
 
 "Why not get help?" 
 
 " Oh, if one got into the habit of it ! " 
 
 " You have suffered a great deal 1 " Jane looked at me, 
 the flash in her eye was her only answer. " And now ? " 
 
 " I shall get well." 
 
 This woman will not die ; each lying-in is torture, she 
 goes through it ; she measures herself with death, wrestles, 
 shakes off his clasp, and eight days after you see her driv- 
 ing the old horse, who draws the old cart with the tiles. 
 
 James moulds the clay, and bakes these tiles. Jane 
 takes them to the houses around ; he remains quietly at 
 home, she scours the valley ; but she is never long away.
 
 64 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 Jane is no talker, she walks on in silence by the side of 
 her cart, her eye always a little wild, then she returns to 
 her nest. When there are no orders, weeks pass away 
 without either of them being seen. 
 
 " You did not forget God, Jane ? " 
 
 No." 
 
 Why should I repeat what passed in confidence between 
 us? Jane's secrets, what she believes, what she hopes, 
 what her soul holds within itself, belongs to her only. 
 Besides, she says little. James came in ; his look, when 
 it rested on his wife, had a tenderness about it which 
 stirred my heart. She turned, and their eyes met. 
 
 " He is a good man," said she, and I saw a tear gather 
 under her eyelids. 
 
 " One does as well as one can," said James. 
 
 " You are lonely," I broke in, " so far from the village." 
 
 Both looked at me with an expression of astonishment. 
 
 " You are not dull ? " Jane laughed, her white teeth 
 lighting her face up. " If your pains were ever to get 
 worse 1 " 
 
 " One has the doctor," replied the husband ; it only takes 
 about two hours to go for him." 
 
 " And two more to bring him back, which makes four. 
 In that time Jane might sink." 
 
 " God will see to that," said Jane. 
 
 " And your children ? " 
 
 " Oh, no fear for them ! " 
 
 " Does not the day seem long to you ? " 
 
 " No," said they, both at once. Then James went on 
 
 " Look you, ma'am, we do very well. I have my tiles ; 
 she has her horse, her garden, and her spinning-wheel, and 
 then there are the children. When winter comes, one reads 
 a bit in the evenings ; one takes a spell in the Bible, and
 
 THE TILERY. 65 
 
 one goes to bed early. Then there is the wood ; in spring 
 there is plenty of singing there. People are no good to 
 us. They are such talkers in the villages, and so proud, 
 too. We are but poor, and they would look down upon us 
 belike. Though as for that, the year goes round, and we 
 get on very well somehow." 
 
 Jane said nothing, but in her black eye you saw a light 
 that was kindled by something more than her husband's 
 negative happiness. 
 
 For him, fireside peace, silence, one day like another, 
 with affection, sufficed. She loved too, somewhat indeed 
 after the fashion of a wild animal, but she did love. She 
 would not on any account have had a James of a different 
 stamp, less gentle, less careful, less quiet. And yet, for 
 her, this solitude included something over and above do- 
 mestic happiness. Whether she distinctly understood this 
 or not, I cannot say; but she felt it. 
 
 Here she breathed fresh free air, that wild poetry which 
 passes through the forests on the wings of the morning 
 wind ; here she lived far away from the prose of frequented 
 spots; the jokes, the grievances, the gossip of the village 
 never jarred her. When she walked along by the old cart, 
 and heard the grinding of its old wheels, there was an un- 
 conscious music within her heart that cheered her on. The 
 notes of birds singing in the woods, the sound of distant 
 bells, the merry voices of her children echoing softly from 
 afar ; the sweet scent of the meadows ; the keen breath of 
 dawn ; the warm breeze of evening ; the mountain, whe- 
 ther in gloom or radiance ; the changeless blue of the sky, 
 with its swift battalions of clouds ; all these went to 
 swell that music of which we speak. And at night when 
 she pressed her little nestlings close ; when the dead 
 branches flamed brightly on the hearth, lighting up the 
 

 
 66 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 face of James as lie looked at her with that innocent ex- 
 pression of his, Jane's heart glowed within her. Melted 
 into tenderness, proud, and passionately happy, she would 
 not have changed her lot with that of the Queen of Eng- 
 land, seated crown on head on a throne of gold.
 
 THE HEGELIAN, 
 
 jlNE night in the month of May, but not therefore 
 a beautiful night for it rained in torrents I 
 was travelling in a diligence. It was in the 
 year 1849, and there were then no railroads in Switzer- 
 land. The diligence, a great house on wheels, with its 
 two coupe's, an interior, a rotonde, cabriolet on the roof, 
 seats here, seats there, rolled along, collecting everything 
 and everybody, and, in its winding, river-like course, might 
 be said, in geographical phrase, to drain the country be- 
 tween Neufchatel and Bale, at which last place it arrived 
 on the second night. 
 
 It rained, I have said, in torrents. There was no place 
 in either of the coupes. The cabriolet was out of the 
 question. I had an aged relative with me, the Baroness Z., 
 whom I was accompanying into Germany. We squeezed 
 ourselves into the interior. 
 
 Nothing could be clearly seen. The rain was lashing 
 the glasses; the leathern roof leaked; we could hardly 
 distinguish our companions. I had upon my feet the 
 great feet of a great burgomaster of those parts, with pro- 
 tuberant stomach built up to threefold elevation, and 
 pendent chin of fit proportions hanging down to meet it. 
 He took all things calmly, and with deep bass voice 
 chuckled whenever a drop of rain from the leaking roof 
 fell upon him. By his side sat some description of Ameri- 
 can, not much the gentleman. From time to time he
 
 68 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 drew from his pocket a long bottle, (of gin, porter, brandy, 
 I know not some alcoholic liquor,) and applied it to his 
 lips; when he did not drink, he smoked. To the right 
 and left were peasants and citizens lost in the shade : 
 these came and went. The burgomaster was immovable ; 
 so, too, was the American. In one corner a man of lofty 
 stature, and young, so far as I could judge, sat silent. 
 
 Infernal machines were those old travelling arks, where 
 space and air were both denied to you ; where your elbows 
 were driven into your sides ; where your legs were wedged 
 fast amidst innumerable packages ; where to draw a pocket 
 handkerchief from your pocket was an affair tedious as 
 diplomacy, and a great deal more laborious ; where, during 
 twenty-four hours, you had the face of your opposite 
 neighbour, with its inevitably besotted, bewildered expres- 
 sion, jogging there ceaselessly before your eyes with the 
 same idiotic movement. Infernal machines ! for he must 
 be good indeed who does not begin to feel very wicked in 
 one of them. 
 
 The rain poured on incessantly. Impossible to open 
 anything. The moisture from within tarnished the glasses ; 
 the mud from without splashed them. There was a sick- 
 ening odour of stale wine, stale tobacco, old cheese, and 
 old crusts ; and there you sat amidst the snoring and the 
 swaying to and fro of heads with great open mouths, 
 which at some sharper jolt than usual, would suddenly 
 shut themselves up, and then it was the turn of the eyes to 
 open on you with their imbecile stare. We had neither 
 thunder nor lightning ; nothing but this incessant deluge. 
 Looking out, one could just distinguish the roofs of houses 
 dripping with rain, and the flooded road that spirted up 
 under our wheels, and the great pools of water formed in 
 the meadows. Thick clouds were drawn around us on
 
 THE HEGELIAN. 69 
 
 every side, which added to the oppression of our atmo- 
 sphere ; and yet the cold the cold of a sleepless night, the 
 cold of the drenched earth and the pouring skies, and a 
 carriage soaked with rain penetrated the very bones, and 
 made one shrink into one's-self. 
 
 The epoch we were in it was 1849 was as cheerless 
 as the scene which nature presented. 
 
 In France, Socialism was rising into power ; in Germany, 
 whither we were travelling, revolutions had taken place, or 
 were hourly expected. My aged companion and relative 
 was in great fear. I endeavoured to reassure her ; but 
 to me also everything looked black as night. I saw, 
 through those gloomy showers, nothing but rising scaffolds ; 
 revolutionary scaffolds stood out upon my horizon in every 
 direction. 
 
 At length the morning came not with her scarf of 
 gold, nor with roseate fingers ; came in very simple robes 
 gray upon darker gray. 
 
 Pale as it was, the day had dawned. And see the 
 power of light ! In a moment the whole world changed 
 its aspect. Order was triumphant everywhere, and, after 
 all, a little conflict did no ill. And then it was the month 
 of May, and this shower was falling upon the roofs of plea- 
 sant cottages thatched roofs, where wild flowers grow, 
 and which project kindly over the wall, securing a sheltered 
 space round the house. The velvet moss, which had taken 
 a new lustre from the rain, enlivened even the dripping 
 thatch ; the cottage windows, with their little round panes 
 of glass imbedded in the leadwork, glistened out on us. 
 These windows almost touched each other, and opened 
 upon the well-stacked pile of logs. Moving in and out of 
 the oval porch of carved wood, you saw the mistress and 
 manager of all, her head covered with a scarlet handker-
 
 70 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 chief. The ducks and the geese quack around her with 
 ceaseless movement of their tails. Further on, one sees 
 the peasant himself, yawning and stretching himself before 
 the barn-door. Even our enemy, the rain, seems to re- 
 bound gaily, and to dance upon the clean flag-stones which 
 surround these pleasant homesteads. In the garden it 
 falls on great globes of apple-blossoms and the gay cones of 
 the lilac, and impresses on them an undulating and grace- 
 ful movement. The tulips, proud as sultanas, quite uncon- 
 cernedly let it glide down their gorgeous array ; other 
 flowers, with their petals thrown back, laugh as they shake 
 off the petulant shower; the stocks and the wallflower 
 embalm the air at every gust of wind. 
 
 Under the roofs the swallows sit motionless, with neck 
 outstretched, upon their nests; or sometimes hazard a 
 rapid zig-zag flight, skimming the soil, and, returning, 
 perch upon their nests, and there, with tail close pressed 
 against the wall, chat with their little ones, or fill their 
 open beaks. The sparrows more audacious, great thieves 
 and great brawlers, red republicans underneath their brown 
 feathers laugh at all these cataracts of rain. They, perched 
 upon the tiles they choose always the best houses let 
 the rain rain, and wrangle on : with strong beak and 
 raised head, eating of everything, and eating always, and 
 stunning the neighbourhood with their cries. 
 
 And yonder the pigeons coo. They put out their slender 
 heads from the holes of the dovecot ; then, with great noise 
 of wing, they pounce down on some clean space in the 
 court below, where, promenading with their little, timid, 
 rapid steps, they peck here and there at some grains 
 escaped from the sheaf, their necks changing like the opal 
 as they move, and in a moment, scared at nothing, take 
 flight again in a body.
 
 THE HEGELIAN. 71 
 
 But more than all, the orchards shine out as we pass 
 them, in spite of the pale day, and the dissolving clouds, 
 and the moistened earth. Through it all the apple-trees 
 and the pear-trees, in the magnificence of their blossom, 
 shed a ray as of victory. The mind, at mere sight of them, 
 fills with hope. Revolutions ! with those globes of roseate 
 blossoms ? Scaffolds ! in a land where men can wander 
 under such coverts, amidst such splendour of the spring ? 
 
 I know not why, unless it was to catch some sympathy 
 for my own thoughts, that my glance now turned from the 
 orchard to the interior of the diligence, which still went 
 lumbering on. It did not penetrate to the American, for 
 he was walled up in his cloud of smoke ; it glided past the 
 burgomaster, stolid and imperturbable, and passing over 
 sundry sleeping heads, rested in the corner on the youthful 
 figure that I had hitherto rather divined than seen. 
 
 All night that figure had remained there enveloped in 
 shade. It had not slept. From hour to hour a clear voice, 
 resonant and firm, had been raised to ask of some one on 
 the roof, or in the rotonde, or elsewhere, if all went well 
 with them. The voice had been answered in the frank tone 
 of the good comrade, yet with something too of respect. 
 Strange ! that figure, motionless and pensive, and which 
 was not regarding me, destroyed in an instant the peaceful 
 train of ideas I brought to it for sympathy ! 
 
 He was a young man, hardly thirty ; the forehead high, 
 the face pale, the eyes very large, blue, and soft ; he had 
 an air of thought, of candour, of determination, as if pos- 
 sessed by some fixed resolution. His mouth had a smile 
 upon it ; a tawny beard descended in undulating lines to 
 his chest. His stature was tall, his carriage lofty ; he had 
 the air of command. There were no pistols, no poignard ; 
 and yet I said to myself, with the invincible assurance of
 
 72 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 a sudden presentiment, ' This man is some captain, going 
 to stir up battle on the other side of the Rhine.' 
 
 Such, in fact, he was. 
 
 What brought us into communication ? What broke 
 the silence between us ? A nothing, a jolt of the diligence, 
 the fatigue of my infirm relative, my anxious expression. 
 He had the corner, which was the best place ; he rose, and 
 with a frank smile, and a thousand charming attentions, 
 installed the baroness in it, put his cloak under and round 
 her feet. We talked. The burgomaster, the American, 
 and all the rest still slept on. Of what did we talk 1 Of 
 the rain, of the spring-time, of the uncertainties of fate, of 
 the revolutions everywhere breaking out. Here his eyes 
 flashed. 
 
 " I am going there I" he said, throwing back his head, 
 not with-the air of a boaster, but of one rejoicing in some 
 happy enthusiasm. " I am going there ; into my own Ger- 
 many ! I re-enter my own country, and liberty re-enters 
 with me." 
 
 " Are you sure to conquer ?" 
 
 " I am sure to combat." 
 
 " The army of the State is numerous." 
 
 " Ours is more so ; it is the nation." 
 
 " You do not hesitate to embroil your own country ?" 
 
 " It must be !" For a moment he knit his brows, and 
 seemed lost in thought ; then, raising his head, he con- 
 tinued : " Every one must have his fair place under the 
 sun or under the rain," he added, glancing with a smile 
 at the window. " In fact, there must be bread for all, joy 
 for all, leisure for all There must be no disinherited 
 children on the face of the earth ; no longer must this 
 man be corrupted by superfluous wealth, while this other 
 is starving. Harvests ripen for all. The house of stone,
 
 THE HEGELIAN. 73 
 
 good furniture, the easy and calm life, should be for 
 all" 
 
 At this moment he encountered the frightened expres- 
 sion of the baroness. 
 
 " I am not a Red, nor a confiscator of other men's goods, 
 though appearance, it seems, is against me. I am higher. 
 I wish nothing but justice, nothing but what God wills. 
 I wish equality." 
 
 " Equality I" I exclaimed. " Since the days of Eden, it 
 has not been known upon the earth. The day after you 
 had made division of the spoil" 
 
 "I divide no spoil; I want to prepare the earth; I 
 want to remove all obstacles to progress ; I want to open 
 a great career to humanity, to that young humanity which 
 aspires. It claims its share of happiness, its right to re- 
 joice, and it shall have it." 
 
 " I fear that to the end of time there will be strong and 
 feeble, the ugly and the beautiful, men honest and men 
 vicious. What becomes of your equality ?" 
 
 The Captain shook his head. 
 
 " These are old ideas," he said ; " the rags left us by the 
 middle ages. The world advances to a social revolution ; 
 it will leave its winter skin on the bushes of the month of 
 May." 
 
 " But those others the obstructives as you call them 
 will defend their old customs." 
 
 " I know it well." 
 
 " And then V 
 
 " And then we kilt them." 
 
 This was said with a voice sad but inexorable. 
 
 " If they would trust themselves to us," he continued, 
 " they should wither out in peace. This they will not, and 
 they cannot do."
 
 74 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 I contemplated with terror this melancholy smile, this 
 sincere look, this insane goodness and candour, deluded by 
 some horrible Utopia, decorated with flowers, and dripping 
 with blood. An instant after, he resumed with a voice 
 that slightly trembled, but which vibrated with an absolute 
 confidence in himself 
 
 " Whatever is born, must die. This is an eternal law. 
 No level was ever made, that did not destroy flowers as 
 well as weeds. Our social revolution will issue from the 
 tomb. To arrive at universal harmony, we must stifle the 
 discordant sounds." 
 
 " They will return from every side." 
 
 " No !" 
 
 This no was said simply with an overwhelming assurance. 
 
 " But," I replied, " these discordant notes, they are living 
 men." 
 
 The Captain reflected ; then, in a low voice, said 
 
 " Yes, one hundred thousand heads." 
 
 " A hundred thousand heads rolling from the scaffold, 
 and millions of women in despair, children and mothers." 
 
 " This morning were there no women in despair ? no 
 infants who wept on the earth ? no fathers, or mothers, or 
 poor people who died 1" 
 
 " Some yes here and there." 
 
 " Everywhere ! on all sides of this desolated world, at 
 every second there rises a cry of agony." 
 
 " It is a world accursed, which we men have ruined, have 
 lost." 
 
 " That I do not believe." 
 
 " What ! you do not believe yourself a sinner ?" 
 
 " JSTo !" This other no was pronounced with the same 
 absolute certainty. A moment after he added, with a 
 softer expression
 
 THE HEGELIAN. 75 
 
 " I trouble, I alarm you. But see you not that death 
 mows down generation after generation a little sooner, a 
 little later, what matters it? We all fall at our given 
 hour; all as the ploughshare lays us in the furrow. A 
 single war, the wars of your Emperor, have killed hundreds 
 of thousands of men." 
 
 " I detest war." 
 
 " The cholera which has just broken out in London, in 
 Paris, will cut down thirty thousand men in a day." 
 
 " That is God's doing." 
 
 " Well V 
 
 " You are not God." 
 
 The Hegelian regarded me with his bland, inexorable 
 look. 
 
 " I am God," he said. 
 
 I shuddered. 
 
 " I am God ! My thought is a ray of the Divine 
 Thought, my will is a part of the Supreme Will ; the 
 Great Heart which beats there above beats in me, in you, 
 in all" 
 
 A burlesque idea will sometimes traverse the mind in its 
 most serious moods. I could not help looking opposite 
 with a smile at the burgomaster ; the Captain followed my 
 glance; he shrugged his shoulders, but continued with 
 imperturbable calm 
 
 " Yes, he also, as well as others only somewhat more 
 enveloped. We are all waves of the one ocean, from which 
 we emerge, into which we sink. God ! God is the world ! 
 God vibrates in every plant, in every insect, in the sun 
 above us, in these drops of rain about us." 
 
 Then, returning to his own defence, he said 
 
 " I have a right to do what I do. I shall die that is 
 very possible ; others will die that is certain. Humanity
 
 76 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 advances perhaps through destruction. Did not the Israel- 
 ites traverse the Red Sea ? A reviving humanity will 
 flourish on a youthful earth, and the golden age will re- 
 descend from heaven." 
 
 I, feeling all speech powerless to cope with so great a 
 folly, did what the fashionable world will think very ridicu- 
 lous, puritanical in short. I took out my New Testament, 
 and gave it him. The Captain extended his hand, received 
 it, looked at it, and as he put it into his bosom, he said, 
 with a serene and radiant expression the expression of 
 one of the illuminati 
 
 " I know it well your Bible." 
 
 " If you know it, you have seen there the true law of 
 universal love 1 " 
 
 Without answering me, he pursued his own thought. 
 
 " I have more than once studied its pages ; I have pene- 
 trated its deeper and concealed meaning. It has an appa- 
 rent, and it has a mysterious signification." 
 
 " It should be read with an honest, simple spirit. It 
 was written for simple men." 
 
 A light flashed into his eyes. " You have the letter," 
 he said ; " we have the spirit." 
 
 After this we fell into a profound silence. 
 
 Miserable world, thought I, if ever God delivers it to 
 such fallen angels as these ! 
 
 The Captain broke the silence, and with a tone of kind- 
 ness, in which, however, one traced the habitual exercise of 
 authority, he said 
 
 " We are approaching Bale. Permit me to make a pro- 
 position. Madame is timid, and you will find Germany in 
 flames. Let me accompany you. With me you will pass 
 everywhere. I will leave you on the frontiers of Prussia ; 
 it will be for me only the delay of two days."
 
 THE HEGELIAN. 77 
 
 He made the proposition in simple good faith. Such 
 self-negation, such complete candour and sincerity beamed 
 in his countenance, that I could not but feel touched at 
 his offer. Should I have done as much I, the wiser one, 
 who looked down on him in pity 1 
 
 I refused it nevertheless. He insisted just as far as 
 good breeding permitted. Then gathering together his 
 cloak and some baggage, he called to the postilion. The 
 diligence stopped, he descended, his companions grouped 
 themselves around him ; with a rapid movement, full of 
 energy, and a sort of poetic fervour, he waved his adieu to 
 us, cast one look up into the skies, then struck off across 
 the plain to gain the Ehine. 
 
 I was bewildered. This candour of a child, with this 
 delirium of pride, this kind soul with this inexorable hard- 
 ness ! God at once adored and denied ! What an abyss ! 
 
 Terrible creatures these ideologists ! 
 
 To spare some trouble to an aged woman, this man 
 would willingly have traversed two hundred leagues, and 
 this same man, coldly, with that beautiful smile upon his 
 lips, would send a hundred of his fellow-creatures to the 
 scaffold. Just now, to save us from some anxiety, he 
 would have risked for himself the danger of delay ; and 
 if, four days hence, we should be brought before him as 
 obstructives to human progress, he would order our decapi- 
 tation without the least remorse. He would not even find 
 it necessary to harden his heart against us. No. From 
 the depths of his Absolute, from the centre of his Eternity, 
 he is indifferent to the tears of the day, and the death of a 
 transitory generation. Proud fatalist, with a calm, un- 
 trembling hand, he would baptize the earth with blood, 
 contemplating the gay futurity that is to advance crowned 
 with roses.
 
 78 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 Truth ! Truth ! thou indeed art worth all we suffer for 
 thee. Truth, thou savest us from madness ; without thee 
 we should be tossed like a dismasted vessel on the billows 
 of our own thoughts. Through the bright heavens, and 
 through the abysses of the night, I have sought for thee ; 
 I have found thee ; thou wert not far from me ; truth of 
 the gospel, I clasp thee to my heart ! 
 
 Whilst I, with my thoughts and my prayers, followed 
 the Captain, the diligence entered with great clatter into 
 the old town of Bale. 
 
 This time we saw none of its curiosities. We left the 
 Palace of Justice, and its red sculptures, in peace, and the 
 stork with her traditional nest on the roof of the church. 
 
 The hotel of The Three Kings was full of families from 
 Baden, taking shelter from the political storm. We con- 
 sulted our host in some alarm. " Oh, it is nothing at all !" 
 said our contented Boniface. " There are no refolutions," 
 he assured us in his Swiss accent " The Governments are 
 in flight -foild, tout ! But order is not disturbed." 
 
 " But the King of Bavaria ?" 
 
 "Fled ils'est saufe!" 
 
 "And the Grand-Duke of Baden ?" 
 
 " Saufe il s'est saufe !" 
 
 "And the King of Prussia?" 
 
 "!Q n'est pas encore saufe Ah, bah ! it is nothing !" 
 
 All this he said with the most paternal air in the world, 
 which made us smile, if it did not completely reassure us. 
 
 However, we resolve to continue our journey. We had 
 cogent reasons for so doing. On the morrow we set forth 
 again. 
 
 There was revolution apparent everywhere. The train 
 which took us, brought to the German frontier some body 
 of volunteers, with the scarlet plume in their hats. They
 
 THE HEGELIAN. 79 
 
 were exiles returning to their country, young men, ardent, 
 inflamed, shouting hurrahs of victory. 
 
 In the boat that carried us down the Khine nobody at 
 alL Not a single passenger. Yes, there were two Jews, 
 whom business could induce to run whatever risk there 
 was. They took possession of the vacant saloon, and as it 
 happened to be their Sabbath-day, they recited their prayers 
 the prayer especially called the Assault with linen bands 
 rolled round the arm, and a veil thrown over the head, and 
 with alternate rhythmical sentences, like a piece of counter- 
 point. 
 
 As we approached the insurgent towns, loud cries were 
 heard, and the report of fire-arms, explosions of triumph 
 which were either to welcome or defy us. At Mannheim, 
 a drunken soldier, the republican cockade in his shako, 
 came, escorted by a band armed with scythes, to deliver 
 to us, on the landing-place, a discourse on the rights of 
 humanity ; uproarious clamours from the quay supported 
 him. 
 
 In Prussia nothing stirred. It was a calm too completb 
 not to be factitious ; a calm under which one felt as it were 
 the ebullition of the rising storm. 
 
 The only external symptom we met with of social dis- 
 order, promenaded itself in the little town we inhabited, 
 under the form of Burschen, displaying a wondrous quan- 
 tity of hair, more than the sacred race of long-haired 
 kings ever boasted. They passed and re-passed under our 
 windows, arm in arm, clothed in short frock-coats of apple 
 green, of celestial blue, the boldest of them having the red 
 cap on their heads. The triangle, emblem of equality, the 
 level or the axe, a sort of jewellery in fine steel, glittered 
 on the front of it ; some even displayed a miniature guillo- 
 tine. Under the cap escaped silken fleece for hair, light or
 
 80 TEE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 dark or tawny ; and they sang to the cadenced step, with 
 flashing eyes, and defiant countenance. 
 
 This exhibition did not last long. Three or four regi- 
 ments took up their quarters in the little town, then some 
 squadrons of cavalry, then some artillery, then some 
 dragoons, till a corps-cCarmee had formed itself. Farewell 
 to our students, farewell to our fantastic perukes, all has 
 disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. 
 
 I shall never forget those beautiful evenings melan- 
 choly nevertheless, for civil war muttered on the horizon 
 when, under the acacias in blossom, we listened to the 
 military music, that admirable metallic music, so correct, 
 so disciplined, under which throbs a spirit all the more 
 ardent, because it is well restrained. I shall never forget 
 that overture to Tannhauser, which was to me the revela- 
 tion of a new world of harmony, with its introduction, re- 
 minding me of the gigantic architecture of Egypt, and 
 those ironical phrases insinuating themselves into the 
 melody like an infernal laugh ; while the whole rose, likfe 
 a rising tide, in one swelling chant of all mingled emotions, 
 sadness and agony, and heroism and worship. 
 
 At these times, I know not why, the memory of my 
 Hegelian captain returned to me. Before these troops 
 which were about to enter Bavaria and besiege Radstadt, I 
 could only feel compassion for him. 
 
 Sometimes this metallic orchestra gave out a patriotic 
 song, then, suddenly pausing, the sonorous voices of the 
 soldiers took up the melody, repeating the refrain ; and 
 there was, in the contrast between the metallic sound of 
 the band and the flexible sweetness of the human voice, 
 something unusual, something unexpected, that touched 
 the heart, like the contrasts one meets with in the moral 
 world.
 
 THE HEGELIAN. 81 
 
 One fair morning all this military array departed. The 
 sun rose, and there was nothing but the scattered hay 
 in the market-place. Our birds sang with the greater 
 courage, the thrush in the meadows, the nightingale in 
 the grove. 
 
 Some way out of the town the several regiments halted 
 to receive the Prince of Prussia, who commanded the exp? 
 dition. They halted at a spot I knew well, under the 
 cherry-trees, and where the grass had been lately mown. 
 How they laughed, how joyous they were, as on some green 
 and shady slope they threw their knapsack on the ground, 
 and the shako from their head ! All on a sudden an elec- 
 tric shock ran through the ranks : " To your arms ! the 
 Prince ! the Prince !" 
 
 In an instant all were on their feet. The Prince of 
 Prussia galloped along the battalions, sword drawn, with 
 lofty mien. Stopping before each regiment, he pronounced 
 some words with rapid utterance : Hilf Gott Gott mit 
 uns ! Salvos of cannon and musketry responded. 
 
 He placed himself at their head, with his staff and his 
 group of young aides-de-camp : Vorwdrts ! and the army 
 put itself in motion, the several corps one after the other ; 
 the artillery, with its cannon, making the earth tremble ; 
 the hussars, clad in their sombre colours ; the lancers, with 
 their crimson pennons ; the dragoons, with their golden 
 helmets ; the solid infantry, advancing with well-timed 
 step. As each corps moved on, it raised its song of war. 
 
 It was a grand, a royal spectacle ; one of those pictures 
 which twenty years of tears and joys cannot efface from 
 the memory. The fresh and fragrant breeze played over 
 the landscape, and unrolled the military standards ; never 
 was a sky more radiant, never was an army more elated : 
 all care seemed swept from their brow. Nevertheless, to 
 
 F
 
 82 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 me the glorious spectacle brought with it one thought of 
 mortal sadness : it was no foreign invader that these troops 
 marched to encounter, but children of the same soil, speak- 
 ing the same language, Germans like themselves. 
 
 This is what I could not make an old general, a friend 
 of ours, comprehend, who had been left behind to guard 
 the position. 
 
 Ten days had not passed before there arrived amongst 
 us messengers swelling with their great tidings : the Duchy 
 of Baden had submitted, Bavaria had been reconquered, 
 governments, kings, grand dukes, all had been restored. 
 
 Radstadt held out a little longer. Then commenced 
 reprisals which were severe, and martial law, terribly expe- 
 ditious. 
 
 " Fisullies ! " cried the general, who had long ago ceased 
 his attempts to bring into order the rebellious vowels of 
 the French alphabet. " Fisullies the chiefs ! Fisullies the 
 soldiers ! Fisullies the blockheads who let them do it." If 
 I named this one or that one, the general answered by an 
 expressive gesture, took aim with his walking stick, pulled 
 an imaginary trigger, and uttered with a laugh his absurd 
 fisullie I 
 
 This is all I have been ever able to learn of the Hegelian.
 
 THE SPRINGS, 
 
 j]HIS is the name given to a small enclosure of 
 the mountain, situated about a third of the way 
 up. The firs, which grow very high, and are 
 very thick there, suddenly open out, and leave a free 
 space ; an orchard, planted with apple, pear, and half- wild 
 plum-trees, with a strip or two of field full of potatoes and 
 lucerne. These rise steeply to the forest. Beyond, on the 
 very edge of the wood, stands a rustic dwelling, with a 
 fountain before it ! Four springs incessantly flowing into 
 an old wooden trough, carved long ago, and embroidered 
 with mosses, some velvet-like in texture, adhering to the 
 bark which still covers the trough ; others floating in long 
 green filaments that for ever wave in the water as it escapes. 
 The situation is solitary. The inhabitants seldom go down 
 to the plain ; this enclosure affords them occupation enough, 
 and the people from the plain still more seldom come up 
 to the Springs. It is not a chdlet; there is only one 
 cow, not any butter to sell, nor provisions to take to the 
 fruiterers. 
 
 On Sunday, the mother or the daughters, the son or 
 the father, make themselves smart, and go by turns to a 
 preaching about three miles off. 
 
 In summer, some child, gathering raspberries amidst 
 the labyrinth of brushwood, branches of broken fir-trees, 
 fallen trunks, and brambles spreading in all directions, 
 comes sometimes with its basket to drink at the Springs,
 
 84: THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 and to sit in the deep shade that, at five o'clock in the 
 evening, the pines cast over the fields. 
 
 There is a moment of positive transfiguration for this 
 small domain. This is in the month of May, when the 
 orchard, enclosed by its dark frame, blossoms like a bridal 
 nosegay. Will it be believed, this spotless white rather 
 saddens me 1 I prefer the enclosure in the midst of sum- 
 mer, when each separate vegetation colours the ground with 
 its own particular tint ; or still more, in autumn, when the 
 wild pears grow golden, the crab-apples crimson, and the 
 crops are heaped up under the granary pent -house. At 
 such times, a smoke may be seen rising from a sheltered 
 spot near the house ; a bright fire is burning under a shed 
 hung round with trusses of hemp. There sit mother and 
 daughter, noisily beating out the sheaves. This sound is 
 almost the only one you hear ; the folks at the Springs are 
 not great talkers, nor great singers either. 
 
 During the dull November mornings, when it is very 
 cold on the top of the mountain, and the ground is strewn 
 with wild fruit not worth the gathering, the enclosure 
 sometimes receives a visit from a stranger the bear the 
 great brown bear the harmless bear of our Jura, strays 
 down in the fog, and before the inhabitants have opened 
 their door, comes and stuffs himself with crab-apples. He 
 would willingly enjoy a little honey too, but the row of 
 hives leans up against the house ; and besides, they are 
 but poor ones ; the young July swarms, which would die 
 in the .plains for want of flowers, being sent here, where 
 they can still get at some late clover ; to be taken back in 
 September, only two being left, closed up during the winter 
 with little fir-branches. 
 
 When Master Bear has feasted sufficiently, he trots off 
 again into the wood. Never has he allowed himself the
 
 THE SPRINGS. 85 
 
 least impropriety, such as carrying away the goat, the 
 heifer, or some stray child. He is indeed a most saintly 
 character this bear : he lives upon little ; abstains from 
 flesh ; the most he permits himself is to crop the young 
 barley in June, when about the length of his tongue. 
 The people at the Springs once saw him ; if not the 
 father, the grandfather did; at all events, they firmly 
 believe in him, and on December nights, when the south 
 wind howls in gusts through the forest, bending the firs, 
 and making them groan again, the frightened children 
 think they hear Bruin growling in distress in the depths 
 of the wood. 
 
 In winter all is white, the branches bend under the 
 snow ; great drifts block up the path, and flakes fall 
 silently; you only hear the crystalline voice of the 
 Springs ; the flail of the father busy in the barn with his 
 son ; and in the house, the little monotonous murmur of 
 the spinning-wheels. But when one of those fine January 
 days comes, when the sky is blue throughout, and the sun 
 marches on royally crowned with beams, and not a breath 
 is stirring, there is in this sparkling enclosure, in these 
 firs rearing their jagged pyramids each spike of which is 
 turned to a diamond, in these rocks that look through 
 them, in the pure atmosphere and the great calm, there is 
 something at once very striking, solemn, and splendid. 
 
 In May, the firs are in flower ; the orchard has not yet 
 opened out its blossoms, which at present show in abund- 
 ance, as little red balls at the edge of the dark-green of 
 the wood. You would say that summer in her haste had 
 overturned a basket of cherries there. 
 
 When I went up thither, however, it was neither the 
 season of snow nor of fruit, it was on. a beautiful Easter 
 Sunday.
 
 86 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 " The girl at the Springs wants you," one of the women 
 in the village had said to me ; " you '11 just have to go at 
 once there." 
 
 " What does she want 1" 
 
 " Who can say 1 She has been too much at her books." 
 
 I smiled, and took the way through the meadows. 
 There were no leaves on the trees, none on the bushes, 
 and yet it was the flowery Easter tide. 
 
 The black thorn projected its stiff boughs, covered with 
 white buds and open blossoms, proclaiming the spring 
 from every hedge. Tufts of violets spotted the brown 
 grass of winter with their blue ; green blades piercing 
 through it too here and there. The air was filled with a 
 thousand discreet murmurs from insects returning to life, 
 newly-wakened flies flew hither and thither, long black 
 lines of ants crossed the pathway. You could see the sap 
 rising in the still leafless branches, some were scarlet, some 
 darker red, some yellow as rods of gold. 
 
 The country was bare. A pretty keen north wind 
 careered over its hollows, the trees had no young twigs, 
 no nests, no secrets, the glance that wandered to the dis- 
 tance came back disappointed, and yet April reigned. At 
 its bidding, spring scents rose from the earth. The tiny 
 guitars, the unpretending Jews'-harps of instrumentalists, 
 concealed in cups of flowers, celebrated the return of the 
 leafy season. April laughed in the air; you felt that 
 warm showers were on the way, leaf -bringing showers which 
 would cover the hedges with a green mantle. The earth 
 had not yet donned her variegated garments, but she had 
 unstiffened ; she was getting warm. 
 
 When I drew near the mountain, and plunged into the 
 forest, the face of things changed. The pines, always green, 
 wrapped me in their shade. Underneath them there is
 
 THE SPRINGS. 87 
 
 neither spring nor summer ; you only feel the influence of 
 their unchangeableness ; always a soft arborescent moss 
 covering the shady spots with a carpet that absorbs the 
 light; always the smooth ground spreading away under 
 the colonnade of trees ; always an equably lighted atmo- 
 sphere ; always this profound .peace ; always this air play- 
 ing freshly round the smooth, straight trunks that rise in 
 the immense forest nave. 
 
 As I ascended, as the plain sunk, my eye travelled to 
 greater and greater depths. Through openings in the trees 
 I could see very far below me in the distance, the old 
 town with its old Burgundian towers ; further still, at the 
 extreme horizon, the white Alps ranging themselves tier 
 above tier, with the giant Mont Blanc calmly throned upon 
 their heads. 
 
 The wood was impregnated with a freshness unknown 
 to the plain ; one inhaled there a keen aromatic air, which 
 would have felt almost raw, had it not been tempered by 
 some sunbeams falling on all open places, lighting up the 
 raspberry bushes and brambles that grew there. 
 
 As I went along, I thought of the family at the Springs. 
 Worthy people, though rather odd. Father, mother, sons, 
 all hard workers, not mixing much with their neighbours, 
 taciturn, dull-eyed, and absent ; very intelligent as to what 
 concerned their own affairs; but half afraid of their neigh- 
 bours, and keeping them at a distance. 
 
 Margaret, the eldest daughter, had done the same till 
 the age of twenty. Then she suddenly took to leaving her 
 solitude ; every Sunday she went down through the wood, 
 accompanied the other young people to the villages round, 
 and came back late. 
 
 Her father and mother did not object to this ; on the 
 contrary, solitary themselves in their ways, they were glad
 
 88 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 to push their children a little into the world. The sons 
 did not venture out ; they were awkward, and they knew 
 it, were not up, as they said, to talking to the girls. But 
 Margaret, with only her twenty summers over her head, 
 her tall figure, and her lofty air, was not so easily abashed. 
 
 All at once, without any apparent reason, she left off 
 going out. Her mother wished to talk to her about the 
 dances down in the valley ; she only wept. Her father 
 tried might and main to send her off there again ; she 
 locked herself up in her attic. 
 
 One evening that her young companions came to look 
 for her, she went so high up into the wood, she knew all 
 its hiding-places so well, that not a youth among them, 
 looking ever so cleverly, was able to find her out. That 
 night, at eleven o'clock, she returned home. 
 
 Gradually she grew sadder and sadder, and shut herself 
 up more. She would sit spinning at the window without 
 even looking out : spring came, she went on spinning ; she 
 no longer worked in the garden, she who used to be so 
 fond of it. But she read a great deal, especially in the 
 large Bible. 
 
 "That's what has done it !" said her father, and he took 
 her books away. Margaret said nothing ; for a moment 
 her spirits seemed to return, but it was a mere flash. She 
 got gloomier than ever, spun more diligently, then left off 
 spinning altogether, or very nearly so ; sat pensive in the 
 corner of the window; refused to eat, and took to her 
 bed. 
 
 Twelve was striking when I got to the Springs. A few 
 bees humming round the hives, which stood on a plank 
 before the window, were trying their wings in an April 
 sunbeam. The water gushed and danced with a fresh 
 warbling sound. In the stable, the prolonged lowing of
 
 THE SPRINGS. 89 
 
 the cow was heard, she was conscious that, out of door, the 
 grass was growing green. A handsome black tom-cat, with 
 gentle, limped eyes, had settled himself on the threshold of 
 the barn, enjoying the sun in supreme idleness. A pleasant 
 smell of good rustic soup spread all round the farmhouse. 
 Everywhere reigned perfect order and deep silence, suggest- 
 ing thoughts of a simple life, which opened out upon the 
 soul like sudden peeps into an unknown land, very beautiful 
 and very good, that we have been skirting unconsciously. 
 
 The noise made by my entrance brought the mother out 
 of the adjoining room ; she looked at me without saying a 
 word, half surprised, half pleased, but surprise prevailed, 
 and she remained motionless and embarrassed. We ex- 
 changed preliminary civilities. 
 
 " Your daughter is ill ?" 
 
 The mother's face fell. " She has been too much at her 
 books." 
 
 "She sent for me?" 
 
 Without further answer, the mother stood on one side to 
 let me enter, and then followed me in. 
 
 The room was low but cheerful, and wainscoated with 
 deal There were two spinning-wheels in the two windows, 
 a table, walnut-wood chairs well polished, a clock in a 
 wooden case, with a glazed opening, through which one saw 
 the oscillations of the pendulum. In the corner stood a 
 curtainless bed ; on that bed lay Margaret. 
 
 " I brought her down here," the mother said to me ; 
 " up-stairs she would be too lonely." 
 
 You heard nothing but the monotonous sound of the 
 pendulum, and a sort of cracking noise before the stroke, 
 each time the needle, reached the quarters* 
 
 Margaret was dressed in a brown woollen petticoat, the 
 wool of their own sheep, and homespun. A blue handker-
 
 90 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 chief, with white bunches of flowers, was crossed over her 
 breast. The only unusual thing was, that instead of wear- 
 ing a black cap trimmed with lace, her hair floated at 
 random round her face. And then the apron was wanting 
 a decided sign of moral perturbation ; and her shoes too, 
 strong leather shoes, strongly soled, which I saw standing, 
 against the wall. 
 
 Margaret was lying on her back, pale, her marked- fea- 
 tures standing out from the wainscot, her eyes fixed on the 
 ceiling, her hands clenched. There was about this calm 
 of hers a certain character of determination, defiance, I 
 might almost say, despair. 
 
 I drew near. 
 
 "You are ill, Margaret?" 
 
 Margaret did not answer. 
 
 " She has not eaten anything for the last three days," 
 broke in the mother. " We could hardly get her to take a 
 drop of cold water to wet her lips and her forehead." 
 
 I remarked a sort of dampness on the young girl's fore- 
 head, and saw that the hair on her temples was wet. I 
 tried to take her hand, but her fingers contracted. 
 
 "You are dressed; you have been up a little, then, 
 Margaret ?" 
 
 Not a word. 
 
 " It is in your mind you are suffering, Margaret ?" 
 
 She turned her large eyes, the rest of her face remaining 
 -igid, and fixed them on me. 
 
 " You wished to see me V 
 
 With a sudden energetic motion she rose, threw her feet 
 out of the bed, and sat on the edge of it. 
 
 " You had something to say to me ?" 
 
 Margaret looked full at me. "I am lost !" she said, in 
 a firm, rather choked voice, but without any violent out-
 
 THE SPRINGS. 91 
 
 burst. She had measured her strength against this thought ; 
 she had lived in the contemplation of it. It was one of 
 which she knew the length and breadth and height. 
 
 A strange feeling came over me, almost of joy. This 
 young girl occupied with the care of her soul at an age 
 when, bewildered with pleasure, few inquire whether in- 
 deed they have one or not ; this young girl seemed to me 
 rather saved than lost ; consequently in a voice vibrating 
 with cheerful hope 
 
 " You think yourself lost ?" I replied. " It is a good 
 sign, Margaret. You will not remain where you are ; you 
 will seek, you will find" 
 
 She shook her head ; then in a monotonous tone, as if 
 speaking to herself, her eyes fixed on I know not what 
 vague something where nothing was, 
 
 " It is all over !" she said. " I went back to the world ; 
 I did so though I was well warned j I did so in spite of 
 God ; / have committed the unpardonable sin ; there is no 
 more forgiveness !" 
 
 " What are you saying, Margaret 1 Are you to limit the 
 powers of God ! What creature dares to utter such impious 
 words as these, no more forgiveness !" 
 
 "Another sin ! another sin !" cried the young girl, clasp- 
 ing her hands above her head. 
 
 I went on to say, very calmly indeed, " No doubt another 
 sin ; and as long as we speak we shall go on sinning." 
 
 She remained in the same desolate attitude. I gently 
 unclasped her hands, and succeeded in taking one which 
 she left in my grasp. 
 
 " Margaret, do you not know that God loves you?" 
 
 " He used to love me ; I turned my back upon Him." 
 
 " You believe in Him 1" 
 
 " As the devils do."
 
 92 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 " You are sorry to have offended Him ?" 
 
 She did not answer, but tore away her hand and rung it. 
 
 "Do the devils mourn their sins, Margaret?" 
 
 "Yesterday!" cried the young girl, following her own 
 train of thought without being arrested by mine ; " yes- 
 terday, I might have been forgiven." 
 
 She rose distractedly, her head thrown back, and began 
 to walk up and down the room with tottering steps, I fol- 
 lowing her. She continued saying in the same monotonous 
 voice, broken every now and then by a wild cry 
 
 " Yesterday, I might have been saved. I did not 
 choose." 
 
 "Do you choose now, Margaret 1 ?" 
 
 " Too late ! too late !" 
 
 " Margaret, in God's name ! Yes, you are lost if you 
 will- you have not chosen; be it so; but is there not a 
 Saviour in heaven, Margaret ?" 
 
 "Too late ! too late!" repeated she, setting the words to 
 the sound made by her uneven steps. 
 
 "It is not then Easter Sunday to-day? Those who re- 
 joice on earth, those who sing up there in heaven, are mad 
 then 1 The dead Christ has remained dead ; is it not so, 
 Margaret?" 
 
 She continued her cadenced walk, repeating all the 
 while, in a low voice " Too late ! too late !" 
 
 She was fearfully beautiful ; drawn up to her full height, 
 tottering, her hands sometimes thrown out before her with 
 a tragic gesture, sometimes clasped ; her pale face subju- 
 gated by the despotism of despair. 
 
 Then a terrible thought crossed my mind, but I would 
 not admit it. I pressed Margaret hard ; I drove her from 
 one entrenchment to another ; I shewed her the cross of 
 Jesus ; I repeated to her the self-complaints of St Paul,
 
 THE SPRINGS. 93 
 
 and his cry of triumph. I was indignant ; I was overcome ; 
 I wept. Margaret did not listen ; at last she fell upon the 
 edge of the bed, and remained there speechless. 
 
 I fell there beside her ; the day was getting on ; all was 
 indeed over. Margaret was mad, with that appalling mad- 
 ness which reasons, argues is armed on every side with 
 logic finds a fearful satisfaction in the depths of its own 
 despair. 
 
 While I was silent, my soul lost in the contemplation of 
 this abyss, Margaret raised her head, then bent towards 
 me gracefully, as if to listen. Her forehead cleared, her 
 eyes swam in light, a heavenly smile parted her lips ; join- 
 ing her raised hands in ecstasy 
 
 " Thanks ! >: she cried, in a voice that might have thrilled 
 the angels. " Thanks ! I have got peace ! Thanks ! I 
 am saved. I shall see my God ! Jesus has spoken to me. 
 I belong to Him, to Jesus." She wiped her dripping 
 temples. " Can this indeed be me 1 Yes it is ; saved, 
 saved !" She threw a wondering glance around, and saw me. 
 " I believe ! You have done me good. I have faith. I have 
 it here." And she pressed both her hands to her heart. 
 
 I know not why, but this burst of happiness did not 
 expand mine. However : 
 
 "God be praised!" I said. "And now that you are 
 more calm " Margaret's brow contracted a little " leave 
 off this train of thought ; you are ill." She shook her 
 head. " Try to sleep." 
 
 I went on saying kind words to her, gentle, caressing 
 words, such as one would whisper in the ear of a feverish 
 child. Putting aside all idea of uncertainty, all that could 
 shake the electrical moral atmosphere, I tried to confirm 
 her in her happiness as in a permanent state out of which 
 she was never more to be disturbed.
 
 94 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 I was still speaking when her face changed ; she stretched 
 out her hand to silence me. I stopped ; she remained 
 still for a moment ; then, with a cry, the vehemence and 
 desolation of which I shall never forget "He is there !" 
 she said, pointing to the corner of the room. She rose up 
 erect, her hair standing on end, made a step forward, with 
 a fixed eye, and hand still extended. 
 
 " He is there !" 
 
 " Who ?" 
 
 " He who has lost me !" 
 
 " You are saved, Margaret, you are saved !" 
 
 I had seized hold of her arm ; I shook her as though 
 to waken her out of her delusion. She did not even look 
 at me. 
 
 Her mother sat there silent and stupified. 
 
 " I was saved ; I listened to him ; I am lost !" 
 
 " It is not true !" I cried vehemently. Margaret raised 
 her finger. 
 
 " Hush, God is speaking to me !" . . . . Then, in a very 
 low, sweet voice, " My daughter, thou hast doubted ! I had 
 forgiven thee, my daughter; .... my child, why hast 
 thou done so ?" 
 
 " This is madness, Margaret, it is a delusion of the 
 wicked one." 
 
 Margaret again began the same wild, uneven walk as 
 before ; only now I had to support her, and she no longer 
 reasoned. At one moment, she listened to the hissing 
 whispers of Satan the accuser; at another, to that counter- 
 feit voice of God, those tenderly inexorable accents which 
 sealed her doom. Her screams were sometimes maniacal ; 
 then came tears and tenderness, which melted my heart ; 
 then fits of silence more fearful still. 
 
 As for me, I could not speak. I could only look up to
 
 THE SPRINGS. 9o 
 
 heaven with that ardent look, almost indeed audacious, 
 but glowing with so much pity, such strength of love and 
 faith, and such humility beneath the boldness, that it goes 
 straight to the throne, to claim the tenderest mercies of 
 God. 
 
 And then, in a rapid revulsion of f eeling, I asked myself 
 whether indeed this mad woman might not be the only 
 wise one. On which side really was the insanity ; on hers, 
 heart-broken, her eyes drowned in tears, her breast beaten 
 by her hands ; or on ours, frivolous, forgetful ; on ours, 
 the pious, the redeemed, indulgent to ourselves, and lulling 
 our souls with the repeated cry, Peace ! Peace ! 
 
 No, my Saviour, Thou art not a God of despair ; Thou 
 art a God of joy, because Thou art a God of pardon. 
 
 And yet something like a shiver ran through my veins. 
 This lasted all the day. This poor maniac who saw Satan, 
 who heard the Lord, who weighed in the balance of the 
 last day each word that had escaped her lips, each thought 
 that had risen to her heart; this mourner who took in 
 earnest the terrible realities of the Bible, forgetting only 
 Jesus ; this poor woman, deranged, sick, whom I wished to 
 console ; I in my sound senses, I firm in my faith ; she 
 shook me to the most secret centre of my soul. 
 
 When the day got low, Margaret, exhausted, sunk on 
 her bed. Her father and brothers had returned. 
 
 " You must go back," said the mother ; " we are much 
 obliged, but you do no good." 
 
 " ShaU I send for a doctor V 
 
 " No. Her father was right about it. She has been too 
 much at her books." 
 
 I was disturbing the family; there was nothing indeed 
 to be done, or rather the only thing to be done was what I 
 could do anywhere. The God of the forests, of the moun-
 
 96 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 tain and the valley, the God of sorrowing hearts, is every- 
 Avhere present. I walked very quickly under the fir-trees ; 
 I wanted rapid exercise. For a moment stopping at the 
 lower border of the wood on the first open ground com- 
 manding the glaciers and the lakes, I inhaled the free air ; 
 I gazed upon the wide expanse before me ; I dazzled my- 
 self with light ; drank in the ineffable calm of the fields, 
 and then I took my way along the meadows, and through 
 the corn-fields. 
 
 Below me, beside the brook, on a wild pear-tree, and 
 perched on its highest branch, looking steadily at the sun 
 which was setting in his purple, or rather in that blended 
 glory of scarlet and orange which overflowed the West, sat 
 a redbreast, with throat distended and quivering wings. 
 The sound of my steps had not disturbed him. He was 
 revelling in all this magnificence ; he was chanting his 
 evening chant ; a chant of adoration, love, and hope ; a 
 trusting, happy song, an humble ditty, sparkling all over 
 with little cries of joy a glorious hymn ; it was one and 
 all of these. The flood of light inundated him ; he was 
 lost in it quite ; he sang as long as the radiance of the 
 horizon lasted ; then, when the sun had left our hemi- 
 sphere, when the pomp of his setting rays was over, the 
 redbreast, flapping his little wings, went to shelter under 
 the nearest bush. 
 
 I do not know how it came about, but peace had returned 
 to my heart
 
 A POOE BOY, 
 
 |OOR, and, moreover, ugly to a degree hardly per- 
 missible, except to very clever people indeed, 
 and he was half-witted. 
 
 He was the son of a shrewd countryman, a shoemaker 
 by trade. His father, a great talker, musical too, in his 
 leisure hours, had gray, wandering eyes, a countenance very 
 difficult exactly to decipher, with something about it chang- 
 ing, slippery, and evasive, reminding one of a serpent under 
 dry leaves. Added to which, he had an abrupt voice ; arid 
 was hard to live with at home. 
 
 On wet Sundays our shoemaker would study an old 
 book of the year 1600, full of formulas, semi-magical, semi- 
 medical. Albertus Magnus had contributed more to it 
 than Esculapius. Spectacles on nose, he would rapidly 
 turn it over, then meditate in a way that brought him the 
 reputation of mege* One day this neighbour, to-morrow 
 that, would come at nightfall, to ask for some specific, now 
 for the cow, now for the wife ; the usual fee being a 
 sausage, or, better still, a bottle of wine drunk at the 
 village tavern. 
 
 You should have heard the marvellous stories our man 
 made them swallow. Of young fellows well thrashed, rifle- 
 shots, broken teeth, balls in the very centre of the white 
 it was all one to him ! Then came mysterious stories 
 of cattle bewitched, girls who had drunk love-potions, 
 * Something less than magician and more than doctor.
 
 98 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 while the peasants gazed at him open-mouthed. "Eh, 
 he 's a -wise one, he is ! " and they nodded significantly. 
 
 It must be owned that if our friend was not exactly a 
 sorcerer, he had at least a singular aptitude for work of 
 various kinds ; farmer, carpenter, blacksmith, rifleman at 
 need he was one and all of these. " He has some charm," 
 his neighbours would say. 
 
 The shoemaker let them say on, and laughed a silent 
 sort of laugh, which did not brighten his impenetrable 
 face. 
 
 He made a great deal of money ; yet had nothing, or 
 next to nothing laid by, for it was spent as fast as it came 
 in. This, he averred, was all his wife's fault. No order, 
 no comfort, no foresight a gawky slattern ! He did not 
 scruple to tell her this, and the poor, weak creature, sure 
 to excite her master's anger every time he chanced to see 
 her, had, over and above an indisputable natural gift of 
 stupidity, all the awkwardness that arises from constant 
 fault-finding. 
 
 She lived in a hostile atmosphere, her husband ridicul- 
 ing whenever he did not revile her. Her gait was uncer- 
 tain, she was incoherent, her mind always clouded by the 
 fear of doing wrong ; her hands often trembling, though 
 she was in the prime of life ; her glance vacillating, too, 
 but it was only constant fear which prevented it being 
 straightforward. 
 
 Her home had she indeed a home ? She had never in 
 her life said, my kitchen, my bed ! Her house was always 
 dirty and disorderly; not that she did not sweep and 
 brush, especially in the first years of her married life, but 
 she had no faculty, none of that calm necessary to sys- 
 tematic working. Her thoughts, all incomplete, whirled 
 round in her head as if driven by the wind. As years
 
 A POOR BOY. 99 
 
 increased, her activity grew less ; not because she was 
 gaining habits of reflection, but becoming more and more 
 dispirited. 
 
 Without having thought the matter out, she had a vague 
 sense that the less her husband saw her, the more peace 
 she had ; so she bestirred herself as little as she possibly 
 could. 
 
 In the morning, she would drag herself to the well in an 
 old cap, an old jacket, an old petticoat ; having drawn up 
 her bucket full, she would languidly wash her potatoes, go 
 in again, put the dinner on the fire, and, with inefficient 
 hand, brush the kitchen a little. 
 
 As soon as she heard the master's voice, she spilled the 
 water, let fall the broom, and the moment her work was 
 over, would sit squatting on the hearthstone, and remain 
 there, in the darkest corner, for hours together. 
 
 In the adjoining room sat the master amidst his hides, 
 drawing thread after thread, and, under his spectacles, 
 casting an evil eye at her if she ever ventured across the 
 threshold. She did so as little as possible. Such was 
 their domestic life. 
 
 A son was growing up in this house. 
 
 The father, a great reader, pedantic, and pretentious, 
 had chosen to call him Ulysses. Never was hapless new- 
 comer on our earth saddled with a more palpable misnomer. 
 
 The shoemaker, disappointed in his wife, built great 
 hopes upon his son ; he would be this, that, and the other ; 
 he would make a gentleman of him ! The mother, for her 
 part, made him in her own likeness. 
 
 As a mere urchin, he had a dishevelled head, with two 
 round prominent eyes, wandering, colourless, scared like 
 his mother's, dubious like his father's. Beneath was the 
 most inconceivably twisted nose ever seen, a mouth from
 
 100 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 ear to ear, the whole mounted upon two interminable bow- 
 legs, a badly-made body, and arms whose dexterity might 
 alone have excused their length ; but had they been short 
 as puffin's wings, they could not have been more awkward. 
 
 Only, whether he inherited it of his father, or owed it 
 to a certain inherent innocence, Ulysses did everything 
 with an imperturbable assurance. True, he did everything 
 ill, but he did it with good heart. If he took up a mug, 
 twice out of five times he would break it ; if he moved a 
 chair, he let it fall ; if he lit the fire, he blew the cinders 
 into the porridge-pot ; if he tried to feed the cow, he would 
 infallibly have put out her eye with his fork, but that the 
 worthy animal, who knew him from a child, always turned 
 away at once. Nothing daunted him, however, and when 
 his father, who hesitated to acknowledge inherent inveterate 
 awkwardness in his son, would storm and discharge, out of 
 his workshop, double and triple volleys of epithets by no 
 means select, Ulysses would look at him in amazement, 
 shuffle his feet, shrug his shoulders, in a way all his own, 
 and break out into an imbecile horse-laugh. 
 
 At school he fared no better. "II se cotte" said the 
 master, from the verb cotter, to shut, which is used in our 
 district. Ulysses, whose mind remained almost impervious 
 to the letters of the alphabet, was more than ever shut up 
 when it came to syllables ; while between syllables and 
 words yawned a quite impassable abyss. 
 
 It was all the same with arithmetic. Ulysses knew, in- 
 deed, that, in point of fact, one apple and two apples make 
 three apples; that when the innkeeper's son took two, 
 he had only one left ; but this transaction translated into 
 figures left him stunned and stupified. He would contem- 
 plate with his unquiet eyes the white symbols on the black 
 board, crush the chalk between his fingers, and then pass
 
 A POOR BOY. 101 
 
 them over his face, till the whole school burst out laughing, 
 and the master put him behind the door, and made him 
 kneel there. 
 
 His best Sundays were spent in the wood-hole. For as 
 to the Catechism, as to those dry and exceedingly abstract 
 answers that have to be gone through without a single 
 stumble, Ulysses never got beyond the first half of the first 
 sentence. It is but just, however, to state, that he repeated 
 it five times, ten times, that he would have repeated it 
 twenty or thirty irremissibly chained to the same place r if 
 the master had not administered a back-hander that broke 
 the spell. 
 
 His father would say, " It will all come right by and by; 
 he 's not stupid, take my word for it." 
 
 What with the great ruler of the schoolmaster, a square 
 ruler falling sometimes on the fingers, sometimes on the 
 back ; and what with the cuffs, varied with kicks, bestowed 
 on him by his father, Ulysses grew indeed,- but it did not 
 come right. 
 
 He remained where he was, borne, knowing, parrot- 
 fashion, the little he did know, not malignant, self-com- 
 placent, trusting, turning up -his twisted nose with the air 
 of a youth who, if he would, could afford to make fun of 
 all the rest of the world. 
 
 A horrible suspicion now began to dawn upon his father's 
 mind, that of his son being a simpleton. He resisted it, 
 however, at first through pride, then through a species of 
 instinctive affection little higher than that of the animals. 
 He knew himself, knew that from the very moment when 
 he lost all hopes of Ulysses, he should begin to hate him. 
 This thought was painful ; he clung might and main to his 
 illusion ; only he began to look more than ever askance at 
 his wife.
 
 102 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 The poor mother for her part would gladly have loved 
 her son. Alas ! the proper spring was broken ; when he 
 was beaten, she only suffered with a passive suffering which 
 never led her to take his part,' that was all. While his 
 father was still in doubt upon the subject, the stupidity of 
 Ulysses was a settled point with his little playfellows. 
 They made fun of him ; they turned him round their fingers, 
 without, however, teasing him too much, because he gave 
 in to all so good naturedly. The more they bantered him, 
 the better he was pleased ; he believed everything with 
 marvellous credulity; always good-humoured; laughing 
 with those who laughed at him. As to ill-luck, he took 
 it as it came, and good luck too. There was no thorough 
 holiday without Ulysses. He was summoned and put at 
 the head of the troop, supported by two sharp urchins, who 
 played him fine tricks. He was overwhelmed with delight ; 
 lie thought himself the sharpest, the most dexterous of the 
 whole party ; thought himself handsome, smart, whatever 
 they chose. There was nothing hostile about his vanity. 
 It did not spring from self-love, but from unlimited trust, un- 
 fathomable innocence, innate ingenuousness, proof against 
 the most sobering experiences/ Tricked yesterday, Ulysses 
 bore no malice ; he was ready to be tricked again to-morrow. 
 
 And what tricks the boys and girls used to play him in 
 the court-yard of the old manor ! How they used to laugh 
 at him ! Happy days, proud days for Ulysses. It was a 
 sight to see him when he came in perched on those long 
 stilts of his, making a leg, and returning an imbecile laugh 
 to the hoots and roars that welcomed him. 
 
 "Come here and try, Ulysses ; come and try; we want 
 you !" 
 
 Ulysses came forward. 
 
 " You are the only one to do this well."
 
 A POOR BOY. 103 
 
 They were playing at the pyramid. Ulysses was hoisted 
 upon the shoulders of two vagabonds, rocked, shaken by 
 them, while they called out, "Take care! stand steady!" 
 till, after incredible efforts to maintain his equilibrium, he 
 fell like a lump of lead, rubbed his knees and elbows, then 
 looked at the rogues, who were in convulsions of laughter, 
 and only said, "Ah, very well, if I had liked !" 
 
 Or else a piece of money was thrown into a bucket of 
 water : " Pick it up, Ulysses ; you are the one to do it ; 
 we can't, any of us. Look, that 's the way, with the teeth 
 so open your eyes, shut your nose and ears." 
 
 Ulysses would plunge boldly, then, somewhat dashed by 
 the cold water, he would jump about, sneezing, shaking his 
 head, wetting all the curious standers-by, but quite ready 
 to return to the charge a hundred times if they liked. 
 
 Or else it was the race. He who never saw Ulysses 
 run on those great dislocated legs of his, with neck out- 
 stretched and paddling arms, may be said to have seen 
 nothing ! 
 
 Then they called out to him, " Ulysses, go and kiss the 
 prettiest girl." Straightway Ulysses went ; a general flight, 
 a very hail of scratches ! Ulysses was persevering ; he 
 did not mind jeers, he was used to them ; he would have 
 run on for three hours feeling sure to succeed at last, if 
 some one had not stopped him. 
 
 There was mischief enough among these village lads, but 
 no malignity. Ulysses was not any one's friend, indeed, 
 but no one would deliberately have hurt him. He got 
 plenty of cuffs, it is true, and they risked his bones with- 
 out much scruple ; but he himself did not take much care 
 of them. Indeed, but for a certain obtuseness which 
 rendered him half-witted, Ulysses had in him the making 
 of a hero, indifference to pain, perfect self-reliance,
 
 104 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 indefatigable perseverance ; that simple resolution which 
 marches straight forward through fire and water to its 
 goal. 
 
 Poor Ulysses ! he was very happy on these fine Sundays, 
 these gay days of childhood, in that fine court-yard ; always 
 a prominent person, and even if not, leaping, playing away, 
 animated by the same spirit as all the rest. 
 
 Sometimes in July there would come from the mountain 
 a burst of the wind we call " Joran," sweeping the ground, 
 making the leaves waltz wildly, twisting the trees in the 
 orchard, strewing the fields with green apples. What 
 spoils, what plunder ! And while one gathered and 
 munched, and exulted with flying hair in the violence of 
 the storm in anything out of the common way, the hurri- 
 cane bent the immense branches of the planes, which 
 shewed the white lining of their leaves as they flung 
 themselves about ; and the court resounded with wild 
 clamours. 
 
 In June again, when the cows were leaving for the 
 mountain, there was a very different scene. 
 
 One heard the cattle from a great distance ; heard them 
 coming along the paths and roads all round the enclosure. 
 The ringing of the toupins* with their solemn tones ; the 
 silver bells, the loud yolees of the shepherd ; their prolonged 
 cries spread through the air, drawing nearer and nearer 
 stilL The little boys rush to the entrance of the village, 
 group themselves around the public-house, where the 
 drovers halt to drink a drop or two, and get up their 
 
 * A large bell of the shape of a reversed tulip. There are about ten 
 of them for every herd of one hundred cows. They are hung to their 
 necks, both in ascending and descending the mountain ; then taken 
 off, and arranged along one of the beams of the " chdlet." If some 
 foolish practical joker sets them ringing, all the herd take their way 
 again to the plain.
 
 A POOR BOY 105 
 
 strength, for night is coming on, and it is no joke to climb 
 the mountain at midnight with from sixty to a hundred 
 cows at one's heels. 
 
 While the drovers drink, the lads take charge of the herd : 
 " Ulysses, the great whip is for you ; you shall hold the bull." 
 
 And Ulysses went to do so without the least fear. 
 
 Here they come ! here they come ! the handsomest cow 
 first, with her large nosegay on her head, her bell round 
 her neck, suspended to the leathern collar, with antique 
 embroidery, and the escutcheon of the Canton : Liberte ! 
 patrie! She would die, the beautiful cow this has 
 happened before now she would die if the drovers were 
 to take away her nosegay and her necklace to give them to 
 any other ! Just look at her, how she advances, proud and 
 stately, with heavy measured steps. 
 
 Here are the drovers, grave, fine-looking fellows. They 
 have left the valley, left their homes ; they pined for the 
 mountains, the upper pastures, the long twilights, the wide 
 view over the IOAV country and the Alps ; they languished 
 for the free life, the long distances, the cheeses, and things 
 in general up there. 
 
 There are the scanty household goods in a cart, a caldron 
 in the middle. All the cattle follow, white, black, red, 
 brindled. As for the goats, they went first ; they have 
 been for some days on the mountain. 
 
 The boys cluster round with knowing countenance, and, 
 while the drovers refresh themselves at the tavern, they 
 yole in their turn, tutor, worry the cattle, till one or the 
 other of the cowherds standing at the door, roars out 
 " Will you leave them alone, then 1 Do you want me down 
 upon you 1 ?" Ulysses did not escape a few pushes and 
 pokes, but that was nothing ; he returned proud and happy, 
 turning up his nose with a victorious air.
 
 106 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 His father, seeing him in this mood, took courage again. 
 
 Arid then autumn ! true season of junketing ! no school .' 
 fruit everywhere ! 
 
 There are in September golden days such as no other 
 month brings. The sun is pale ; heavy morning dews have 
 made the grass green again ; it is newly mown. There are 
 hardly any flowers left, except the pale crocus, but you 
 can walk freely through the fields in every direction. No 
 standing crops, no hemp, hay, or lucerne; the eye glides 
 over the green expanse, can take in all the country. The 
 air is subtle ; amber rays shine through the boughs ; the 
 foliage, not yet tinged with red, has something more deli- 
 cate about it ; less density ; one would say that all nature 
 was idealised. A few gnats, born yesterday, to die to- 
 morrow, are executing in the ethereal atmosphere a dance, 
 the undulations of which are full of mystery. At the foot 
 of the apple and the pear-trees are heaps of red and white 
 apples, and pears of golden hue. 
 
 Then it was that Ulysses feasted. His father had neither 
 fields nor orchard ; but his companions were there ; they 
 reached him apples, a little worm-eaten, perhaps, but he 
 did not look too closely. 
 
 Then came October. The cows descended in the order 
 they had gone up. The warm nights during which they 
 had climbed the mountain, when the moon shone bright, 
 when the cytisus, together with roses and tulips, blossomed 
 on their horned heads ; when one heard, winding at various 
 distances through the gloom, the sound of bells, toupins, 
 and yolees, these are past. Of late, especially these last 
 few days, the cows have been cold up there, and summer 
 being over, have had but scanty fare ; and now they spread 
 over the fields, twisting off great mouthfuls of grass, and 
 sniffing with their cool muzzles at all tempting plants ; and
 
 A POOR BOY, 107 
 
 as they move along from one to the other, rubbing against 
 the old trees, and pensively standing still to look over the 
 hedge, then returning to graze with steady step, the little 
 bells sound and re-sound. The great toupins have been 
 taken off, they are hung up till next season. From one 
 horizon to the other, the country echoes with this rustic 
 music ; the valley answers the hill ; in the best concealed 
 nooks between the rocks, at the edge of the wood, this 
 ringing is heard, giving birth to wild fragments of melody, 
 all their discords dying away in the misty air ; drowned in 
 a great universal harmony. 
 
 It is then that boebes * are in request. Each of them 
 for a five-franc piece, and the addition of a pair of shoes, 
 if the master is generous, may take the cattle to feed 
 during the short season of autumn. One constantly meets 
 in all the roads around, a cow, two or three cows, a few 
 sheep behind them, and behind the sheep, a lad, fair-haired, 
 chubby, bare-headed, with a brother or sister, younger 
 than himself, running after him. 
 
 In the fields, a fire is made ; a beautiful bright fire which 
 crackles, smokes, and flames. Some underground hiding- 
 place is made into which to stuff the yellow carrots left in 
 the field, till they can be carried off on the morrow. On 
 the very tip-top of a tree, on its highest branch, a pear is 
 descried, juicy, melting, one can see that from here. 
 
 " Ulysses ! Ulysses ! this is the very thing for you. Up 
 you go, my boy ! " Ulysses never in his life tried to climb 
 anything whatsoever without falling flat, more or less 
 bruised ; but never mind, he will go all the same. " Are 
 you afraid ? " 
 
 Ulysses shrugs his shoulders, makes a spring ; they sup- 
 port him, squeeze him against the tree, lift him, push, pro- 
 * A little boy, from the German Bube.
 
 108 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 pel : " Courage, my fine fellow ; there you are ! " Then 
 they let him go ; he is on his back on the ground, his 
 great arms and great legs telegraphing like those of a field- 
 spider. The rest are rolling in the grass in fits of laughter. 
 
 But for all this, these were Ulysses' good days. He too, 
 like others, had a joyous childhood, thickly sown with 
 pleasant memories. For him, as for the rest, there had 
 been sunshine, apples, merry Sundays, a few more hard 
 knocks, and all the rest. As for ridicule, he did not see 
 his own infirmity, he did not feel it ; as for his father's 
 brutalities, he had never known him different ; as for the 
 suffering apathy of his mother, he was not aware of it. As 
 i.e grew up, as she got weaker, he did what he could for 
 her ; he carried water, split wood. She used to say to 
 him, " You are a pretty fellow, you are." He believed her : 
 this went on for some years. 
 
 With his fifteenth year there came an increase of awk- 
 wardness ; his whole life took a new turn. His ugliness 
 grew with his growth. Ulysses became preternaturally 
 tall, clumsy, and backward. 
 
 His companions, having grown older, were naughtier 
 than they were, and dragged him into worse scrapes. The 
 schoolmaster had given him up long ago. His mother 
 got thinner and a greater nonentity day by day. His 
 father was more irritable, more hard, a savage expression 
 sometimes passed over his face ; never a word of affection, 
 never even one of indifference ; he was either silent or 
 storming. The mother had not sufficiently the habit of 
 taking the initiative to dream of consoling her son ; if she 
 had so dreamed, she lacked the energy to carry it out, but 
 the very idea never occurred to her. 
 
 The father in his workshop, the mother in the kitchen, 
 the son driven from pillar to post by great volleys of
 
 A POOR BOY. 109 
 
 oaths bullied for what he did, because he did it ill ; 
 bullied for what he did not do, because he left it undone, 
 such was their domestic life. 
 
 Generally, Ulysses crouched at the corner of the hearth, 
 near his mother, his knees pushed up above his ears, his 
 hands groping for some brand among the cinders. 
 
 At last the father understood clearly that he had for his 
 son a half-witted creature, below the average standard, 
 below the inferior ; a son who knew nothing, who would 
 know nothing, who was good for nothing; a lad that 
 others laughed at, and had a right to laugh at ; a booby, 
 the standing joke of the village, his son, his ! 
 
 All this was abrupt, clear, decisive. The thing once 
 proved, the blow once fallen, with a change of feeling 
 inexorable as a fact, the father began to detest his son. 
 There was neither remorse nor reaction. As he was the 
 master, he tyrannised over him. Henceforth, the only 
 portion of Ulysses was work beyond his strength, poor 
 and scanty food, and rude blows from a heavy hand upon 
 every occasion. All this without premeditation, quite 
 naturally and spontaneously. 
 
 Ill received, ill treated, rebuffed by all, except such com- 
 rades as made him subservient to their sports, Ulysses lost 
 much of his innocent confidence. But if they took pains 
 about it, the village lads were still able to waken in him 
 some sparks of his former love of adventure. Then there 
 were exploits that served for the diversion of long winter 
 evenings. 
 
 Sometimes they would take him to the public-house, make 
 him tipsy, then egg him on to attack some good boxer, 
 who left him half-dead ; sometimes they persuaded him to 
 go by night and sing under the window of the richest girl 
 in the place ; the father of the lady, who was not to be
 
 110 TEE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 trifled with, would throw a log at him, the brothers would 
 sally forth Ulysses came back with his head laid open. 
 At other times they would get him into some scrapes with 
 the messeliers * and the municipals ; and, when the mine 
 was sprung, would make their escape, leaving him in their 
 hands. The official wrath fell heavy on his luckless head, 
 fine after fine was imposed, the shoemaker wielded his ter- 
 rible cudgel, 'the frightened lad would go and hide behind 
 the faggots in the shed, and it was much if his mother 
 dared to keep back a little cold soup for him. 
 
 Then, suddenly as the truth had broken on his father's 
 mind, there dawned a ray of light on that of the son. A 
 vague consciousness of inferiority came over him, nothing 
 very positive, indeed, but a species of self-dissatisfaction, a 
 kind of apprehension of others. A confused sense of his 
 own ugh' ness awoke, then grew, till the moment when he 
 fully comprehended to what a degree he was misshapen, 
 grotesque, ugly, with an inexorable, absurd, crushing, hope- 
 less ugliness. 
 
 That was the first step, others soon followed. He saw 
 himself awkward, stupid, more stupid even than he was. 
 It seemed that sorrow developed his mind, that a soul was 
 given him to suffer with. He saw himself repulsive, des- 
 picable ; all his life passed before him like a bad farce, of 
 which he had been the clown. 
 
 He did not lose himself in analysis ; but the tide of sad- 
 ness went on rising, and submerged him. 
 
 He became gloomy, unsociable ; he would glide along 
 the houses, escape from his former companions ; and, his 
 task done, climb to his garret, throw himself on his pallet, 
 swallowed up in the contemplation of his misery. 
 
 No more smiles, no more confidence ; an immeasurable 
 * Rural police.
 
 A POOR BOY. Ill 
 
 wretchedness paralysed him. He had no anger, no hatred 
 against any one, only he deeply abhorred himself. 
 
 It is a great misfortune to discern that one is imprisoned 
 in ugliness and stupidity ; to feel that one is an object of 
 disgust to others, and that they are right. It is a suffer- 
 ing akin to egotism, and often leading to it. Despised by 
 others, one takes to idolising self; in default of noble 
 emotions, one falls back on gross pleasures. 
 
 It was not so, however, with Ulysses. 
 
 When he had once fully understood that he was an utter 
 failure, that no one loved him, that all ridiculed him, that 
 there was no help for it; when he had ascertained hig 
 limitations on every side, supremely disgusted with himself, 
 he began to droop, as his mother had done, but with fuller 
 consciousness of what he was and how he suffered. His 
 sun had set with his illusions. A cold autumn fog had 
 risen ; he was, as it were, frozen up. 
 
 Formerly, after the paternal storms, he would shake 
 himself, run off to the village, come in for fresh blows 
 there, and return amused. Now, there was no more elas- 
 ticity, no incidents ; everything had foundered. His soli- 
 tary days succeeded each other all equally unhappy. He 
 did not give himself up to despair indeed ; that would 
 have implied some energy, but atrophy set in, and he 
 rapidly declined. 
 
 His father was only irritated by his growing uselessness. 
 Weakened as he was, Ulysses became still more awkward. 
 The axe and the hoe, put into his hands by his father, were 
 sure to slip out of his weak grasp. The shoemaker's bursts 
 of rage, which used to glide harmlessly over his son's inert 
 organism, his abusive language and rough treatment, now 
 told indelibly on mind and body alike. He did not ask 
 affection from any one ; he felt no claim upon any kind-
 
 112 TEE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 ness whatsoever ; it never entered his head to bespeak his 
 father's compassion ; but he was dying from a dearth of all 
 these. 
 
 Sometimes, when the anguish was too great, when he 
 could not make head against it, he would look at his 
 mother. It seemed as though help ought to come from 
 her ; not that he had courage enough to speak openly to 
 her ; not even to give her a caress, that silent language 
 of those whose lips are closed ; but still a secret instinct 
 told him to look for comfort there. 
 
 His mother, on her part, looked at him with surprise. 
 She plainly saw that there was something wrong ; that 
 Ulysses got silent ; that sometimes tears gathered in his 
 eyes ; that he was very pale, and could hardly walk ; that 
 his father's rages terrified him, him who used to mind them 
 so little ; but she could analyse nothing : she would glance 
 at her husband, shrink into herself, retreat instinctively, 
 and murmur, " Must have patience, my lad ; must have 
 patience." 
 
 The disease increased. His father's brutalities, insuffi- 
 cient food, heart-sorrow, soon undermined the poor body 
 which had never had any overplus of vitality. At night, 
 fever consumed him ; in the morning, he was cold as death : 
 there was never a drop of wine to revive him. Neither 
 mother nor son could have had courage to reach a hand at 
 meals towards the shoemaker's bottle. Extensive sores, 
 that livery of extreme destitution, came to finish what 
 atrophy had begun. He had to give up all work. His 
 father said nothing ; he saw that his son was ill, and got 
 so much the harder. 
 
 Ulysses, idle through necessity, hardly dared to creep 
 down twice a day from his garret, and take his place at 
 meals. After getting a little unstiffened in the darkest
 
 A POOR BOY. 113 
 
 corner near the hearth, he would drag himself up again. 
 He passed whole hours motionless, without amusement, 
 without consolation ; repelled from the past by bitter 
 memories, from the future by vague terrors ; weak, lan- 
 guid, without a murmur or a complaint ; gazing, lost in an 
 undefinable reverie, at the dull daylight which shone 
 through his dirty window, or at the bare walls of his 
 wretched attic. No one in the village perceived that 
 Ulysses was failing. He had gradually separated himself 
 from all the young people ; they got into the habit of 
 leaving him alone ; then, when he was no more seen about, 
 he was forgotten. 
 
 He had done as the wild beasts do, he had gone apart 
 to die. His mother watched with a stupid eye the pro- 
 gress of his disease. One day, when his father was out 
 working, she went up to Ulysses, and asked him in a 
 whisper what ailed him. 
 
 " I suffer," he replied, in a listless voice. 
 
 She grew uneasy, drew nearer ; her son's emaciation 
 frightened her. She pushed his coarse shirt aside, saw his 
 chest, saw the ravages the sores had made, gave a kind of 
 suppressed moan ; then went down, brought up some rags 
 and some vinegar, and proceeded to dress them. Every 
 day she secretly did this, choosing the time when his 
 father was at the public-house. Her hands were clumsy, 
 her treatment Avas wretched enough ; but what good it did 
 Ulysses ! how he used to listen for her furtive step upon 
 the wooden stair ! 
 
 About the same time the pastor and the family at the 
 manor chanced to inquire where Ulysses was, and why he 
 was never to be met with about. As soon as he was known 
 to be ill, he was visited ; not with much hope, however, of 
 giving him any pleasure, of getting anything out of him,
 
 114 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 or conveying anything to him, his was such a dense 
 nature ! Still he was ill, he must be attended to ; he had 
 a soul, it might need consolation. His neglected condition, 
 his disease appalled his visitors. All manner of help 
 arrived. Ulysses used to thank, but he was stupified and 
 reserved. There was no getting at him ; he was conscious 
 of the compassion felt, but that did not reconcile him to 
 his own repulsive individuality. On the contrary, uncon- 
 sciously it only depressed him the more. Then he was 
 spoken to of God, of the Saviour. Ulysses listened very 
 seriously with a pensive air, as if amazed at these new 
 tidings ; but he said nothing. Only, when those who 
 spoke thus to him knocked at his garret, he used to rise 
 with a spring beyond his strength, and to open the door 
 for them. 
 
 This went on some time. Then, a little from weariness 
 of talking, as it were, to the air, a little from a sense of 
 human helplessness, recourse was had to God's own Book. 
 Without well knowing what he could make out of it, they 
 tried to read him some chapters in the Gospels, some Psalms, 
 the history of the patriarchs ; above all, the life of the Lord 
 Jesus. They did not comment much ; just two or three 
 short, simple words ; more would have been thrown away. 
 Insensibly the expression of Ulysses lit up ; his eyes 
 brightened, Ms countenance awoke; I know not what 
 intimate content, not the stupid satisfaction of yore ; no, 
 but something humble, reticent, noble, ay, noble, was 
 shed over his pale face. Once or twice, in a quiet voice 
 neither bold nor timid, he put some questions which 
 amazed his visitors. 
 
 This went on progressing like the dawning light of day ; 
 with steady, royal step, as God works when He does work. 
 No clouds rose ; this sun never stood still. No doubt, no
 
 A POOR BOY. 115 
 
 fear, very little difficulty. The gospel in its fulness pene- 
 trated at once with all it beauty, its power, its tenderness, 
 into this heart, disinherited heretofore of happiness. This 
 heart grew radiant. 
 
 Jesus had met this fainting spirit in the desert ; He had 
 raised this poor child from the earth, and taken him into 
 His arms. Jesus was the first who ever loved him. Ac- 
 cordingly, how well Ulysses distinguished His voice from 
 all others ! It entered his inmost soul, and he followed 
 Jesus. To dispute, to doubt 1 Ulysses could no more do 
 so than could Moses, when, standing on the holy mountain, 
 God made His goodness to pass before him. 
 
 Ulysses had listened, believed with all his might, with his 
 whole being. He loved unboundedly that Jesus who had 
 called him by his name, by his much-ridiculed name, 
 and had said to him, " My son, give me thy heart." 
 There was about his faith a certain spring-tide innocence. 
 One saw revive and blossom, but blossom as they do under 
 the Lord's touch only, those natural gifts of trust and sim- 
 plicity which formerly cast an unsteady light over Ms in- 
 complete nature. 
 
 Jesus was not for him that abstraction, that great prophet, 
 that God dying for us on the horizon of remotest ages, 
 inhabiting eternity ; nor was He that philosopher, that 
 legislator which many of our wisest only know Him as, 
 unconscious that they do not know Him at all. 
 
 Jesus was his Creator, Jesus was his Saviour. He died 
 3 r esterday upon the cross in horrible suffering for him him, 
 a scoundrel, as he would cry out in his strong emotion. 
 
 And this Jesus, victorious, sympathising, his friend, 
 would come and spend long hours at his side in his garret. 
 He hardly dared to say anything, or said very little to 
 other men, but to Jesus ! The others were compassionate,
 
 116 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 were kind, worthy people ; Ulysses was not worth the pains 
 they took about him ; but Jesus ! Jesus who had hungered, 
 who had been cold ; Jesus whom they insulted throughout 
 one dark night about Easter time ; Jesus who touched the 
 leper with His own hand ; Jesus was his brother at the 
 same time that He was his God ; he was quite at home 
 with Him. 
 
 Ulysses had never complained much ; now he did not 
 complain at all. One could hardly get him to say a word 
 about his sufferings. He had received the Bible promises 
 with the trust of a child who hears his father speak. He 
 realised them all To hope, to enter the paradise of light, 
 to see his God, quench his thirst, possess inexpressible bliss 
 from eternity to eternity, this was all one and the same thing 
 to him, simple, and easy, and, as it were, already done. 
 
 As long as he could hold up, he would drag about his 
 garret, peaceful and pensive, his glance fixed elsewhere. 
 " I am soon going," he would say, and then he would sit 
 upon his poor pallet, while so much joy lit up his face, the 
 few words he spoke vibrated so strongly, he possessed his 
 Saviour in such royal guise, that one felt overcome in the 
 presence of this poor, weak creature ; overcome and hum- 
 bled, adoring God because His hand was there. 
 
 Ulysses was in great haste to go, but he was not impa- 
 tient : " When He sees it fit, He will come," he was wont 
 to say ; or else in village parlance, " He is certain sure to 
 come." 
 
 His father never saw him now ; Ulysses could not go 
 down-stairs, his father did not come up. Some people, 
 those who had courage enough, would turn in to the shoe- 
 maker in leaving the garret. " Your son is very ill" No 
 answer. "He is very patient!" Nothing. "If you were 
 to " A cold, dry look cut the speaker short.
 
 A POOP. SOY. 117 
 
 The poor mother had taken to loving her son with all 
 the little strength she had left. She did not well under- 
 stand what had taken place in him ; but she felt a craving 
 to see and to hear him. When he spoke of God, she 
 listened with a great effort to understand ; when he prayed, 
 she knelt down beside him. She crept quietly into the 
 illuminated hemisphere where her son abode. She received 
 a transmitted joy ; a second-hand happiness ; reflected, 
 indeed, like the light of the moon, but yet coming to her 
 from God. She found that it was good to be there ; she 
 felt herself more at ease ; she would have liked things to 
 have gone on always thus. But the poor lad had suffered 
 enough. 
 
 One night he cheerfully embraced his mother, and said 
 " Mother, you want us to be together with the Lord ; 
 you must believe Him." 
 
 " Yes," answered she, looking much impressed. 
 
 " Tell the father to come up." 
 
 " The father ! " she repeated in horror. 
 
 " Go and call him, mother." 
 
 Ulysses had never spoken so before. She went away 
 trembling ; clung to the bannister in going down-stairs ; 
 opened the door of the kitchen, then that of the next room, 
 and remained on the threshold. She stood there some 
 moments, not daring to stir. The shoemaker turned 
 round. 
 
 " What's the row now ? " he thundered out. 
 
 " The boy Ulysses " 
 
 "What about him?" 
 
 " He is asking for you, father." 
 
 An almost imperceptible shudder shook the father's 
 hand. 
 
 " I have no time."
 
 118 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 His wife, scared, turned away. While she was closing 
 the door, 
 
 " To-morrow," he added, in a rough voice. 
 
 The mother went up again quite pleased. 
 
 " Well, mother ? " 
 
 " He has said To-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow ! " repeated the young man, with a singular 
 smile. 
 
 They were a long time together after that. Ulysses 
 spoke more to his mother about the Lord Jesus than he 
 had yet done ; then, when it got late, said, " You must go 
 down now, mother ; father will scold." 
 
 His mother had not a quick intuition, but something 
 weighed upon her heart ; she would have wished to remain ; 
 but her husband was beginning to walk up and down in 
 the room below. 
 
 "Go, mother," said Ulysses in the same grave tone. 
 He turned to the wall ; she looked long at him, left the 
 room, listened to his breathing, she did not know why, 
 then went down-stairs. 
 
 That night the angels of God came for Lazarus. He 
 went away noiselessly, humbly. In what a rapture of bliss, 
 Eternity will tell us. 
 
 In the morning, his mother went up anxiously to his 
 attic. She was surprised to see him lie so still ; she was 
 surprised at the great stillness ; herself, she could not 
 speak. She touched him with her finger; then, with a 
 shriek and beside herself, she rushed down-stairs into her 
 husband's room, and standing erect before him for the first 
 time in her life, with uplifted voice, and a gesture of deso- 
 lation almost appalling " He is dead ! " she cried. 
 
 The shoemaker grew pale, then coughed, then looked at 
 her with his dull, vacillating, merciless eye ; looked at her
 
 A POOR BOY. 119 
 
 till she bent again ; till she shrunk within herself ; till, 
 with drooping head, and unsteady steps, drawing further 
 and further back, she returned to the kitchen, to the corner 
 of the hearth, to crouch there as she did yesterday, as she 
 did a year ago, as she will to-ntorrow, as she will ten years 
 to come, as she will so long as she lives.
 
 THE GALLEY-SLATE. 
 
 DO not know why this particular figure should 
 haunt me so, but it is one which constantly 
 recurs. I will sketch it here, with a few rapid 
 touches. 
 
 I only saw the man twice. 
 
 The first time was at the house of a young invalid girl. 
 She lived with an old lady who filled, I think, the post of 
 inspector at the Halle aux Bles* The two women, who 
 were in no way related, but had a strong bond of union, 
 in their mutual poverty, occupied a very humble apartment, 
 in the vicinity of the Halle. Their rooms were on the 
 fourth floor of a very small and crowded house. The elder 
 of the two had to be at her post from an early hour of the 
 morning. Euphemia, the younger Phemie, as she called 
 herself always stayed at home. From the first day of 
 her taking up her abode there, she had never gone down 
 the stair. She was not able to do so ; her limbs, paralysed 
 in consequence of a long and dreadful illness, refused to 
 support her. Her frame was worn, almost distorted by 
 suffering, but her face was still young and fresh. One 
 hardly noticed its insignificant features ; the expression 
 was all. It was gentle, intelligent, refined, and she had a 
 gracefulness of diction, a charming voice, a glance so inno- 
 cent, and yet so bright, a tout ensemble, in short, which 
 made the hours fly while one listened to her talk. 
 
 She spent her long days alone. By way of solace, she 
 * The corn market.
 
 THE GALLEY-SLAVE. 121 
 
 had always some embroidery on hand, which she executed 
 rapidly and well ; and for company, she had two canaries, 
 who sung cheerily in their cage behind a trellis overgrown 
 with nasturtiums, very green in July, very bare in late 
 autumn, when Phemie would take the cage in and garnish 
 it well with chickweed. 
 
 Her wants were few ; in the morning she had breakfast 
 with her companion, and took nothing till evening, except 
 a glass of cold water, which she went to the kitchen to get, 
 dragging herself thither with some difficulty on her crutches. 
 That used to occupy a full quarter of an hour, and was as 
 good as a walk, she used to say. 
 
 The room she occupied was light, pretty, exquisitely 
 neat and clean, with its bits of old china and old glass on 
 the chest of drawers ; its white curtains, its little tokens 
 of an elegant poverty, revealing spirits stronger than the 
 pressure of circumstance. 
 
 Euphemia loved God. She would have liked to work 
 actively for Him. He only permitted her to suffer and to 
 pray ; she took life accordingly, as He gave it her. Only, 
 whenever a corn-porter came up to the little room on busi- 
 ness, Phemie very courageously, with that delicate tact that 
 she had, that simplicity enlightened by natural intelligence, 
 entered at once upon serious subjects, and would hardly 
 let him leave without speaking a few good words to him. 
 
 Many listened to her silently, not caring to prolong the 
 conversation ; while others spoke freely, nay, would even 
 discusd the subject with her ; but no one felt himself 
 jarred, no one laughed, and some of them returned. 
 
 I happened to know Euphemia. That day, when I went 
 up to her room, I did not find her alone. She was sitting 
 near the window, its light being softened by the nastur- 
 tiums in full flower. She was embroidering in her quiet
 
 122 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 way, with a cheerful look on her face. She greeted me 
 with a bend of the head and a smile, with that modest 
 ease free from familiarity as from awkwardness, which 
 certain natures bring with them at their birth, under the 
 thatched roof as well as under the gilded. 
 
 This is not a thing to be acquired : one has it or has it 
 not. If one has it not, one never will have it. Now, 
 Euphemia had it ; she was a poor girl and a perfect lady, 
 but her manners accorded admirably with her slender 
 means. Everything was in excellent keeping ; she was 
 the right person in the right place. 
 
 There are some people whose every look and word raise 
 legions of incongruities, which attend the whole course of 
 their life. Euphemia, on the contrary, was one of those 
 harmoniously gifted spirits, on whom peace ever waits, 
 peace, propriety, ease, and fitness. The little that she did 
 was weU, because spontaneously, done. She was graceful 
 in appearance and manner; never embarrassed, because 
 simple and self-forgetful. Infirm as she was, she had a 
 thousand little methods of being independent of help ; all 
 so unobtrusive, one hardly noticed them, they seemed in 
 the natural course of things. 
 
 That morning we were talking of this, that, and the 
 other, when a slight sound made me turn my head. Then 
 I saw, at the other end of the room, a tall figure, which 
 surprised me a good deal. I looked at Phemie ; she was 
 calm as usual. The man, very tall, as I have said, was 
 seated on a bench. I could not distinguish his features ; 
 my eyes were dazzled with the light ; and, besides, he was 
 sitting in a clark part of the room ; but he was in a sort of 
 Dantesque position, which struck me, with his knees raised, 
 his elbows on his knees, his face resting upon his clenched 
 fists, and a fixed look which one rather felt than saw. He
 
 THE GALLEY-SLAVE. 123 
 
 did not speak, did not stir ; lie was absorbed, either listen- 
 ing or dreaming, one knew not which. 
 
 Euphemia did not seem to be noticing him. I did as 
 she did, or, at all events, I tried ; but in my own despite, 
 that man's presence, which she hardly seemed aware of, 
 disquieted me. I kept thinking of him, and casting from 
 time to time a furtive glance in his direction. There he 
 still was, always in exactly the same position. I felt ill at 
 ease ; my voice shook a little, Euphemia's not at all. She 
 went on embroidering, relating some incident or other of 
 her own short past history. 
 
 " Must needs tell you ! " she cried, with an animated 
 gesture. She had that easy diction of the Parisians, 
 those familiar elisions which give language wings. 
 
 " Must tell you what happened to me one Sunday when 
 I had legs of my own. I was agile then, a good walker. 
 We lived at Auteuil, not rich, you know. When we had 
 to go to Paris, we walked. That Sunday, then, a fine 
 summer Sunday, the nightingales were singing, I had been 
 working till midnight. Never mind, I wanted to go to 
 church to hear something about God. I look at the sun, 
 nine o'clock ; I am late. I dress, make all the haste I 
 can, run rather than walk. I get there ! They are sing- 
 ing the hymn ; I seat myself on the first empty corner I 
 find, close to the door, and only think ! The singing, the 
 cool air, the shady corner, fatigue, all together, I fall 
 asleep, fast asleep, and sleep as I had not done for a whole 
 week before ! 
 
 " That was wrong, that was," resumed Euphemia, shak- 
 ing her head when she saw me smile. 
 
 " I slept half an hour, I slept an hour, I slept two hours, 
 the whole time the service lasted. I was wakened by a 
 great noise ; I saw every one standing up ; they were just
 
 124 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 about to leave. I jumped up too, confused, blushing for 
 shame, ready to cry, I was so vexed ! 
 
 " Then there was a pause ; and then came the minister's 
 voice, gravely pronouncing the final blessing : ' Go in peace! 
 and the grace of our Lord Jesiis Christ, the love of God, and 
 the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you and your 
 families /' 
 
 "There was my sermon, and a beautiful one it was ! 
 And so I felt my heart leap with joy, and went back with 
 these words, which lasted me the whole week through. 
 Dear me ! the compassion the good Lord has for His poor 
 children !" 
 
 A deep sigh, almost like a hiss, interrupted Euphemia. 
 I started, and turned abruptly towards the bench. The 
 man had not stirred, only more of his face was hidden by 
 his hands. 
 
 Euphemia looked at him with her mild glance. 
 
 " One must have trust, Monsieur Victor," she said. 
 
 There was a short pause ; then she began to talk again, 
 just as her canaries sang, with an outburst of youth and 
 happiness ; a freedom from any anxious thought for the 
 morrow, of which we lose the sweet secret after our twen- 
 tieth summer. 
 
 While she was speaking, the man, without saying a word, 
 rose and left the room. 
 
 Euphemia' s countenance changed at once, and she grew 
 very grave. 
 
 " He is one of our porters," she said. Then seeing that 
 this short explanation did not satisfy me, that my glance 
 was still a questioning one, she went on with some little 
 constraint. 
 
 " He is very unhappy." Then in a low voice, as if what
 
 THE GALLEY-SLAVE. 125 
 
 she was going to say rather distressed her on his account, 
 " He has been at the galleys ! " 
 
 I shuddered involuntarily. 
 
 " If you knew all he suffers ! Ill ; no peace ; a wild 
 beast's nature ; fits of fury which rise like flames, less 
 now than formerly, though ! Then the strength of a bull ; 
 iron hands ! Ill as he is, he can still bend a sovereign with 
 his fingers ! He was young, he was jealous ; there was a 
 woman that he loved. In one of his mad rages he bit her 
 breast so ferociously, that she died of it. He was ten years 
 down there; now he is weary of life. He does not want 
 for work ; he is steady, but he is consumed with remorse 
 and shame ; he is afraid of God. Yet he comes here ; 
 I speak a little to him ; he never answers, or hardly, he 
 is so timid ! but he always comes back." 
 
 That was my first meeting with this man. 
 
 My second was at his own house. 
 
 His illness had rapidly increased; he could no longer 
 work. Euphemia sent to tell me so. 
 
 He lived not far from the Halle, in a very mean-looking 
 dweUing. I went up ; I knocked. A hoarse voice bid me 
 enter ; the voice was his mother's ! 
 
 The room was large, high, but squalid ; with bare walls, 
 their plaster very much stained, dripping -with damp, and 
 falling off here and there. No furniture, no chest of 
 drawers, no wardrobe ; only three nearly bottomless chairs, 
 on one of which sat the mother, sewing a canvas sack, near 
 the window ; on the other lay the clothes of the sick man 
 in the bed ; the third was unoccupied, and placed beside 
 him : it was there that I seated myself. 
 
 The window, very large, filled with little greenish panes 
 of glass, darkened by the exhalations from within and the
 
 126 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 cold without, admitted an opaque light, no blue sky ; 
 very sad to see. A bit of looking-glass, covered with 
 black spots, was fixed to the wall The mother, a large, 
 bony-faced woman, went on with her sewing without look- 
 ing towards me. She did not utter a word, did not make 
 any gesture ; but I felt that she was hostile to me. She 
 reminded me of a she-wolf surprised in her lair. 
 
 Her son was lying on his pallet. It was then I saw his 
 face, that face that I cannot forget. It was a long face, 
 with hair cut very short ; a high forehead, cheeks closely 
 shaven ; a straight nose, thin lips, the upper lip very 
 long; an uncertain glance, with something about it emi- 
 nently hard, and at the same time scared ; savage and 
 irresolute ; energetic, nay, passionate, and yet almost 
 gentle. 
 
 But what pervaded and prevailed over all was the im- 
 press of an intense woe; a mixture of defiance and despair; 
 a barren suffering ; sorrow without tenderness ; that sin- 
 ister impress which seems to belong to the brow of fallen 
 angels. He looked straight before him, neither at his 
 mother nor me, nor the wall, nor the dust-laden atmo- 
 sphere, nor at anything in sight. His feverish hands, still 
 strong despite disease, kept throwing off the bed-clothes 
 with a monotonous gesture. He was gasping for breath. 
 His mother drew her needle in and out, (one heard the 
 coarse thread pass through the canvas,) and turned her 
 back to us. 
 
 A woman like that might indeed love, did love, no 
 doubt; but with a savage kind of undemonstrative love, 
 the love of a lioness, which crushed, not comforted. 
 
 He was going down alone, going down gloomy and 
 despairing, into the abyss. To annihilation ? to judgment 1 
 He did not know.
 
 THE GALLE Y- SLA VE. 1 27 
 
 I felt a boundless pity. Strange to say, I felt a sense of 
 humiliation sink into the very depths of niy being. This 
 man had almost murdered ; even in dying he inspired 
 terror ; yet, if I had dared, I could have taken him into 
 my arms, and poured out all my heart towards him. 
 
 I did so to God. As to what I said, I really do not 
 know. My heart spoke, my tears flowed ; I implored him 
 to let himself be saved. 
 
 He went on, looking fixedly away in silence. At last 
 his lips quivered a little, a slight flush passed over his face, 
 and when I rose, he reached out his hand to me. 
 
 "For the love of Jesus, believe!" It was a cry of 
 anguish. Following an irresistible impulse, I fell on my 
 knees : I prayed ! Did he pray too ? I believe he did. 
 
 The mother said nothing, but she had left off working ; 
 and when at a later hour, when it had grown dark, I left 
 her son asleep, and passed her on my way out of the room, 
 she rose, still sullen, but less hostile, and opened the door 
 for me. 
 
 I never saw the galley-slave again.
 
 THE DOVECOT. 
 
 j]T is not what you think. I have no other dovecot 
 to tell of than a poor room ; no other doves than 
 an old man and his wife. 
 
 I was reading in my drawing-room, in Paris, one snowy 
 evening in the month of March, when the door opened, 
 and a letter was handed in to me. Before I took it I 
 knew what it was a begging letter ! They are all alike ; 
 the same paper, the same handwriting, the same smell of 
 poverty, if it is not that of tobacco or of brandy ! 
 
 Are we, then, indeed, such slaves of circumstance, that 
 indigence effaces our individual characteristics ? You have 
 been rich, you have been fastidious, you have had your 
 humours, your tastes, your originalities ; you become poor, 
 they all get faded, flattened ; and if ever you are compelled 
 to implore the charity of others, you too will dip your pen 
 in the same pale ink. Your thoughts will follow this beaten 
 track, you will fold your missive into the same humble 
 shape ; poor, you too will write a poor man's letter. 
 
 The letter I held in my hand smelt neither of wine nor 
 of cigars. But my heart seemed withered ; weary of the 
 woes of others, I had seen so much of them all the winter 
 through ; and much imposition, many tricks played upon 
 me, gave me a right, so I thought at least, to take refuge 
 now in selfish repose. 
 
 For a moment I had an impulse to leave the letter un- 
 opened, to send it back still sealed, to turn round and go
 
 THE DOVECOT. 129 
 
 to sleep again. I did not do so, however : perhaps because 
 I was ashamed of myself, perhaps because the servant, who 
 was standing by the door waiting my answer, mumbled 
 something that sounded like "They are there.'" 
 
 I signified to him that I wished to be alone ; then tore 
 open the envelope and read. 
 
 The envelope contained two letters. One, the begging 
 letter itself, neatly written, like many others I had received, 
 with certain words, God, your charity, despair, &c., in 
 capital letters, with many flourishes, denoting a decided 
 talent for caligraphy. There was nothing else to distinguish 
 it from the rest of its class. It described extreme destitu- 
 tion ; seemed, indeed, to have an impress of sincerity, some 
 words that sounded like the soul's genuine cry ; expressions 
 of faith which denoted a Christian spirit ; but I had seen 
 so much of this carefully calculated simplicity, my ears 
 were so weary of all this cold fervour, that positively I 
 could no longer distinguish the ring of the true metal from 
 that of the false. 
 
 And this is one of the trials of our vocation, we who 
 seek to do a little good in the world. 
 
 The other letter was of quite a different stamp. It was 
 a letter of recommendation, written in an off-hand style, by 
 a wealthy inhabitant of Lyons, whom I knew, and who 
 introduced an unfortunate pair to my notice upholsterers, 
 once well off, people of long-standing character, who had 
 been ruined by a bad investment. Their misfortunes had 
 brought them into contact with him, and, while assisting 
 them in other ways as much as he could, he had imparted 
 to them his own best wealth Christian faith, in all its 
 simplicity and power. This poor pair believed the Bible, 
 they loved each other, but they felt it intolerable to 
 live upon charity. There was no opening for them at 
 
 I
 
 130 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 Lyons ; a vision of Paris had risen before their imagina- 
 tion ; from that moment there was no keeping them back. 
 The wife would, indeed, have remained quiet, she retained 
 fewer illusions ; not so the husband. Paris, so especially 
 the town of beautiful furniture, rich hangings ! and then 
 he, whose taste was so correct, whose hand so skilful ! 
 Why, had he not, some twenty years ago, furnished, from 
 cellar to roof, the archiepiscopal palace of the second town 
 in France ? Paris ! why, he should have nothing to do 
 but to show himself there ; workshops would open at once, 
 work would abound. The only drawback would be that 
 he should have to engage twenty workmen at least; he 
 was sorry for that, his wife might find them troublesome. 
 Nothing could stop him, neither arguments nor facts ; they 
 set off to Paris. This letter of recommendation to me was 
 dated three months back. Three months ! of work or 
 penury who knew ? 
 
 I rushed to the door, opened it, and knew at once. 
 There they both were, seated on a bench, dressed in old 
 black garments, two pale, meagre figures, the very sight 
 of them struck to one's heart with something of remorse. 
 The husband was sixty years old, the wife fifty, but she 
 looked more. She had a very sweet face, shaded by nearly 
 gray hair, clear eyes, the only remnant of youth, a con- 
 tented mouth, a resigned, thoroughly calm and good expres- 
 sion, with all the courage of perfect openness. But gentle- 
 ness and modesty were the prevailing characteristics. She 
 drew a little back, with an air of suffering, slightly embar- 
 rassed, but by no means awkwardly shy. 
 
 The old upholsterer, her husband, resembled her in 
 nothing. He was a little man, with keen, feverish eyes, 
 agitated rather than active, getting up, sitting down, with 
 a sort of distracted air, looking every moment at his wife,
 
 THE DOVECOT. 131 
 
 lovingly, but with an anxious love. His forehead was low, 
 ii bush of white hah", a narrow head, gave Mm an appear- 
 ance of flightiness and he was nighty, a very few moments 
 shewed it plainly enough. 
 
 Misfortune had assigned to each of them the same out- 
 ward life ; but peace reigned in the woman's sweet nature, 
 while the poor man was devoured by anxiety. She knew 
 the Lord, and rested upon Him ; he knew Jesus too, and 
 kept looking in every other possible direction for aid. 
 
 She waited patiently ; he exhausted himself in barren 
 efforts ; she let the past be past, he was constantly revert- 
 ing to it with a bitterness that undermined his strength ; 
 she loved tenderly, and this love was her best delight ; he 
 loved passionately, and this love was his worst suffering. 
 
 Such they were. For three whole months they had had 
 disappointment after disappointment ; no work anywhere. 
 
 " They say I am too old," cried the poor man. " They 
 shut the door upon me ; not a chair to stuff, not a curtain 
 to hang ! and I, who furnished Monseigneur's archiepisco- 
 pal palace ! " and he shook his head. " Look at my arms, 
 do you call those weak arms those ] " He turned up his 
 threadbare sleeve. " Have I not got my ten fingers still ? 
 Beg ! beg ! beg ! There is no help for it, we are without 
 bread in the house ! " 
 
 He sank down again upon the bench. His wife fixed her 
 beautiful quiet eyes on me, a tear rising in them the while. 
 She placed her hand upon her husband's. " God will not 
 forsake us," she said, and these few simple words, spoken 
 in a veiy grave and very gentle voice, made me involun- 
 tarily think of that meek and quiet spirit which is in the 
 sight of God of great price. 
 
 The old upholsterer grew calm as if by magic. 
 
 " It 's very true, though," he said, " we are still happy."
 
 132 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 When they went away, the husband, contrary to custom, 
 instinctively took his wife's arm, and leant upon it. It 
 was evidently a habit of years of which she was not aware. 
 Never had that humble heart, that innocent nature, sus- 
 pected the weakness of her companion ; never had she 
 found out that she was superior to him in every respect 
 had the idea ever crossed her, she would have detested it, 
 but it never did so. Hers was not that modest manner 
 which covers a haughty mind, that submission in words 
 and gestures, united to an inflexible will which will creep 
 towards its goal, if it cannot walk thither upright. She 
 never said, " It is my husband that wishes ! " Whatever 
 he did wish, she was at once honestly ready to do. If the 
 plan seemed to her a bad one, she said so openly and 
 gently, for she had an opinion of her own, but she never 
 insisted, she knew when to stop ; and the mischief once 
 done, she would instinctively and unconsciously set about 
 repairing it. She cherished her husband with all the 
 strength of her soul, she respected, admired Mm. As for 
 him, narrow-minded, but upright in heart, impetuous, 
 ardently industrious, indefatigable, self-denying, he saw 
 life, other people and himself, everything, indeed, but his 
 wife, invariably on the dark side. 
 
 People are soon lost sight of in Paris. Our worthy pair 
 having been relieved, helped on as far as I could ; others 
 came. After seeing a good deal of them, I saw them less ; 
 two months passed, they never applied to me. I forgot 
 them, then all at once they recurred to my mind, and I set 
 off to look after them. 
 
 The husband was the only one at home. 
 
 One glance round the room told me how they had suf- 
 fered. 
 
 It had nothing left but what was quite indispensable ;
 
 THE DOVECOT. 133 
 
 an iron stove on which their slender meal was cooking : 
 little white curtains to the window, none to the bed ; no 
 old cracked cups, nor old gilded glasses, nor framed litho- 
 graphs ; everything had found its way to the pawnbroker's. 
 
 Only the cleanliness, the neatness, the pieces of old cloth 
 laid down at the side of the bed, upon the cold brick floor, 
 revealed a woman's presence. 
 
 The upholsterer was seated ; he was writing, so intent, 
 so absorbed, that at first he did not hear me. The next 
 moment he raised his eyes. He jumped up, made me sit 
 down ; took his head in his hands it was his habitual 
 gesture then said, in an agitated voice 
 
 " Worse still ! worse and worse ! Not any work ! not 
 any ! She is killing herself ! " 
 
 He took up his wife's sewing, and let it fall, again. 
 
 " As for me, I am idle ; she feeds me, she does. I don't 
 know which way to turn. Ask, ask, ask, always asking ! " 
 This with a gesture of impatience not unmixed with bitter- 
 ness ; plainly the archdepiscopal hangings recurred to his 
 mind : 
 
 " And, by way of finishing stroke, I tease her ; yes, I 
 tease her ! I ought to encourage her, I discourage ; I 
 ought to strengthen her, I weaken ; I ought to let myself 
 be consoled, I get irritable. She has faith, she has ; well 
 I play the part of the devil ! I try to deprive her of it. 
 When she says hope, I reply, What 's the use of hoping ? 
 I am a wicked, useless man ; fit for nothing, but to kill 
 her !" 
 
 He threw himself back in his chair, then went on : " At 
 this moment, where do you suppose she is ? at the pawn- 
 broker's. She has taken her watch there, the watch I gave 
 her on our wedding-day, thirty years ago. Do you know 
 what I went and did? I said no end of hard things to her,
 
 134 THE NEAR HORIZON'S. 
 
 that I did. She looked at me, she embraced me, and sat 
 down again. I said to her, Go ! like a brute that I was ; 
 and she went." 
 
 When he had recovered a little 
 
 " And so !" and at once his voice took almost a cheerful 
 tone, " Look here." He took up the sheet of paper he had 
 been writing on when I came in. " Look here ! I do my- 
 self justice at least." And he pointed out the words with 
 an intense satisfaction, " That will please her, will that." 
 
 I read, " My dear wife, I am a ivretch ; my dear wife, I 
 am a wretch" and so on in text-hand, down to the bottom 
 of the page. 
 
 " If I know anything about her, I do not think that will 
 please her," I simply replied. He looked at me with his 
 small, eagre eye. 
 
 "Tell her you love her; that's better." 
 
 " Love her, indeed !" cried the old upholsterer, in great 
 excitement. " That woman ! that wife of mine, is an 
 angel ! She is my life, is my wife. I am very unlucky ; 
 we are cold here." His glance flitted round the poor bare 
 room. " Sometimes we are hungry, but for all that there 
 are moments, ay, there are hours when we are as happy as 
 kings. At night, we go to bed when it gets dark. Candles 
 come expensive ; there," and he pointed to the alcove, and 
 the curtainless bed ; " there, when we kneel down together; 
 there, when she rests her head on my shoulder ; there, look 
 you, I am so happy sometimes I think my heart will burst. 
 Oh, if I could only die so ! " 
 
 "And your wife?" 
 
 He uttered a cry, " There it is, there it is ; selfish, always 
 selfish !" He clasped, or rather he wrung the hands he 
 raised to heaven. 
 
 I could have fancied I heard that groan from the heart
 
 THE DOVECOT. 135 
 
 of St Paul ; that desolate sigh which rises out of the deep 
 places of every human soul, " wretched man that I ani ! 
 who shall deliver me from the body of this death 1 " 
 
 At that moment the door opened ; it was the wife re- 
 turning. She saw at a glance the look of distress in her 
 husband's face, and ran to him. 
 
 " Forgive me," she said, " I have given you pain. "We 
 shall get it back ; you shall hang it round my neck again ! " 
 She clasped him to her heart. " I have got bread, got all 
 we want ; let us trust in God, in Jesus ; was He not 
 hungry once 1 " 
 
 A movement on my part announced my presence ; she 
 stopped, a little confused, then curtsied to me, remained 
 standing, and thanked me for my visit. 
 
 The old upholsterer who had but few ideas of his own, 
 held those few fast. At the first pause, he took up his 
 sheet of paper, and eyes sparkling with delight, handed it 
 over to his wife. She read, blushed deeply, went to the 
 table, wrote a few rapid words, placed the page under her 
 husband's eyes, then, with animated gesture, tore the 
 paper into fragments. Later I knew what those words 
 had been, words never effaced from the old man's heart. 
 They were these : " My husband, I am thy most happy 
 wife and thy humble servant." 
 
 All the charity in the world never yet made up for 
 work More than bread, more than help of any kind, the 
 old upholsterer craved for occupation, craved to work at 
 his trade. 
 
 " I have at home an arm-chair which wants covering, a 
 very handsome one. Could you repair it for me 1" The 
 old man's eyes sparkled. 
 
 "Will you come?"
 
 136 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 " When ?" he asked with a trembling voice. 
 
 " Why, to-morrow ; the first fine day ; whenever it suits 
 you." 
 
 " And I I may bring my wife ? " 
 
 "I should think so indeed." 
 
 " Because, you see, she is a better hand still than I am." 
 
 " Oh !" put in the wife, with a sweet smile. 
 
 The old upholsterer's face lit up : in two seconds he 
 grew ten years younger; his forehead lost its wrinkles; 
 he drew himself up ; his chest expanded ; he rubbed his 
 hands ; what the sympathy of the wife, the charity of the 
 benevolent, never could have done, work his work did. 
 His status returned ; his youth, his vigour, his prospects. 
 
 He ran to the press, opened a drawer, examined his tools 
 one by one, taking up this, throwing aside that, without 
 being any longer aware of my presence. His wife's expres- 
 sion was quite heavenly ; she clasped her hands tight, and 
 looked at me without saying a word. 
 
 The morrow was a splendid day in June. 
 
 Paris has not many rural retreats, but I may venture to 
 say that, on that particular morning, my drawing-room, 
 opening out on my garden, about sixty feet long by 
 eighteen, had something so springlike, fresh, and balmy, 
 that it made one dream Idyls. 
 
 A bit of blue sky, a bit of green grass-plot ; glycine en- 
 tangled in the trellis that covered the wall, that wall very 
 low, with other gardens all around, beautiful rose-trees in 
 flower, stands of geraniums which the bees were pillaging 
 with busy murmurs, an awning that softened the light, 
 rustic chairs, a table, and over it an acacia in full flower, 
 from which each breeze that blew stole white perfumed 
 petals to scatter them on the grass. Such was my garden, 
 such my drawing-room. A poor reminiscence of nature, of
 
 THE DOVECOT. 137 
 
 those mighty joys which expand your heart when you walk 
 in the country ; God's great works around you, full of life 
 and health, in sunshine and in liberty. 
 
 Happy he whose eye may, from dawn to twilight, wander 
 at will to distant horizons ! Happy he who sees the mea- 
 dows grow green in April, who gathers the violet in the 
 valley, who, with his own hands, alike plants and reaps ! 
 Happy he who breathes the free fresh air of the country ; 
 to whom the breeze brings in through the open window 
 the scent of the lucerne in flower ! Happy he who works 
 at some healthy out-door work, whose faculties, continually 
 reinvigorated, apply themselves fully, yet not feverishly, to 
 the task God has assigned them, and who, when evening 
 is come, returns not to the conventional duties of conven- 
 tional life, but to the sacred pleasures of hearth and home. 
 
 At seven o'clock in the morning, there was a ring at my 
 bell. The old couple entered. They had made themselves 
 smart ; their worn, thread-bare garments had a sort of 
 holiday air ; they were both radiant. The worthy man 
 could hardly eat his breakfast, he was in such a hurry. 
 That over, he set to work, his face beaming. He had on 
 his green baize apron ; his mouth was full of pins, and 
 then came such cutting, measuring, pulling, fitting ; for he 
 was hard to please, and began again twenty times, and yet 
 he was so alert and rapid, had such a correct eye and expert 
 hand, that the work got on as if by magic. 
 
 His wife sewed, attentive to his directions, silent, her 
 breast SAvelling with joy. 
 
 My great anxiety was to get them to eat and to walk 
 about ; their anxiety, that of the upholsterer especially 
 his wife understood me perfectly was to work ; to work 
 on, to shew his skill, to shew he had not forgotten his 
 calling, and that he could execute a masterpiece, and that
 
 138 TILE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 he had a pair of hands of his own capable of maintaining 
 his wife without any need to beg. 
 
 It was all I could do to get him away from that unlucky 
 arm-chair, and to make him take an hour's rest in the 
 garden in the middle of the day. But the sun flooded the 
 room with light, the bees would sometimes wander about 
 it, puffs of fragrance came wafting in. Then the uphol- 
 sterer would raise his head, inhale the air, say, " It smells 
 sweet here ;" and set to work harder than ever. 
 
 That did not matter ; he was happy in his own way, 
 profoundly happy. He exchanged little playful words with 
 his wife ; I heard them laugh, he with an abrupt chuckle, 
 she with a clear, fresh laugh. 
 
 The good times were come back again, he was making 
 money, he should make more. God had granted his wife's 
 request ; he, too, prayed with his whole heart, but as for 
 his own prayers, he held them cheap. The prayers of his 
 wife, oh, these would mount straight to heaven ! 
 
 When evening came, I was called in. The arm-chair 
 was finished ; it was perfection ! I told him so ; his hands 
 trembled with delight ; he was a different man. He exa- 
 mined his work, rather proud, not too much so, for he was 
 accustomed to work well ; he looked well to do, hopeful, 
 he was calm and composed for the first time. His wife 
 contemplated him, then the arm-chair, then me ; one could 
 see that she was returning thanks to God. It was she 
 Avho was overcome now; happiness moved her more than 
 sorrow had done. 
 
 When they went away, the husband, with an easy gesture, 
 offered her his arm ; it was he who protected her. 
 
 Would that I could stop here, stop at this fine summer's 
 day. Alas ! this time I have to go on to the end.
 
 THE DOVECOT. 139 
 
 The old upholsterer was not deceived ; work did come 
 in. Not very abundantly, but steadily ; enough to keep 
 the house, enough to make him happy. 
 
 When I left Paris in July, the room had been modestly 
 refurnished ; there was a pot of mignonette in the window, 
 two canaries singing in a cage, the watch, the wedding gift, 
 hung at the worthy woman's waist. It was a home, an 
 affection that might well inspire envy ; it was the Dovecot. 
 
 There are people who laugh at these ancient loves. Not 
 so I. I pity those who believe that there blooms one short 
 season for youthful tenderness, and that, this season over, 
 the time to love is past, the heart withered, and nothing 
 left but to lead a prosaic life, without fervour, sunshine, 
 shade, or mystery. 
 
 We were two lovers, a man, a woman ; we had a thou- 
 sand delicacies of feeling in our soul ; all the shyness, all 
 the fascination, all the secret ardour, even the little sorrows 
 and the beautiful tears of a strong affection. Age comes ; 
 we become mere companions. Two boon comrades, good 
 fellows, heart in hand, easy tempered through indifference, 
 equally amused, equally wearied with what remains of life, 
 having nothing more to ask, not much to give, without 
 hope, without regret, waiting for the time of separation, 
 and when it conies, quitting each, other with great com- 
 posure ; we, who had loved one another with so great a 
 love. 
 
 Some find this very natural and supremely wise ; for my 
 part, I find it revolting, and the dreariest folly. 
 
 I left Paris. That year the cholera ravaged it cruelly. 
 
 When I returned, the frozen breath of December was 
 blowing through the streets, my apartments were cold, 
 uncomfortable ; I had a good deal to do in my home.
 
 140 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 One evening, it was New Year's Eve, my door-bell rang, 
 the old upholsterer was asking for me. Could it indeed 
 be he that I saw there seated on the bench, in the same 
 spot as last year alone, bent, with haggard eye ? He 
 looked at me fixedly. 
 
 " I am hungry," he said, in a hollow voice. " That 's 
 why I am come to trouble you." 
 
 My mind at once foreboded some terrible misfortune 
 that I did not dare to verify. He looked at me again ; 
 saw that I knew nothing. Then, with a fearful outburst 
 
 " I have lost my wife !" he cried. " I have lost her, lost 
 her, lost her !" and he buried his head in his hands. 
 
 Then, in a melancholy voice, he began to repeat, as if to 
 himself, the tragic story. 
 
 It was very simple. In the thick of the cholera, the 
 poor woman had gone out to make a few purchases ; on 
 returning, cholera had seized her, torn her to pieces in the 
 course of four hours, during which she had not been able 
 to say anything more to her husband than a ' Good-bye !' 
 murmured out through her tortures. Her hands had been 
 constantly clasped, her smile in dying that of an angel 
 
 " I have been alone ! for three months ! I have no- 
 thing, I am nothing, and yet I live ! God Almighty has 
 not yet had the charity to take me !" 
 
 I gently placed my hand on his arm, as his wife Avas 
 wont to do ; he shuddered ; and while he went on talking, 
 in broken sentences, I was able to take in, one by one, the 
 ravages his immense sorrow had made in this poor creature, 
 weak in body, weak in mind. 
 
 He was ragged, unshaven, untidy, almost dirty, he who 
 used to be so rigidly clean, to have his old clothes so neatly 
 put on. His cheeks were thin and hanging, his eye burn- 
 ing, his frame shaken by a constant and almost convulsive
 
 THE DOVECOT. 141 
 
 shiver. He spoke much, and fast, hardly seemed to hear 
 himself, could not listen to me at all ; went on with his 
 wail like the wave of the sea, which beats again and again 
 on the same portion of the shore. If I struck strongly a 
 religious chord, it would, indeed, give back a feeble sound ; 
 but this rather from force of habit than its own proper 
 vibration ; despair had swallowed up all. 
 
 " I don't do any more work ; I have no head for it," he 
 said. "I keep going, I walk, I go errands when I get 
 them, I am a gone man ! and I can't die /" he cried 
 vehemently, starting up. " / eat, could you believe that / 
 eat 1 Yes, I am mean enough to eat because I am hungry. 
 I am devoured with hunger." 
 
 I had some food, some broth brought in ; he would 
 not touch them, his throat was closed , he said it did 
 him good to talk, good to weep, that was enough for 
 him. 
 
 Man feels his littleness before the sea in storm. The 
 consciousness of his own impotence overwhelms him. He 
 can but contemplate the everlasting surge, the boundless 
 horizon, and lend a meditative ear to that mighty voice 
 marching on the waters. There is another ocean which 
 makes him feel his limitations more keenly still the 
 infinite of woe ! some one of those fathomless sorrows, 
 with no earthly hope, which feed upon themselves ; some 
 Promotheus on his rock, with vitals constantly gnawed ; 
 some abyss where every consolation, every aid, is swallowed 
 up at once and disappears. 
 
 I did not tell this man that he had made himself an idol, 
 and that God had broken it ; I did not tell him that his 
 wife was a creature, and that our hearts must not attach 
 themselves to creatures ; I did not tell him that the 
 Christian is to rejoice when God has made him weep. I
 
 142 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 have found consolations of this kind in the books of men ; 
 I have never seen such in the book of God. 
 
 Only, in a voice that I tried hard to render calm, I 
 gently asked him whether he would, at this very hour, 
 recall her from the heaven where she was, to the earth 
 where he suffered. 
 
 That idea .struck him. " No, no !" he answered, with a 
 burst of tenderness and tears. 
 
 " Would you have her in your place, you in hers ?" 
 
 "No, no I" he said, in almost a joyous tone. 
 
 " The Lord loved her much." 
 
 He repeated ' loved her much' several times ; he hugged 
 the words to his heart ; it was his first ray of light : He 
 loved her much ! that reconciled him to the sovereign 
 decree of his God : He loved her much ] that idea worked 
 its royal luminous way through his soul. Loved her much 
 much ! The poor man went away repeating those words. 
 
 That evening he could take no other food. 
 
 The following day I went to his house. Over the door 
 one saw a little black plate with wliite letters, " Here lies 
 Benard, widower !" That was his name, widower was 
 written in immense letters. 
 
 My heart was wrung. Suffering had been stronger than 
 this man's reason. 
 
 On entering, I stood still on the threshold. Benard was 
 sitting motionless before the alcove, which he looked at 
 fixedly. The bed had disappeared ; it had been dragged 
 into a corner of the room. It was unmade, disorderly. In 
 the alcove rose a sort of catafalque, extremely finished in 
 all its details. 
 
 I approached. Benard sprang towards me, took me by 
 the hand, and led me to the alcove. 
 
 "This is what I have been doing !" he said, in a tone
 
 THE DOVECOT. 143 
 
 that revealed a -species of satisfaction through all its sorrow. 
 "See !" and Ms voice shook more and more, his gestures 
 became febrile. " See ! here is her table, covered with 
 black cloth ; here is the cage, the canaries are dead, in 
 my agony I forgot them : she would not have done so ; she 
 would not ! Here are white flowers, whatever I gain, I 
 put it all here ; all that is given me all ! Here is her 
 
 watch, the watch that " Tears choked him. " It has 
 
 never gone since that day ; here is her wedding-ring ; here 
 is her shawl, her poor shawl." 
 
 He fell on his knees, hid his face in the shawl, buried 
 his head there. I heard him sob : I remembered the 
 silence of the friends of Job. Then from beneath the 
 folds 
 
 " She was my faith," he began again, in a despairing 
 voice ; " she taught me to love Jesus, to support affliction ; 
 she has taken away everything with her everything ! I 
 do not pray any more ; I do not know whether I believe ! 
 Will God have anything to do with me?" 
 
 At this fearful thought, this thunderbolt hurled by 
 Satan's deadly hand, he tore away the shawl in which he 
 had wound himself, and shewed me a face so distorted, 
 that it made me shudder. Without knowing well what I 
 Avas doing, with one of those dumb cries which the Lord 
 hears, I snatched at a book, which I recognised as it lay 
 on a chair, and I placed it open upon the catafalque. 
 Benard saw it, rose, bent over the pages without touching 
 them, with an eager eye, like one dying in the desert over 
 living water. 
 
 " Death shall be no more," he began tremblingly to read. 
 " There shall be no more sorrow, nor crying, nor pain ; 
 for the former things have passed away." 
 
 The almost frantic man grew gentle as a child.
 
 144 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 He took up the book reverently, kissed it, and put it 
 back where I had placed it. 
 
 " It is her book, her New Testament ; and I who had 
 forgotten it ! Yes, there ! it is well placed there ! Her 
 beautiful book, in which she read every morning ; which 
 we read together every evening ! It is thy answer to me, 
 my beloved ! It is thy message ; thou givest it to me ; 
 yes, thou biddest me from God to have hope. Yes, yes ; I 
 will read, I will pray, I will submit, that I will : He will 
 have pity on me ; we shall be together." 
 
 From that moment the old upholsterer was more calm ; 
 with relapses into desolation, almost rebellion, he still pro- 
 gressed in his obedience. Sometimes he believed strongly 
 enough to be happy ; sometimes he doubted, and was lost 
 in misery ; sometimes he would be overwhelmed with re- 
 morse ; at others, he would lay hold on the forgiveness of 
 Jesus. 
 
 His was a weak, worn-out head ; one of those natures 
 that the wise willingly reprimand, because they are fatigu- 
 ing, full of incoherence, full of contradictions ; because in 
 dealing with them, one has always to begin anew, and one 
 likes to see an end to every undertaking, even the best. 
 His was one of those poor hearts : mighty to suffer, un- 
 fitted for daily life ; violent, earnest, impossible to divert, 
 humble, broken always, for which the Lord has ineffable 
 tendernesses. 
 
 He worked no more ; his pride in his calling, his trade, 
 his skill, all that was over. He wandered about, picking 
 up odd jobs as a porter. But in the alcove his former self 
 returned. There the upholsterer revived ; the old, ardent, 
 exact upholsterer devoted to his business ; every penny 
 that he earned, every alms he received, went there. There 
 he fitted on different stuffs, decorated continually, invented
 
 THE DOVECOT. 145 
 
 new devices. Half famished, ill-clothed, ill-kept, he still 
 possessed in the matter of his catafalque all his former 
 enthusiasm and most minute exactness. People said, " You 
 should clothe him : it is no use to give him money ; it all 
 goes in knick-knacks and nonsense ; it only feeds his folly." 
 But his folly was one of those which will be fed. If you 
 cut off their allowance, they devour the heart. 
 
 One day the old upholsterer came to me almost radiant. 
 "I have an idea !" he said. "It may take me years to 
 carry out. But, never mind ; I shall do so in the end." 
 He lowered his voice : " I mean to hang my room with 
 black, with white cords and white drops. When this is 
 finished, I have a notion that Jesus will take me." 
 
 He shewed me the box in which his treasures were 
 accumulating, a five-franc piece, some smaller money, his 
 daily bread, his daily toil. 
 
 Before it was finished, Jesus took him.
 
 MARIETTA, 
 
 you will not come and see Marietta ? She 
 understands French, and then you would be 
 giving her so much pleasure I" 
 
 Thus spoke Master Schimp. Master Schimp was a 
 shoemaker, settled in the little German town held in charge 
 by the old General, where I had gone with the Baroness. 
 
 Master Schimp had brought home my shoes. He some- 
 times made shoes for me ; and when finished he brought 
 them home, and when he brought them, he sat down, and 
 when he sat down, he never knew when to get up again ! 
 
 He was a hale, thick-set man of seventy, as wrinkled as 
 an ancient banner, with a tangled shock of hair, small, 
 clear gray eyes, a flexible mouth, a comfortable opinion of 
 himself, and the best heart in the world. 
 
 He talked well, and he talked a great deal in French, 
 and almost without accent ; in a neat, precise fashion, 
 allowing himself full leisure to seek for the fit expression, 
 which being once found, he proceeded at a steady pace, 
 even and monotonous as the drip of water. 
 
 Steadying his green bag between his legs, he would dive 
 from time to time into the capacious depths of his pocket 
 for his snuff-box, and giving it three short, sharp taps upon 
 the lid, would say to me, while he helped himself to a large 
 and liberal pinch 
 
 "You do not take snuff?" then, shaking the box, he 
 would give his shirt-front a side sweep of the hand, and 
 resume the thread of his discourse.
 
 MARIETTA. 147 
 
 Have you ever known what it is to sit in the very fever- 
 heat of impatience, upright and smiling, with now and then 
 a gentle inclination of the head, a yes and no repeated at 
 fitting intervals ; while in your heart, far below this sur- 
 face affability, a voice went on exclaiming, " Provoking 
 unconscionable creature, do you never mean to go away at 
 all ? You have been here at least an hour ! and no doubt 
 will sit there for another ! Oh that somebody else would 
 want me ! would come to fetch me away ! " 
 
 Then conscience murmurs, " Selfish being ! are sixty 
 tedious minutes so very unendurable ! And is not this 
 my neighbour, my brother, worth far more, it may be, than 
 myself ? If it was money he wanted, it would be given him, 
 it is so easy to be bountiful ; but the bounty of a little 
 kindness is not so readily bestowed." 
 
 The mind takes this into account, and says, " Let patience 
 have its work ; little annoyances pave the way to great 
 obediences. Bend to this one with a good will. It ia 
 now and then that we meet with a lion on the path ; but 
 ants will run across it every day." 
 
 " True," replies the first voice ; " but, on the whole, I 
 should prefer a lion." 
 
 So proceeds this confidential discussion, and with it, 
 Master Schimp at full length. He holds forth ; he goes 
 back to his youthful days ; upon reminiscences he engrafts 
 anecdotes, in no way remarkable for point or purpose ; he 
 branches off towards religion, he branches off towards 
 philosophy. The unfortunate man, it seems, has been a 
 reader ; has picked up everywhere the odds and ends of 
 all things, and has forgotten nothing ! We pass, by an 
 easy transition, from philosophy to politics, from politics 
 to France, and from France to Paris, his favourite place of 
 residence; he lived there ten years in the days of the
 
 148 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 great Napoleon. Napoleon sets him en croupe, and carries 
 him to Germany ; the Allies bring him back to Paris, to 
 the streets as they were then, and to the streets as they 
 are now: their original names, and those they are now 
 known by! 
 
 And the sun is sinking, the fresh, cool evening stealing 
 on ; is it all to be absorbed in this way? A studied silence, 
 a slight fit of coughing, a fidgety rearrangement of the 
 chairs, but nothing will do. 
 
 Till at last he began to talk about Marietta. 
 
 And who was Marietta 1 An invalid cousin, whom, with 
 her sister, he had taken to live with him. 
 
 And Marietta, be she who or what she might be, saved 
 me. I blessed her, and putting on my bonnet, drew a 
 long, relieved breath, and said, " We will go." 
 
 Even Master Schimp, who was not easily impressed, 
 seemed struck with this sudden energy. A few steps 
 brought us to his small neat dwelling, coloured with the 
 peculiar spinach-green the Germans are so fond of. Its 
 windows shone and sparkled with cleanliness ; on one side 
 of the door was the shop where he kept his men at work, 
 reserving for himself (as we have seen) the task of carrying 
 his goods to their destination. 
 
 A pleasant-looking middle-aged woman, Marietta's sister, 
 who was standing on the door-step, moved aside to let us 
 pass. Master Schimp went into the shop, put down his 
 parcel, and taking the leg of a boot out of the hands of one 
 of his men, he addressed him at some length in German, 
 which address, or one of similar weight and emphasis, he 
 appeared to repeat to another of them, while carefully ex- 
 amining an upper leather ; he then looked at me with a 
 smile which seemed to say, " You have perhaps understood 
 a little," to which I replied by a lowly gesture of depreca-
 
 MARIETTA. 149 
 
 tion, when lie smiled again, and, replacing his hat by a 
 green shade, put on his spectacles, and with another dive 
 for his snuff-box, another pinch, preceded by the three 
 sharp taps, he murmured an apology for passing before 
 me, and led the way into a dark passage. 
 
 I followed him, and as we went he said, " So you do not 
 know Marietta ? Well, then, you have something curious 
 to see !" 
 
 He opened the door, and as the light streamed into the 
 passage, I saw indeed something which seemed rather to 
 spring than rise out of a chair, and come forward to meet 
 us. I stopped short, and but for one of Master Schimp's 
 quick keen glances, I think I should have screamed. How 
 shall I describe this something, this poor, strangely de- 
 formed creature, three feet at most in height, and with a 
 head so out of all' just proportion as to recall the paste- 
 board monstrosities that milliners sometimes use for blocks ; 
 her hands, in the absence of arms, sticking out of her 
 shoulders, more like fins, it seemed to me, than hands ; 
 without legs, almost without feet a maillot, set upright 
 on the earth ! And yet this lived; it spoke; it had a soul : 
 even now it was colouring deeply. 
 
 Master Schimp, who had meant to produce a strong 
 effect, looked just a little remorseful at the extent of his 
 success. This passed, however, with the moment, and a 
 few laughing words with Marietta set him at one with 
 himself again. 
 
 " No fear, cousin ; ' a friend,' as one says to the patrol. 
 Come now, we are going to have a little French." 
 
 And Master Schimp began to exhibit his prodigy. 
 While he recounted, without sparing me a single date or 
 incident, how after having brought Marietta to live with 
 him, he had first taught her to read and write in German,
 
 150 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 and then to read and write in French ; how he had fol- 
 lowed this up by arithmetic, the two grammars, geography, 
 and history ; and how Marietta had taught herself knitting, 
 embroidering, and all varieties of needlework; while he 
 shewed me her copy-books, and drew a crotchet collar out 
 of the poor girl's work-basket, Marietta, who had been at 
 first even painfully embarrassed, began to be more at her 
 ease. She looked at her cousin with mild eyes so full of 
 gratitude, of affection, of deep respect, of implied confi- 
 dence, that they seemed able to take in no other object. 
 
 And I, too, had by this time regained my self-possession. 
 I ventured to look again at Marietta, and again not with- 
 out a shock ; so pitiable, so appalling was this malforma- 
 tion, that the heart knew not what to make of it. It was 
 a contradiction, an impossibility. One's innate sense of 
 fitness seemed outraged by such a strange freak on the 
 part of Nature, and when I remembered that Nature was 
 but another word for the Creator, and that this deplorable 
 travesty had been permitted, a wherefore of fearful import 
 arose within my mind. It came there, however, and was 
 gone like a flash; another look, and the dark surmise 
 passed away for ever. This poor head could boast of its 
 dark abundant hair, of fine eyes, and of regular features, 
 but it was not in these that its charm was found, but in 
 the tender, inexpressible charm of its expression ; in the 
 joy, the peace, the purity, that spoke there with such a 
 pure, restrained simplicity the soul looking forth so 
 clearly, that one forgot whether the body was there or not. 
 
 But had this soul itself, Marietta's, any thoughts about 
 the singular setting in which it found itself ? It might be 
 so, but the consciousness was not apparent. After the first 
 embarrassment of my introduction was over, Marietta 
 talked to me without constraint ; her voice had a youth-
 
 MARIETTA. 151 
 
 ful, touching tone in it that went very straight to the 
 heart. 
 
 Master Schimp was called away, and the expression of 
 her eyes changed a little; they seemed to send forth a 
 dimmer light, as a lamp does after it has been let down. 
 
 " My cousin is so kind," she exclaimed, with animation ; 
 " so very kind ; he spoils me," she added, with a smile ; 
 " he thinks that I know everything, when I scarcely know 
 anything at all And everything is his doing ; he has been 
 both father and mother to me." 
 
 Her eyes filled, and I saw that her heart, too, was very 
 full. After a short silence, she went on, as if in answer to 
 my unspoken thought 
 
 " I am happy ; the Lord Jesus has loved me, a poor 
 little creature like me," (this was the only allusion she made 
 to her infirmities.) " My cousin loves me, too ; my sister, 
 everybody ; the day is not long, and in the evenings we 
 read together, and are very happy." 
 
 "You go out sometimes 1 ?" 
 
 " Not now ; my cousin had a little carriage made for me, 
 which he used to draw, but since a very serious illness, I 
 have not been able to bear the movement of the wheels." 
 
 "And you will sometimes wish for a sight of the 
 country ? " 
 
 Marietta coloured slightly. "Once I used," she said, 
 "biit not now. I look elsewhere." Then, after a short 
 silence, and because she saw me look sorrowful, she added, 
 " There are flowers in Paradise." 
 
 Yes, I thought, and a glorified body ; but this I did 
 not say to her. 
 
 She had lived, it was evident, in an atmosphere of kind- 
 ness, and having never been exposed to those collisions 
 which wound the heart just when it is seeking to expand,
 
 152 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 she expressed her feelings artlessly, and just as they 
 arose. 
 
 "My greatest sorrow is, that I am ungrateful Yes," 
 she continued, not quite understanding my look of surprise, 
 " you would not have believed it of me, and yet it is so. 
 There are times when I am so cast down ; everything 
 seems so dull, and my heart so heavy. Then I could 
 gladly cry ; but this never lasts long, and God forgives me 
 for it. He has forgiven me all" 
 
 She then began to tell me how she spent her time. 
 
 Her cousin had so stored her mind with knowledge, had 
 so built up her life in the strength of practical faith, that 
 in neither was there room left for weariness or for despair ; 
 and this poor being, disinherited even of the outward sem- 
 blance of humanity, had gone on her way unchallenged by 
 any of those desolating problems which pierce through the 
 very bones and marrow, and make the knees of the strong 
 to bow under them. 
 
 Cousin Schimp did nothing, it was plain, by halves ; he 
 had finished off his work, just as he had finished off his 
 sentences. It was impossible to look round the room 
 without being struck with the exquisite keeping of its 
 arrangements. Marietta's furniture, arm-chair, table, desk, 
 even her vase of flowers, were all adapted to her height : 
 everything was pretty, everything perfect in its way ; little 
 steps to enable her to reach the window, and the splendid 
 stock which was now beginning to blossom. All this 
 seemed quite fit and natural ; the eye was not startled, but 
 as it passed over the little interior picture, and took in all 
 this watchful considerate detail, one felt something like a 
 loving Presence there in the warm, wide bounty of a 
 loving thought. 
 
 The door burst suddenly open. Six rosy, curly, little
 
 MARIETTA. 153 
 
 girls, basket on arm, rushed in tumultuously, and flew to 
 Marietta, almost overwhelming her with kisses. Now it 
 was that her face lightened up in earnest, and her smile 
 grew heavenly. 
 
 " I teach them," she said, " to read and work," 
 
 It was worth something to see the happy, self-important 
 look of the little things as they placed themselves on each 
 side of Marietta. 
 
 I left her, and as I went into the shop, met Master 
 Schimp, green shade, spectacles, and snuff-box. 
 
 "Well?" he said. 
 
 I could not speak, but pressed his hands within my 
 own. 
 
 " She is my child," he said, in a subdued tone. 
 
 Master Schimp, you are a great man; and Thou, my 
 God, art the great God of earth and heaven !
 
 THE SCULPTOE. 
 
 a foggy day of December, I found myself in one 
 of the oldest streets of the old city of Paris. I 
 was seeking there, guided by the address of a 
 letter received the evening before, the dwelling of a sculptor. 
 It was no easy task. The street was composed of mud, of 
 two walls, behind which was land to be sold, of piles of 
 rubbish, and five or six miserable houses. All this was 
 enveloped in a noisome fog. After going backwards and 
 forwards many times, I discovered the number, half effaced, 
 and half fallen down with the plaster. 
 
 The house fully responded to the street. The very walls 
 spoke of poverty, stained as they were with that nauseous 
 hue, the result of mud, of filth, and of rain, which is the 
 general paint of the hovels of the poor. There was no 
 porter ; the foot slipped on the dark and slimy staircase ; 
 at each landing-place a faint ray of light struggled through 
 a small window, which was soon lost again in the gloomy 
 labyrinth. Here and there dilapidated doors opened on 
 some miserable threshold. At length I found the one I 
 sought ; it stood half-opened ; I pushed it and entered. 
 To the right of me was a kind of studio or workshop, 
 strewed with statuettes, and tools, and clay ; at the bottom 
 of this a larger chamber. It had lofty windows, but one 
 half was paper, the other cobweb. It was a dim light that 
 entered there. For the rest, it was a chaos ! A mere con- 
 fusion of casts and plaster, and more tools, and broken
 
 THE SCULPTOR. 155 
 
 chairs, and cooking utensils, and an old petticoat, crusts of 
 bread, and something left upon a plate, cold and disgusting. 
 
 Near the window were two children ; one of twelve years, 
 thin, with pale face, with large eyes of extreme sweetness, 
 and long hair, soft and thick, which gave to his features 
 an almost feminine delicacy. With his long thin fingers he 
 was modelling, entirely absorbed in his work. I imagine 
 that Raphael, when a child, had just that melancholy face. 
 
 His brother, a smaller child, with round, full features, 
 but pale also and sickly, watched him at his work. When 
 he walked, I saw that he was lame. 
 
 At the noise of my entrance both turned, then took to 
 consider me with the same astonishment. 
 
 I asked for their father. 
 
 The elder one put aside his model, made some steps for- 
 ward ; the other followed, limping. I penetrated into the 
 recess, they returned to the window. 
 
 It was so dark where I was, that for a moment I could 
 distinguish nothing. The air, too, was stifling, a fit of 
 coughing seized me, which was so far opportune that it 
 relieved me from some embarrassment. A sonorous yet 
 broken voice asked what and who it was. My name told 
 him nothing ; for a silence followed, in which I felt an air 
 of constraint. There was nothing heard but that hissing 
 respiration which marks the last stage of consumption. 
 
 It was the wife of the sculptor who had written to me ; 
 the husband, it was evident, knew nothing of it. 
 
 Feeling my way to a chair, I muttered something about 
 art, about statuettes, awkwardly enough. 
 
 Meanwhile, my sight grew accustomed to the obscurity. 
 I began to discern a bedstead, and a man sitting up in it, 
 breathing hard, and looking at me in silence. 
 
 It was a noble countenance, one of those faces that
 
 156 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 attract you at once by their sympathetic revelations ; 
 whilst there are others you may have seen twenty years, 
 and may see twenty years more, which remain flat, and 
 hard, and secret as a wall. 
 
 He had a piercing eye, dark hair thrown backwards, a 
 forehead beautifully formed, a beard slightly touched with 
 gray, mouth refined, candid, loyal, and an air of distinction 
 which was felt even through his extreme pallor. 
 
 " Is it as artist or amateur 1 " 
 
 " Both a little. I have heard your works spoken of ; 
 you are suffering ; I think that " 
 
 The sculptor saw that I was embarrassed. Without 
 stopping for explanation, with a charming smile, and the 
 perfect air of high breeding that seeks to put at his ease 
 some stranger fallen from the clouds, he called to his son 
 
 " Francis, shew us the Rachel, the Child with the 
 Butterfly, and the Young Girl." 
 
 Francis brought these little figures, and with them two 
 or three of revolutionary subjects, which the father had 
 not asked for. In the first there was great talent, and 
 true feeling for the ideal, and a supreme elegance of form ; 
 the others were inferior ; they were highly finished, but it 
 was the tool of the workman mere than the thought of the 
 artist that you saw. In fact, it was trade and speculation ; 
 a bill drawn on the popular passions of the day. The 
 sculptor at bay had asked for bread. Poverty, not art, had 
 inspired them. 
 
 " Oh, these are nothing ! " he said, pushing them aside ; 
 " the others, perhaps, have some merit." 
 
 The ice was now broken ; he talked of sculpture, paint- 
 ing, music. On everything he spoke well ; in simple un- 
 pedantic style ; in the language of good society, as the 
 highly-educated gentleman. One felt there was some ter-
 
 THE SCULPTOR. 157 
 
 rible incongruity in his life , some degrading circumstance 
 was tyrannising over him. The scene by which he was 
 surrounded was not the only proof ; certain intonations, 
 certain gestures, involuntary habits of another life, struck 
 me with pain ; and he himself became conscious of them, 
 for he suddenly paused. 
 
 "I have worked too much," he said; "during three 
 months I have laboured night as well as day. It was for 
 a physician, he wanted some anatomical models : one 
 must earn one's bread ! " 
 
 His voice failed ; but afterwards he resumed more gaily 
 
 "This illness of mine is nothing, some influenza. I 
 am better ; in a few days I shall be well I have work 
 enough to do." 
 
 The idea had crossed his mind that I had come on some 
 charitable errand. It was but a momentary thought ; but 
 it knit his brow, gave a hard, dry tone to his speech, and 
 threw over his whole demeanour an air almost of hauteur. 
 By a brisk turn in the conversation, I dissipated this idea, 
 and he again became natural and gracious in his manner. 
 
 I admired enthusiastically the Child with the Butterfly 
 and the Young Girl. The eye of the sculptor kindled. 
 Artist and man, the artist, proud of his work ; the man, 
 proud of his unsubdued energy : both seemed to revive. 
 He raised his head with easy complacent movement ; life 
 and almost gaiety was restored. I asked permission to 
 carry away with me those little masterpieces. 
 
 " It is you who grant the favour by taking them ! " 
 And there was that air of the perfect gentleman as he said 
 this, that positively I did not dare to ask the price of the 
 little figures, nor to deposit it on the old chair that served 
 us for table. 
 
 At this moment his wife entered : a woman of lofty
 
 158 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 stature, thin, draped in a faded tartan. She had regular 
 features, a majestic carriage, a tragic step. When she saw 
 me, she concealed under the folds of her shawl the long 
 carrots and the loaf of bread she had brought in her 
 basket. 
 
 The sculptor turned his face to the wall, and was silent. 
 It seemed to me that I comprehended something of the 
 mystery of his destiny. 
 
 This woman deposited her basket ; then, with a theatri- 
 cal gesture, embraced her children, as Medea might have 
 done her sons. She looked at me, saw who I was, and 
 knowing the errand on which I had come, beckoned me 
 out of the recess ; then she extended her hand, received 
 the sum I placed in it, spoke to me, with great emphasis 
 of voice and manner, of her husband, of herself, of the ex- 
 pensive malady, of poetry and literature ; and finally 
 launched into abstruse regions, where she lost her footing, 
 and I too. In everything, the tone rang false ; she de- 
 claimed as on the stage ; not that she was absolutely dis- 
 sembling, but there are human instruments which, from the 
 beginning to the end, have a false pitch. The worst is, 
 that such instruments never cease ; they clang through all, 
 and put others to silence. There are people whose very 
 nature is an extravagance ; with whom simple truth would 
 be an affectation ; whose thoughts are always mounted upon 
 stilts; who must talk through a speaking-trumpet. The 
 wife of the sculptor was one of these creatures. Very 
 stately, always inflated, constantly preoccupied with her 
 own dignity, full of mystery, profoundly oracular, playing 
 her comedy very seriously, as if queen of the theatre, 
 perhaps she had been. 
 
 The sculptor did not open his mouth. By his short, 
 nervous cough I knew that he was impatient ; I left.
 
 THE SCULPTOR. 159 
 
 I returned often ; the sculptor grew worse and worse. 
 He always said lie was better ; did he believe it ? 
 
 By degrees he grew more sociable. When his wife was 
 absent, he talked with perfect ease, with a perfect freedom 
 of mind. There was rarely an allusion to other times, or 
 it was so veiled, so covert, or so slight, that only a quick 
 observer could have detected it. "We talked of art ; each 
 time I carried away some statuette. One day there 
 remained very little else beside I chose to covet a little 
 Republican figure, a Buonapartist, I know not exactly 
 what. The artist looked at me with his keen, clear eye. 
 
 "You wish that?" he said, with a tone slightly con- 
 temptuous. 
 
 " Yes ! it pleases me ; it has energy." 
 
 He reflected for an instant : a tenderness stole over his 
 countenance ; he stretched out his hand 
 
 " Thanks ! " he said, then fell back upon the pillow. 
 
 This was the only occasion on which, upon that terrible 
 question of money, he departed from his accustomed re- 
 serve, his proud rigidity of manner. 
 
 Between him and his wife there was a wall, a gulf, I 
 know not which to call it. She attended on him with a 
 certain ostentatious respect ; but without tact, or taste, or 
 any anticipation of his wants. He, on his part, never 
 addressed to her a single reproach; he never called her to 
 his side. She declaimed about herself and her services as 
 she did on all subjects. Meanwhile, she left him in that 
 dark recess. He never asked to be drawn from it, and 
 she never dreamt that he had need of fresher air. Around 
 him no comfort, no little attentions ; and in the chamber, 
 no attempt at order or cleanliness. One might as well 
 have expected a Clytemnestra to sweep out the kitchen. 
 
 With all the pretensions of the great lady, this woman
 
 160 THE NEAR HORIZONS, 
 
 was mean to excess. This man, under his poverty, in 
 his rags, on his pallet, in his silence, had an incomparable 
 nobility. 
 
 More than once we conversed, or rather I spoke, of God 
 and of the future ; he listened to me, but did not answer. 
 
 She discoursed abundantly on Providence and the Su- 
 preme Being, and poured forth her pious insipidities. He 
 coughed, looked towards me, then turned away. On those 
 days I obtained not a word from him. 
 
 Soon, alas ! there took place what in all such unions, at 
 a given hour, is sure to follow. As the malady advanced, 
 as his feebleness increased, he who was born to dominate, 
 was subjected to the coarser will This was brought about 
 without a struggle, without noise, without premeditation. 
 The woman was robust, powerful, could comprehend animal 
 courage, and in proportion as the sculptor lost his strength, 
 the fear that she had of displeasing him vanished from her 
 mind. She did not attend to him less, if she could be said 
 to have attended to him at alL At my suggestion, she 
 even decided to draw his bed into the open chamber ; but 
 she put less restraint upon herself, she talked louder, she 
 harangued more frequently, she took less pains to conceal 
 from him the reception of pecuniary aid. Formerly, she 
 used to accompany me to the door, leave her hand open, 
 when I had deposited my offering in it, she would, with 
 mute solemnity, point her finger to the skies ! Now, she 
 made constant open allusions to domestic wants. The 
 sculptor frowned or sighed ; then subduing himself by an 
 effort of self-command, and casting, as it seemed to me, a 
 retrospective glance over a past in which all had proved 
 false or illusory, he shrugged his shoulders, >an ironical 
 smile played upon his lips, the smile of the man of the 
 ~world at the treacheries of fortune
 
 THE SCULPTOR. 161 
 
 There had been some great blunder followed by its great 
 penalty. 
 
 The disorder made frightful progress. The sculptor 
 spoke no more of recovery ; neither did he speak of dying ; 
 he kept silence. 
 
 I think he liked me ; at least he saw me with pleasure. 
 I belonged to his own class, and then I certainly did not 
 harangue or perorate. 
 
 One day he said to me, with failing voice, " I know you 
 will take a pleasure in rendering me a service. Ask of 
 
 ," he did not name her, " my last pledges, and go to 
 
 the Mont-de-Piete, go yourself, and withdraw my set of 
 napkins. I want," he said, looking round him with disgust, 
 "something clean." 
 
 I pressed his hand. 
 
 Early on the morrow I was there with the packet of 
 napkins. The bed, drawn out of the recess, stood close to 
 the window ; you saw distinctly the beautiful lines of his 
 pallid face ; the eyelids were half-closed, there was a smile 
 upon his mouth. He raised his eyes, saw the packet, and, 
 hardly observing me at the moment, began immediately, 
 with trembling hands, to undo it. 
 
 "Ah, yes!" he said; "yes! I recognise them, my 
 beautiful napkins. Yes ! there is my number, 120 ; they 
 are the same." 
 
 He took them, one after the other, and buried his face 
 in the soft folds of the damask, revelling in the sweet 
 odour of cleanliness. Closing his eyes, all his old luxury 
 came in vision around him. Weakness fell on him physical 
 or moral, I know not. His grand head sunk in the pillow ; 
 the napkins fell from his hand. When his eyes next opened, 
 he fixed them intently on the sky, which was now growing 
 pale with the close of day.
 
 1G2 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 Have you felt when death approaches a human soul, one 
 of those noble souls that God endows with poetry and 
 truth and power, and that the world has deceived, that it 
 has perhaps spoilt have you felt before that strength 
 which is dying down, before those nameless miseries, before 
 those poor failing limbs, have you felt an immense pity 
 rise into your heart, have you felt a mute, ineffable ten- 
 derness penetrate into your very marrow, have you felt, 
 notwithstanding the ardour of your faith, that your mouth 
 was frozen, arid your throat closed, dried up 1 Without 
 voice, without a word, have you fallen on your knees, con- 
 scious of your absolute incapacity, prostrated, exhausted, 
 before the God who saves 1 If you have felt this, you 
 know what I at this moment experienced. 
 
 The sculptor never turned his head, nor withdrew his 
 gaze ; he was absorbed in the contemplation of the darken- 
 ing sky. 
 
 TTja wife did not venture to touch the napkins, thrown 
 by hazard here and there upon the bed ; the children stood 
 by motionless. This state of things continued for some 
 time. 
 
 The day following, at six o'clock in the morning, I re- 
 ceived a letter with the deepest of black borders. The 
 sculptor had died in the night ; his wife prayed me to 
 come to her. 
 
 I was very little disposed to do so, nevertheless I went. 
 It lay there, that noble head, cold, and with an ideal beauty. 
 It lay there, that poor body, extended, weak with the last 
 utter weakness. The soul, in its departure, had left peace 
 upon the brow ; it was calm, clear, unwrinkled, and the 
 lips had taken their first delicate contour. 
 
 At my entrance, the widow, raising herself to her full 
 height, and standing with her two hands upon the heads of
 
 THE SCULPTOR. 163 
 
 her two sons, one foot advanced tragic attitude of the 
 desolated mother began to pour out her benediction upon 
 these orphans, in a discourse swelling with redundant 
 epithets. It was an actress, wanting only the passion of 
 one. 
 
 Francis stood with eyes cast down, and tears running on 
 his cheeks ; a slight bending of Ms head, as if to withdraw 
 it from the hand of his mother, betrayed an internal revolt ; 
 he was subjected, but he suffered. 
 
 The younger brother, utterly inattentive, looked here and 
 there, kneading all the time a piece of clay in his fingers. 
 He was accustomed to his mother's declamations ; one 
 more or less mattered little ; when she had done, he would 
 return to his playthings. And he did return to them. 
 
 Now there entered a working man, a moulder, a taker of 
 casts ; honest fellow enough, in rude health, red lip, black 
 moustache, ignorant of suffering. " Ha ! J> he said ; " seems 
 that it is all over ! Poor man ! " 
 
 The widow resumed an attitude, and improvised ex- 
 pressly for him a new monologue, to which he listened 
 with open mouth, and with some pleasure, as if all were 
 passing at a theatre. 
 
 The grief of the widow was not certainly to the level of 
 her demonstrations, yet there was some sincerity in her 
 tears. She felt that the dead man extended there, had 
 been the poetry, the ideal of her life. All that was gone, 
 never to return. Besides, he had been kind to her. His 
 own illusion and bitter disenchantment, she had hardly 
 suspected. Whilst he could work at his art, he had con- 
 cealed them from her ; when ill, she accounted for his 
 silence by his malady ; she could see no further. Now 
 that he was dead, she paid what respect she could. Here 
 was the man with plaster to take a cast of her husband,
 
 164 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 This was all in her part. And then he had a beautiful 
 head, and then the cast would sell 
 
 When she had finished her discourse, the man took his 
 plaster, and threw handfuls of it on the face of the dead. 
 The younger boy approached the moulder, and followed his 
 operations with a curious eye. The elder son concealed 
 himself in the solitary workshop. 
 
 As to the widow, she had put on her shawl, and gone to 
 seek something for the pot aufeu.
 
 THE AKBOUR 
 
 now I return, to seat myself under the service- 
 tree Arbour at the Old Manor-house in my 
 father's garden. 
 
 This garden had broad walks, bordered with box; it 
 was well walled in. The orchard trees looked over the 
 wall, and above the orchard trees rose the misty mountain, 
 in successive stages some wooded, some bare, all with 
 projecting-roofed cottages, perched on a peak, or hidden in 
 a dell ; the Jura, with its dark pines, and upper pastures, 
 dotted here and there with chdlets, dominating all. 
 
 In April, before the leaves are out, the service-tree 
 arbour is starred with yellow flowers ; bees swarm there, 
 the buzzing is like that of a hive. Through the flowery 
 branches, you see the sky, with light fleecy clouds, moving 
 on gently before the softened breeze. Behind the arbour 
 there is the stand of bee-hives a beautiful stand, resting 
 against the bakehouse, facing due east, and covered with 
 wild vine ; four rows of hives displaying themselves proudly 
 in their smooth, polished deal case. 
 
 In May, when the apple-trees of the garden are in flower, 
 you might take them for orange-trees ; then it is that 
 spring-tide scents and living murmur spread all round ; the 
 branches scatter a very rain of pink petals and golden 
 pollen ; the bees seem delirious with delight ; bright-hued 
 insects poise themselves over the fragrant tufts ; there is an 
 exuberant burst of blossom on all sides. The ground is
 
 166 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 still bare, except for the gay tulip beds, but the white 
 silvery dome of the fruit-trees, with the blue sky above 
 them, make the garden a gorgeous scene such as man could 
 never have imagined, had not the country been strewn 
 abundantly with such by God's bounteous hand. 
 
 On fine May Sunday evenings, when one is seated be- 
 neath the service-tree arbour, one can hear the village girls 
 going round the large green enclosure in groups, hand 
 clasped in hand, taking the road that winds through the 
 meadows, with the Alps sparkling at the horizon. The 
 girls, as they go keep singing plaintive songs, their voice 
 dwelling chiefly on the high notes, and having a certain 
 shrill and melancholy, wild and sylvan character, that re- 
 calls the fragrance of the lily of the valley. While the 
 moon rises, they go on stringing couplet on couplet, some- 
 times nearer, sometimes further, always in one measure. 
 Occasionally this mournful song is broken by bursts of 
 laughter. This occurs when the young men, who follow at 
 a distance, also in parties, and hand in hand, have stopped 
 short to wait the return of the young girls, and stop their 
 way. Then the song bursts out again, clear as crystal, 
 full of wild modulations, fraught with an inexpressible 
 poetry, only to be met with in the fields. Night falls, the 
 stars light up ; gradually, the singers return to the village, 
 everything is silent except the frog, who croaks discreetly 
 at the edge of the brook. 
 
 In June, the whole country is leafy; there are deep 
 shadows, and places scorched with sunshine. The arbour 
 is well shut in by its service-tree ; you catch warblings, 
 little cries, flutterings, flapping of wings ; and, when even- 
 ing comes, whole broods shelter amidst the branches. 
 Through them we can just see the hives, from whence 
 exhales a scent of virgin- wax ; the bees hang on them in
 
 THE AEBOUR. 167 
 
 brown clusters ; they keep returning with bundles of pollen 
 round their legs, and such buzzing, and such frantic haste ! 
 At the mouth of each hive on the stand which is gilded 
 by the yellow dust dropping from the spoil stand the 
 sentinels, strongly entrenched, their head within, their body 
 outside the hive, making the air vibrate with the rapid 
 movement of their wings. 
 
 A clump of trees shelters the stand of hives from the 
 north winds : nut-trees, elders, lilacs, privet, the chestnut 
 with its fan-like leaves, and the maple ; all these with their 
 soft tones and infinite shades ; their bright display ; their 
 cool depths of verdure. On the top of the wall, pinks 
 blossom among the stones ; and there are wild poppies 
 there too ; moss fading in the sunshine ; lizards listening 
 to the cricket in the hay-fields. Over the wall trails an 
 entanglement of convolvulus, nasturtiums, and sweet-peas, 
 luxuriantly falling over on the other side. 
 
 The little girls when they pass by look up; stand on 
 tip-toe ; catch a fragment of a petal, and go on their way 
 delighted. 
 
 The fountain leaps in the sunshine ; its jet cuts the Jura 
 with a diamond line ; the drops keep playing their clear 
 uniform melody in the freshened air. 
 
 The mowers, the hay-makers, take a path that keeps 
 close to the garden ; children are fond of loitering there. 
 They come at night to see the glow-worms shining on the 
 wall, while the frogs repeat their mournful note. There 
 it is that gossips are carried on, hurried good-byes, fresh 
 laughter, quiet cogitations, scraps of talk, little nothings ; 
 all that makes up the nature, the village, the simple coun- 
 try life that one so passionately loves. 
 
 As soon as the sun is set, the massive Jura stands out 
 against it, with outline admirably pure. The sky behind
 
 168 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 it then assumes that transparent, almost green tinge that 
 one sees in Perugino's paintings. I do not know why that 
 particular sky, that ethereal hue, that light without rays, 
 that brightness almost polar in its severity, should attract 
 my gaze, as if it were just there that we might look for the 
 opening out of Paradise ! That immutable fortress makes 
 me muse. When my thoughts travel along unbroken 
 horizons, they get fainter and fainter ; melt away like mist 
 before the breeze. When they meet that fortress, with 
 battlements of pine ; those slopes furrowed by steep paths ; 
 those openings in the forest ; the perfect line of that far 
 summit, then my mind wakes ; my life seems doubled. 
 I do not indeed say that the ideas raised are always very 
 definite ; it is rather a healthy gust of liberty and energy 
 that flows down from thence, and fills my heart. 
 
 How many sweet hours, how many blessed hours I have 
 spent in this arbour I speak of ! What raptures of sun 
 and song and fresh breezes, what prayers in agony, what 
 grateful hymns have been mine ! And when my eyes, 
 while reading the old Bible on my knee, wandered till they 
 lost themselves in the distance, following the valley, taking 
 in the indented ridge of the wood ; then returning to those 
 peaceful walks close by, which so many loved and lost ones 
 have trodden; when my glance through my leafy nest 
 pierced to deepest depths of intensest azure, oh, how I 
 have thanked God ! oh, how warmly I have loved Him ! 
 how keenly felt that this was true life, healthy life ! that 
 it was a mercy beyond all others to be permitted to have 
 one's dwelling-place here, in this full, free nature, from 
 morning dawn to evening gloom ! 
 
 There has been much singing along these old walks, 
 much laughter, some weeping too. Many children's steps, 
 many young girls' feet, have sounded on this gravel; many
 
 THE ARBOUR. 169 
 
 fair dreams, great projects, have been nursed there. When 
 the village-bell strikes the hours, when at twelve it rings 
 for dinner ; in the evening, summons the labourers home ; 
 there will rise out of my past, as it were, swarms of loved 
 faces I shall never see more. 
 
 My own young years rise too. See, they bring me back 
 now two innocent faces ; two old faces fresh as roses, 
 Nicholas and Marianne, the guardian spirits of the garden. 
 
 They had the management of the Manor; he of the 
 cellar and the bee-hives, she of the garden. Nothing 
 hardly to do, only to keep their eyes open. 
 
 They were good, plain, well-to-do villagers. He was a 
 Bernese ; she belonged to our part of the country. Their 
 united ages amounted to at least a hundred and thirty 
 years. 
 
 In the morning one used to see Nicholas, with a thick, 
 short cap on his little round head ; breecnes of velvet, like 
 those in the song ; a great waistcoat down to his knees ; 
 always in shirt-sleeves, and these dazzlingly clean ; hands 
 resting on two sticks, and pipe in mouth, move very slowly 
 along the orchard, along the Manor. He took his time ; 
 he was never in a hurry ; but he got all the same to his 
 journey's end. One never heard his voice except in a 
 little, contented sort of grunt, or on days of great elo- 
 quence, in a certain " See, see, see" hummed inwardly. It 
 was a way he had of consulting, haranguing, and approving 
 himself. 
 
 In the spring, when the bees began to swarm, he would 
 establish his wife " the Marianne" under the Arbour. 
 
 She sat there, the charming old woman, a measure of 
 dried vegetables in her apron ; with quiet hand shelling 
 the red, white, striped, and spotted kidney-beans ; while 
 with the corner of her eye she watched the hives. She
 
 170 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 would let us children sit round her, our hands buried in 
 the pretty beans. She wore a white cap with old-fashioned 
 lace, much starched, and falling stiffly down her face. 
 What sort of eyes had she 1 I do not know. I only know 
 that she was beautiful, with those red-rose tints, that fresh 
 bow-shaped moiith you no longer see in town or country, 
 and that mouth always smiling. She had, besides, two 
 dimples in her cheeks, which smiled too. When we were 
 seated on the gravel before her, we contemplated her, lis- 
 tened to her, and that was enough in itself to make us good. 
 
 She never scolded ; all her moral teaching was contained 
 in these few words, " You must be very obedient, and then 
 pouis, you must love the good God." 
 
 Her talk was of that peaceful kind that murmurs on 
 like a brook ; now flowing through fields, now over stones ; 
 kissing this flower, wetting that leaf ; while the butterflies 
 poise themselves over it, and look at their own reflection. 
 She pointed out bird and bee : " Look here, see there ;" 
 or else some venturous insect climbing a blade of grass ; 
 and when some gayer bean than the others passed through 
 her fingers, she would say, " Here, take it ; it is the king 
 of the company." And so she went on shelling, talking ; 
 the hours passed. It was all very pleasant ; peace such as 
 I have not since found. 
 
 All at once here are the bees in great agitation before 
 the hive. " Go, call Nicholas ; go quick ; that 's a good 
 child now !" Oh, the delight of being useful, of carrying 
 a message ! Nicholas listened, took his pipe from his 
 lips, tapped it on the seat to shake away the ashes. " See, 
 see." Then, after a moment's reflection, " Go and get me 
 the casse; that's a good child now !" 
 
 And slowly, on his stout sticks, Nicholas would cross the 
 yard, and mount the garden steps one by one.
 
 THE ARBOUR. 171 
 
 The casse is a shining copper basin, very red and bright, 
 which floats in the bucket of cold water that always stands 
 near the door in country kitchens ; whoever is thirsty taking 
 a draught therefrom. 
 
 " Here is the casse ; is all right, Father Nicholas 1" 
 
 Father Nicholas sometimes, arriving too late, would see 
 the swarm all assembled in the air, set off like a flash of 
 lightning for the mountain, under his very nose. For a 
 moment he would remain motionless ; then it was one of 
 those rare occasions on which he expressed his sentiments 
 " Go your ways, then," he would say to the bees. " The 
 good God bless you. It is not I who am going to run after 
 you," 
 
 Marianne would be much distressed. "Are they not 
 bold?" she would say, in her peculiar diction; "are they 
 not infidels?" 
 
 Nicholas would shake his head; that long sentence having 
 been uttered, with a merry eye and placid mouth, he would 
 leisurely retake the way he came, and reach the yard, the 
 bench, the pipe. When he got there, he would give a 
 grunt, ouf I let himself drop down all of a piece, half close 
 his eyes, and inhale his tobacco smoke with a low nrarmur 
 of comfort. 
 
 More often, however, the bees, who knew their man, 
 would wait for him, agitated and quivering. Nicholas 
 placed his two sticks against the stand ; took the copper 
 basin in one hand, an old, many- warded key in the other, 
 and limping, whistling, tapping away, would move, followed 
 by the swarm, to an apple-tree, where the bees clustered. 
 
 I hear it still that rustic sound, I hear those metallic 
 notes, and that little blackbird chirp ; I see the light cloud 
 that hovers behind Nicholas ! 
 
 And Marianne ! In great haste she would bring a new
 
 172 THE NEAR HORIZONS. 
 
 straw-hive, well rubbed with a bit of balm which she had 
 just gathered. Nicholas would take the living bunch in 
 his hands, and pour it into the hive. Calm, staid, deli- 
 berate always in the midst of the excited swarm. 
 
 "Is the queen there, Father Nicholas? Did you see 
 her?" 
 
 " See, see, see." 
 
 The hive turned, Nicholas stooped heavily, slowly 
 arranged it upon four props, then Marianne surrounded 
 the bees with a large-patterned carpet. Was it not well 
 to protect the new swarm from the fierce heat of the sun 1 
 In the evening it was carried to the stand, and throughout 
 the rest of that day, and even all the next, the bees kept 
 coming and going between the apple-tree and the hive. 
 
 When the month of August came, it was time to take 
 the honey, an exciting day for good Father Nicholas. 
 
 He covered his little head with an iron helmet, pointed, 
 barred, a genuine middle-age relic that he had found in 
 some cellar or other of the manor-house. 
 
 Still whistling, he approached the hives, lifted them, 
 methodically arranged the amber combs in red earthenware 
 dishes. The bees raged that is made believe for they 
 knew that there was nothing for it with Father Nicholas. 
 Hive after hive had to submit ; Nicholas, who was a just 
 man, left them an ample provision for the winter. Poor 
 Marianne used to be sadly frightened when he adventured 
 himself thus in the midst of clouds of angry insects. 
 
 " Must take care, Nicholas, and then (pouis) pray God 
 Almighty to have a care of you too." 
 
 But autumn has come. The trees have yielded up their 
 fruit, the wild vine clothes the hive-stand with a drapery 
 richer in purple and gold than any tissue woven in cities 
 for monarchs' robes. The blue and silver aster-blossoms
 
 THE ARBOUR. 173 
 
 sway in the breeze ; the redbreast tries to repeat his spring 
 song alas ! he has left his best notes on the hawthorn 
 bushes ; he hops hither and thither in warm spots, whereon 
 the November sun has power to chase the fog away. Brown 
 butterflies display their velvet, purple-eyed wings on the 
 year's last flowers ; the bee comes there too, benumbed, 
 melancholy. The red service-berries are fallen, the arbour 
 has lost all its shade. In the field, behind the willows, 
 smoke rises from the fire made by a boebe herding cows. 
 To-morrow they will be brought in; the white frosts 
 wither the grass. 
 
 The vintage is over, the wine ferments in the cask. 
 Walnuts are cracked during the long evenings at tables 
 covered with cider, cheese, and apples. The hemp hangs 
 in silken plaits from the ceiling, ready for the spinning- 
 wheel and the winter nights. The shorn sheep gladly seek 
 the warmth of the stable. A cold, north-east wind whist- 
 ling, rushes by. 
 
 Adieu, my beautiful past ! Adieu, my memories i
 
 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS.
 
 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 i E who elbow each other aside in the crowd of the 
 world, destined perhaps never to meet again ; 
 we, whom opposite positions, and often opposite 
 characters, so widely separate, are, nevertheless, bound to- 
 gether, as in one sheaf, by the one fact death. 
 
 Men die : we shall die ; and it is not to teach you this 
 that I open my lips ; but all and each, we carry in the 
 silence of our hearts the poignant remembrance of one 
 loved and lost : it is there that I find a bond of union be- 
 tween you and me, such as, at any instant, may make the 
 same tears start to our eyes, and blend together in one 
 sentiment of grief, and also of profound love, our souls till 
 then strangers to each other. 
 
 Who is it that has not wept ? Who is it that has not 
 sunk down before that couch, where reposes, without voice, 
 without a look, one who loved him, and whom he loved ? 
 Where is the man who has not walked solitary after walk- 
 ing step with step, two together ? 
 
 Alas ! this terrible reality of grief ! Some find it 
 strange. To them the idea appears unusual, rare. To me 
 it is the most actual and familiar of things ; it would seem 
 to me most strange to pass a day without thinking of it. 
 
 Besides, does any one restrain himself from loving? 
 Can we say to the heart Thou shalt not remember ? 
 Would we say it ? And from that hour, when a cherished 
 being who was ours, has quitted life, are there not certain 
 
 M
 
 1 78 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 questionings, consuming problems, which for ever rise be- 
 fore us ? 
 
 These agitate the soul day and night. Unresolved, they 
 make our torture. And woe to him who escapes by for- 
 getting them ; he escapes, but by a sort of moral forfeiture 
 and degradation ; he has committed treason against his 
 Boul. Better that they should live and torture us, than 
 that we should purchase ease by their oblivion. 
 
 And now, tell me, does not a profound ennui of mortal 
 life fall on you as you advance ? Do you not feel your- 
 self ill of this most fatal malady, the incapacity to be 
 happy ? 
 
 We are for the most part fatigued wrestlers, captives 
 greedy of the open air, perturbed creatures, thirsting foi 
 peace. 
 
 In all this discontent there is, no doubt, some weakness 
 or error to be combated. But I also find in it an ardent 
 aspiration for the skies. 
 
 There are days which rise sadly, which proceed without 
 the sun, which are extinguished without a glow. The 
 trees are leafless ; the fields have no verdure ; clouds hang 
 their dark-gray folds on every side of the horizon. And 
 our life has these pallors, these glooms. A disgust of all 
 things invades the soul ; a disgust of ourselves, a hundred 
 times greater than of others ; the wretchedness of a combat 
 where defeat has followed on defeat ; secret shocks to our 
 faith itself. Oh, in these moments, how we sigh for our 
 deliverance ; for the splendour of truth j for the hallelujah 
 of the skies ! 
 
 You have known these mortal languors ; you have 
 breathed these sighs; you have raised your hands to 
 heaven, while the tears of an exile rolled down your cheek- 
 Well, these torturing questions, I attempt to answer
 
 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 179 
 
 them ; these tears, I come to take from them their bitter- 
 ness. 
 
 "Who am I that speak 1 It matters little. You know 
 me not. Better thus; the false appearances we wear to 
 each other hinders many a thought from reaching the 
 heart. 
 
 I have loved; I love. I have suffered; I shall suffer. 
 Many an object of my tenderness has passed behind the 
 veil I have known those nights peopled with phantoms 
 which descend upon the soul of the mourner. Remorse 
 that comes too late ; cries uttered to an inexorable silence ; 
 anguish and doubts, revolt itself, and that prostration worse 
 than death I have known them all 
 
 The consolations of friends might affect and move me, 
 could not cure. They could not restore the dear face, the 
 voice, the heart that wrapt me in its love. It was that I 
 wanted ; of what avail all else 1 
 
 Or if some word uttered brought me hope, was that 
 word a truth ? Could I lean upon it, sure that it would 
 not break and pierce the heart 1 Are there not beautiful 
 errors more cruel than the harshest truth ? 
 
 Then I sought honestly, passionately, for light. And 
 light which descends from heaven has flooded me with 
 happiness. As lips burning with thirst have hung over 
 the fresh pure water flowing from the rock, so have I hung 
 over the Scriptures of God ; there, in long draughts I have 
 quenched my thirst. 
 
 Do not be alarmed. I am no theologian. I do not 
 undertake to teach you. Let me simply take your hand 
 that hand which trembles; which is still wet with the tears 
 it has striven in vain to stop. Come, let us talk together 
 of those who are gone. Come, we will together unfold our 
 wings ; we will together go into the land of life.
 
 1 80 I HE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 You demand them of the vast unknown regions of space. 
 Oh, you will wander there for ever, cold at heart ! Or, 
 wearied, seized with terror, you will sit down immovable, 
 your head covered with sackcloth and ashes, and remem- 
 bering nothing but the days that were. I know where 
 they are, our best beloved ! I have seen them. This is no 
 dream. Neither is it ecstasy, or the revelations of a seer 
 that I have to offer j but the good promises of God. 
 
 On my part, nothing. I am nothing, can do nothing, 
 possess nothing. But, on the part of my God, much : 
 assurance of life, assurance of reunion, assurance of eternal 
 love. 
 
 If this little book gives courage to some dejected pil- 
 grim; if it brings under the sunbeam some countenance 
 unaccustomed to the light ; if it relieves by an infallible 
 hope some heart in its affliction ; if, like a fertilising dew, 
 it should fall on some spirit hardened by distress, my 
 God, I shall thank Thee for one of the greatest happinesses 
 of an existence in which Thou hast mingled much joy with 
 many tears !
 
 PAET F1EST. 
 
 TO WHOM I SPEAK 
 
 |OU know already, it is to those that weep. 
 But I must return to this. 
 One thing has always made me shudder : the 
 rapidity of the last departure; the character of sudden- 
 ness, joined with that of the irretrievable. 
 
 If there were no future life, such disruptions, violent, 
 absolute, would be a fearful irony on the part of God, who 
 would have united us intimately with other beings, to 
 break us asunder at a moment, and plunge us and plunge 
 them in an abyss of darkness and oblivion. 
 
 Do what we will, a day arrives when, without prepara- 
 tion, without adieus, your loved one is gone. 
 
 When he quitted you for a week, for a day, (if you loved 
 much, for some hours,) what caresses were interchanged, 
 what charges given, and how you kept in your memory his 
 last precious words ! And yet you had letters, those mes- 
 sengers which bring to us the thought, almost the look and 
 voice of the absent. He now quits you never to return ; 
 he will speak no more ; he will write no more. He whose 
 heart vibrated to the least sigh of yours oh, your most 
 passionate appeals will not extract one word from him, not 
 one ! He has left you ; his soul has escaped from you ; his 
 mouth and yours must be mute for evermore.
 
 182 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 The exhaustion produced by grief, the fear of giving 
 language to your sentiments how shall I describe it ? the 
 terror of finding yourself face to face with death, every- 
 thing had paralysed you. And then, when he was gone, 
 who should have heard them, how the cries of the heart 
 burst forth ! what ardent words ; what embraces ; what 
 agony of supplication ! 
 
 Even if you had talked together of the coming separa- 
 tion, if you had gathered as a treasure every broken phrase 
 that fell from his dying lips, even thus prepared, you were 
 not prepared. Death held its great surprise still in reserve. 
 And when all was over, you stood astonished, smitten, dis- 
 mayed, on a threshold you could not pass. 
 
 There is in death a sovereign dignity ; the solemnity of 
 a life concluded. The hour has struck; earthly activity 
 has ceased, the eternal, with the irrevocable, succeeds. 
 
 In one point of view, it is a simple and facile thing. 
 Every day we see the light of a lamp extinguished. It 
 was, and it is not ; a breath of air sufficed. And so one 
 dies. Pain and agony, these are not death. Death is one 
 simple fact. A flame, as it seemed, hovered over the brow 
 of the dying, and it disappeared ; this is all. It might as 
 easily return. But it does not return. Here is the sole 
 horror of death. 
 
 I find in this last hour a strange sentiment of respect for 
 the dead, mingled with grief ; a reverence for one who has 
 gone forth on this mysterious passage. Passage full of 
 mysteries which we too, however, shall one day tread. 
 
 He who has gone forth could not be supported on hia 
 solitary path by any love of ours. A stronger arm was 
 needfuL He had our prayers, yes ! and our last adieus. 
 But there comes a moment when the eyes cease to see, and 
 the ears to hear, when there is a silence and a halt between
 
 TO WHOM I SPEAK. 183 
 
 the two regions of life. It is a moment which God, in His 
 compassion, has reserved for Himself. We, with our hearts 
 racked with grief, stand watching the darkness of night as 
 it descends upon him. We extend our arms, we cannot 
 help it, as if to retain him ; but He who wills to take, has 
 taken. 
 
 Happy, a thovtsand times happy, those on whose pale 
 brow has descended the peace of heaven ! God's pardon 
 written in lines of light. 
 
 Now all is finished. 
 
 Where art thou? Thou whom I no longer possess; 
 thou who liest there, inert, and near to me 1 Ah ! what 
 passes in thee when thine eyes are fixed and thy mouth 
 closed, and there is the celestial smile illuminating the 
 countenance 1 Let me follow ; let me, too, pass behind 
 the veil ; some splendours escape from beneath it ; my 
 soul burns in me, for thou art there. 
 
 Patience ! my child ! Weep, remember, pray ! Soon 
 thy hour, too, will come. 
 
 At this time we rest in the presence of death, in one of 
 its hideous aspects destruction. 
 
 The delight of our eyes has become an object of terror ; 
 things inanimate retain their form, the body of our beloved 
 falls into dissolution ; and the world pursues its course, and 
 the sun shines, and fields blossom, and friends themselves, 
 saddened for a little time, link themselves afresh with the 
 living ; facts like these fall one after the other upon the 
 heart. 
 
 There are men whom they revolt, there are men whom 
 they crush ; many forget, none are consoled. 
 
 Thank Heaven, there are some who do not wish to be 
 thus consoled, who do not wish to be pacified by the hard 
 reasoning of egotism. They do not wish to bow before
 
 184 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 the inevitable fact simply because it is a fact and is inevi- 
 table. Neither do they wrap themselves in the indifference 
 of mysticism. Their full and energetic hearts, retaining all 
 their affections, love in death, love, suffering, as before 
 they loved, joyous, in life. 
 
 It is a hateful philosophy, this submission, without a 
 faith, to the tyrannies of reality. Rather revolt, rather 
 clamour for the lost, rather seek him madly under the 
 skies ; perhaps, in our desperation, we shall meet the 
 Saviour Jesus, and He will restore him to us. 
 
 Terrible temptations await us Christians as well as 
 others when we sit down on the borders of the tomb. It 
 is there that the great enemy of our race, he who accuses 
 us incessantly, is to be found ; it is there that he calum- 
 niates God before our face. 
 
 In this consists the really infernal in his character, that 
 pity cannot touch him. He sees us overwhelmed with 
 grief, and, at one bound, he is on us, and fixes his talons 
 in our throbbing breasts ! 
 
 " You prayed you implored God for his recovery you 
 had faith in Him. He has said, ' Ask and I will give/ 
 What has He given you 1 Nature takes her undeviating 
 course, all things in the world proceed according to their 
 own laws, your prayer but breaks against an immutable 
 fate. Your beloved one, will you ever see him 1 or with 
 what form, and in what region 1 Will he love you there 1 
 And you, in ten years, in twenty, are you sure of loving 
 him?" 
 
 Such thought is worse than death. 
 
 But I know a state of mind still more lamentable, that 
 of utmost languor. 
 
 In despair there is life, activity ; there is an infinite in 
 an infinite sorrow; in despondency there is a sombre
 
 TO WHOM I SPEAK. 185 
 
 poetry on which the soul' secretly feasts ; this languor is 
 near to annihilation. 
 
 Oh, well I have known her this ghostly visitant with 
 pallid face that comes and crouches near the cold hearth of 
 the little chamber where a widow weeps. At her approach 
 the last ember is extinguished, everything grows cold and 
 dim even memory. Then it seems that the soul, like a 
 bird of night, traces the same circle again and again in a 
 cavern where no light penetrates. Always the same ques- 
 tions, monotonous, incessantly repeated, without effort to 
 seek, without hope to find an answer. 
 
 This is the hour for consolatory friends. 
 
 A poor heart in its grief resembles a wounded man 
 stretched along the road, a prey to the charity of all 
 passers. All wish him well ; all do him ill. This turns 
 him over, that raises him up ; he moans, it matters not ; 
 we know better than he what he wants. 
 
 Into an afflicted soul the crowd thinks it has a right to 
 enter ; it is like a conquered city. The new comers over- 
 turn everything; carry off, bring in, derange, arraage; 
 protestations are of no avail ; besides, they are so feeble, 
 (mere sighs of pain,) that they are scarcely heard. 
 
 Health possesses a vital energy that repels all poisons ; 
 it will only assimilate what is suitable. The sick man 
 yields to all, and suffers from all. 
 
 It is a grievous spectacle these barbarous invasions, 
 well intended, most of them ; but very unseasonable, and 
 very afflictive. 
 
 Each one is for shaping anew this poor soul, and casting 
 it in its own mould. Light-hearted people speak of Time, 
 and how it sweeps and effaces, with the folds of its robe, 
 every mournful image. Kinder spirits speak of the virtues 
 of the deceased, and pronounce him happy. Peace-loving
 
 186 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 men, whom long regrets fatigue, remark that lie was well 
 nursed, has been decorously mourned, that every propriety 
 has been observed, and that now the living must be thought 
 of. Prosaic, narrow-minded men, finding this soul pros- 
 trate on the earth, would rivet it there for ever, would 
 tear off its wings for fear it should escape from them. 
 After having lost what he loved, the sufferer last misery ! 
 loses himself. He loses his liberty, his individuality ; 
 he no longer knows himself. 
 
 Of all distressful consolations, the worst are those which, 
 coming truly from man, pretend to be derived from 
 heaven. 
 
 The heart is open to receive these pious counsels ; the 
 sob is stifled, grief itself is silent ; they speak, and they 
 leave you more distracted, not less miserable. 
 
 For you had counted on God, on His sympathy, on His 
 help, on some miracle of love He might still hold in re- 
 serve ; and is it not the love of God that alone sheds a 
 light on the mysteries of this world ? And behold ! they 
 bring you a god of petty jealousies, or a god who demands 
 joy of a heart transpierced, or a calculating god, who en- 
 joins you to love none but him, because he alone dies not ! 
 
 Oh, how often have I heard dinned into the ears of 
 some poor dejected creature, whose head is buried in his 
 hands, who is incapable of resisting the aggressions of their 
 falsehood such words as these : " The Eternal commands 
 that we love Him only ; He must reign alone ; He breaks 
 all idols!" 
 
 The poor soul would answer that his father, that his 
 child, was not an idol ; that his love ascended in grateful 
 prayers to Him who gave them ; but he cannot speak. A 
 fear has fallen upon him. Already his God turns on him 
 a menacing aspect ; his heart sinks within him.
 
 TO WHOM I SPEAK. 187 
 
 In the war that you have kindled between God and his 
 regret, which will be the conqueror 1 Whichever conquers, 
 the soul will lose by the contest. If your God triumphs, 
 it is because your soul, crushed by fear, has betrayed its 
 love ; if your regret, it is because you have measured your- 
 self with God, and resisted Him. 
 
 See how careful we should be when we speak in the 
 name of God ! 
 
 God will not permit idols, but God permits strong affec- 
 tions. He has made our hearts for them ; He has made 
 them for the human heart. God wills that we love Him 
 with all our energy, but to reign He has no need to create 
 a void. If He afflicts, it is that affliction is good for us. 
 The furnace is good, if the gold can be no otherwise puri- 
 fied. 
 
 Do not transfer our own little passions to God. In our 
 happiness, such a God degrades us. We rather counterfeit 
 a love for Him than feel it. In our misery, such a repre- 
 sentation of the Divine Being revolts us or overwhelms us ; 
 in either case it separates us from the true God. 
 
 Others say to you, " Do not weep ; God does not will 
 that you should weep. Rejoice ! He desires a glad 
 heart." 
 
 Such men, in fact, are wearied with a prolonged sorrow. 
 They cannot understand it; they have a certain vague 
 terror of it. Therefore, be content. Your husband, it is 
 true, is dead ; but God does all for the best. Believe in 
 Him, and sing a hymn of gratitude. 
 
 This is to kill the heart. 
 
 God wills that we should live ! And for the very fulness 
 of life He says, iveep ! Weep, but not as those who are 
 without hope. 
 
 Our bereavements must be sorrows, if the gifts of God,
 
 188 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 love and life, are joys. If God strikes us, it is that we 
 should feel Without doubt, even in the trial itself is 
 found I know not what penetrating sweetness ; I have fell 
 it even at that moment when I sunk prostrate under the 
 hand of God. But this is not a joy that bursts out in 
 cries of victory and gladness. The joy I felt, poor vacillat- 
 ing light, sheltered itself in the recesses of my heart, and 
 threw its pale glory before me as I knelt, and, with face 
 hidden in my hands, wept on in silence. 
 
 I know a man who wept thus. 
 
 Job did not say that the gifts of the Eternal were a 
 snare ; he did not congratulate himself that his riches had 
 been taken away, and his sons destroyed. The Eternal had 
 given! it was gift. The Eternal had taken away! it was 
 privation. Blessed be the name of the Lord ! 
 
 Job cast himself upon the earth. Utmost suffering, ut- 
 most adoration. 
 
 Seeing him thus, the Eternal pointed him out to Satan, 
 prostrate in sorrow, prostrate in obedience : " Hast thou 
 considered my servant Job, who has not his equal upon 
 the earth?" 
 
 What made Job to sin, you know it well, was not the 
 malignant ulcer, the last of his calamities. Even then he 
 uttered no word of reproach to God. What exasperated 
 him were the bitter consolations, the inhuman counsels of 
 his friends. Under this scourge, and bleeding from their 
 hands, in the freshness of his wounds he raised himself, 
 and was angry even with his God. 
 
 From want of reflection, from that idleness which goes 
 on repeating pious phrases without considering their mean- 
 ing, perhaps, too, from the influence of a certain mysticism, 
 there are men who, in the most spiritual manner, preach 
 the purest egotism.
 
 TO WHOM I SPEAK. 189 
 
 Health does not last ; to value it highly is to make a 
 bad calculation. Riches depart ; to cling to them is to 
 make a bad calculation. Glory passes ; to fix your heart 
 upon it is to make a bad calculation. Science deceives ; 
 to devote yourself to it is to make a bad calculation. Hus- 
 band, wife, children, often betray, and always die; to 
 attach yourself to them is to make a bad calculation. In 
 one word, he who loves the creature calculates ill. The 
 good and infallible calculation is, to love God, and to love 
 Him only. God does not die, God does not deceive. God, 
 moreover, is master of us all Look well at the balance ; 
 examine and decide. It is simple as the rule of three; 
 peremptory as arithmetic. 
 
 I state bluntly what is expressed, perhaps, with more 
 precaution. 
 
 Without pausing to contest an argument which seems to 
 assimilate the immortal souls of others to perishable objects, 
 without resting on that word creature, so disdainfully ap- 
 plied to all that is not myself let me say at once, that I 
 find in this motive to detach myself from man, and give 
 myself to God, something so repulsive, that my whole 
 moral nature rises up against it. 
 
 The more generous my heart, the more tenderly, the 
 more closely shall I embrace a treasure of which you shew 
 me the fragility. 
 
 What ! because your affection may not be as constant as 
 mine ! What ! because you will die, dear friend, shall I 
 withdraw one particle of my love ? No, a thousand times. 
 My glory is to love more him who loves less ; my consola- 
 tion is to love beyond death itself. 
 
 Love is the destroyer of all egotisms of the spiritual 
 egotism as of others. He it is who enters into the last 
 asylum, and breaks the last idol And when the heart
 
 1 9 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 is thus sanctified, it becomes prepared for an eternal 
 love. 
 
 My whole nature cries out against such reasoning. In 
 the name of all moral dignity, I declare myself superior to 
 your calculations. In the sublimity of moral freedom, I 
 prefer misery with the integrity of my sentiments, to con- 
 tentment with this mutilation ; I seize my treasures, those 
 treasures of the heart you would snatch from me, I embrace, 
 I maintain, I vindicate them. 
 
 " Love thy father, and thy mother, and thy wife ; love 
 them with all thy strength, but love God more. He is thy 
 God, He is their God; He loves them, He loves thee. 
 Never in the utmost altitude of thy affections wilt thou 
 rise to the height of that love ! " Hold such language as 
 this to me, and my heart feels that you speak truth ; my 
 soul obeys, and at the same time takes wider sweep. 
 You have subdued me, but you have aggrandised; you 
 have conquered by raising me to the skies. 
 
 Alas ! many amongst us never raise their thoughts to 
 the skies. Heaven would be strange to them ; they rest 
 on the earth, where they soon reconcile themselves. For 
 one instant the traveller stops, looks about him, thinking 
 on which side his companion has disappeared, then prepares 
 himself for solitude, shoulders his pack again, and makes 
 the best of it. 
 
 After all, there is very little need to teach men egotism ; 
 they have most of them taken their degree in that philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 To gather myself together, and fall in the softest place, 
 when a fall is inevitable ; to throw the cargo into the sea 
 if the winds are tempestuous, and to steer close to the laud, 
 we are all more or less capable of this. 
 
 Oh, you, who after ten, after twenty years of absence,
 
 TO WHOM I SPEAK. 191 
 
 weep with hope, and hope iii weeping, I respect you from 
 the bottom of my soul You are the true lovers, you are 
 the truly happy. 
 
 One thing seems horrible to me in my sorrow : to think 
 that it may have an end ; that some commonplace well- 
 being may replace it, that we may learn to dispense with 
 what was once our life ; that a little vulgar existence, with 
 its repasts at stated hours, and its customary trivial plea- 
 sures, shall fill the void in the heart made by the loss of 
 the dearest friend so that if he returned we should not 
 know where to place him. There is something in this 
 which might well draw from Ecclesiastes, one of those cries 
 he uttered when proclaiming the vanity of human lif e : 
 
 Life is short, swift as a sunbeam ; let us rejoice ! The 
 wind has swept away our tent ; let us build again on, the 
 shifting sands ! 
 
 Do not think I am an idolater of grief ; I am not. Only 
 I will not make a god of " happiness at all price." I know 
 well that we must live upon the earth, and finish our 
 career, but I choose to walk with the image of my absent 
 friend : always we are two. 
 
 Our levity abashes me, mine more than yours ; this in- 
 curable egotism, this aridity that I find in the most secret 
 places of the heart. Even there a hard determination con- 
 ceals itself to make the best of whatever happens. 
 
 God has overthrown me ; I will rise again ; we shall see 
 who is the stronger. God has taken from me the child of my 
 joy, or my father, or my wife ; I will do without them. I 
 will subdue my calamity, not by the power of a faich which, 
 grasping the loved beings, constrains them to remain, not 
 by the effort of a patience which has learned to wait, but by 
 a careless, practical stoicism by a secret defiance of the 
 decrees of Providence.
 
 192 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 I do not blame the man who has suffered much, because 
 his heart lies open to new pleasures ; because the opening 
 flower, or the blue waters of the lake, or Spring, or Autumn, 
 revive the smile upon his lips. Nothing in all this disturbs 
 me. That tender thoughts, and other loves, should kindle 
 in the solitary bosom, does not revolt me. What fills me 
 with sadness is that condition of the soul in which the 
 lost friend, gone joys and griefs of the past, have taken 
 rank with things perfectly indifferent in which if one 
 should come to you and say, He is there ! you would find 
 yourself more embarrassed than delighted. The comfort- 
 able house built on the extinction of a great love this I 
 cannot see without a blush. 
 
 Grief is a flower as delicate and prompt to fade as happi- 
 ness. Still it does not wholly die. Like the magic rose, 
 dried, and unrecognisable, a warm air breathed on it will 
 suffice to renew its bloom. 
 
 Often when the lips smile the heart is sad. Those who 
 appear to forget sometimes remember better than ostenta- 
 tious mourners. 
 
 In many of us there are two men. The one is active, 
 rushes hither and thither upon his business, diverts himself 
 gaily and noisily; the other, passive, dreaming, and de- 
 pressed, turns to the hours that have fled. This last walks 
 and weeps upon the old paths. He stops, he recalls a look, 
 he pursues a phantom. Here we sat together, and her 
 voice trembled ; there, fatigued, she leant upon me ; that 
 evening she was sad, and we prayed God to leave us on 
 the earth together ; that other morning she was gay, and 
 all the world was happy Heaven seemed to have de- 
 scended upon us. 
 
 Because you see in such a one the eyes reanimated, 
 the mind resuming its old labours, life returning to the
 
 TO WHOM I SPEAK. 193 
 
 accustomed track, you say, What is finished is finished, 
 and the dead are dead. 
 
 No. 
 
 After those first days when the separation rends the 
 heart word of terrible fidelity ! and when the torn heart 
 cannot conceal its wounds, there comes a reaction. A 
 strong desire for solitude possesses the soul ; a bashful- 
 ness and jealousy fall upon it; intruders are repelled; the 
 chamber of death is closed; one displays a stolid front 
 that denies all, tortures, memories. But within there 
 are lights burning round the shrine ; and a casual word 
 makes the heart bleed, while the lips discourse of some 
 indifferent matter, or are seen to smile. 
 
 There are secret communications with a departed loved 
 one which the most compassionate listener would profane. 
 At these times we are prodigal of expressions of tenderness, 
 which we should have withheld, perhaps, in life. There is 
 pardon asked, there are passionate avowals, utterances so 
 thrilling and so sweet, that even the voice of a friend 
 echoing them would jar upon us. 
 
 Oblivion ! Oh, you deceive yourself ! Not oblivion, 
 but a sanctuary, a holy of holies, over which the wings are 
 folded. 
 
 Even the light-hearted man remembers. A voice 
 ascends from the past, low and soft ; a word confided, the 
 pressure of a hand in pain, some sudden recollection bids 
 the tears to flow. His heart beats, he embraces in imagi- 
 nation the cherished image ; she is his, she is not dead ; 
 the affections of the past still survive. It is good for him 
 that he suffers thus. 
 
 Old men, chilled with age, who are said to be indifferent 
 to the loss of friends, do you believe that it is egotism, or 
 some paralysis of heart, that keeps back their tears ? I do 
 
 H
 
 1 94 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 not think so. The old man sheds few tears, afflicts him- 
 self little, because the old man knows that he has little 
 time to regret the separation. 
 
 When young, our years are ages ; in mature life they 
 are each three hundred and sixty-five days; in old age, 
 they have dwindled to a few weeks. Time is, indeed, the 
 messenger with wings at his feet. Yesterday he took my 
 wife, to-day my son, to-morrow he will take me. 
 
 No desert without limits extends before the old man. 
 He walks beside a river whose banks are seen to approach ; 
 a diminishing stream separates them each day less and less ; 
 and on the opposite bank stand wife and son, with arms 
 outstretched to meet him. 
 
 In fact, for the believer, at these last limits of existence, 
 Joy predominates over grief. 
 
 We who feel ourselves weak, and are humiliated at our 
 own levity, we who would prefer a thousand times to be 
 faithful and broken-hearted than to be frivolous and happy, 
 we will not despair. The key of our treasures may be lost 
 for an instant, it will be recovered. He who keeps our 
 loved ones will restore them to us ; not one will be missing. 
 Our heart on seeing them will resume all its pristine love. 
 
 It is but the silence of the dead which makes us faith- 
 less to their memory. The mind is weary with its flight 
 through unknown regions, with following what can be 
 never reached. It flies as a bird in the night over a land 
 that has been inundated and become one watery waste. 
 
 Why is it that you see so distinctly this traveller who 
 has quitted you, this son who sails in the Indian Ocean, 
 this husband trafficking in the Far West ? Why do they 
 still seem near to you, their parting counsels still heard, 
 and preparations made for a return, which yet is very dis- 
 tant ? It is because you know where they are. You can
 
 TO WHOM I SPEAK. 195 
 
 follow the track of their vessel, or the course of their cara- 
 van ; you can put your finger on the map and say, They 
 are there ! You trace them home, and forthwith you can 
 make arrangements, even to the minutest detail, for a 
 return so distinctly imagined. 
 
 Let us do the same for our dead ; for indeed there is the 
 same certainty of their return, and the same vivid recogni- 
 tion of their existence. 
 
 But those celestial regions, you say, are so vast, so vague ! 
 Speak to us of shores we know, and which they knew! 
 And yet, if you speak of them, our hearts break, for our 
 friends never will return. There is no hope. There is 
 only a dream. 
 
 For me, I know no reality more true than this dream. 
 
 Dream ! God prepares for you something far different. 
 If He has not permitted between you and the dead that 
 exchange of thoughts for which you sigh, it is because, if 
 He had, death would not have been deatk And then, we 
 should have made idols of our loved ones. 
 
 I know a courier, swift and sure, who will carry us to 
 the absent Faith. He knows the road ; have no fear, he 
 will not stumble or stray. 
 
 For us, in our sorrow, there are promises, and glad 
 intelligence of our dead. God has not shut them up in 
 dark prison-houses. We can turn our eyes to the land 
 they inhabit. No mirage, the country exists. No poet's 
 rapture, the simplest see the clearest. 
 
 Gazing on that land, our affections will take new life, 
 and the bitterness of despair will vanish ; and when we 
 return to earth, we shall bring back an imperishable joy in 
 our hearts ; we shall be faithful to the dead without a 
 murmur of revolt against God ; we shall be grateful with- 
 out egotism submissive, not oblivious.
 
 OF WHOM I SPEAK, 
 
 |HERE are two great truths under the sun, God's 
 pardon, and His justice. 
 
 There are two peoples on the earth : a people 
 of men who speak different languages, and live in different 
 climates, but who have all felt the horror of sin, and the 
 need of a spiritual help, and have recognised, as accom- 
 plished in themselves, the work of the Holy Spirit ; and 
 another people very different, scoffers, obdurate, who reject 
 all the appeals, open or mysterious, of the Divine grace. 
 The prayer for mercy has never fallen from their lips ; they 
 laugh at the idea of pardon, they cast it from their minds. 
 With this last people I do not occupy myself. 
 
 The future of rebellious spirits presents a prospect, the 
 horror of which I would on no account diminish. 
 
 I was not made for such a subject. 
 
 I attach myself to the glorious phalanx of the redeemed. 
 I turn towards the celestial horizon ; I turn towards the 
 light, to the infinite serenities, to the love without limit, 
 to perfect joy. I would awaken joy. It is this we want. 
 
 By a redeemed soul, I understand the man who has felt 
 himself guilty, felt himself weak, who has, in utmost 
 humility, thrown himself before the Eternal, murmuring, 
 " Have mercy on me !" 
 
 But you who mourn departed friends, from whose mouth 
 you have not received the full assurance of peace, do not 
 you turn from me. If I cannot, with firm hand, point
 
 OF WHOM I SPEAK. Iu7 
 
 them out to you in glory, I can shew you something mag- 
 nificent a rainbow all radiant with hope the love of our 
 Saviour, the power of prayer, the free and royal gift of an 
 omnipotent grace. 
 
 Love divine ! It has depths we cannot follow. Even 
 here below, has not the mother's heart felt that there was 
 an inexhaustible tenderness which surpassed her own 1 
 
 You who hang over the little cradle, when anxiety for 
 the future seizes on you, and you grow pale before enemies 
 who have not yet revealed themselves, is it not true that 
 one single thought will at once calm you ? God cherishes 
 my child, and this my tenderness is as nothing compared 
 to the love of God ! 
 
 This husband or this mother whom I mourn, Jesus has 
 loved them. Who shall unfold to me the mysteries of 
 this love ? who shall limit its action ? He knows all, I 
 nothing. When lost in grief, I can neither see nor com- 
 prehend ; He sees, He loves, and He is the Saviour. 
 
 Permit me a reminiscence from my travels in the East, 
 which will never be effaced from my mind. 
 
 We had passed Bethlehem, we had passed the Pool of 
 Solomon ; we had been traversing for a long time solitary 
 hills, where some wild herb alone moved to the wind, when, 
 on a sudden, a dark line cut the horizon. It enlarged, it 
 approached, it defined itself in battlements ; they were the 
 walls of Jerusalem. Behind those walls I saw there, 
 with those eyes of the soul that look out beyond the present, 
 I saw the grand cross of Christ arise and dominate the 
 city and dominate the world. My heart swelled, tears 
 flowed down my cheek. 
 
 An immense love, an unmeasured pity and pardon de- 
 scend from the cross upon the whole earth. Those wha 
 refuse it, destroy and limit it for themselves ; those who
 
 198 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 hunger and thirst for it, find it always equal to their aspi- 
 rations. 
 
 Whosoever calls upon God will be saved. Sublime 
 words, which, descending from the throne of God, fall 
 upon our lost world, and, in f ailing on it, spread a universal 
 light ! 
 
 I recognise no formula which has power to convert men ; 
 I adore a Holy Spirit which, under every sky, can tame 
 the pride of man, and throw him repentant at the feet of 
 his Creator. 
 
 Jesus died for all All do not know the only name that 
 saves. Knowledge must come from without; the senti- 
 ment of our guilt and misery springs from the heart. 
 There is no heart beyond the circle of Divine action. 
 
 Every soul which in its famine cries to the Eternal, finds 
 the Eternal This ineffable cry, uttered in whatsoever 
 zone or epoch, traverses infinite space, and sinks in the 
 heart of Jesus. 
 
 Without doubt, where the atmosphere is thick, the light 
 is feeble; without doubt, there are such clouds as can 
 obscure the day such ignorance and hardness of the con- 
 science as reduce man to the condition of the beasts ; but 
 the power of God, but the love of God, here are my two 
 lamps for this labyrinth. I am ignorant of all, God knows 
 all I think I love, but I love nothing as He loves. My 
 God, who has made the heart, can always touch the heart. 
 
 Come, contemplate with me this Divine love in its 
 plenitude, as it acts upon some poor creature in the hour 
 of death. 
 
 I would not encourage the idleness or the indecision of 
 the souL The man who has a long time refused to hear 
 may lose the power of hearing. I know this well But 
 the moment also may come when the lost sheep, called in
 
 OF WHOM I SPEAK. 199 
 
 vain through all the fertile valley of the earth, may answer 
 at length out of the sombre valley of death. It is thus 
 God seeks his simple creatures engaged in the labours of 
 life, weak, ill instructed, but with a heart still loyal and 
 just. 
 
 In an instant the soul is transformed. It has compre- 
 hended, it has submitted, it has prostrated itself ; God has 
 raised it, it lives. A few days, a few hours suffice ; God, 
 in an instant, at one bound, can enable it to pass through 
 the intermediate degrees. Frozen, it burns ; lame, it runs ; 
 rebellious and pusillanimous, it is now accomplished in 
 obedience and in courage. Leaving veteran Christians be- 
 hind, it passes all, it has achieved all ; and, nevertheless, it 
 is itself, with its own individuality, but ripened by a single 
 glance from the Divine love. 
 
 Jesus has done this. 
 
 What He said to the soul at that last hour I know not. 
 What I have seen I believe. It is the work of God. 
 
 And what is ours ? . 
 
 An immense power is given us a direct influence on 
 the Governor of worlds prayer. 
 
 Shall I recall the promises made to it ? We have our 
 ears filled with them, but what they announce so surpasses 
 our hope that we do not believe in them. 
 
 Infinite goodness poor fallen creatures that we are ! 
 finds us more sceptical than infinite justice. 
 
 It matters not ; prayer is a power ; and if on earth it 
 has a contested authority, it rules like a queen in heaven. 
 
 God dwells far off from us, lost, so to speak, in the 
 height of the empyrean. Prayer brings Him. down 
 amongst us, brings Him to our hearths, and links His 
 power with our efforts. 
 
 The heart of this man repels me, but all his resistance
 
 200 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 disappears before a Divine tenderness. My words irritated, 
 this can move and assuage. I know not how to constrain 
 another soul ; there is One who leads it by invisible cords. 
 Events defy me ; there is One who can bend them to His 
 purpose. He, God and Father, can unite in one focus so 
 many scattered beams, that the darkest soul shall be sud- 
 denly inundated with light, and the coldest heart kindled 
 with love. 
 
 I do not destroy the freedom of man. 
 
 Man can say Yes ; man can say No. 
 
 To say No, knowing that it is the Eternal and His 
 pardon that is refused to scorn our own salvation, with 
 eyes open and a sane mind is perhaps that frightful sin 
 of which it is written, Pray not for it. 
 
 But have I seen or known such culprits, or do they 
 exist for me ? God excepted, does any one know the 
 hopeless ? For me, I know my father, my mother, my 
 friend, this or that man ; God puts into my heart the cry 
 of intercession ; and if I hesitate, the same God says to me, 
 Believe ; all is possible to him who has faith. 
 
 In the time of Jesus there were paralytics and the dying. 
 They could not of themselves go to Christ ; their wasted 
 limbs refused to carry them ; they knew not that Jesus was 
 near and wished to cure them. There were even the dead 
 who could not stir. Who, then, interceded ? who besought 
 the Master 1 A father for his daughter, a centurion for 
 his slave. And Jesus resuscitated the dead. 
 
 What we want is faith. The holiness of God dismays 
 us, but his charity still more. We stand bewildered, fear- 
 ful, and mute. 
 
 May I possess that sacred boldness which lies in true 
 humility ! 
 
 I will pray for you, dear friends, whom my own sins
 
 OF WHOM I SPEAK. 201 
 
 and omissions have kept separated from the Saviour; I 
 pill pray for you whom my cowardice often, and some- 
 times a natural sentiment of bashfulness, have prevented 
 me from addressing with words of serious import ; I will 
 pray for you whom all admire perhaps, and for whom 
 none bends the knee. Grand and lofty minds, who tra- 
 verse our sky, leaving trains of light behind for you I 
 pray ! 
 
 Ah, we know not what surprises may be in reserve for 
 us in the future life ; how many we may meet there who 
 knew us not, whose faces we had never seen, but whom 
 our modest, ardent supplications had drawn softly towards 
 Christ ! 
 
 Have I said what I wished ? Have I communicated 
 hope 1 Have I made you feel the inexpressible love of our 
 Saviour, the power of prayer, the sovereign, unlimited ac- 
 tions of God ? I know not. Perhaps emotion with me is 
 stronger than argument. 
 
 Approach, then, the pages of Holy Writ. What figures, 
 sublime in their simplicity, group themselves there i Con- 
 template them. Their aspect has more eloquence than these 
 lips of mine. 
 
 Is it love you would be convinced of ? See Jesus on 
 the cross. 
 
 Is it the power of prayer ? See women on their knees, 
 and near them the dead who rise. 
 
 Is it the free action of the Holy Spirit ? See the dying 
 tliief, and hear the murmur on his lips Eemember me.
 
 THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I REST, 
 
 REST on the authority of the Word of God. 
 
 Not that I am about to write a treatise on 
 theology. I am incapable, and should have 
 more repugnance to write than you to read it. But if we 
 :do not want theology, we want truth. 
 
 On our life to come, on our dead, I find truth only in 
 the Word of God ; no other book gives it me. 
 
 What is not true, however beautiful, cannot console us. 
 At that moment of separation, when so many cherished 
 realities sink into the dust, could we support the approaches 
 of a consolatory illusion ? Beaten by the billows of an 
 unspeakable misery, I can find a footing only in the truth. 
 Do not extend to me a rotten branch ; in fact, I should not 
 take it ; the soul in its suffering has marvellous intuitions, 
 unmasking men and things. I should prefer rather to sink 
 at once, than, half saved, to fall back again into the depths 
 of the sea. 
 
 One Book alone comes from God ; one alone can reveal 
 to us the secrets of God. It has its silences, its mysteries ; 
 it never deceives. 
 
 Eternal life shines forth from every page of the Bible. 
 At first it is a serene, diffused light, strong enough to re- 
 joice the eyes; not perhaps to define each detail of the 
 immense prospect. Nevertheless, as at the dawn of a fine 
 day, there are peaks touched with light. The brightness 
 increases, the hills are gilded, the sun penetrates the valleys.
 
 THE A UTIIORITY ON WHICH I REST. 203 
 
 Beautiful already, grand and peaceful in its veil of mist, 
 the marvellous region grows more and more glorious with 
 the growing day. Everywhere life eternal throbs and 
 rises radiant around us. Promise after promise, fact after 
 fact ; at first immortality seems to hover over us, at last 
 descends distinct and palpable. It is no longer a vague 
 happiness ; it is a positive felicity, and our hearts bound 
 to meet it. 
 
 This will be admitted by all with reference to the New 
 Testament. There are who contest it with reference to the 
 Old, and especially some of its earlier books. These tell 
 you that they seek for the immortality of the soul in the 
 writings of Moses, and do not find it. They look for it in 
 the desolations of Job, and meet only with a desponding 
 Materialism. They ask it of the Psalms, and the Psalms 
 answer by mournful elegies on the dead, who descend into 
 the regions of oblivion. They expect it from Ecclesiastes, 
 and the wise Ecclesiastes celebrates the pleasures of the 
 world : for, after this life, what is there ? 
 
 Before examining into this, I throw back my thoughts 
 over the earlier pages of the Divine Word. Here I do not 
 find myself oppressed by low and narrow skies ; but on the 
 contrary there is a feeling of the Infinite over all The 
 Eternal and the Immutable shine through the fleeting 
 forms of this world. Man, whose feet are in the dust, lifts 
 high his head, and breathes the air of eternity. 
 
 That time when God took Enoch and transplanted him 
 to heaven, and no one was astonished; that time when 
 Abraham spoke with God as a friend speaks to a friend ; 
 that time when the marvellous ladder was let down by the 
 pillow of Jacob ; that time when a poor woman wandering 
 on the sand of the desert with her suffering child saw 
 without surprise the angel of the Lord descend from
 
 204 THE HE A VENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 heaven, that time was not a time of Materialism ; be 
 very sure of that. Then the princes of the East followed 
 their flocks in the valleys of Judea; then they pitched 
 their tents on the borders of the desert, in regions whose 
 solitude brought God more near. In these beautiful nights 
 of Arabia, clear as our days, they stood at the door of their 
 tents and prayed. They prayed under the oaks at Beer- 
 sheba; they prayed on the summit of mountains. And 
 constantly there was a voice near them that gave answer. 
 Sometimes it was a celestial messenger, with light from 
 heaven on his brow, who came to the patriarch as he sat 
 before his tent in the evening, reflecting on the past years 
 of his life, distinguished by so many communications with 
 his God. 
 
 Think you it was necessary to teach these men that the 
 soul does not die ? Think you it was necessary to explain 
 to these pilgrims, travelling incessantly to some land of 
 promise, that their days were short, and that after their 
 brief duration there would commence a time that had no 
 end 1 Oh, with what a sublime smile would Abraham or 
 Jacob have listened to such doctors ! The soul never 
 doubted ; it believed as the body breathes ; it had no need 
 to discuss its faith, it held firm what it held. 
 
 Proofs are for sceptics. 
 
 Would you prove the magic of the night, the rich har- 
 vests, the flowering meadows, to a man who, from dawn to 
 twilight, and often under the moon, traverses the fields, 
 who draws his scythe through the grass glittering with 
 dew, who returns in the evening by the side of rivers in 
 which the stars are reflected 1 But what eloquence would 
 be necessary, what power of description and of reasoning, 
 to bring all this, living and real, to the child of a miner, 
 some poor, dwarfed creature, who in the bowels of the
 
 THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I REST. 205 
 
 earth, a smoking lamp fastened on his head, pushes his 
 truck along a dark gallery. 
 
 To him who sees, belief is easy ; the thing exists ; I 
 touch it ; it is mine. 
 
 To him who sees not, you must bring faith; and he 
 who names faith, names contest and conflict. Argu- 
 ments are for the blind ; the loud voice of reasoning for 
 the deaf. 
 
 Do we resemble, then, the child of the miner ? Perhaps. 
 Most certainly our world has for ages resembled a city 
 over which an eternal fog is hanging. To such a city give 
 torches, give beacons, at full day. The sun advances and 
 blazes over it ; but the fog constantly interposes nothing 
 clear is seen. There, indeed, the lamp held by a hand that 
 does not shake is most needful. Nothing of all this is 
 wanted by him who walks abroad in the magnificence of a 
 summer's day. 
 
 Those who study even those books of the Old Testament 
 most charged with Materialism, find them, as it were, inter- 
 penetrated with eternal life find the doctrine of immor- 
 tality everywhere implied. It vibrates in their diction; 
 constant allusions are made to it ;; no one dies, but he is 
 gathered to his fathers. One feels it breathe through every 
 dialogue ; it is like a heavenly history running parallel with 
 the earthly, written in indelible characters above, as the 
 latter gradually unfolds amidst the hills and valley? of 
 Palestine. God, who is educating man, is letting him draw 
 his own inferences. This is a very striking feature of the 
 first books of Moses, and agrees well with the positive in- 
 tervention of God. Weaned from those direct relations, 
 those familiar conversations, the patriarchs would have had 
 greater need of written explanations and demonstrative 
 reasoning. The hour came when God deprived man of
 
 206 TEE HE A VENL7 HORIZONS. 
 
 His presence ; from that hour God bestowed on him prophets, 
 into whose mouth He put a miraculous teaching. 
 
 And even granting that man in those remote ages had 
 no positive information given him on subjects upon which 
 he never doubted, still, from time to time, we find his as- 
 surance proclaimed in unpremeditated shouts of joy. 
 
 Moses, on the borders of the Red Sea, just when the 
 arm of the Lord has divided the waters, and His people 
 have passed over, Moses, mentally transported to another 
 passage, cries aloud, "Thou hast guided them in Thy 
 strength unto Thy holy habitation. Thou shalt plant them 
 in the place, Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to 
 dwell in ; in the sanctuary, Lord, which Thy hands have 
 established." 
 
 The dying Jacob, suddenly filled with joy, exclaims, " I 
 have waited for Thy salvation, Lord." Then he pours 
 floods of blessings on Joseph kneeling by his bed-side : 
 " Blessings unto the bound of the everlasting hills." 
 
 And what are the words whispered by the wife of 
 Elkanah in the temple at Shiloh, when, her prayer granted, 
 her heart overflows in thanksgiving 1 "I rejoice in Thy 
 salvation. The Lord killeth, and maketh alive ; He bring- 
 eth down to the grave, and bringeth up. The Lord shall 
 judge the ends of the earth." 
 
 And Balaam, constrained by conscience against his will, 
 cries, " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my 
 last end be like his." 
 
 But I am not going to trench on theology ; and, to be 
 brief, I will simply take up the charge of Materialism as 
 brought against the book of Job, of the Psalms, and of 
 Ecclesiastes. 
 
 First of all, of Job. 
 , Who is Job ? The most afflicted and despairing character
 
 THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I REST. 207 
 
 in all the Bible ; and his book is one where our heart in 
 seasons of bitterness sees its every feaure faithfully re- 
 flected. 
 
 Job spoke of annihilation ; nay, he did more, he invoked 
 it with all his might : " I have said to corruption, Thou 
 art my father ; to the worm, Thou art my mother and my 
 sister. And where is now my hope? As for my hope, 
 who shall see it ? They shall go down to the bars of the 
 pit, when our rest together is in the dust." 
 
 Job, in his indignation, takes pleasure, as it were, in his 
 Materialism, reverts to it continually, plunges deeper and 
 deeper into it ; and in one of those moods known only to 
 passionate natures, revels in it, and would plunge deeper 
 yet if he could. 
 
 That surprises you ? Alas ! that does not surprise me. 
 I know the dread luxury there is in rebellion know the 
 overwhelming invasion of sorrow, the madness that courts 
 worse suffering still. 
 
 ' ' Ye call to me, ye depths ! Thou hast forsaken me, my 
 God ! Thou who art strong and mighty, whose unchange- 
 able bliss our cries do not disturb ; Thou takest pleasure in 
 discharging all the arrows of Thy wrath on me ! Thy thun- 
 derbolts at a worm ! Be it so, then ; I too will be great. 
 A giant in misfortune, infinite through desolation ; I will 
 go so far, I will fall so deep, that even Thine arm must 
 grow greater still to strike me." 
 
 " Will it be to strike me only 1 will it not be to raise me 
 up again 1 The excess of my grief, my very madness, the 
 yawning abyss on the edge of which I walk, wilt Thou not 
 have pity on me for the very sake of all these ? For Thou 
 art still my God ; Thou didst love me once." 
 
 Yes, it is even so ; the heart has these infernal joys, 
 these touching reactions ; it sees the abyss, flings itself
 
 208 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 into it ; God, too, has a heart ; God cannot leave me to 
 perish there. 
 
 Or, to take a more familiar and milder image, have you 
 never seen a little child, which its mother has for a moment 
 left, burst out crying, knowing well that she is near, that 
 she is listening attentively? have you never heard its 
 screams, I might say its howls, of grief and rage 1 ? It 
 knows that if it goes on crying thus, its mother may perhaps 
 punish it, but will certainly return. 
 
 Thus it is that in the martyrdom of human tribulation, 
 we, too, weep ; thus at such and such an hour we are 
 ready to become sceptics, materialists, what not ? God 
 comes, and God once come, what happens ? 
 
 Let me bring you back to Job. 
 
 His friends have, one after another, told off the tale of 
 their sententious harangues. Job has resisted them to the 
 utmost ; Job has, with his own hand, torn off the dressings 
 which rude hands have sought to lay upon his wounds. 
 He has arraigned the earth, arraigned mankind, nay, in 
 his delirium, he has arraigned the eternal God. "Oh, 
 that I might have my request, and that God would grant 
 me the thing that I long for ! Even that it would please 
 God to destroy me, that He would let loose His hand, and 
 cut me off !" And so his angry complaints go spreading on 
 through burning page on page. 
 
 At last comes silence. 
 
 Then, from the midst of the whirlwind, " Who is this 
 who darkens counsel by words without knowledge ? Where 
 wert thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? Who 
 shut up the sea with doors ? Hast thou commanded the 
 morning since thy days ? Have the gates of death been 
 opened to thee ? hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of 
 death r
 
 THE A UTHORITY ON WEIGH I REST. 209 
 
 Then Job, prostrate, ashamed, happy a thousandfold in 
 the triumph of his God, exclaims, " Behold, I am vile. I 
 have uttered that I understood not ; therefore I abhor my- 
 self, and repent in dust and ashes." 
 
 Are you still amazed at Job's Materialism 1 
 
 For my part, I thank God to have shewn me thus my 
 own reflection. This is indeed myself as I am in my worst 
 hours rebellious, unbelieving, idolising my own despair ; 
 and yet raised up, yet forgiven, uttering from the very hot- 
 test of the furnace that cry of faith repeated from age to 
 age, that glorious trumpet-burst sounded in defiance at each 
 of death's apparent triumphs : " I know that my Redeemer 
 liveth. . . . And though this body be destroyed, yet in my 
 flesh I shall see God ; whom I shall see for myself, and 
 mine eyes shall behold, and not another." 
 
 Let us take the Psalms. 
 
 There is everything in the Psalms. They sing of eternal 
 life in accents of ineffable sweetness ; they speak of death 
 as complete annihilation. Sustained by the mighty hand 
 of God, the Psalmist enters triumphant into heavenly 
 places; left to himself, a prey to Ms adversaries, he 
 grovels in the grave, and remains motionless there. 
 
 Here again I recognise the deeply humane and sympa- 
 thetic purpose which, in the Revelation of my God, shews 
 me my image to attract and draw me on : I am that man. 
 But I see another and an important fact, and it is perhaps 
 because this has been too much neglected, that doubts that 
 shake our faith have risen up between us and the full 
 beauty of the Psalms. 
 
 This fact is as follows : 
 
 In the Psalms habitually, as occasionally in the writings 
 of the Prophets, Death is looked at from a terrestrial point 
 of view. The dead are considered with reference to this 
 
 o
 
 2 1 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 world which they have absolutely quitted When David 
 appears to speak the language of Materialism, he speaks as 
 an observer of material facts only. Does this imply that 
 he denies other facts ? I do not think so. 
 
 In his hours of dejection, the very lugubrious character 
 of Death, looked at in its external aspect, is the only one 
 that fills the mind of the Prophet-King. He takes up his 
 position in the realm of appearances, of our present reali- 
 ties ; and he tells us what he descries thera 
 
 That what he tells us is unutterably sad, who can deny 1 
 But if we look only at what he is looking at, can we employ, 
 even we, believers, any language but his ? 
 
 The grave is the region of silence, shall the dead praise 
 the Lord 1 they are gone the place that knew them shall 
 know them no more. The living, the living, they shall 
 praise Thee, shall celebrate Thy name ! But the dead men, 
 silent, senseless, soon to be turned to their dust ! 
 
 Then again, all that is relatively true, when we consider 
 the dead in connexion with earthly existence, is true with 
 an absolute truth as regards the body, our own dead bodies. 
 
 Yes, absolutely true. Till the morning of the resurrec- 
 tion, our bodies will He motionless. Never more shall our 
 lips praise the Lord ; never more shall our eyes laugh in 
 the light of His sun. The actions of living men, their con- 
 flicts, joys, and sorrows, the clay above our heads shakes 
 with these, and our bones feel no thrill 
 
 It is this very prospect which is presented by the grave 
 to our frightened glance ; it is this fact which it includes, 
 this hideousness, this gloom. If it were not so, if death 
 had not this appalling aspect, where would be its horror ? 
 
 Why do we weep, we Christians who see heaven opened 1 
 Why, when we are going down to those dark dwelling- 
 places we, whose eyes are lit with light from on high, we
 
 THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I BEST. 211 
 
 who know that it is to God our souls will rise, why do we 
 feel this shudder, this anxious amazement, this transient 
 gloom 1 
 
 Ah ! the Psalmist was not wrong ; our lifeless body 
 remains lifeless, useless, indifferent to all that goes on 
 beneath the sky. The prophet did not deceive us ; on the 
 side of earth, our side, all is over for the dead. But on 
 the side of heaven, all is only about to begin, and he has 
 proclaimed this glorious truth in hymns of incomparable 
 beauty. 
 
 What words console the dying, what weapons do they 
 seize in their trembling hands ? the Psalms : " Whither 
 shall I go from Thy Spirit ? If I climb up to heaven, Thou 
 art there ; if I make my bed in Hades, Thou art there also." 
 
 They drag themselves along the gloomy path alone, 
 terrified : " Thou art with me ; Thy rod and Thy staff they 
 comfort me." 
 
 Their sins crowd round them numerous as the sand of 
 the sea, and no more time is left : " As for our iniquities, 
 Thou shalt purge them away." 
 
 The mystery of the last breath draws near : " Thou wilt 
 not leave my soul in hell ; God shall redeem my life from 
 the power of the grave. He will receive me. I shall see 
 the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." 
 
 With the Psalms, martyrs have walked with unshaken- 
 spirit to meet a bloody death ; with them, mothers, hus- 
 bands, wives, have strengthened their heart for the inexor- 
 able parting ; with them the widow, the father, the daughter 
 bereaved, have been able to pursue their solitary way with- 
 out repining. Poor souls, disinherited at birth of all earthly 
 joy, have while repeating the Psalms felt unspeakable 
 blessings descend from heaven, and bear them up, and 
 transport them to the land of happiness.
 
 212 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 I do not think that a Book which works such miracles 
 as these can be a materialistic book. 
 
 And now for Ecclesiastes. 
 
 There is on earth a greater misfortune than to have to 
 fight for one's lif e. There is a sadness more complete than 
 that of bereavement, sickness, poverty, even pushed to their 
 extremest limits ; there is the bitterness of a soul which 
 has exhausted, fathomed everything, and in all directions 
 met with nothingness. 
 
 Then, if that soul does not powerfully succoured from 
 on high return to Him who solves all doubts, to the throne 
 whence flows the mighty river of truth, it goes wandering 
 through the desert places of this world, alone in a crowd, 
 a stranger alike to love and hate, disdaining all coarser 
 pleasures, indifferent to highest joys, crying ever in one 
 sardonic voice, "Vanity, vanity!" 
 
 The Preacher has traversed those desert places ; he has 
 lingered there ; he has measured their empty immensity ; 
 their mirage has infatuated him : he has fingered the 
 stunted thorns that shewed from afar like forests fresh and 
 green ; his lips have been glued to the arid sand, and when 
 he chanced to find some drops of water there, lo, it was 
 stagnant and impure. But, arrived on the utmost limits of 
 tins desert, he saw the borders of the promised land indent 
 the sky with a line of palms ; the scorching air grew softer ; 
 with his finger he pointed to the mountains, pointed to the 
 green shadows, and then he was silent, for we understood 
 him well 
 
 The Preacher is an Oriental The East, land of light, 
 with its rarified atmosphere, does not need our compendious 
 explanations. A gossamer thread floating in the air suffices to 
 guide the Arab through the labyrinth of thought. An apo-
 
 THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I REST. 213 
 
 logue, an enigma, are enough, let Ms mind have free scope ; 
 what he knows best is just what you have not told him. 
 
 Our logic seems coarse to the Oriental, our demonstra- 
 tions cumbersome. The moral of the tale, he perceives it 
 long before you do, and if you tell it him, he smiles, casts 
 on you a long look, and murmurs within himself 
 Frank, of the babbling lips, the sluggish mind, son of the 
 fog and of nights of darkness ! 
 
 The Preacher passes in review all systems, all philoso- 
 phies, all pleasures, and selects, by preference, intellectual 
 pride. We see him in turn sceptical, voluptuous, ascetic, 
 in love with glory, devoted to science, then philanthropical, 
 and keenly sympathizing with human misery, then an 
 idolater of good, and bent upon attaining it in his own 
 strength. He follows each wayward impulse of his heart ; 
 sinks to appalling depths, soars to sublime heights, always 
 sincere, speaking with implacable precision ; and, when he 
 has tried all, out of the darkness of those lowest, and, as it 
 were, lost depths of that land of infidelity into which he 
 sought to annihilate himself, in one second, with one bound, 
 he traverses space, and falls earnest, a little sad, and yet 
 with beaming brow before the throne of God. 
 
 The book is full throughout of ironical sentences, which, 
 one after the other, strike heavy blows at all the theories 
 of human pride. Is it wisdom 1 " What has the wise 
 man more than the fool ? Better is the sight of the eyes, 
 than the wandering of the desire." 
 
 Is it noble deeds, courage, power ? " Better a living dog 
 than a dead lion." 
 
 Is it sorrow for the dead ? does the heart seek to take 
 possession of the skies for them by vehemence of desire ? 
 " I praised the dead which are already dead, more than the
 
 2 1 4 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 living which are yet alive. Yea, better is he than both 
 they, which hath not yet been." 
 
 Is it happiness ? " All go unto one place." 
 
 Is it animal enjoyment ? " Take thine ease, eat, drink, 
 and be merry, for a man hath no better thing under the 
 sun ; this is his portion all the days of his vanity." 
 
 Death still remains, a vague hope : " That which befall- 
 eth the sons of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing befall- 
 eth them : as the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, they 
 have all one breath : man hath no pre-eminence over a 
 beast : all is vanity." 
 
 The circle is closed, the soul in extremity has gone 
 through it all, has possessed whatever science could give ; 
 has known whatever experience could reveal ; the only 
 result, a little dust soon scattered, nothing more. 
 
 Then comes the gist of the book, a book which, to be 
 thoroughly understood, must not be read in fragments, but 
 all through at once, as it was thought out ; mounting the 
 same rapid steed that bears the traveller along, and com- 
 pleting the cycle at the same pace. 
 
 The key to the enigma is given us in a few sober, simple 
 words, clear as the sky of Judea : " Rejoice, young man ; 
 in thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in 
 the sight of thine eyes : but know thou, that for all these 
 things God will bring thee into judgment." 
 
 Then, in a tenderer voice : " Remember now thy Creator 
 in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor 
 the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no plea- 
 sure in them : or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the 
 golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the 
 fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern : then shall 
 the dust return to the earth as it was ; and the spirit shall 
 return unto God who gave it."
 
 THE A UTHORITY ON WHICH I REST. 215 
 
 Is there the shadow of a doubt still left ? " Let us hear 
 the conclusion of the whole matter : Fear God, and keep 
 his commandments : for this is the whole duty of man. 
 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every 
 secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil" 
 
 If there be hearts oppressed with grief who have blessed 
 the Lord for the book of Job, if there be heart's buffeted 
 by this world's storms who have blessed Him for the 
 Psalms, I believe that there are reasoning, investigating 
 minds, souls not to be taken in by appearances, weary of 
 the emptiness that confronts them on all sides, more sick 
 with nothingness than others are of a deadly wound ; and 
 I believe that it is for the book of Ecclesiastes that such 
 will specially bless the Lord. 
 
 These momentous questions have detained us. I hasten 
 on to the end of the journey. 
 
 The writings of the prophets, properly so called, are in- 
 terpenetrated with the life to come ; they are illuminated 
 thereby, and if, like some shadow of a cloud, chased by the 
 north-east wind in a serene sky, a discouraging thought 
 ever crosses the revelations of a seer, instantly the cry of 
 triumph bursts forth : " Thy dead men shall live, together 
 with my dead body shall they revive. Awake and sing, 
 ye inhabitants of the dust, for thy dew is as the dew of 
 herbs, and the earth shall no more cover her slain." 
 
 Be it so ! you say. Nevertheless death in the Old Tes- 
 tament, remains a somewhat gloomy fact. In the New 
 Testament, on the contrary, it appears as a deliverance. 
 There is no relapse into incredulity and alarm. Such a 
 contrast as this weakens the authority of the Bible, by de- 
 stroying its unity. 
 
 For my part, I discover no opposition between the 
 teaching of the prophets and that of the apostles. I see
 
 216 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 different men, I see a growing light, I cannot see night on 
 one side, day on the other, white here, black there. 
 
 Before Christ, the prophets saw afar off; their hearts 
 were stirred with holy hope ; at times they held it very 
 fast. With Christ, and after Christ, the apostles possessed. 
 The difference is great. What those foresaw, these touched. 
 The truth that a lightning flash revealed to the former, the 
 latter lived in close contact with ; they were surrounded 
 by it, could no more escape from it than we from the 
 ambient air. The conqueror of death was their Master 
 and their Brother. With their own eyes they had seen 
 Him die on the cross, with their own eyes they had seen 
 Him return into their midst, sit down at their table, walk 
 with them by the Lake of Gennesareth ; then, one April 
 morning, from that very Mount of Olives they had so often 
 ascended together, they saw Jesus, their Lord and their 
 God, carried away on clouds to sit down in triumph at the 
 Father's right hand. Tell me, is it not natural that their 
 words should have other tones, their hearts possess a higher 
 courage, and that death, death itself, should put on a harm- 
 lessness, nay, I may say an attractiveness for them, such 
 as it never could have worn to those who saw these miracu- 
 lous events loom indistinct through far-off future ages? 
 Again, there is a melancholy but true remark that I desire 
 to make here. Christian knowledge is not always accom- 
 panied with joy. Whether through ignorance or weakness 
 of heart, or by one of those decrees of God of which 
 eternity will reveal the blended wisdom and love, a singular 
 sadness may, at the approach of death, take possession of 
 a redeemed spirit. 
 
 To be a believer, to have clear views, to love God, to 
 know one's-self accepted, is not enough to make one wel- 
 come with radiant smile the messenger of the livid
 
 THE A UTHORITY ON WHICH I REST. 217 
 
 Many a strong man has felt his courage sink, many a bright 
 flame has grown pale. 
 
 St Paul, he who used to say, " to die is gain ; " St Paul 
 in Asia, despairing even of life, and then saved, glorifies God 
 who has delivered him from so great a danger; who de- 
 livers us, he adds, and in whom we trust that He will yet 
 deliver. 
 
 In the fortress at Jerusalem, this same Paul, learning 
 that the Jews are laying snares for him, has the governor 
 apprised of it that he may watch over his safety. At 
 Caesarea, he takes the same precaution. 
 
 In the midst of the tempest, when the ship that carries 
 the Apostle to Italy, dismasted, broken by the force of the 
 waves, is about to fall to pieces, forsaken by its crew, Paul 
 detains the sailors, " Except these remain in the ship, you 
 cannot be saved." 
 
 At Rome, before Nero, on the occasion of his first trial, 
 he writes, " And I was delivered from the mouth of the 
 lion." 
 
 Is Paul afraid to die ? Not so ! But, thank God ! Paul 
 is a man. Paul has times when life seems to him sweet, 
 his mission grand ; Paul, too, has seasons when the gloomy 
 aspect of death presents itself to his mind. Were it not 
 so, he would no longer be one of us : we should not under- 
 stand him. 
 
 There is another and greater than Paul, who is man also. 
 He in the darkness of the garden, on the cold night pros- 
 trate on the ground, and that ground wet by blood, which 
 flows drop by drop from His face ; He cries in the anguish 
 of His soul, His soul which is exceeding sorrowful even 
 unto death, " Father, if thou wilt, remove this cup from 
 me." 
 
 What doest Thou, Saviour of mankind 1 Redeeming
 
 218 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 God, what is it Thou dost ask 1 For this hour Thou art 
 come, for this agony, this cup ; and Thou growest faint, 
 Thou sayest, " if Thou wilt." 
 
 Thus speaks the stoical exactingness of man, the coarse 
 cruelty of his logic. Man looks only for the ideal in his 
 fellow-man ; no flesh, no fibre, only an iron bar, straight, 
 unbending, which pierces or breaks. God will have a man, 
 man above all ; and thus He who is to conquer death will 
 faint for a moment at its dread approach. 
 
 Oh, very precious to me the faintness of my God ; the 
 fears of His apostle, I bless them too. 
 
 The heavenly visage of a Stephen stoned to death, 
 rouses my energy ; what the Lord has done for him, He' 
 may do for me also. But if the hosts of the redeemed 
 presented only such lofty shapes as these, not any pallor, 
 not any shadow, I should feel myself, as it were, a 
 stranger in so holy a company ; a secret voice would 
 whisper to me, "Art thou indeed one of them?" 
 
 Now, on the contrary, I know that one may die humbly, 
 silently, perhaps timidly ; may be more sorry for the sins 
 committed than thankful for the pardon given, and never- 
 theless and certainly belong to Jesus. Not to all Christians 
 are granted joyous and triumphant deaths. The most es- 
 teemed among them, those whose great deeds have been the 
 most widely spread by fame, whose voice has made many 
 hearts thrill, may depart obscurely, shuddering at the vanity 
 of all terrestrial glory, holding indeed the hand of Jesus ; 
 but trembling the while. And at the same hour, some un- 
 known woman, some little child who lends an innocent ear 
 to the Divine promises, shall behold the heavens opened, 
 soar away on unflagging wing, and greet their last day with 
 hallelujahs. 
 
 There are many ways of dying for Christians ; for all
 
 THE AUTHORITY ON WHICH I REST. 219 
 
 there is the same eternal life. The departures differ ; the 
 goal is one. There may be more or less light ; but it 
 is always the same sun. Where we see contradictions, 
 there exist only the opposite sides of the same object. 
 Sometimes fully illumined, sometimes half in shade, it is 
 still the same believing soul ; and there is also the same 
 revealing God. In the centuries anterior, as in those after 
 Christ, the future life promised to believers always makes 
 them glad. But the luminous hemispheres have their dark 
 spots, the dark zones their bright ones ; everywhere the 
 Book proclaims aloud, that the soul does not die. The 
 more busy the times, the harder of hearing the ears, the 
 louder becomes the voice. It is to this voice I want to 
 listen. 
 
 One last word. 
 
 I take the Book of God in its familiar sense. I leave 
 allegories to sages, knotty points to theologians. As for 
 us, very little, very simple as we are, we want simple words, 
 and are fain to receive them just as our Father gives them 
 us. In point of fact, it is for such as we that He has 
 spoken. 
 
 The Bible contains mysteries ; God forbid that I should 
 seek to lift their veil The Bible contains deep sayings ; 
 these belong to the discerning and the wise. The Bible 
 uses transparent images, simple parables spoken to fisher- 
 men, to shepherds; these are for us. For us too the 
 natural language, the positive meaning, the words taken for 
 what they are worth. Ah ! if the Jews had only received 
 in their literal sense as they were presented to them, those 
 revealing details, the poverty of Jesus, the thirty pieces of 
 silver, the lots cast for the coat, the rich man's grave, and 
 so many others ! 
 
 Do not fear. We are not about to open subterranean
 
 220 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 galleries, or devise audacious paths to inaccessible heights; 
 we fit out no balloons for the air, no lofty ships for the 
 wide sea. To sit beside a tomb, to listen to what our 
 Father says ; to receive it in silence, and strengthen our 
 hearts thereby, this is all, we propose nothing more.
 
 THE PARADISE WE FEAR. 
 
 jjHAT we fear the last judgment is easily under- 
 stood ; that we should have a fear of Paradise 
 seems unintelligible. Yet, if we look closely at 
 the matter, nothing is more justifiable than such a fear. 
 
 There are two Paradises : that of God ; that of men. 
 
 The one, perfect in its beauty, must have for us a sove- 
 reign attraction. But it is known to few, for few seek to 
 know it in the pages of Holy Writ. The other, which 
 men have fashioned as well as they were able, astonishes 
 more than it delights. It is this which excites in the 
 better order of minds a secret terror. 
 
 No, it has nothing distinctly evil, but its utter vagueness 
 fills one with dread. Plunged in a luminous mist, I feel 
 the terror of a drowning man. To be drowned in light, 
 may seem very beautiful ; it is still to be drowned. 
 
 Splendour ! Immensity ! Eternity ! Grand words, grand 
 things. A Httle definite happiness would be more to the 
 purpose. 
 
 Shall I tell you what repels me from your Paradise ? It 
 is that I seek an object I cannot find there myself. 
 
 I seek also what I cannot find there till I have found 
 myself a personal God. 
 
 This individuality, this / myself, that I know and feel, 
 by which I am what I am, and not another, I demand it 
 of your heavens ; your heavens shew me spirits, intelli-
 
 222 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 gences, impalpable abstractions, indistinguishable from each 
 other ; I turn away saddened, confounded. 
 
 Fill the void with light, it is still a void. Where all 
 personality has disappeared, where the individual life is 
 extinguished or absorbed, I see nothing but an abyss. If 
 from age to age, part of a column of light, I am to be 
 ascending and descending this abyss, I am still lost in it. 
 
 God has made me a living unit ; has made me me. Be- 
 fore all there above, as here below it is this me I want ; 
 without it, how can I remember, how can I see, how com- 
 prehend and love my God ? 
 
 If the golden vapours of the morning can celebrate and 
 adore their God, if the purple clouds of evening can indeed 
 glow with love, then let us be mists and clouds, which the 
 wind impels hither and thither. But if to know God, if 
 to worship Him, I must be man ; if to love Him I must 
 have a living soul, I keep my humanity, I keep my indi- 
 viduality, I keep them there, and more ardently than ever 
 there beyond the skies. 
 
 At times, the Paradise which men have imagined emerges 
 a little from its dazzling mist. 
 
 I see immense desert spaces of milder light, which some- 
 times remind me of those Elysian fields, whose sad inhabit- 
 ants pass eternity in regretting the earth,- its cheerful sun, 
 its combats, its hatreds, its errors, its tears ; sometimes 
 they call to mind that melancholy region where Dante 
 encountered Virgil, which was bathed in a diffuse lustre, 
 that knew neither morning, nor evening, nor mid-day ; a 
 region that was without grief or joy, which was traversed 
 "by the slow steps of pensive spirits, which strikes upon my 
 heart colder than death. 
 
 The Paradise of man is not intended, however, for death. 
 They have discovered a word to express it a word which
 
 THE PARADISE WE FEAR. 223 
 
 says all, and which says nothing repose. Eepose ! Each 
 one finds in it what he can. 
 
 One thing it certainly implies immobility. 
 
 Eepose is immobility. It would be silence, but that 
 one accords to the blessed the privilege of singing without 
 pause, in the same voice, the same hallelujah. 
 
 Repose is placid contemplation, fixed, congealed, so to 
 speak, on one point, God. 
 
 Repose is absorption in a thought which is also a senti- 
 ment. A fixed star, planted in a sky of brass, would have 
 as much of movement and of life. 
 
 Repose is the oblivion of the past, effacement of every- 
 thing except one present ardour, changeless, eternal. 
 
 The creatures who repose like this are no longer men ; 
 they neither think nor remember ; one eternal thought is 
 tantamount to no thought at all ; without change, no life. 
 Emotion, activity, the aspirations of intelligence, character, 
 all have disappeared. 
 
 Look at the Paradise of painters ; for the Paradise of 
 those ages which are especially called the ages of faith, may 
 be seen in their pictures. The idea of the time is written 
 there. "What do we see 1 A blue fluid, or ether, illumi- 
 nated more and more as you penetrate its depths. An 
 immense circle, or interior of a vast cone, thickly covered 
 over with human heads, beatific faces planted between a 
 pair of little wings ; the first row highly finished, the next 
 more slightly treated, the third just indicated, the others 
 growing fainter and smaller as far as the perspective is 
 carried, till the winged head dwindles to a mere dot, a 
 point upon a circumflex. The same expression upon all, 
 the same smile, the same lips half opened by the same 
 ecstasy ; and at the bottom of our cone, in a focus of light, 
 the triangle with the symbolic dove !
 
 224 TEE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 Such is the heaven which awaits us. 
 
 Tell me, you living, you thinking creatures, you who 
 love with veritable emotion, are you ravished, are you 
 melted with tenderness 1 This region desert in its multi- 
 tude do you sigh for it, do you really desire, can you put 
 up one passionate prayer for it 1 It chills you, it terrifies 
 you, you turn trembling towards this earth of ours, and 
 cling to it like idolaters. 
 
 Look at the heaven of Dante. If there has existed in 
 the world an ardent spirit, a creative imagination, if a word 
 of power has resounded in it, if, in short, there is a poetry 
 you will find it under that pen which kindles into light 
 whatever it touches. 
 
 Light, yes ! there is such an intensity of light shed 
 around us, so energetic a feeling of some luminous vibrat- 
 ing atmosphere of bliss, that every verse seems to be on fire. 
 There is ecstasy in the air we breathe. But these circles 
 these interminable circles ! There, for ever, in immense or- 
 bits, revolve the beatific cohorts ; love, which is their light, 
 gives them also their movement; the more vivid their 
 affection, the more intense is their brilliancy, and the more 
 rapid their revolution. Wild tournaments of spirits, rush- 
 ing through the skies, and glittering with the stars of hea- 
 ven, which they sweep onwards in their mad rotation 
 such is the Paradise of the poet and theologian. 
 
 Volgeano a ruota. Hope not for other happiness. To sing 
 three words through ages after ages ; to shine, to whirl, lost 
 in the intoxication of light and movement these are the 
 joys, the distant reflection of which is to dry all human tears. 
 
 In proportion as we rise from heaven to heaven, are the 
 last vestiges of personality effaced ; in proportion as our 
 happiness augments, are the last human feelings lost in this 
 celestial mechanism.
 
 THE PARADISE WE FEAR. 225 
 
 These souls in bliss arrange themselves in symbolic 
 figures ; agglomerate into a cross, a ladder, an eagle. The 
 best placed represent the eyes of the imperial bird, the 
 dazzling pupils where Trajan throws his rays by the side 
 of Hezekiah and Constantine the Great. 
 
 In a still higher and transcendent sphere there are im- 
 movable souls ranged I was going to say stuck in rows 
 round an amphitheatre, who sit bathed in light. In the 
 centre, God. Three circles of equal diameter, the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The happiest of the happy fix their gaze for ever on this 
 triple circle, whose brightness would extinguish the sun. 
 An eternal hosanna fills the immensity with its one in- 
 variable note. This is the empyrean. 
 
 What do you feel ? For me, I feel terror. I cannot be 
 solaced, or deceived by the grandeur of styles ; and the 
 tumultuous emotions which doubtless stirred the poet, in 
 his poet's frenzy, do not reach me. This God is not a God, 
 is not an angel, is not comparable to a man. Give me an 
 avenging God, or give me blind Destiny itself. But this 
 abstraction but this infinite abyss this hollow, bottom- 
 less cone, with its three immovable circles my soul re- 
 volts I fly from it with spread wings. I should fly even 
 to the borders of Hell. And if your Paradise imprisons 
 the soul in a wall of fire, I would take refuge in that hea- 
 ven which is most remote from perfect bliss. 
 
 These unnatural beatitudes oppress the heart. In fact, 
 some freezing air from a Pagan Paradise has passed over 
 our heaven, has withered its flowers, congealed its life. 
 We remain sad in the presence of such happiness. And 
 with good reason. 
 
 A poor woman, eighty years old, pious, resigned, was 
 approaching her heaven. Her time was come, she obeyed;
 
 226 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 but she cast more than one wandering look on this side 
 the grave, on a world where there was activity and affec- 
 tion. Even her poor old body, worn out and wrinkled, she 
 Deemed to quit with regret. 
 
 This Paradise, how do you represent it to yourself ? 
 
 " Ah, well ! " she answered in her simplicity ; " I sup- 
 pose that, like at church, there must be chairs put all along 
 the sky ; one sits there, and sings psahns throughout 
 eternity ! " 
 
 Ethereal abysses, winged heads piled up close together, 
 Elysian fields, pews in a greater church, always . some 
 monotony, always an obliteration of self, and an immeasur- 
 able ennui. 
 
 It is not thus with the true beatitudes, with that intense 
 happiness, that life and warmth which fall upon us in the 
 glowing promises of our Lord ; it is not thus with our 
 magnificent heritage of the earth ; it is not thus with tears 
 that are dried away by love, with the full feeling of satis- 
 fied justice, and clear recognition of the Divine government. 
 Yes, we shall see God, and my soul leaps at the thought ; 
 yes, we shall taste of peace that here our agitated hearts 
 can never know ; yes, we shall sing marvellous hymns, and 
 our bosoms palpitate with joy ; yes, we shall adore, we shall 
 glorify God ; but contemplation, repose, celestial concerts, 
 love and adoration, you shall be a life, not an absorption. 
 
 But let us not anticipate ; let us return to our apocryphal 
 Paradise, Chinese screen, painted with strange figures, 
 which hides from us the true country. 
 
 To lose one's-self in the ocean of life, and to be annihi- 
 lated, are the same thing ; to be absorbed in unity, and to 
 vanish out of being, are to me the same thing. 
 
 To remain impassive, the whole of my faculties gathered 
 up in one, in an adoration identical in us all ; this is so
 
 THE PARADISE WE FEAR. 227 
 
 opposed to everything I know, to everything I am, that my 
 whole nature revolts from it. 
 
 Revolted, saddened, I nevertheless have submitted to 
 this Paradise. 
 
 It is so. This Paradise of Hindoos and of some Pagan 
 philosophers, is also the Paradise of many Christians. It 
 is the heaven of very many, because they can imagine 
 nothing better. 
 
 They do not love it, they do not desire it, they fear it; 
 nevertheless, as the only alternative, they are reduced to 
 hope it. 
 
 After having lived, to arrive at this new tribulation ! to 
 plunge into this western sea ! to end in this cheerless joy, 
 of which the individual has not even a distinct conscious- 
 ness ! to become a number, or something less, for there 
 must be difference where there is number, one of the 
 identities fixed in space ! This is called spiritual. A 
 heaven otherwise fashioned would be material to the re- 
 fined intelligences of our age. 
 
 Blessed be God ! He has otherwise ordained what shall 
 be spiritual His Paradise, I know the borders of it, and 
 from these borders emerge so many genial rays of warmth 
 as well as light, that my heart burns within me. In His 
 Paradise I find myself perfected, sanctified, with all my 
 soul, my affections, my memories. His Paradise, oh, it is 
 simple as it is splendid ; more grand, yet nearer to me ; 
 life in its personality, and personality in its perfect har- 
 mony with God. It is my native country, not a foreign 
 land ; it is the house of my Father, not the temple of an 
 abstract divinity. I do not see an indistinguishable throng 
 of phantoms ; I meet brothers and dear friends. Such is 
 the happiness my nature craves. To such country I desire 
 to emigrate ; the remotest view of it siistains my courage ;
 
 228 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 there I shall repose as one reposes in the house of a father. 
 I should tremble to enter into your heaven ; I should 
 grieve if a friend entered it ; I can find no consolation, for 
 them or for me, for such a happiness ! 
 
 Is there any other Paradise that men have created ? 
 Have I done justice to human inventions ? 
 
 A vague idea of transmigration of souls may be de- 
 tected, more often than one would expect, in our prosaic 
 age. Dreams of the East wandering into our latitudes ; 
 I know not if they demand a notice, they seem as dis- 
 tressful as they are insane. 
 
 That Paradise must indeed be disinherited of joy from 
 which we are to escape by recommencing our lives. To 
 possess a glorious eternity, and to abandon it ! Strange 
 idea. To grovel again upon the earth ; to become a little 
 child ; to struggle through the ignorance and incapacity 
 and unreasonable afflictions of youth ; to engage again in 
 the rude combats of maturity ; to suffer its deceptions, to 
 sink under its defects, to grow old again, and die, and 
 this to gain the harbour at last, to cast anchor at last? 
 No, to resume the open seas ! Do not tell me that such 
 souls come from Paradise. If any such there be, they 
 were enclosed in some subterranean abode, deprived of air 
 and light ; they fled from some desolate region ; they had 
 never known the Paradise of God. 
 
 Superstition (the guest of faithless as well as cowardly 
 minds) creates also its Paradise, transporting there the 
 vulgar passions of this earth. The legendary heaven is, on 
 one side, a pale insipidity ; on the other, a burlesque home. 
 Ghosts shadowy as moonlight, or troubled as the poor mor- 
 tals they terrify, glide through the night ; representations 
 of eternal f eh' city ! Did ever ghost rejoice the heart ! 
 Have the inhabitants of heaven indeed this melancholy
 
 THE PARADISE WE FEAR. 229 
 
 smile, this freezing look ? Are they thus austere, or utterly 
 impassive; or do they retain the rancours of the past? 
 
 Distressful creations of the imagination ; tormenting and 
 tormented, you come not from the Paradise of God. You 
 know nothing of its inhabitants. Father, brother, husband, 
 child, take here forms which inspire us with terror. Some- 
 thing most repulsive envelops them. It is more than a 
 modification, it is an absolute change. If I go where such 
 creatures inhabit, what reunion can there be 1 And I also, 
 I am to become a ghost, whose approach congeals the blood 
 in the veins ! From a living man one is to become the 
 impalpable light. 
 
 What are the agonies of separation itself compared to 
 the lying joys of these figments of a Paradise ? The bitter- 
 ness of tears has reached its height when we lose for ever 
 a redeemed soul that loved us. And if he is lost to me in 
 the serene ether of your fictitious skies, I must still mourn 
 him inconsolably. If you wish to raise my soul, tell me 
 that he lives, he himself, and that I shall see him again, 
 and shall love him with a love submissive to my God ; tell 
 me that my individuality will not die, nor my remembrance; 
 tell me that life is life, and not a catalepsy, not annihilation. 
 
 Then my brow will be uplifted towards the skies, and 
 with reinvigorated step I shall pursue my pilgrimage. 
 But annihilated, but reduced to the state of a luminous 
 point ; if you tell me this, I sink overwhelmed. 
 
 Up, dear brother ! Give me your hand. It is to God's 
 own heaven we will walk together.
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 THE SUPREME TYPE: A EISEN SAVIOUR. 
 
 E have been accustomed to the careful study of 
 the Saviour during the years of His earthly ex- 
 istence, to the contemplation of Him in His 
 present glory ; have we sufficiently meditated on the risen 
 Jesus, during those forty days of a life at once so mys- 
 terious and so simple, led so near us, led with us, and yet 
 as far removed from the conditions of our own as the 
 heavens are from the earth 1 
 
 For my own part, these few pages of Holy Writ have 
 an ineffable charm for me ; I feel that they contain the 
 very substance of my dearest hopes ; I am constantly re- 
 verting to them, and constantly discovering some detail 
 which strengthens and comforts my heart. 
 
 Jesus is the Atoner, the Great Example, the King ; but 
 Jesus is also the Conqueror of Death, and this is the cha- 
 racter which best dispels my fears. 
 
 He did not vanquish it from afar, like some god of the 
 ancient Olympus ; He did not strike down the foe by 
 arrows shot from heights of the empyrean. No ; He 
 Himself came down, Himself wrestled with Death ; for a 
 moment its cold hand was laid upon His heart, and then 
 He arose, felled it to the ground by His glance ; and 
 walked our earth, as He had done before.
 
 232 THE HEAVENLY HORIZON'S. 
 
 Oh, how this comforts me ! A triumph won with more 
 display, if I may use such a word, might have dazzled me ; 
 I doubt whether it would have equally consoled. The 
 very simplicity of the action brings it within my reach. 
 The body had lain down, it rises up ; no need for this of 
 angels' trumpets or a convulsed world. The will of God 
 effected this; God willed, life returned. The crucified, 
 the dead Jesus, is the same who walks now along the shores 
 of Gennesareth, up the Mount of Olives ; He rises to his 
 Father, He revisits His loved disciples ; the earth does not 
 quake, the slightness of the effort put forth speaks to me 
 more emphatically of the power of my God than the most 
 splendid display of His sovereign authority. 
 
 I dearly love them, these scenes of the Resurrection. 
 How often I have bent over them, seeking to penetrate 
 deeper into their meaning. The sleeping waters that mirror 
 by night the star-filled sky, do not more faithfully reflect 
 infinite depths than those few quiet, straightforward nar- 
 ratives, sublime through their very simplicity. 
 
 That which chiefly attracts me is doubtless the divine 
 radiance shed around by the person of my Saviour. As I 
 follow Him afar off, I seem to catch a celestial reflection ; 
 I breathe the air of Paradise ; joy wraps me round like a 
 garment of light ; but would the picture move me so deeply 
 if I only saw therein the victory of a God 1 It is that of 
 a man, too, and therefore is my soul so stirred within me. 
 I contemplate with moistened eye those three that are 
 taking the road to Emmaus ; my heart thrills at that one 
 word, Mary ! And when, at day's earliest dawn, the gloomy 
 waters of the lake are tinged with red, I cleave the waves 
 with Peter, I cry aloud with triumphant voice, It is the 
 Lord!
 
 THE SUPREME TYPE: A RISEN SAVIOUR. 233 
 
 Man has conquered. Jesus, made like to me in Death, 
 shall make me like to Him in life. 
 
 Like ! It is in this that all my happiness consists. 
 
 If He had restored to me life, life of any kind, my 
 heart must needs have been grateful. But would it have 
 bounded as it does now at the thought of the gift of a 
 human resurrection, identical with the resurrection of the 
 Lord? 
 
 There are some happinesses that crush us, as we know. 
 But this, of which I have fathomed the nature, fills me 
 with confidence as well as with wonder. 
 
 This risen one is not the Lord of I cannot-tell-what far 
 sphere, lost in the bosom of the Infinite. He is my 
 Saviour, I know Him. I see Him again as I saw Him 
 before. He remembers me, He loves me ; His face, those 
 hands they pierced, I see them, they are the same no 
 apparition, no metamorphosis only a return. 
 
 This is so sweet, that I need an absolute conviction of 
 its truth. 
 
 And then, when I have certified myself, another doubt 
 instantly rises, Will it be the same in my own case ? 
 
 Then I seek further, hard to satisfy, fearful of a too 
 ready belief; and repeated assertions tell me again and 
 again that I am not deceiving myself. Such as the Lord 
 is, such shall His redeemed be ; made like to Him (in all 
 but His Divine attributes), bearing the image of His glori- 
 fied humanity ; very brothers to the Mighty One, who first 
 shook off the grasp of death. 
 
 Are these vague, veiled promises 1 No, they are clear, 
 definite, written in familiar words ; their meaning easily 
 apprehended, impossible to mistake. 
 
 Have we to seek them out from book to book? No,
 
 234 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 each page presents them. This is the centre whence ray 
 out all the promises ; it is alike our starting-point and our 
 goal ; the whole edifice raised by the apostles rests on this 
 unchangeable foundation ; Jesus risen from the dead is the 
 perfect type of risen man. 
 
 You understand now the stress I lay upon the contem- 
 plation of this central figure, and my ardour in keeping 
 to it. 
 
 Jesus, Thou art indeed the same Jesus still. Ye who 
 have watched Him walking through the corn-fields on 
 a Sabbath day : one morning seated on the hillside, while 
 the little waves beat upon the shore of Tiberias ; another, 
 climbing the grassy heights which divide Bethsaida from 
 Nazareth ; or again, not far from Cana, beneath the shade 
 of oaks, whose branches bend beneath the honeysuckle in 
 flower, in quiet retreats, where turtle-doves coo, and the 
 tall hollyhock, with its brilliant clusters, blooms splendid 
 but unseen ; behold Him again, for it is indeed He ! 
 
 How often His feet have trodden your paths ! How 
 often your hills and glades have heard His accents of in- 
 comparable meekness, when moving slowly on in the midst 
 of publicans and sinners, a few women following, He would 
 cry, " He that believeth in me hath eternal life." 
 
 Do ye recognise Him, ye mountains, ye waters ? There 
 on the shore alone there, while Peter and John, with 
 their companions, are throwing their nets into the lake ? 
 
 "Children!" what -a loving cry! Then comes that 
 question, the very simplicity of which would offend many 
 if they dared entertain the feeling, which on the contrary 
 makes me thrill with gratitude, because I read in it a sign 
 of my Saviour's permanent humanity, "Have ye any- 
 thing to eat ? " 
 
 Then another miracle is wrought on those waters which
 
 THE SUPREME TYPE: A RISEN SAVIOUR. 235 
 
 have -witnessed so many. Another cry arises ; a cry of 
 tenderness and joy, " It is the Lord !" 
 
 Next see them all reassembled around Jesus ! Notice 
 the fish counted, the familiar meal, the touching intimacy, 
 the perfect freedom of their conversation ! 
 
 What has passed since the last supper ; for, in very deed, 
 it was but yesterday that Jesus cut bread for them as He 
 is doing now ; that they questioned Him in like manner, 
 that the fishermen divided the waves with the same steady 
 oars, and that the Son of man wandered with His dis- 
 ciples on the self-same grass, which has not had time to 
 wither. 
 
 Jesus has died ; Jesus has risen again ; and as He wore 
 our likeness in His death, so we shall be made like unto 
 Him in the life to come. 
 
 Jesus, come back to us from the unseen land, has forgot- 
 ten nothing. 
 
 "We will not quit these dear, familiar shores. 
 
 See, Jesus has taken Peter apart ! The Lord's face is 
 serious, not severe ; His lips utter a question, repeat it 
 again and again, a little sadly, but so tenderly that it melts 
 the soul. Peter listens, his brow grows clouded, his bent 
 head bends lower still ; he is pale, overwhelmed with shame, 
 till, by a supreme effort, and with an intense gaze fixed full 
 upon the mild eye of his denied, his adored Master, he 
 cries, " Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that 
 I love thee." 
 
 This is how Jesus remembers. 
 
 He remembers when He waits for His disciples upon the 
 borders of the lake ; He remembers when He appoints them 
 to meet Him on that Mount of Olives whither He so often 
 led them ; He remembers them when he fixes upon Bethany,
 
 236 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 where He loved Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus, as the 
 spot whence He was to part from them, and to be carried 
 up into glory. 
 
 What ! Does Jesus, then, not retain the memory of the 
 past ! It were blasphemy to say so. He retains it faith- 
 fully, tenderly ; as He has retained it, I too shall retain. 
 
 Jesus loves His own. He loved them in the agony of 
 death. He loves them in the triumph of the resurrection. 
 
 The dawn whitens in the East ; in the garden of Joseph 
 of Arimathea it is still dark ; a woman is standing there 
 beside the sepulchre. 
 
 Some of the apostles have been there ; they bent over 
 it, saw that it was empty, and, true to their nature as men, 
 logical, prompt in decision, the fact once proved, they have 
 accepted it. But the woman remains there still. Why, 
 she cannot tell you ; only to weep, perhaps ; to remember 
 and to weep on. 
 
 Some one draws near, probably the gardener. "Woman 
 whom seekest thou 1" 
 
 "Sir," stammers out the poor woman through her tears, 
 " if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast 
 laid him." Mary ! Master 1 
 
 How convey the full value of these two words ! All of 
 tenderness, all of respect, the past all recovered, the eternal 
 future all possessed, love imperishable, victorious for ever 
 and ever ; it is all this I find in them, and all this fraught 
 with such ever-increasing freshness and pervading power, 
 that night and day my thoughts might plunge and find 
 unfathomed depths, that for a whole eternity I might feed 
 my admiration thereon, and their immaculate beauty be in 
 no way withered.
 
 THE SUPREME TYPE: A RISEN SAVIOUR. 237 
 
 Again, Jesus is walking between the disciples on the 
 way to Emmaus. The road is dusty, the hour late ; the 
 Saviour's countenance seems changed ; something unfa- 
 miliar makes me for a moment hesitate, and yet, beneath 
 this apparent reserve, I feel that love is vibrating. 
 
 " "Why are ye sad ?" A thrill passes through me. Sweet 
 questioning of my Saviour, I recognise you. It is thus you 
 gently press all bitterness out of the heart ; to tell one's 
 sorrows is to find a secret relief. Jesus interrogates His 
 children ; He makes them repeat what He already knows ; 
 then when the last sigh of dejection has been heaved, He 
 in His turn speaks and consoles. 
 
 But there is another detail that touches me still more. 
 Jesus " made as though he would have gone farther." 
 " Abide with us, for it is evening." And they constrain 
 him ; and Jesus suffers Himself to be constrained ! Then 
 their eyes are opened, then they utter a simultaneous cry 
 " Did not our hearts burn within us 1" 
 
 My heart, too, is hot within me. Saviour, Thou hast 
 loved ! Jesus, risen from the grave, Thou hast felt for 
 Thine own a love more merciful, more strong, more en- 
 tirely, perhaps, imbued with tenderness and pity than in 
 the days of Thy pilgrimage. 
 
 As Thou hast loved, my God, as Thou lovest, even so 
 shall I too love ! 
 
 Jesus rose from the tomb in His entirety. It was no 
 spirit who appeared to the apostles when, gathered together 
 in the evening, they discussed the visions of Mary, and 
 refused them their belief. It was no phantom who 
 walked in Galilee ; it was His own body, crucified, dead, 
 risen again.
 
 238 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 This glorious fact offends the apostles. It confounds 
 their preconceived ideas ; comes, as it were, into collision 
 with their habitual train of thought. 
 
 An immortal soul, we are ready, indeed, to admit that ; 
 we have not seen the soul crumble into dust. But the 
 body ? That ancient antipathy of ancient philosophy, that 
 rag, that vile thing through which we are perishable, that 
 coarse tyrant who subjects us to brutal appetites, that 
 burden which our encumbered spirit can only free itself 
 from by death ; that only hindrance to our attainment of 
 perfection, that animal part of our nature, mere dust and 
 corruption ! To revive that, to give it its share of eternity, 
 more, its share of glory ! 
 
 Such a subversion of human wisdom as this, such a 
 complete overthrow of received notions, could not be 
 adopted all at once. The apostles themselves, who ad- 
 mitted the resurrection, who had been present at the con- 
 troversy with the Sadducees, and heard the reply of Christ, 
 who had seen Lazarus come forth from the tomb, even 
 they, believers, would not believe this. They conceive the 
 idea, but the fact stupifies them. In presence of the 
 Saviour's risen body, some are terrified and others doubt. 
 Jesus must place their fingers on His wounds, must eat 
 before them, must cry aloud, "Touch me, and see, for a 
 spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have !" be- 
 fore, for very joy, blended with fear, His disciples could 
 comprehend and believe. 
 
 There is an incredulity that arises from excess of happi- 
 ness ; there is a scepticism caused by the very magnificence 
 of Divine transactions. Less grace would find an easier 
 entrance into our narrow hearts. A God only half God, a 
 limited power, a partial gift, would suit us better. But
 
 THE SUPREME TYPE: A RISEN SAVIOUR. 239 
 
 then this would be but a less gloomy night, it would not 
 be day. 
 
 Jesus has risen again with His body. My dead body, 
 too, shall live. My beloved ones, earth will restore your 
 bodies to me. 
 
 Finally, Jesus made Himself known to His friends. 
 
 If the scarce-dispelled darkness, if the wonder of an 
 unheard-of felicity, left Mary for a moment in suspense ; 
 if the eyes of the two disciples, journeying to Emmaus, 
 were for a moment holden, how short the doubts, how 
 soon succeeded by perfect certainty ! 
 
 The apostles could not be deceived ; the evidence of 
 their senses affords an irrefutable and enduring testimony 
 to the resurrection of their Lord. 
 
 They doubted, indeed, the reality of the body of Jesus, 
 but never His personal identity. That He was a spirit 
 they did, indeed, at first imagine, but never that He was 
 any other than Jesus. Whether assembled in an upper 
 chamber, or alone ; in the garden, or on the mountain side, 
 it is always one and the same cry that bursts from their 
 lips, "The Master!" 
 
 To have seen is enough, is all. They saw, they knew. 
 They needed no other proof than just to look ; that done, 
 there was no more hesitation. For a moment two of His 
 disciples failed to recognise Him, but only because their 
 eyes were holden. When their eyes were opened, they 
 knew Him at once ; nothing more was wanted. 
 
 In proportion as these meetings with the Saviour were 
 multiplied, their doubt, nay, even their surprise, vanished, 
 so that, even after a night of watching on the Lake of Gen- 
 nesareth, with heavy eyes and weary ears, a simple word is
 
 240 THE HE A VENL T HORIZONS. 
 
 enough for them : " Children !" And John exclaims aloud, 
 and Peter dashes in, and swims to shore. It is thus that 
 I shall know again, shall be known again. 
 
 Nevertheless, there is a change, a difference. 
 
 Jesus, who before never left His disciples save for a 
 night of solitary prayer, now leaves them often, for a 
 long time, and no one knows where He is gone to. His 
 absence used to be a rare occurrence, His presence has be- 
 come so now. Formerly they had life in common, now 
 only interviews. Doubtless, these were more numerous, 
 more prolonged than we commonly suppose. A very 
 marked allusion of St John's leads us to this conclusion ; 
 but the risen Saviour lives under new conditions ; His 
 body has faculties which excite our wonder as well as our 
 admiration. The obstacles which once impeded, impede 
 it no longer. He comes in and goes out, the doors being 
 shut. He is here, then there, and no human eye has 
 marked His passage from place to place. On the morning 
 of the resurrection He says to Mary, "Touch me not, for I 
 am not yet ascended to my Father." He ascends, He de- 
 scends, to earth again, and says to Thomas, "Reach hither 
 thy hand, and put it into my side." 
 
 A deep mystery spreads its veil before our gaze. 
 
 Until the hour of His glorious reappearing, heaven is 
 become the Saviour's domain. He traverses its immeasur- 
 able space, and, returning, seats Himself no longer being 
 weary by Jacob's well. 
 
 What though He taste indeed a piece of honeycomb, 
 those touching words, "He hungered," can never more be 
 said of Him. 
 
 Still man, His humanity has put on glory, has put off 
 infirmity. And thus is formed a grand, a beautiful per-
 
 T1IE SUPREME TYPE: A RISEN SAVIOUR. 241 
 
 sonality, which we see indeed, but cannot fully compre- 
 hend. 
 
 Be it so. What matters comprehension when I have 
 faith, have the fact before me ? 
 
 When the resurrection-day comes, there will be no more 
 obscurity. Meanwhile, strengthen thyself, my heart. 
 
 Need we recapitulate? Are not the characteristics of 
 Jesus awaked from death, self-evident, luminous, definite ? 
 
 Man after it, as Thou wert man before ; with Thy per- 
 sonal identity entire ; with Thy memories, Thy affections 
 unchanged, risen in a glorious body, recognised by Thy 
 people, such art Thou, my Saviour ! 
 
 A light has burst forth j its radiance reveals the far per- 
 spective of the world to come. Rejoice, my soul, at a 
 happiness within the reach of thy faculties. Do as did 
 the Apostles : Look, and thou shalt see.
 
 THE SLEEPLESSNESS OF THE SOUL 
 
 soul does not sleep, it lives ; it is tlie body 
 that lies low in the slumbers of the tomb. 
 
 Can you conceive a sleeping soul, a dreamless sleep ? I 
 find that such a state borders too closely upon annihilation, 
 not to excite in man extreme repulsion. In fact, it is 
 temporary annihilation. 
 
 To cease to exist during centuries, perhaps ages ; to give 
 up a life throbbing with the love of the Saviour ; to be 
 frozen up after the fashion of antediluvian mammoths ; to 
 exchange the activity of thought, the full employment of 
 every faculty, for a suspension that amounts to total ex- 
 tinction, to speak frankly, does this prospect fill your 
 heart with joy ? Mine remains aghast at it. 
 
 Nevertheless, if the Word of God declares this, we needs 
 must submit to it. How many men, of high consideration, 
 affirm that it does ! 
 
 One word, one only, authorizes this opinion ; a very 
 strong word, it is true, and often repeated, the word sleep. 
 
 Death is sleep ; those who die fall asleep. 
 
 What remains to be said in reply ? 
 
 Much; nay, all 
 
 The word is there, no doubt. But as long as its mean- 
 ing is undefined, the question remains open. In what 
 sense are we to take this word " sleep ? " How is it applied
 
 THE SLEEPLESSNESS OF THE SOUL. 243 
 
 in the Scriptures 1 This is what it concerns us to know. 
 This alone will solve the difficulty. 
 
 This word applies to the body, not in any sense to the 
 soul 
 
 It is the body that sleeps, absolutely unconcerned by all 
 that goes on in this world or in the other. It sleeps 
 heavily, no voice can rouse it, not even that dear voice whose 
 lightest whisper sufficed to thrill it during the days of 
 life on earth. 
 
 You know it but too well, that implacable sleep ; you 
 who have folded in a last embrace that poor body, indiffer- 
 ent now to every appeal of yours. An hour ago, it saw 
 your tears, your pale face ; it sees them no longer. All 
 that the soul saw and heard, those angelic messengers that 
 God often sends to light it on its passage ; the body, if it 
 saw them at all, sees and hears no longer. It has fallen 
 down inert, it remains inert, and the immortal germ that 
 God has placed within it, the spark which His breath 
 will re-kindle, is so deeply buried in dust and ashes, that 
 no human search can ever discover it. 
 
 Has the soul then succumbed ? Is the spirit paralysed 1 
 Let us draw near, and examine more closely into this. 
 This dreadful word "sleep," will thanks to Jesus who 
 applied it to Himself at once assume its own proper and 
 circumscribed meaning. 
 
 Here is the garden of Joseph; here is the sepulchre. 
 The body of Jesus is resting there ! What says Holy 
 Writ ? Jesus sleeps. 
 
 He sleeps ! This is the language employed by Scripture. 
 When Scripture speaks of Jesus dying, they say, He fell 
 asleep. When they speak of His resurrection, it is as 
 of awaking out of sleep. 
 
 No distinction is here made between the body and the
 
 244 THE UK A VKXLY HORIZON*. 
 
 soul of the Son of God If we take the sleep of death in 
 an absolute sense, the whole nature of Jesus was, for a 
 Heason, subjugated by I know not what lethargy. For 
 three days the spirit of Jesus, the Lord of Life, rem;iinl 
 paralysed, benumbed. You might have traversed the 
 Xhole earth, its height and depth ; you might have sounded 
 the immensity of heaven, nowhere would you have met 
 with Jesus 1 For three whole days the Word He who 
 could say of Himself, I am He, even He, was not. 
 
 Does not the shudder occasioned by such a thought as 
 this at once convince you of its sacrilegious absurdity ? 
 
 Well then, the whole of revelation declares of Jesus that 
 He slept. 
 
 If it says this of Him, it may well say it of us. There 
 is nothing in that which need terrify us any longer. 
 
 The Pharisees said it when they set a watch around His 
 tomb "We remember that that deceiver said, In three 
 days I will awake, arise again." 
 
 The angels implied it when, seated by the sepulchre, 
 they reassure the sorrowing women, "Ye seek Jesus of 
 Nazareth, who was crucified. He is not here, he is risen." 
 
 Jesus said, speaking of himself : " When I am risen I 
 will go before you into Galilee." 
 
 The apostles repeat the phrase : " He rose again the 
 third day." " God raised Him from the dead." Let us 
 believe on Him who raised Him up. 
 
 Dust, thou shalt return to thy dust ! I know thee, thou 
 fearful sentence, thou art nothing new. Ever since the 
 days of the Garden of Eden thou hast struck at our bodies ; 
 our souls disown and defy thee I The soul can no more 
 sleep than it can die. 
 
 Have you still one lingering doubt ? The last sigh of 
 the Saviour will dispel it for you.
 
 THE SLEEPLESSNESS OF THE SOUL. 
 
 "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Death 
 takes his own portion, but the living spirit returns to the 
 land of life. For three days the body shall remain laid in 
 the tomb, treated as a holy thing, but still as a thing ; it 
 shall be wrapped in a shroud, heaped about with spices ; 
 sleep shall weigh the eyelids down, paralyse the limbs, but 
 not the spirit. Death, thou canst not touch that I The 
 spirit will patiently await in God's presence the hour when, 
 returning into the very body it left, it will raise it up on 
 its f eet> soar with it to the Father, re-descend to earth, sit 
 down in glory. ' 
 
 This is not yet all ! Listen to a decisive sentence of the 
 Saviour 
 
 " I lay down my life to take it up again. I have power 
 both to lay it down, and to take it up." 
 
 Who is this /; this victorious /, who is it ? Who is 
 the one who, being dead, commands life to return ? It is 
 the soul ; the soul which can neither slumber nor sleep. 
 
 Be at ease ; we shall sleep as Jesus slept It is thus 
 that sleep our loved ones. Their bodies, that is to say j 
 never their souls. 
 
 - 
 
 This subject is one that must be thoroughly examined. 
 When only indistinctly revealed, it saddens us; placed 
 under a full, strong light, it causes our hearts to dance 
 with joy. 
 
 Let us return in thought to days long past ; remount 
 the stream of time. 
 
 Here we meet with Abraham. In the midst of the 
 terrors of night and darkness, he has been visited by a 
 vision. The Lord has spoken to him, "Thou shalt be 
 gathered to thy fathers." Do these words apply to the 
 Patriarch's earthly remains ! will his bones be carried to
 
 246 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 Padan-Aram, from the land of Canaan to the country 
 whence he originally came 1 Not so. Abraham having 
 died in a strange country, is buried in the cave of Hebron : 
 there rests his body ; his dust will not be mingled with 
 that of the plains of Mesopotamia. It is the soul that is 
 spoken of ; the soul is living still ; the soul goes whither 
 his fathers have gone. 
 
 Again, God meets Isaac in the valleys of Beersheba, and 
 says, " I am the God of Abraham thy father." To Jacob 
 he says, "I am the God of Isaac." 
 
 To the people of Israel, " I am the God of Jacob." 
 
 Magnificent name ! His name throughout all ages ! "I 
 AM !" not I was. Jesus declares Him God of the living, 
 not of the dead, not of the sleeping. 
 
 David cries aloud, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in 
 Hades." Prophet, he announces the resurrection of Christ ; 
 believer, he expresses the fulness of his own conviction. 
 
 And Ecclesiastes responds to him, " Then shaU the dust 
 return to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God who 
 gave it." 
 
 Long before then, the Lord on Sinai came to hold con- 
 verse with Moses from the midst of ten thousand of his 
 saints, living saints, not sleeping. Long after, the dry 
 bones gathered themselves into battle array at Ezekiel's 
 voice ; but, lo ! the spirit had not yet returned into them. 
 
 Who is that who rises down there on the plains of 
 Endor, in presence of the pale and trembling king ? A 
 phantom 1 No ; Samuel himself, the judge of Israel. 
 " Why hast thou disquieted me ? To-morrow thou shalt be 
 with me, thou and thy sons." 
 
 Who are they who appear on the holy mountain, talk- 
 ing there with the transfigured Jesus 1 Two of the dead : 
 Elijah, carried up body and soul to heaven ; Moses, whose
 
 THE SLEPLEESSNESS OF THE SOUL. 217 
 
 fcody is still hidden in some mountain-hollow on the other 
 side of Jordan. Do they sleep 1 Have they slept ] No ; 
 both have come from the land of life; both will return 
 thither ; their faces are lit with celestial glory. 
 
 What says Jesus to the little daughter of Jairus? 
 " Maiden, arise ! " The stiffened frame lifts itself up ; 
 the heart beats, the child walks, and why 1 Her spirit 
 has returned into her. 
 
 Behold a spectacle at once magnificent and terrible ! A 
 poor man, covered with sores, yields up his last suffering 
 breath, and is borne by angels into Abraham's bosom. A 
 rich man lives in splendour, dies, is buried, and then I 
 see him iii a place of torment. This fate follows instantly 
 upon his death ; for amongst the inhabitants of earth are 
 numbered the brothers of the man clothed in purple and 
 fine linen. 
 
 A parable, you say. 
 
 I know it, and know that to draw too rigorous deduc- 
 tions from it, would be to pervert its meaning. Neverthe- 
 less, it has a meaning, else of what use would it be ? When 
 the Lord spoke it, He designed it to announce a truth, else 
 He would not have done so. Was its only purport to 
 teach the Jews that, after this life ended, there were feli- 
 cities and torments both 1 The Jews knew that perfectly 
 welL What, then, did the parable teach? The striking 
 fact, that the soul cannot sleep, that it merely passes 
 through death, does not linger in it, that it is immediately 
 happy or unhappy, one or the other, and that it can only 
 be either through being a living souL 
 
 Do you not at once see the moral influence of this fact ? 
 A thousand years of lethargy ; that is a long period. A 
 state of pain or a state of enjoyment divided from us by 
 such an interval, does not affect me much with joy or fear.
 
 248 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 You will tell me that a thousand years are as one day ! 
 Yes, in the Lord's eyes they are so. But as for me, a 
 finite creature, with my standard of time, I count the 
 thousand years as they are here upon this earth where I 
 am j in spite of myself, I see them in the light of a reprieve, 
 and from that moment it is no longer my soul that sleeps, 
 but my conscience. 
 
 My pen has stumbled upon that word catalepsy. 
 
 There are indeed cataleptics. There are people whose 
 senses are all suspended, who cannot see, who are consi- 
 dered dead, who are dead in common parlance. Oh, but 
 are they really so? Those motionless eyes follow your 
 movements, those frozen ears catch all your broken words ; 
 each latent faculty, preternaturally excited by the con. 
 straint laid on it, has acquired increased intensity ; life is 
 there, entire, vibrating, condensed. And when the blood 
 begins again to circulate and the lips unclose, when that 
 frightful torture of the living soul within the corpse is 
 ended, it is found that never before did the heart feel so 
 strongly, the mind think so intensely. And shall we still 
 believe in the sleep of the soul ! 
 
 But I return to the proofs afforded me by revelation. 
 
 Judas, who strangled himself, went, say the Scriptures, 
 to his own place. You shudder. Sleep has no such ter- 
 rors. 
 
 Paul calls us fellow-citizens with the saints. The city is 
 alive, its citizens are awake, are stirring, acting ; a city of 
 sleepers would be rather a necropolis than a city ; the 
 fellow-citizens of saints are fellow-citizens of the living. 
 
 The same apostle exclaims : " Ye are not come unto 
 Sinai, ye are come unto mount Zion, to the general assem- 
 bly, ... to the spirits of just men made perfect." 
 
 These spirits are living at this present hour in the
 
 THE SLEEPLESSNESS OF THE SOUL. 249 
 
 presence of God; for the body is dead, but the spirit is 
 life. 
 
 Do we need further argument ? 
 
 Yes ; there is still much to be said. A single word has 
 given birth to the notion of the soul's temporary annihila- 
 tion ; another word refutes it departure. 
 
 The soul departs, says the Bible. We depart from our 
 homes. In order to depart, we must be alive. My home 
 is not myself. My home without me remains a dead) 
 deserted thing. Doors closed, windows closed, silence 
 everywhere. Meanwhile I, this living I, am elsewhere, 
 am animating some other dwelling with my presence. 
 
 Then, as for the desire to depart so often expressed by 
 the apostles, how can we understand it if sleep follows 
 upon death ? Such a desire would be simply unreasonable. 
 What ! I want to quit this earth where I serve my God, 
 where I feel, where I love ; I want to quit it that I may 
 sleep. Only a despairing lassitude can prompt such a wish 
 as this ; never will it be felt by a Christian in the full 
 exercise of his faculties, his faith, and his affections. Such 
 a one will never prefer lethargy to labour. Living, he may 
 glorify his God ; living, he may save souls ; living, he may 
 comfort the mourner ; but paralysed, congealed, a thing 
 and not a being, even the power to dream is not permitted 
 him any longer. 
 
 Paul aspires after deliverance ; he shall tell us why. 
 " When at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 
 Therefore we desire to depart, that we may be present with 
 the Lord." Here is his motive. St Paul would fain de- 
 part, not to escape the sorrows of existence. A soldier 
 does not shun the battle, that he may receive the prize. 
 Besides, St Paul, in repeating it, further defines his 
 thought. " We are willing rather to be absent from the
 
 250 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 body, that we may be present with the Lord." Absent 
 from the body ! What is it that is absent 1 My soul. 
 Whither does it go 1 Into the presence of the Lord. 
 
 I fear to dwell too long upon the subject, to weary the 
 reader ; but I must needs recall that other expression of 
 Paul's, when, his heart wrung with anxiety about the new 
 converts whom he feared to leave, his soul possessed with 
 the desire to behold Jesus, he wrote those lines so impres- 
 sively true, so touchingly natural, " I am in a strait be- 
 twixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, 
 ivhich is far better ; nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is 
 more needful for you." 
 
 One irrefragable testimony remains : I have kept it to 
 the last. 
 
 Three crosses rise on Golgotha. On one of these, with 
 arms outstretched, the royal title above His head, pro- 
 claiming to- the universe how Israel treats the Son of God, 
 see Jesus die. They ridicule Him. Insults are hurled at 
 Him on all sides by the angry crowd, and fall blunted on 
 that brow, which grows pale beneath the Divine wrath. 
 Jews, Eomans, all alike blaspheme. More bitter, more 
 caustic still, fraught with more fearful irony, the sarcasm 
 heard from the neighbouring cross, "If thou be the 
 Christ, save thyself and us." 
 
 Then, before any answer can be returned, a voice is lifted 
 up, plaintive but firm, humble but vibrating with hope : 
 " This man has done nothing amiss ; we indeed suffer 
 justly ; " then that supreme prayer : " Remember me, when 
 thou comest into thy kingdom." 
 
 Jesus answers : " To-day, verily I say unto thee, to-day 
 thou shalt be with me in Paradise." 
 
 What a contrast ! Have you seized its full power ? It 
 is as though Jesus said
 
 TEE SLEEPLESSNESS OF THE SOUL. 251 
 
 " You thought to fall asleep ; you thought that ages 
 after ages would heap their dust on your torpid spirit ; to- 
 day, as soon as the brutal club of the Roman soldiers shall 
 have broken thy bones, to-day thou shalt be with me. For 
 me, I do not sleep. My soul enters triumphantly into its 
 kingdom ; finds its ransomed ones there, other ransomed 
 spirits coming, one after the other, to rejoin it ; to-day, 
 not later, Paradise will open for thee ; and when, at the 
 appointed day, I re-descend as Sovereign Judge, it is with 
 my saints, the armies of my saints, my living not sleeping 
 saints, that I shall return to earth." 
 
 No man can number these saints. 
 
 Do you see, too, in the pages of the Apocalypse those 
 souls hidden under the altar 1 Moved with holy impa- 
 tience, they cry, " How long, O Lord ! how long ! " 
 
 Do you mark the myriads clothed in symbolic white 
 garments, come out of great tribulation, and glorifying the 
 Lord, while the last scenes of our earth's history are being 
 accomplished? These are the elect, happy at this present 
 hour, but still aspiring, waiting for the redemption of the 
 body. 
 
 And now if, by a singular reaction having been once 
 offended by the idea of a glorified body, you are amazed 
 at the idea of a soul deprived of its body and yet living, of 
 a soul that perceives, feels, thinks, I have .to ask you, 
 whether you have never dreamed; if you do not know 
 what it is to traverse earth and skies in the imaginations 
 of your sleep ; if it has never happened to you, as it were, 
 to act, to speak, to li ve long years in one second of time ; 
 to be your own identical, complete self, the body only 
 excepted. 
 
 And then I have to point you to St Paul caught up to 
 the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body
 
 252 TEE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 he knows not. I point you to a Daniel, an Ezekiel, a St 
 John ; to all the prophets in their trances and their visions, 
 and I say to you, Do not underrate any longer the power 
 of God, the inalienable vitality of our own moral being. 
 
 We are convinced; we know now to a certainty that 
 there is no state of torpor for our dead. 
 
 Their slumber weighed like lead upon our soul. It 
 almost made us rebel against the decrees of the Most High, 
 our bereavements became intolerable. How can we but 
 regret life for those who sleep ? The most laborious exist- 
 ence, the most troubled and tormented, is at least better 
 than annihilation. The weary may at least love, the suffer- 
 ing may glorify God ; but the unconscious tenants of the 
 tomb have neither heart nor tongue with which to praise 
 the Lord. 
 
 Would I wake you out of sleep, my beloved one 1 Yes. 
 Must I needs rebel against the will which has snatched you 
 out of existence, to cast you into a limbo, full of silence 
 and of gloom ? Yes. Do I find such a decree inexplicable, 
 unjust, cruel 1 I do. 
 
 Would I recall you from Paradise, from the very fount 
 of life ; would I plunge you again into our darknesses, our 
 sins ; could I fail to bless through all my tears the merciful 
 decree which has transported you to the seats of everlasting 
 bliss ? Never. 
 
 The way opens out before us. It does not lead down to 
 the darksome bowels of the earth ; it rises to the highest 
 heavens. 
 
 Let us no longer look for the living amongst the dead.
 
 PERSONAL IDENTITY, 
 
 JITHOUT personal identity, I can comprehend 
 neither heaven nor earth ; we should fall into 
 mere ciphers ranged in line with other ciphers. 
 All relation between this life and the next would be done 
 away ; we should find ourselves in presence of two worlds 
 entirely unlike, two races absolutely unknown to each other. 
 Not a single link to bind the heavenly to the earthly ; and 
 as an inevitable consequence, divine justice giving way, and 
 my interest in my own soul vanishing quite. 
 
 Justice is just only so long as it is applied to the very 
 individual who has committed the good or the bad action. 
 If you take away identity, you destroy the individual. 
 His conduct is no longer part of himself. It may, indeed, 
 be his arm which is raised to kill, his hand which is opened 
 to give ; but from the moment you do away with the in- 
 dividuality of the soul, you do away with all responsibility. 
 The crimes or virtues of a being thus deprived of person- 
 ality, you might as well reward or punish in his neighbour 
 as in himself. 
 
 This is so incontestable, that the law does not punish 
 the insane ; merely shuts them up, to prevent their injur- 
 ing society. 
 
 A crime committed in full possession of reason even, if 
 it be followed by madness, does not draw down upon a 
 man the sentence of the law. We do not execute a madman ;
 
 254 THE HE A VENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 we incarcerate him. If his reason returns, the law takes 
 its course. 
 
 But in no case can it be put in force against the virtually 
 absent. 
 
 So much for justice. 
 
 As for the interest I take in my own future, that noble 
 sentiment which leads me to respect my own soul, to seek 
 to perfect it, to desire its holiness and happiness ; if I am 
 myself no longer, I lose that sentiment altogether. In fact, 
 the fate of a Chinese is much more important to me. I 
 may know that Chinese, may meet him in the life to come, 
 but, from the moment that I lose my identity, find myself, 
 recognise myself no longer, I become self-indifferent. 
 
 Punishment ! no doubt it will be distressing to that 
 other individual to undergo it. Happiness ! no doubt he 
 will enjoy it if it be granted him ; he has my best wishes, 
 my charity reaches so far. But not farther ; not to any 
 effort, to any sacrifice for his sake. I repeat, I should 
 exert myself more for a Chinaman. 
 
 So much for the moral aspect. 
 
 But there is more than this, the doctrine of imperson- 
 ality which militates against our common sense, tears our 
 heart as well. 
 
 I have seen a father depart : I shall meet again with 
 a nameless being. All our life has been blended with 
 the life of a friend ; nothing will remain of our former at- 
 tachment. A stranger myself, I shall take my place 
 amongst strangers. We shall not even be able to speak of 
 the earth, for I shall not know if there be an earth or not, 
 the link between it and me will be broken. 
 
 What a heaven ! one would be better off in a jail. There 
 we might be uncomfortable, we should at least still be our- 
 selves.
 
 PERSONAL IDENTITY. 255 
 
 There is this to be said, however, it is not God who has 
 broken the link we bewail. We find no trace in Scripture 
 of a system, that by way of fitting man for everlasting life, 
 begins by substracting from him his own self. No book 
 respects individuality more than the Bible. There is even 
 a marked contrast between the Divine wisdom and our 
 own, in that God, who might absorb all, jealously preserves 
 our moral personality ; while our terrestrial philosophers, 
 despising men in their zeal for man, willingly sacrifice the 
 right of the individual to the good of the great whole. 
 
 The individual has a permanent existence in the sight 
 of God ; the individual is entirely lost sight of by the great 
 majority of philosophers. They have invented a final ab- 
 sorption into the Divine essence ; God has left His work 
 as He originally conceived it very simple, and answering 
 to our common sense. 
 
 A common centre into which all are absorbed ; such is 
 the idea struck out by human wisdom. Each one answer- 
 ing for himself, there in heaven as on earth, such is the 
 work of God. 
 
 Jesus knows His sheep by name. The very angels have 
 their special characters and distinctive appellations. Gab- 
 riel is one, Michael another. 
 
 In the presence of God each individual has his proper 
 life. One town, one people, is not confounded with a 
 neighbouring town, a neighbouring people. 
 
 The word each, or equivalent expressions, so constantly 
 applied to man when removed to his eternal abode, guards 
 and maintains personality. 
 
 He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly. My re- 
 ward is with me, to render to every one according to his 
 work. Every man's work shall be manifest. He that over- 
 cometh shall be clothed in white raiment. I will not blot
 
 256 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 out his name from the Book of Life. Each one shall an- 
 swer for himself. 
 
 I do not know how an inalienable individuality could 
 have been more definitely expressed. 
 
 Identity ! yes, we grant you that, some will reply. But 
 memory ! 
 
 Yes, there are people who come and calmly tell you, 
 There will be no remembrance in heaven. 
 
 I have said that, without personal identity, I could con- 
 ceive neither heaven nor earth. Can you conceive of them 
 without memory ? 
 
 As for the earth under such a condition, it is palpable 
 that it would be but a madhouse. 
 
 And heaven? 
 
 I am there in the celestial regions. / am there ! This 
 is easily said, but who is this individual whom you affirm 
 to be me ? he is a perfect stranger, for I have no recollection 
 of him. Me ? oh, where, at what time, in what place ? 
 While you leave me ignorant of those details I cannot pro- 
 ceed a single step. 
 
 Never mind, I must, you tell me, advance, and you lead 
 me to judgment. 
 
 To judgment ! for what cause, and who is he that is 
 judged ? I hear it said Thou hast committed such an 
 action, neglected such a duty ; thou hast believed my word, 
 denied it ; thou hast loved Jesus ; thou hast rejected Him. 
 Truly all these charges alike are enigmas to me ; I seek 
 and cannot find any answer to them. 
 
 But this is not by any means all According to these 
 very charges, I am placed on the right hand with the 
 blessed, on the left hand with the condemned. 
 
 Oh, my whole nature rebels against such a proceeding !
 
 PERSONAL IDENTITY. 257 
 
 It is written that God shall be found just. But as for me, 
 I declare Him unjust, for I can remember nothing. 
 
 Do not talk to me any more of justice but of arbitrary 
 power ! Memory once destroyed, the solemn scene of the 
 last judgment is reduced to certain blows or certain favours, 
 falling here and there like a hail-shower on a stormy day ; 
 sparing these, crushing those, according as they are impelled 
 by a mysterious will to which I have no clue. 
 
 You wished to preserve personal identity, and you take 
 away memory both fall together. I am only consciously 
 myself so long as I remember. Annihilate the last vestiges 
 of memory, and you annihilate the last remnant of identity 
 as well 
 
 And, if you dispute the fact, I point you to the old man 
 in his second childhood. So long as a little memory is 
 left him, he remains himself; when all remembrance of 
 the past is darkened, absolutely darkened, he loses his 
 identity, loses it to such a degree as to believe himself 
 some one else. His poor mind is like an empty house, 
 passers-by go in and out, the true master has disappeared. 
 
 Men have thought to make God's work easier, by con- 
 juring memory away. They have only destroyed a prime 
 element of order. 
 
 The world to come peopled by a race vdthout a past ; a 
 future existence entirely built upon an anterior existence, 
 with its very conditions only consequences of the acts, 
 thoughts, and sentiments of that said anterior existence, 
 and yet all memory of it done away, why, I say it is a 
 mere chaos ! Cut the ropes which hold a balloon fast to 
 the ground, send it rolling through space, without ballast 
 or compass, and you have an image of your world to come : 
 more fitting home for the insane than the redeemed. 
 
 Again, what a singular hypothesis ; how little worthy of
 
 258 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 God this which, degrades man by way of elevating him. 
 Here below, he had a complete individuality, possessing 
 the past by memory ; the future by hope j he exchanges 
 time for eternity, and straightway his mind grows narrower, 
 his sight shorter ; the perspective of the past closes behind 
 him. Truly, he was richer on earth, he was greater, he 
 was at least conversant with his own life, and could measure 
 the amplitude of ages past. 
 
 If you would mutilate our moral being to make God's 
 work of judgment easier, know that God refuses such 
 facilities ; that He will have to do with man in his entirety. 
 It is with his personal identity and his memory that man 
 will have to appear before God. In the heavenly country, 
 a man will assuredly encounter men whom he has known ; 
 known by hearsay, known by sight, and nations of men, 
 whose history he has read. 
 
 Remember ! says the Scripture. 
 
 "Kemember that thou, in thy lifetime, hast had thy 
 good things." 
 
 " I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat ; naked, and 
 ye clothed me ; in prison, and ye visited me." And when 
 the redeemed of the Lord cry out, in amazement, " When 
 did we any of these things to thee V Jesus clears up the 
 difficulty by an appeal to their past recollection, "Inas- 
 much as ye did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, 
 ye did it unto me." 
 
 They understand Him. 
 
 It is from our past that the witnesses for or against us 
 are cited. 
 
 The rust of our silver and gold testifies against us ; our 
 alms, fruits of our faith, plead on our behalf. There is a 
 most absolute solidarity between the time that was and 
 the time that shall be.
 
 PERSONAL IDENTITY. 259 
 
 Thou hast confessed me before men : I will confess tliee 
 before God. Onesipkorus, thou hadst compassion on my 
 Apostle Paul, when he was chained in a Roman dungeon : 
 at the last day thou shalt find mercy at the hand of thy 
 God. Martyrs, ye died with me : ye shall also reign. As 
 for you who said Lord, Lord, and who would bring forward 
 the evidence of your pious talk, your fine-seeming actions, 
 nay, your miracles wrought in my name, remember more 
 accurately : Words, outward conduct, these, indeed, you 
 gave me, but not your heart. Depart from me, all ye 
 workers of iniquity ! 
 
 We know the name of those who played a part in me- 
 morable events ; we know their history, can recognise their 
 character. 
 
 Men in presence of other men, town against town Jonah 
 with the inhabitants of Nineveh, the Queen of Sheba, Moses, 
 all have a clearly-defined and unalterable individuality. 
 Even when cities are treated of, it is Sodom or Gomorrah, 
 Tyre or Sidon, with their respective annals, their imper- 
 sonal but specified character and conduct ; actual cities, in 
 short, not abstractions. 
 
 Thus memory and identity have a permanent existence, 
 are the immutable basis of the future life. 
 
 The doctrine of the soul's sleep benumbed our conscience ; 
 the annihilation of our identity destroys it utterly. From 
 the moment that I no more believe myself responsible for 
 actions, I take no further thought about them. Such or 
 such a wicked act may indeed appear to me in an ugly light 
 I grant you that ; but, nevertheless, I contemplate it from 
 a stand-point external to myself. I blame it in my own 
 conduct, just as I might blame it in the vilest of men, 
 neither more nor less. It does not interest me ; I might 
 almost say it is no affair of mine ; and were it not for the
 
 260 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 reprobation of society, which. I shrink from braving, the 
 fear of incurring the penalty of the law, I should give the 
 reins to my every passion. 
 
 You speak to me of development, perfectiveness. I pro- 
 test to you that I am indifferent to them. Let me grow 
 ever so perfect here below, it will be labour lost when I 
 find myself on high. It is a mere stranger, for whom I 
 care very little, that is to get there. As for taking any 
 particular trouble for him, incurring sacrifices, acting or 
 not acting, the thing is absurd. There is only one indi- 
 vidual in whom I really take much interest : the one who 
 on this our planet is called me, me myself. I will procure 
 for him as long as I can, all the pleasure and satisfaction 
 possible here ; after why, hereafter is the affair of that 
 other being with whom I have no connexion. 
 
 The same order of minds, who used to deny first per- 
 sonal identity, then memory, in their constant desire to 
 simplify all problems, have now come to allow man to con- 
 tinue himself indeed, but still they must needs mutilate 
 him ; to leave him complete would be too great a compli- 
 cation ; there would be no end to difficulties. Therefore 
 they decree that he shall indeed remember, but only in 
 part ; shall retain the memory of events, but not of per- 
 sons. In heaven, say they, we shall recognise ourselves, 
 not others. Here is a fine invention, indeed, for simplify- 
 ing matters ! 
 
 I have a name of my own, it matters not what. On 
 earth, I had a mother, a husband, children ; I was sur- 
 rounded by friends ; I lived in town or country, and near 
 me lived other human beings, rich or poor, happy or un- 
 happy. Towards each of these, father, child, neighbour, I 
 had certain duties to perform. My very life, indeed, was
 
 PERSONAL IDENTITY. 261 
 
 so intimately interwoven with theirs, we breathed so com- 
 pletely one common air, that, in a moral sense, I could not 
 move, nor they either, without their existence and mine 
 being modified. The elements out of which our past was 
 made were just our mutual relations, our reciprocal con- 
 duct, our feelings for each other. My soul bears the im- 
 press of their actions ; their soul has undergone the influ- 
 ence of my character. My life which is about to be 
 judged, is part and parcel of their lives ; that which stands 
 written in the books about to be opened, is written in the 
 mingled blood that flows from their veins and mine. 
 
 Now, it is just all this that you want to do away with. 
 The world is to be suppressed with the exception of my 
 solitary self. 
 
 I find myself before the throne of God ; myself, it is 
 true, but standing all alone there. Family, friends, neigh- 
 bours, a breath has blown them all away. I see myriads 
 at my right hand and at my left, strangers all, mere 
 ciphers, such as we spoke of. I alone ; I known only to 
 myself and to God, I stand upright amidst the ruins of 
 the world. 
 
 Absurd, immoral, as was the doctrine of a lost identity, 
 a lost memory ! 
 
 In point of fact, it is only the old empirical practice 
 under another name ; only the scalpel and the cauterising 
 iron. 
 
 Let us amputate, burn, annihilate ; nullity is more easily 
 managed than life. 
 
 Do you think so? I do not. Heaven thus peopled 
 with creatures half-living, half-dead, with one half their 
 consciousness paralysed, one half their affections frozen, 
 looks to me but like a vast hospital and abode of suffering.
 
 262 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 Or if there be not suffering, it is owing to the cautery. 
 To mutilate, is not to heal. I see mutilated beings. I do 
 not see men there. 
 
 Is that indeed a state of glory 1 Is that the perfection 
 promised to the children of God ? 
 
 Let us breathe the pure air of the Bible. 
 
 A slave, Onesimus, has run away. Paul teaches him the 
 way of salvation, then sends him back to his master. " For 
 perhaps he therefore departed from thee for a season, that 
 thou shouldest receive him for ever." A strong expression 
 this receive him for ever. But if Philemon is not to know 
 Onesimus again, what meaning can it have 1 
 
 " Ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, sit down 
 in the kingdom of heaven." If you see them without re- 
 cognising them, what does seeing them signify to you ? 
 
 A crown of rejoicing is prepared for the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles ; his converts are that crown. But if he does not 
 know them again, what becomes of his triumph 1 " Make 
 to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, 
 that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting 
 habitations." Friends, the very same whose trembling 
 hands your hands have pressed; whose tears you have 
 dried here below. If they are merely x, y, or z, why they 
 can no longer be friends, and Scripture testimony is over- 
 thrown. 
 
 On the morning of the Resurrection, many saints left 
 their graves, and showed themselves to many. Do away 
 with the recognition of individuals, and you destroy all 
 proof of the miracle. 
 
 Upon the holy mountain there appeared two men in 
 glory, one on each side of the transfigured Saviour. Who 
 has announced their names to Peter ? No one ; nor had 
 Peter ever seen them, yet he knows them. " Master, it is
 
 PERSONAL IDENTITY. 263 
 
 good for us to be here ; let us make three tabernacles, one 
 for thee, one for Moses, one for Elias" 
 
 I will not remind you of Samuel recognised by Saul ; 
 nor of Elijah, who, as he rises high in air, does not become 
 unfamiliar and unknown to Elisha. " My father, my 
 father !" Thus he continues to cry, till Elijah has vanished 
 out of sight. I should have to quote the whole Bible. 
 
 The first shall be last ! Why, according to your theory, 
 I know neither the one nor the other know not what this 
 means. 
 
 The patriarchs, the prophets are they indeed monu- 
 ments of the faithfulness of God 1 I cannot tell, and I 
 might pass a thousand years in the presence of these sub- 
 lime forms without being any wiser. 
 
 Those Colossians, those Philippians, those converts of St 
 Paul ! who are they, and who is Paul ? I never heard of 
 him ; let us pass on. 
 
 " They who pierced shall see him," I hear it said of the 
 Jews and the Lord Jesus. Were there Jews ? Was there 
 indeed a man called Jesus ? How can you suppose the 
 Jews will know Him again if there be no mutual recogni- 
 tion hereafter ? 
 
 I thank Thee, my God, the river of Lethe may indeed 
 flow through the Elysian fields, it does not water the 
 Christian's Paradise. 
 
 Before the sun has climbed above the horizon, all 
 objects on earth are blended in one common, indistinct, 
 grey hue; you can just discern their difference of form. 
 The sun rises, colours appear, outlines define themselves, 
 variety and tune are born at once. Before, there was only 
 a dull monotony ; now, there is harmony. 
 
 The life to come has a similar marvel in reserve. At
 
 264 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 the first ray of its light, our true characters, purified but 
 preserving their identity, will more fully expand, and the 
 result of the infinite diversity will be a complete unity. 
 
 Have no fear. God will open out a way we cannot 
 foresee. His wisdom, His will, will have as free scope 
 amidst multitudes of separate personalities, as amidst be- 
 wildered myriads of beings without identity or memory, to 
 whom everything is new, everything unaccountable, and 
 who are appalled at the unknown region into which they 
 have been plunged. 
 
 It is I myself. So said the risen Saviour to His dis- 
 ciples. 7 myself. 
 
 Those with whom I have lived, with whom I have 
 suffered ; you, my children, for whom I have so often 
 prayed ; my friends, whose faces are so familiar to me, you 
 too, whom having not seen I still have loved. It is you 
 yourselves. 
 
 Blessed be the Lord for this expression of His ! 
 
 "We were being very gradually and gently brought to the 
 verge of final annihilation; God has stretched out His 
 saving hand. Once for all, and for ever, we have escaped 
 from it.
 
 THE ETERNITY OF LOYE. 
 
 JAVE we indeed escaped ? 
 Alas ! no. 
 
 The power of God rescues our personality from 
 the tomb : so much has been granted ; but it leaves our 
 affections there. Individual love is to be absorbed in 
 universal. It is this latter love alone of which it is written, 
 " It never faileth." 
 
 If this be so, then we have returned to the belief in 
 annihilation ; for to lose ourselves is virtually to perish. 
 
 I apply the term, destroying agent, to the flood that 
 covers the whole country, and replaces its varied undu- 
 lations by an immense sheet of water, which only reflects 
 the sun. 
 
 Death shall be destroyed. This wondrous sentence 
 closes the prophecies relating to our earth. But if you 
 kill my affections, death triumphs ; for death has swallowed 
 up the noblest portion of our being. 
 
 If in this life only we love, (I extend the application of 
 St Paul's words,) we are indeed most miserable. 
 
 What ! I shall have given myself away ; I shall have re- 
 ceived that ineffable gift, a heart ; our thoughts shall have 
 become so intimately united as simultaneously to rise 
 within us, by those secret affinities which we cannot ex- 
 plain. I shall live in him, in her ; love shall have wrought 
 the miracle of taking away all my selfishness ; a smile on 
 those lips shall irradiate my heart ; a cloud of sadness on
 
 266 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 that brow shall have power to cast me down ; nay more, 
 we shall have bent the knee together ; shall have ardently 
 sought after God ; mutually lived that noble Christian life 
 with its agony of strife, its joy of victory ; and when death 
 comes, we shall have to say, All is over ! 
 
 An absorption into the ocean of universal love will be 
 the end of all. The first soul I meet will be as dear to me 
 or as indifferent (it is all one) as that soul ; any other 
 individuality will be as precious to me as that beloved 
 individuality which has vanished for ever. Oh, my heart 
 protests against such a doctrine as this ! I say now, as I 
 said before, of memory and identity, If I cease to love 
 them whom I once loved ; if I cease to love them with a 
 definite, positive, special love, I cease to be myself ; and, 
 moreover, while in this world, I am the most miserable of 
 creatures. 
 
 I am, at the same time, the most degraded. Take away 
 the immortality of love ; give me children, a father, a hus- 
 band to love, under this condition, that it is only for time; 
 prove to me that the coffin-lid closes upon our affections as 
 upon our bodies, with this difference, that earth will restore 
 me my body and not my affections^ I declare to you that 
 I shall love them with the love of an egotist, a materialist, 
 nothing more. 
 
 Even if you set before me a career of Christian activity, 
 souls to be saved after this manner, with a sort of wholesale 
 interest in which the individual goes for nothing, I declare 
 to you that my work becomes lowered in character, and 
 that I shall get through it mechanically; the intimate, 
 personal love of souls will come to little more than the 
 placing one stone upon another, having hewn it out, as well 
 as one can, with the least possible trouble. 
 
 It was not thus that St Paul felt when he exclaimed,
 
 THE ETERNITY OF LOVE. 267 
 
 "Ye are my joy !" (you whom I have known, for whom I 
 have suffered ;) " ye are my joy in that day." The con- 
 verts made by Peter, by James ; the heathen that in future 
 ages other missionaries will win over to the faith, -all 
 these I shall doubtless love ; but my crown, the delight of 
 my eyes, the thrill of my heart, will be you on whose face 
 my eyes have rested ; you with whom I have prayed ; you 
 who wept at the thought that you should see me no more ; 
 you who caused me sorrow and joy ; you, my own per- 
 sonal friends ! 
 
 Who is it who has created our affections ? God or the 
 devil? Excuse so downright a question. If it be God 
 who gave us these affections, and pronounced His own 
 work good, will He one day suddenly change and pro- 
 nounce it evil? He who dowered this earth with such 
 strong and sweet attachments, will he denude heaven of 
 these ? It would have been easy to have placed us from 
 the first in an atmosphere of uniform and insipid affection, 
 felt by and for all alike ; in an ocean without islands and 
 without shore. But this is not the Divine idea ; it is the 
 vain imagination of man. 
 
 Man considers that there is grandeur, God that there is 
 poverty, in monotony. 
 
 Try, for a moment, to picture to yourself a man who has 
 no preference. Behold him loving everybody with exactly 
 the same sentiment, his father neither more nor less than 
 all other old men, an unknown child quite as much as his 
 own. As for friends, he has none ; or rather you, I, any 
 stranger, the Grand Turk if you will, are all equally his 
 friends in degree and kind. Why, such a man is no man ; 
 he has, I can see, arms, legs, but I do not discover a heart 
 in him. If he really be living man, and not an automaton, 
 I say that, loving every one, he virtually loves no one, that
 
 268 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 I care not for such general tenderness, and that I would 
 rather be the cat of such a one than his wife or his son. 
 
 If this earth, deprived of special and particular affections, 
 seems to crumble away beneath our feet ; if it presents us 
 with nothing better than isolated creatures, wandering 
 about, each in his own dim personality, equally attracting, 
 equally repelling all the rest ; if the result be a chaotic 
 vortex, cold, indefinite, sad, and unspeakably tiresome, what 
 would a heaven be on the same plan ? 
 
 I know, indeed, that you make the Deity the centre of 
 your heaven ; that all affections are to converge towards 
 that central point and be absorbed there. This is mere 
 chemical action ; no life, no soul here annihilation again. 
 
 And yet this is how the human mind sometimes orders 
 and peoples heaven. 
 
 Oh, how differently has God created man ! 
 
 God created family ties, which man could never have 
 invented ; which, in his savage state, he often does away 
 with altogether ; which, in the excesses of a corrupt civi- 
 lisation, he too much ignores ; which the greater part of 
 our false philosophers tend to dissolve. God has strongly 
 bound us together, the man to his wife, the father to his 
 child ; and when Paul seeks to depict, in one word, the 
 moral degradation of the Romans in his day, he says 
 without natural affections. 
 
 What does that ark that floats over a submerged world, 
 contain ? A family : father, mother, sons, and daughters. 
 
 Why that scarlet thread on the walls of Jericho ? It is 
 there to save a family. 
 
 What said the avenging angels to Lot, Hast thou here 
 any beside sons, or sons-in-law, or daughters ? bring them 
 out of this place, for we will destroy this place. 
 
 To whom did the Lord send his apostle Peter ; to the
 
 THE ETERNITY OF LOVE. 269 
 
 Caesarean centurion alone ? No ; to his family, his house- 
 hold ; the whole household believes, the whole family is 
 baptized. 
 
 Nothing is done by constraint. God forces no one ; yet 
 it is the will of God that man should not land alone on the 
 eternal shores. What appeals Tie addresses, what secret 
 attractions He exercises ; what prayers He puts into the 
 heart of mothers, of wives ; these we shall never know till 
 the day of the revelation of all things. 
 
 Yes, there are families on high, united with indissoluble 
 ties, loving each other with a firmer, stronger love than 
 earth ever knew. No egotism diminishes ; no infidelity 
 sullies ; no ambition chokes ; no love of gold petrifies it ; 
 it is constantly re-baptized in the adoration of God, and 
 this adoration, far from extinguishing it, only imparts its 
 own eternal glory. 
 
 And yet, Jesus has told us that in heaven there is neither 
 marriage nor giving in marriage. 
 
 No doubt. Under new conditions, there must be new 
 relations. Our terrestrial marriage has consequences which 
 are incompatible with the future life. That which is 
 temporary ceases ; that which is immortal lasts. True 
 Christian love is immortal. 
 
 To be fully convinced of this, assume, for one moment, 
 the contrary hypothesis. Picture to yourself Abraham 
 that marked, that impressive, personality without Sarah, 
 without that other personality so closely linked with his. 
 Take a further step, imagine Jacob indifferent to Eachel. 
 He meets her, his gentle love, the companion of his wander- 
 ings, meets her in that Paradise. No more loving names, 
 no more pathetic memories, no more tenderness. He meets 
 her, and with unkindled eye, unmoved mind, glides by 
 her. Any other soul taken at hap-hazard would inspire
 
 270 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 him with equal interest. For the mother of Joseph and 
 Benjamin he feels nothing more than for any other in- 
 habitant of heaven. Alas ! she whom, weeping, he buried 
 by the way of Ephrath ; she has remained in that grave. 
 Both are dead. 
 
 The beings whom in the heavenly regions you still call 
 Rachel and Jacob, have nothing in common with those 
 hearts which burn here below with a love at once so 
 human and so divine. I know them no longer. Not a 
 single feature remains of those characters traced by the 
 inspired pen. They are for ever lost to each other, lost 
 to us. 
 
 For, in order to love no longer, mark it well, you must 
 no longer remember. Love is no less intimately connected 
 with memory, than memory with identity. No memory 
 without love, no identity without memory, no human 
 being without identity. Prevent a man from loving on 
 the other side the grave, the soul that he loved on this ; 
 you can only do so by destroying his past, and in destroying 
 his past, you destroy the individual. 
 
 The great poet of the middle ages better understood the 
 dignity of the human soul, when he maintained intact the 
 immortality of love. Even in hell itself he jealously main- 
 tained it. With equal flight, driven to and fro by the same 
 wild wind, sighing out one same sad complaint, pressed, 
 shuddering, one against the other, the two shades once 
 united by a guilty love, remained faithful still. And shall 
 not chaste affections last 1 while unsanctified ties thus defy 
 death, shall the holy ones, into which God himself breathed 
 immortal life, shall these be destroyed ? 
 
 Have it your own way, then, methinks I hear it said. 
 But with the endurance of individual affection, you intro- 
 duce sorrow into heaven. Will all those you love have in-
 
 THE ETERNITY OF LOVE. 271 
 
 deed a place there 1 Are you very sure to meet them all 
 again 1 A father, a child 
 
 I fall at thy feet, my God. I fall there with a cry 
 which is an act of faith. Thou wilt save them; Thou 
 wilt seek them out; all obduracy will melt beneath tho 
 ardour of Thy Divine love. If it were not so indeed ! 
 my God, take pity on me ! I know that Thou lovest 
 them ; I know Thou wilt wipe all my tears away ; I be- 
 lieve from my inmost soul, that Thou wilt not wipe away 
 my tears by narrowing my heart ! Thou consolest by 
 giving ; Thou wilt take away nothing that is good, that 
 Thou thyself hast pronounced very good. And then be- 
 hold a mystery : Thou thyself, God ! from out thine 
 immutable felicity dost look upon the lost. Nevertheless 
 Thy love and pity endure ; Thou hast not sacrificed them 
 to Thy blessedness. These are muffled harmonies, but I 
 can hear their distant echo. 
 
 What Thine omniscience does for Thee, Thy compassion 
 will do for me also. 
 
 My love will not die. Struck at throughout my whole 
 journey; covered with wounds; bleeding and mutilated, 
 it is not thus that I shaU enter the kingdom of heaven. 
 The God from whose presence despair flies away, will not 
 banish it by scattering the dust of my memories to the 
 winds. Indifference will not be my cure for grief. My 
 God has other remedies for the suffering that springs from 
 love. 
 
 My tenderness will survive, Lord, like Thy tenderness. 
 Thy love, Thy heart, my risen Saviour, guarantees me the 
 vitality of my own. 
 
 There is one other objection to .the identity of our affec- 
 tions.
 
 272 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 " Though I have known Christ after the flesh," says the 
 Apostle Paul, " I know him so no more." 
 
 And the inference is this On high our attachment will 
 be so modified as virtually to be done away with. 
 
 But a different way of loving is not by any means a 
 forgetting. 
 
 Let us look a little down to earth. 
 
 While I lived without God and without hope in the 
 world, I loved. How ? Idolatrously, that is to say, 
 selfishly, possessing, possessed, in reality seeking only 
 myself in my love. This love was full of caprice ; a word 
 could change it, a look turn it to torture ; tormented itself, 
 it grew cruel in its turn. Often, without visible cause, it 
 would diminish, grow cold, almost die out; or else the 
 prosaic influence of long habit would threaten to smother it. 
 A change is wrought in me ; my soul finds a Saviour, I am 
 born into a new life, and the mighty hand which has raised 
 me, has, at the same time, raised my affections also. 
 
 Will you say, then, that I love no longer ? I love better 
 than ever. I love with a solicitude till then unknown ; I 
 love with inexpressible delicacy and refinement ; I really 
 and truly no longer love myself, but love another. I 
 cherish His soul ; it is His soul that I crave ; it is His 
 soul I would serve ; I must have it immortal, must have 
 it happy. Before, I loved for a day; now, I love for 
 eternity. 
 
 This is what God makes of our love even here below. 
 Will He do the contrary, think you, in heaven ? After 
 having built up in this life, will He overthrow in the 
 next? 
 
 To sanctify, is not to destroy ; to annihilate sin, is not 
 to efface human affections. 
 
 He who vanquishes Satan, immortalizes all true love.
 
 THE ETERNITY OF LOVE. 273 
 
 Although God has not seen fit to reveal to us all the 
 mutual relations of the future state, yet some of the words 
 that He has inspired are radiant with glory. 
 
 Does He see us prostrate beside some tomb ? " Sorrow 
 not," He says, "like those who have no hope. I will 
 bring them back; when I return they shall be with me. 
 At that solemn hour you living ones shall not prevent them 
 that are asleep. In a moment, at the voice of the arch- 
 angel, your beloved ones will rise again; you will come 
 together to meet me. Comfort ye one another with these 
 words ; do not be comforted like those who have no hope." 
 
 Have you listened attentively to these sweet and subtle 
 words ; have you gathered this promise to your hearts ; 
 fully appreciated its considerate tenderness ? 
 
 Oh, be sure He who Himself thus loves, will never break 
 our hearts ! Sadness ! yes, that is natural ; but let our 
 sadness be fraught with confidence ; Jesus will bring back 
 our lost ones with Him. 
 
 A long period of waiting would distress. The living 
 shall not prevent them that sleep. 
 
 But where ? How ? Be not afraid ; the shout of 
 triumph sounds from one end of heaven to the other, and 
 we shall be all assembled all together with Jesus. 
 
 " Together ! " exclaims St Paul " Bisen together ; to- 
 gether seated in heavenly places." 
 
 See David, before prostrate in the agony of despairing 
 prayer, suddenly arise, wash his face, anoint his head. 
 What doest thou, king 1 Thy son is dead ; he will not 
 return, and yet thy tears are stanched. 
 
 " He will not return to me, but / shall go to him." 
 
 But I desire to contemplate my Saviour in the exercise 
 of His most Divine prerogative; at the moment when, 
 with His sovereign hand, He loosed the bands of death. 
 
 S
 
 274 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS 
 
 His preaching demanded the support of miracles ; but 
 what His heart demanded was that He should wipe away 
 our tears. 
 
 When at the gates of the city of Nain, He stops the 
 corpse on its way to the grave ; was it to display His 
 power that He did this ? The procession comes on, a sor- 
 rowing woman accompanies it a widow. Jesus sees her, 
 is moved with compassion : "Woman, weep not !" His 
 hand has touched the bier : " Young man, arise !" And 
 He gave him to his mother. 
 
 He gave in like manner the servant to the Centurion, 
 his little daughter to Jairus. 
 
 " Trouble not the Master," said the servant ; " thy child 
 is dead." 
 
 And others thought, perhaps, What is dead is dead ; the 
 flower has bloomed and faded ; thou wilt see her no more 
 on earth or in heaven. In heaven, a mere fraction of the 
 great whole, a unit midst myriads of similar units, thy 
 daughter will be thy daughter no longer. Therefore, make 
 up thy mind to it. Forget ! 
 
 Not so Jesus. " Maiden, arise !" and He gave her to 
 her father. 
 
 Let me seat myself awhile beside Mary, while Martha, 
 who has just run in, is saying to her, " The Master is come, 
 and calleth for thee." 
 
 " My brother is dead. By this time the prey of corrup- 
 tion." Such are the terrors under which our faith falters. 
 
 Then Jesus breaks in " Said I not unto thee, that, if 
 thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God ?" 
 
 And Jesus was troubled in Himself, and Jesus wept. 
 
 " See how He loved him !" cried the Jews. They are 
 not deceived, those eye-witnesses. Where over-strained, 
 superfine intellects can only see a vague humanitarianism,
 
 THE ETERNITY OF LOVE. 275 
 
 the Jews recognise the presence of a strong affection. How 
 He loved him ! And He who loved Lazarus said, " Take 
 ye away the stone ;" then cried, "Lazarus, come forth !" 
 
 It is no person hitherto unknown who comes forth at 
 this call Jesus has not evoked a new and different being, 
 a stranger, indifferent to those around. No. It is Lazarus 
 who arises ; the Lazarus whom Martha and Mary love, 
 whom Jesus loves, and He gave him to his sisters. 
 
 I told you before that it was the very joy of this that 
 hindered our faith. The apostles gathered together on the 
 morning of the resurrection, were like us, they believed not 
 for joy. 
 
 We have been wont to descend into the depths of sorrow, 
 but hitherto we have never been equally flooded by bliss. 
 Eternity reserves this experience for us. 
 
 Do our beloved dead see us still, take part in our 
 struggles, lend us help 1 This is a mystery. 
 
 The things that are revealed alone belong to us. I find 
 them sufficiently beautiful to satisfy me. 
 
 By faith, women received their dead again t I thank 
 Thee, my God. 
 
 Fear not, only believe. I will believe, Thou wilt not de- 
 ceive me. 
 
 " A general assembly" " caught up together with them," 
 " together with the Lord? I will constantly repeat to my- 
 self these words, all vibrating with hope. 
 
 My heart salutes you, ye eternal shores ! Amidst your 
 radiance I recognise my beloved ones. The dying eye of 
 a father was fixed upon them ; they were their greetings 
 that reached his ear, and that Divine smile that rested on 
 his lips, that last sublime light, was kindled by their glance, 
 their love, as well as by the Saviour's ineffable love. At 
 that last moment those he had loved were still his own.
 
 THE KESUKEECTION OF THE BODY, 
 
 | HERE are some who make light of the body. I 
 am not one of them. 
 
 It is an easy resignation, indeed, when it 
 concerns ourselves ; a bitter grief when some beloved being 
 is in question. 
 
 There it lies, that poor body ; there is that face that I 
 have looked at so much, the eyes which rested gently upon 
 me, the mouth that 1 spoke to me as no other will ever 
 speak more ; there is the whole aspect I knew not whether 
 it were beautiful or not which was my sun, which was 
 my life. 
 
 If my lips touch that brow ever so lightly, they meet a 
 marble coldness there. Have you ever felt it sink down 
 from the lips to the heart, that piercing, unnatural chill, 
 unlike any other, that chill upon the forehead of the dead ? 
 
 That body so sacredly cherished ; that poor body, here- 
 tofore the object of such tender care ; they take it from 
 me now ! Strangers come, who bear it away, dig a grave, 
 and lay it there; the earth is heaped up over it. The 
 dust, the rain, the winter winds will all sweep over that 
 grave ; and while I am sitting, sheltered, beside our hearth, 
 while I am warming myself he he is lying low out there, 
 clone, forsaken. 
 
 Oh, this cry that eloquent lips have uttered ! every 
 funeral procession has extorted it from some heart in its
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 277 
 
 distress. It is not the cry of madness, it is the protest of 
 nature and of reason. 
 
 We were not made for this ; God had not created us for 
 this ; the image of God was not destined to moulder into 
 dust. We may be submissive, may check the rebellious 
 words that rise to our lips, but our thoughts will follow 
 those remains, will glide into that tomb, will open that 
 coffin, and return with tidings which will tear our very 
 vitals. 
 
 During that last illness, while I possessed it still, one of 
 my deepest sorrows was to see that poor frame decline. 
 When my anxious looks encountered those altered features ; 
 when one of those ominous changes that one will not allow 
 to one's self, suddenly burst upon me, I felt my heart sink. 
 At such times, my face buried in my hands, my knees 
 giving way under me, I fell down somewhere out of sight, 
 more truly dying than that loved one in his very death- 
 agony. 
 
 The destruction of the body ! There lies the curse, the 
 anguish of one who watches by a deathbed. 
 
 And now that years have worn away, with their good 
 days and their bad, do you know what it is that suddenly 
 lights up the widow's faded face 1 do you know why she 
 sheds these happy tears ? She has seen again yes, bike a 
 lightning flash, some smile, some trick of feature, has ap- 
 peared before her ; some gesture, some intonation, a stray 
 note dying away as suddenly as it rose. With passionate 
 energy she clasps one of her sons in her arms ; he has 
 looked at her in the way his father used to look ; he has 
 said, as he used to say, " I am cold ;" he has shivered as 
 he used to shiver. Or else it is some dream, a ray of light 
 from Paradise which has visited her in the darkness of her 
 night. Yes, it was his very self ; they were both walking
 
 278 THE HEA VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 along some familiar walk in their little garden. There was 
 nothing extraordinary about it, no transports. In fact, it 
 was as if they had never been separated at all. They 
 chatted about one thing and the other, with a smile, a jest, 
 as they might yesterday, as they might to-morrow. And 
 when the widow wakes ; her lips do not part with a groan 
 of desolation ; no, she has re-possessed herself of her loved 
 one's image ; she will meet his own self again ere long ; 
 she has gained strength to go on her solitary way. 
 
 You call us Materialists. ' The flesh ! ' you disdainfully 
 murmur. These remains that our heart so follows, you 
 return them to their dust without a regret ; no place for 
 them in your heaven tenanted only with wandering and 
 impalpable shadows. 
 
 If we have God on our side, we are disowned, we are 
 well aware, by a lofty philosophy. This divides man into 
 two parts : the one full of sin and misery rose from the 
 earth and gravitates thither; the other, immaculate and 
 heaven-descended, returns of necessity to heaven. The 
 two have .nothing in common. Their very essence decides 
 their destination. There is no longer need of a God to 
 raise us, of a Christ to redeem ; the fire takes what belongs 
 to it, dust to dust, the soul to glory. 
 
 This is the reasoning of many a philosophic system 
 many a heathen religion. 
 
 God speaks a different language. He who condemns 
 also absolves. He who pronounced that fearful sentence 
 on our body, has redeemed that body. Men give it up to 
 corruption, God raises it in glory. 
 
 What is it that Jesus taught ? The resurrection of the 
 body. The Sadducees ridicule the idea, and put a hypo- 
 thetical case to Him, in hopes of demonstrating its absurdity. 
 
 What is it that the apostles announce ? The resurrec-
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 279 
 
 tion of the body. An immortal soul is still granted to us ; 
 it is considered admissible and generally received. And 
 yet it is but a sad sort of immortality ; now mere nothing- 
 ness, now a headlong rush through a succession of varied 
 existences; but at least it implies a soul, an immortal 
 existence, we are told to be contented with that. 
 
 " What ! " say our opponents, " does not that satisfy ? 
 Will nothing do for you but the resurrection of the flesh, 
 the eternity of matter ? Down with such madmen ; lock 
 up these publicans and sinners ; these men of nought, in 
 love with such low and vulgar notions !" The Jews threw 
 such dreamers into prison ; the Athenians of the Areopagus, 
 with their polite, refined culture, merely shrug their 
 shoulders. Festus, in presence of Agrippa, cannot contain 
 his contempt ; " Paul, thou art beside thyself ; much 
 learning doth make thee mad." 
 
 Such a deliverance as this could not spring spontane- 
 ously from the heart of man. Man could harden his heart, 
 but he could not grasp so great, so simple an idea as this ; 
 entirely lost, entirely saved. Man will not stoop to 
 identify himself with the instrument of his sins ; man will 
 not accept a solidarity which proves to him his fall ; pre- 
 fers rather to annihilate the creation of God. To leave 
 one's own body a prey to worms ; to give up to them for 
 ever the body of relatives and friends ! Yes ; tell him of 
 that. He is strong-minded ; he will not wince. 
 
 But to resume a body, his own body, in eternity ! 
 Pshaw ! It is a low, vulgar idea ; it revolts him. 
 
 Nevertheless, what man could not even imagine has 
 been done by God. God, who saw us completely degraded, 
 has completely restored; restored the whole man, body 
 and soul alike. It is for this reason that the Lord Jesus 
 rose.
 
 280 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 Such, too, is the expectation of the saints. Paul sighs, 
 waiting for deli verance ; to wit, the redemption of the body. 
 He strives to attain to the resurrection of the dead. His 
 full conviction is, that the same Spirit which raised Christ 
 will also quicken our mortal bodies. And it is this very 
 Paul, whom certainly no one could accuse of self-indulgence, 
 or idolatrous tenderness for his own person, who proclaims 
 a new and startling truth, which many would be disposed 
 to treat as blasphemous : " The Lord is for the body 1 " 
 
 Would you know the secret of this problem ? It is con- 
 tained in one word Holiness. 
 
 While in the eyes of many the body is a mere vessel of 
 dishonour, St Paul views it as the temple of the Holy 
 Spirit. 
 
 " Mistake of nature," say the wise of this world. " Per- 
 fect work of God," reply the Scriptures. 
 
 The body has sinned, has been punished accordingly. 
 Punished ! Yes, but not cursed. 
 
 In point of fact, were we disposed to argue, we might 
 ask which is the true culprit, the soul or the body 1 Where 
 is it that the sinful idea arises 1 Would the soulless body 
 be guilty of any excesses ? Ask that corpse stretched out 
 yonder ! 
 
 But take the bodiless soul, on the contrary, or the soul 
 in a body rendered completely inert, would it be of neces- 
 sity immaculate ? Would it be free from all pride, all 
 hate, all falsehood, all covetousness ; because independent 
 of its fleshy tabernacle, would it, as a consequence, return 
 to the innocence of Eden ? 
 
 The folly of such a supposition becomes at once ap- 
 parent. 
 
 You call those Materialists who honour the body. I 
 hold those who despise it to be far more deserving of the
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 281 
 
 name. Ceasing to view it as a temple, they use it as a 
 tavern. 
 
 We whom they call carnal respect it. Those members 
 for which Jesus died, which will live again with Him, will 
 again serve God on earth, must be kept pure from taint. 
 You so-called spiritualists leave such humble anxieties as 
 thase to others : a dwelling so soon to be utterly destroyed 
 does not, in your opinion, deserve so much care ; the lowest 
 reptiles are welcome to it ; each passer-by may insult it, 
 nevsr mind ; nothing will remain of it in any case. 
 
 Oh, the coarseness of such a refinement as this ! Oh, 
 how noble, how supremely holy, the simple plan of my 
 God. 
 
 The resurrection of the body strikes you, you tell me, 
 as unseemly ! I feel it sublime. It not only makes my 
 heart "beat with joy, but perfectly satisfies my moral sense. 
 
 The annals of past ages shew me Christians who suffered 
 in their body for the sake of their faith. I see martyrs 
 steeping the Roman arenas with their blood ; I see the 
 fearful torches that h't the feasts of Nero ; I see funeral 
 piles, and on them human forms slowly consuming ; from 
 out the torturing flames I hear hymns of joy and praise to 
 God ; nay, at the very moment I am writing, the veil of 
 obscure circumstance cannot quite hide the privations, the 
 watchings, the long journeys, the hard labour, that humble 
 believers cheerfully undertake for the love of God. And 
 shall the body which has suffered, sacrificed itself thus, 
 have no portion in the kingdom of heaven ? 
 
 Oh, yes ! Its sure place is prepared there ; no power 
 can reverse the decree. 
 
 He who will raise the whole creation, will raise the 
 body. 
 
 Resurrection ! Admirable word. Any other would
 
 282 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 have left some anxiety undispelled ; this word meets my 
 most secret fears. 
 
 Who is it that rises ? The dead man they laid in the 
 tomb. 
 
 However dark, however suffering my night may have 
 been, each morning I rise. 
 
 That morning my beloved will rise, he himself, and not 
 another. It is not a new creation, it is a resurrection. In 
 the place of the beloved departed, whose image my heart 
 keeps so faithfully, God will not give me some unknown 
 being ; no, God will raise up the one I love ; my hope will 
 not be deceived. Amidst that dust and ashes oh, omni- 
 potence of the Divine compassion ! a germ, visible to my 
 God alone, encloses the vitality I believed for ever extinct. 
 As a grain of corn, buried deep in some furrow, rises as a 
 green fresh blade to cheer my eyes and heart ; so, clothed 
 upon with a body, glorious, incorruptible, like to that of 
 Jesus, who rose long before so will the body of my loved 
 one rise. 
 
 April is smiling at the earth. Come, stocp down. 
 Close to the old wall, do you see a broad leaf spread itself 
 out like a canopy, beneath it a blue vase filled full of 
 spring-tide fragrance ? It is the violet. Take hold of that 
 branch, and break it : wood, mere dead wood, you say. 
 Look closer, it reddens, it swells; here are pink petals, 
 crests of balmy stamens, it is the blossom of the apple- 
 tree. Take that other branch, dead too, like the other ; 
 a cluster springs from it, golden, butterfly-winged it is 
 the laburnum. This other is burst open by a white can- 
 delabrum, with scarlet touches it is the horse-chestnut. 
 Death made all these branches much alike. Infinitely 
 varied in life ; each with its own special scent and sheen,
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 283 
 
 they open out full to the sunshine, and cast their sweetness 
 on the merry breeze. 
 
 During one night, one shower, the brown field is trans- 
 formed into a meadow, rifled by the bee, the butterfly, 
 myriads of lately tranced and crawling things have changed 
 into the winged hosts of the air. 
 
 What do these miracles say to you ? To me they say 
 that a God of love will raise up our dead. 
 
 " But how ? with what semblance ?" 
 
 St Paul will tell you. " Sown in corruption, raised in 
 incorruption ; sown in dishonour, raised in glory." 
 
 It was fragile and abject once ; now Jesus clothes it with 
 immortality and beauty. 
 
 Beauty ! But those who were ugly, irredeemably ugly. 
 And at once some luckless face comes and grimaces before 
 our mind's eye. 
 
 Yet, when we come to think earnestly about the matter, 
 is there indeed such a thing as irredeemable ugliness ? Do 
 features only make the face, or is it not rather the soul 
 that shines through it ? 
 
 Take for example any misshapen face you will De- 
 prive it of mind, it is hideous, you turn away from it at 
 once. But let an idea shine through that ugly mask, you 
 look at it without repugnance. Let it be animated by a 
 noble sentiment, the flame rises, lights it up, you are irre- 
 sistibly attracted, you contemplate it with pleasure. Let 
 love, a pure, generous love, cast its radiance over that face, 
 (do not smile,) I tell you that face will become beautiful. 
 
 You must surely have seen this wondrous transfiguration 
 of which I speak. Yes ; there comes one hour, the only 
 one, perhaps, during a whole lifetime, when the ugliest 
 man or woman among us grows beautiful. An hour of
 
 284 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 strong passion, elevating excitement ; an hour when the 
 soul reigns supreme. And if that soul be beautiful, why, 
 the face is beautiful too. You read eternal redemption on 
 the brow, in letters of sacred fire. 
 
 Again, death has revelations such as this. You who 
 have seen a beloved one die, you are familiar with a trans- 
 formation that yet did not interfere with his identity, that 
 left him still your own. 
 
 You remember well, do you not ? the serene radiance of 
 his expression. You beheld his face as it were that of an 
 angel. Such was the aspect Stephen wore, when they 
 stoned him as he knelt, and in the open heavens saw Jesus 
 standing on the right hand of God. 
 
 But when the last breath is drawn, what dignity, what 
 ineffable serenity ! The body had suffered much. It was 
 old, perhaps infirm, very wretched in every way. Death 
 comes ; and an ideal youth, the youth of immortality de- 
 scends upon the brow. 
 
 There are flowers which only yield their fragrance to the 
 night ; there are faces whose beauty only fully opens out 
 in death. No more wrinkles ; no drawn, distorted linea- 
 ments ; an expression of extreme humility, blended with 
 gladness of hope; a serene brightness; and an ideal 
 straightening of the outline, as if the Divine finger, source 
 of supreme beauty, had been laid there. You cannot take 
 your eyes away. Dead, your loved one consoles you for 
 the agony of having seen him suffer. His face, his inex- 
 pressible grandeur, his smile, all say to you, " Believe ; 
 yet a little while, and thou shalt see me again." 
 
 I am about to relate to you one of the strong emotions 
 of my life. I found myself in the crypt of a church at 
 Palermo. My friends and I had gone down into it without 
 exactly knowing where we went, and walked, with more of
 
 TEE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 285 
 
 surprise than terror, between a double line of skeletons. 
 And yet the spectacle was ghastly enough. Those perpen- 
 dicular dead bodies, dressed in brown garments, that hung 
 loosely around their bony limbs, with crossed hands, hold- 
 ing some sort of shield, with their names written on it ; 
 had fallen into dislocated attitudes, even more grotesque 
 than horrible. The portals of our Gothic cathedrals have 
 no representations that equal this. And yet we were not 
 conscious of any terror. Death presented us, indeed, with 
 his material aspect, his sad repulsive aspect, but the like- 
 ness of humanity was still there. 
 
 With one word, we felt God could call those dry bones 
 to life again. 
 
 The next chamber had a more appalling spectacle in re- 
 serve. All along the walls as in the cabin of some great 
 ship were ranged berths of equal length, and on these, 
 dressed in gorgeous attire, hands gloved, lay the corpses of 
 women, with discoloured faces, empty eye-sockets, sunken 
 features, hollow mouths, and wreaths of roses on their 
 heads. There were hundreds upon hundreds of them, in 
 all the pomp of their court dresses, and a nauseating smell, 
 the cold, faint smell of death, rose from the vaults where 
 the bodies were drying. 
 
 In the presence of these faces with their beauty so in- 
 exorably destroyed, of this ghastly satire on worldly vani- 
 ties, I felt my blood congeal. But when at the end of the 
 passage, lit by our guide's torch, a well yawned before us, 
 and he lowered the red and smoking light he held to shew 
 it better ; when I saw that nameless detritus, damp, pesti- 
 lential, which overflowed the well's mouth, and when our 
 guide said " This is the dust of those yonder ; when they 
 have lain there their time, we throw them in here," I re- 
 mained almost lifeless with horror.
 
 286 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 With my hand half plunged in those ashes, looking at 
 what they had left on my fingers, a despairing doubt flashed 
 blightingly across my souL 
 
 As I fled in haste from that fatal crypt, and mounted 
 with unsteady step the stair that led us back into the nave, 
 just where the daylight began to appear, I suddenly saw 
 four letters carved on the wall, I. N. R I. Then a voice 
 sounded very near my heart "Believest thou that I am 
 able to do this?" 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, yea verily Thou 
 wilt do it ! 
 
 From that day I have never for a moment doubted of 
 the Eesurrection of the Dead.
 
 PART THIRD, 
 
 THE WHOLE CREATION SIGHETH. 
 
 SIGH ! You all know it well, this sigh of sad- 
 ness ; this sigh of expectation. Not a breast 
 that has not heaved with it ; no lips from which 
 it has not often risen to heaven. 
 
 We are ill at ease. All of us, whether we be happy or 
 unhappy, have a burden to bear, the burden of human 
 woes. There is no escape from one deep consciousness, 
 intensified perhaps by the breathless hurry of our age, 
 that of the short duration of all earthly things. The best 
 are soonest over, but all pass in exceeding haste, and we 
 ourselves seem as though a mighty and resistless wind were 
 sweeping us away. 
 
 Formerly, tidings, whether good or bad, were slow of 
 step ; we hardly knew what was going on at the other side 
 of the globe till a year after the event. If blood had been 
 spilled, the earth had had time to drink it up ; if tears had 
 flowed, the sun had had time to dry them. The griefs that 
 spoke to us from afar, left the heart comparatively unmoved. 
 That is perhaps the reason why our grandmothers' laughter 
 rang so freshly despite their fourscore years. 
 
 Things are changed now. The tree of the knowledge of 
 good and evil has bent its branches more within our reach, 
 and each moment our greedy hands are raised to gather its
 
 288 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 fruit. And the result is not only an anxious restlessness, 
 but a fund of bitter melancholy. 
 
 Formerly, the general tone was one of gaiety. The note 
 that an attentive observer would have heard prevailing over 
 all others, was a crystalline serene note, echoing from the 
 cottage to the palace. The note that vibrates over our 
 earth at this present hour, in the village, town, or quiet 
 country, is a wailing note, akin to tears, is an immense 
 sigh. 
 
 Regret for blessings lost, sadness left by past suffering, 
 craving and quenchless thirst ; all these are included in it. 
 But in many who are unconscious of it, there is also a 
 latent aspiration after good things to come ; an inextin- 
 guishable need of deliverance ; an intense desire for per- 
 manent light. And when I represent to myself men of 
 this class, I seem to see noble but chained beings, who 
 stretch out their arms to the skies, whence the Redeemer 
 is to descend. 
 
 You think me gloomy. Among you, I see some who lay 
 claim to high spirits, are given to laughter, who feel no dis- 
 couragement, no weariness, who protest that they are com- 
 fortably settled on this sad earth of ours, and not by any 
 means in a hurry to leave it. 
 
 Yes, I know that there are two ways of looking at this 
 world. Believe me, I too have hours in which earth seems 
 to me young and beautiful Spring days, when the spirit 
 of life breathes upon the fields, when the sap mounts to the 
 branches, when the foot treads half unawares on new-spring- 
 ing grass ; when each nook and corner of the old wood is 
 carpeted with periwinkle. There is a sudden efflorescence ; 
 the bushes are great nosegays, placed here and there in the 
 dingles ; the branches unfurl their leaves, not yet browned 
 by the sun, or spotted by the fly. There are still indeed
 
 THE WHOLE CREATION SIGHETH. 289 
 
 a few shabby weeds of last year which linger on by the 
 brook ; a few dry, angular branches standing out from the 
 young foliage, but who notices them ] Winter and death 
 are fairly put to flight by spring. 
 
 How delightful to inhale the aromatic perfume of the 
 pine-trees, the breath of the primrose ! Sometimes a breeze 
 comes to us from the gardens below, blending with all the 
 rest the fragrance of the lilacs in flower. 
 
 Let us stop a while, if you will, on the border of the 
 wood. Stretched out at full length, there I listen. 
 
 Who spoke of sadness ? The coppice is full of woodland 
 melody. The nightingale defying the sun, and when it 
 pleases him to be silent, other strains are heard, other 
 warblings of quieter character, simple symphonies, little 
 hops from branch to branch, and two or three strokes of 
 the wing that bear the songster to some more secret shelter. 
 
 There, under the apple-tree, is a buzzing as of a hive, on 
 the hawthorn-starred hedge are myriads of insects, in red 
 attire, blue attire, some perfect mosaics, others gemmed like 
 a royal casket. Amongst the grasses, with their delicate 
 plumes, other treasures again, and the air is full of busy, 
 winged swarms, brilliant as lightning. And all so happy, 
 so healthy ; all celebrating in their own way the festival of 
 life. 
 
 Yes, but they all die, and when that thought strikes your 
 heart, the festival is over. 
 
 Then the woes of all the earth begin to rise like mist ; 
 gradually they spread over the magic of the scene, they put 
 out all its glories one by one. 
 
 Oh, short duration of all things here below ! Of the 
 spring freshness, soon consumed by the drought of sum- 
 mer; of this May morning, that a return of cold winds 
 will blight ; of these poor insect swarms, of which not one
 
 290 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 will survive to see another April ; of that labourer work- 
 ing there ; of this young girl ; of the dwellers in that 
 village, with its peaceful smoke from cottage chimneys ; 
 the dwellers in yonder town, with its ancient towers. Fifty 
 years, sixty, eighty at most, and all, from the rosy infant 
 just learning to steady its little feet on its mother's knee, 
 to its grandmother, whose head shakes, as leaning on her 
 staff she slowly moves along ; all will be laid in the dust. 
 On earth, in the place that knew them once, a new genera- 
 tion will rise, with its nurslings and its graybeards in their 
 turn. That generation, too, will be cut down and laid low ; 
 and the next, and the next ; and death will be always, 
 always the same strong reaper, rising early, the only one 
 who sees others pass away, and himself passes never. 
 
 Do you remember that story of Musseus, so sad beneath 
 its playfulness, full of such bitter irony under the disguise 
 of mirth ? 
 
 The genius of the Hart/, Riibezahl, a monarch whose 
 kingdom extends to subterranean depths, met, one fine 
 day that he wandered through the woods, with the daughter 
 of the prince of the country. To fall in love with her, to 
 seize her as she slept, to dive down with her into the 
 bowels of the earth, to place her gently in the fairy gardens 
 there, beside the fountain which sparkled in the gas-lights 
 burning all round, this was the work of a single moment. 
 The princess awakes, a little startled, of course, at first ; 
 walks about, admires as well as wonders. Everything is 
 splendid ; a novel kind of poetry broods over the whole 
 region. Soon she discovers that she is loved ; and for 
 some days this new feeling which she, however, does not 
 share suffices to divert her. But one morning she chances 
 to remember the sun, to remember her father, her mother, 
 her young companions. She begins to weep; an unbounded
 
 THE WHOLE CREATION SIGHETH. 291 
 
 ennui takes possession of her ; a little time, and evidently 
 she will die. Here is our genius in a pretty dilemma ! He 
 is too selfish to restore the princess to the place from whence 
 he took her. To carry off the king, the queen, and their 
 court would be too troublesome a measure ; and, moreover, 
 subterranean genii are very solitary in their habits. What 
 is to be done 1 Eureka ! Our genius has hit it ; and 
 while the princess sits in her apartments, her head buried 
 iri her cushions, breaking her heart, and insensible to all 
 that so lately pleased her, Eiibezahl appears before her 
 with a basket of turnips in his arms. He places the basket 
 at her feet. The princess, who has been slyly looking at 
 him the while, finds the present a very homely one. 
 "Princess !" says the genius, "wave this wand." 
 He bows low, and retires. The princess carelessly passes 
 the wand over the turnips. Oh, prodigy ! Her father, 
 his majesty the king himself, sceptre in hand ; her mother 
 the queen, crown on head ; and her brothers, sisters, the 
 court ladies, the chamberlain, the maids of honour ; even 
 the grooms, even the turnspits ; every one, in short, except 
 a certain handsome young knight, whom Master Eiibezahl 
 had his own reasons for leaving in the lurch ! 
 
 What embraces, what narrations, what festivals, in the 
 enchanted gardens ! Only, about midday the king, the 
 queen, the ladies, young and old, seem to grow a little 
 languid. Let us rest. They all go in, and luncheon is 
 prepared. But, strange to say, instead of being recruited 
 by it, the august personages grow more and more exhausted. 
 You would say that years are suddenly heaped upon their 
 brows ; every moment wrinkles deepen ; voices become 
 cracked; steps grow slower ; forms shrink; backs arched; 
 old age is coming on. A few moments more, and the 
 whole court, so brilliant a while ago, will be nothing better
 
 292 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 than an hospital for the aged ; tottering steps, little quiver- 
 ing coughs all round ; and when the needle has completed 
 its circle, all turned again to turnips, poor, withered 
 turnips, will lie scattered on the floor. 
 
 As to the reception the genius got the next morning, 
 when he came running in, basket in hand, the bursts of 
 tears, the indignation, we have nothing to do with these. 
 We stop at the turnips, striking image of our short dura- 
 tion. I find it terribly, poignantly true. 
 
 Everything dies, and on this spring morning, if I lay my 
 ear to the ground, I seem to hear, from every point of the 
 compass, the heavy step of men who carry a corpse to its 
 burial. Cries of pain rise from this Eden of ours. They 
 come from the forest glade, where the hawk pounces upon 
 some quivering thing ; from the village, where the peasant 
 takes the new-born lamb from its mother ; they come still 
 more from cities, clamours, sinister laughs, slaughtered 
 cattle, sobs, threats, men who kill, who are killed ; tears of 
 those who refuse to be comforted ! And those who do 
 not cry out, whom we do not hear, are those who suffer 
 most. 
 
 Have you ever travelled rapidly through the country on 
 a summer night ? The cool breeze played round you, laden 
 with the perfume flowers give out after sunset ; your glance 
 was raised, was lost in the infinite sky, amid its number- 
 less stars. Half dreaming, you hardly seemed an inhabit- 
 ant of earth ; and yet the earth was exquisite, ideal in its 
 beauty. All at once, as you pass through a village, you 
 see one little window with a light burning. The other 
 cottagers are asleep, here there is watching. What is it 
 that watches ? Happiness 1 No ! A mother bending over 
 the cradle of her sinking child ; a wife standing pale by 
 the couch on which her husband is dying ; two men cower-
 
 THE WHOLE CREATION SIGHETH. 293 
 
 ing over the hearth, and on the bed a body stiff and cold, 
 which they will carry to the graveyard to-morrow. 
 
 Even the happy have secret griefs which their lips will 
 never utter. Corroding anxieties, hidden terrors, fatal dis- 
 coveries made in the nature of their loved ones, all these 
 dumb sorrows, but not the less devouring. 
 
 Fly from our civilised countries ; go ' to the centre of 
 Africa, what do you find there ? A sandy desert so steeped 
 in blood, such wholesale massacres, that travellers of every 
 creed call those negro-lands the kingdom of Satan. 
 
 On their coasts, caravans of slaves, with halters round 
 their necks, beaten, bartered, piled on one another between 
 decks, exposed to sale, dragged off to plantations, married, 
 unmarried, at their master's will, dying under the lash. In 
 Pagan isles, wars, massacres, cannibalism. In China, 
 Persia, India, refined cruelties, of which our nerves cannot 
 bear the recital. In every latitude, human brutality, tak- 
 ing advantage of the helplessness of dumb animals, cowardly 
 cruelty, or cruel kindness ! 
 
 This is our world. 
 
 But there is something more heartrending still, because 
 concerning us more closely, and that is our own inherent 
 selfishness. Mght and day, it poisons our souls, taints 
 our affections. We are selfish, proud, envious, covetous. 
 Cold to others, even to those we believe that we love ; we 
 are vitally interested only in ourselves ; and even this 
 interest is unwise, for we are often guilty of our own ruin. 
 
 Alas ! who has not felt a keen self-abhorrence, who has 
 not had cause for it 1 Do you know that shame that 
 comes over us when we see ourselves as we are, and that 
 unspeakable sorrow at finding that year added to year 
 leave us but what we were, having gained no virtues, lost 
 no faults ?
 
 294 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 Or have you duly measured your own powerlessness ? 
 Have you felt how narrow the walls of your prison? 
 Have you wrestled with your thoughts, and been bruised 
 in the encounter? Do you know what it is to touch 
 without grasping, to be strong enough to combat but not 
 to overcome, capable of feeling, but not of expressing what 
 you feel ? 
 
 And yet you do not sigh, you want nothing more ! 
 
 As for me, from my heart there ever rises an unutterable 
 groan. The world, as it is now, does not satisfy me, still 
 less do I satisfy myself. Creation suffers and laments 
 with me. St Paul expresses this mighty woe in one strong 
 word " travaileth with pain." 
 
 What is that we are looking for Death ? It is here, 
 taking us all away at our appointed hour. Death is a 
 curse, it sweeps the earth bare, but cannot transform it. 
 
 Is it the last judgment, the awful hour, that even the re- 
 deemed of the Lord cannot contemplate unmoved ? The 
 judgment crushes the guilty ; but creation is not saved. 
 
 Is it the final destruction, the devouring fire predicted 
 in Scripture ? This will destroy the earth, but will not 
 restore its innocence or its beauty. 
 
 Is it the new heaven and the new earth 1 But it is this 
 world that has suffered, and to it special promises have 
 been made. The whole creation plunged in misery, the 
 oppression of the poor, nature fallen from its first estate 
 all ask for something beside, claim some other promise^ 
 wait for something more ! 
 
 What is that creation hopes for ? For its deliverance. 
 For what does it sigh 1 For its restoration. What does 
 it wait for 1 For Jesus, the King ! 
 
 He will come again ! This cry echoes throughout the 
 Scriptures
 
 THE WHOLE CREATION SIGHETH. 295 
 
 He will come again ; He who publishes liberty to the 
 captives, and crushes Death beneath His foot. He will 
 come again. With Him will come purity, love, the era of 
 perfect blessedness foretold by the prophets. 
 
 The messengers of the Lord in all times speak to us of 
 a sanctified world singing praises to God j we only know 
 a sinful world, hurling complaints and blasphemies against 
 Him. Happiness overflows the earth of which they speak. 
 Our earth is the seat of desolation. They tell us of times 
 of refreshing ; our times are times of exhaustion. Peace, 
 love, exceeding great joy here on earth, both with God and 
 our fellow-creatures ; these are promised ; and, behold, wars 
 ravage, tears inundate our world, sorrow for the dead 
 draws her dark veil round it, the angels as they pass it in 
 their heavenward flight hear a murmur of plaintive cries, 
 angry voices, and mad laughter, sadder still than tears. 
 
 From age to age generations of believers have been laid 
 in the grave, their faces turned to the east ; and each, in 
 dying, has left behind the sublime watchword, Thy king- 
 dom come ! 
 
 Yea, Lord, Thy kingdom come ! Scoffers, indeed, may 
 laugh. Where is the promise of His coming? they say. 
 " Since the fathers fell asleep all things have gone on the 
 same." 
 
 Thy kingdom come ! We have nothing else to answer, 
 nothing else to ask. 
 
 Thy kingdom come ! It is at once a prayer and a 
 pledge. He who told us thus to pray is He who will 
 surely come. 
 
 If, hearts big with love, hands clasped, if with strong cry- 
 ing and tears, the whole earth were to raise this burning 
 aspiration to the skies oh, I believe that the Lord would 
 hear, I believe, indeed, that the Lord would come.
 
 THE COMING OF CHEIST. 
 
 |HE whole primitive Church expected the coming 
 of Christ, and believed in His temporal reign. 
 This belief, so strong and firm in apostolic times, 
 faded in proportion as faith lost its early simplicity. Men 
 took to materialise precepts and spiritualise prophecy, and 
 thus truth got modified on both sides. 
 
 I am one who take the promises in a literal sense. I be- 
 lieve with all my soul in my Saviour's coming. I believe 
 that our earth will witness the scenes described by the 
 prophets, and I have drawn my conviction from the study 
 of the Bible. 
 
 The Lord comes ! As the lightning shining from the 
 east to the west, so is the shining of the Son of God. He 
 comes surrounded by His redeemed, by myriads of angels, 
 comes as conqueror to claim His crown. 
 
 The hour has struck, the souls of the elect have put on 
 their glorified bodies. God's power has done this. In the 
 same moment the faithful who still live have been conscious 
 of a marvellous transformation. It is not death; it is 
 rather the casting off of a chrysalis covering. In the 
 twinkling of an eye, incorruption has triumphed over 
 corruption. 
 
 Do you realise this moment, this coming, this object of 
 faith, now beheld from far, as actually come to pass ? 
 
 Yes, it is true ; my imagination is not at work, my eyes 
 see. It is indeed Jesus my Lord. This is He who had
 
 THE COMING OF CHRIST. 297 
 
 pity on me ; who suffered for me ; whom I love with all 
 the strength of my soul. My breast expands with a divine 
 breath, each moment I love more, and feel that I am more 
 beloved. My God ! oh, to prostrate myself before Thee ! 
 to adore Thee ! It is as though a sun had risen within my 
 heart. At one glance my eye has taken in the thousand 
 thousands in Thy train. My dear ones, there you all are ; 
 you indeed, you living, you for ever mine all of us the 
 Lord's. But yesterday, I laid your bodies in the earth, 
 but yesterday I wandered alone, losing myself in the 
 immensity of my sorrow, and now you are here, my hands 
 touch you, you will not die any more. If God's arm did 
 not sustain, surely man would founder in this ocean of 
 bliss. 
 
 The rest of the dead live not again, says the Scripture, 
 till the thousand years are over. Christ's risen elect, to- 
 gether with the nations living at the time, people our 
 regenerated earth. 
 
 Israel has seen the One that hung upon the cross, come 
 down from heaven ; Israel has beat his breast and gathered 
 round the King of Glory, his King. 
 
 Then an act of incalculable importance is accomplished. 
 The angel who has the keys of the pit seizes upon Satan, 
 throws him into the gulf, and sets a seal upon him. 
 
 Peace is made on earth. No more wars, no more 
 wrongs ; a law of love easily obeyed ; a hosanna of all 
 creation. 
 
 Let us pause for a moment. I want to breathe this new 
 air, and to open out my soul to this light. 
 
 Satan bound. Do you comprehend the importance of 
 the fact ? 
 
 There is in the Bible a narrative which gives a lively 
 representation of Satan's work among men.
 
 298 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 Joshua, the High Priest, is standing before the Lord. 
 On his right hand a dark form rears itself, standing too 
 Satan to resist him. 
 
 I know it well, that intercession which Satan resists. 
 Witty men have ridiculed it ; they have described that 
 grotesque medley of serious and frivolous thoughts ; have 
 held up to us in raillery, that cry of disquieted hearts, 
 disguised by the verbiage of vanity. Possibly Satan does 
 not resist them when they pray. But we poor creatures 
 whom he tortures, we who would fain believe, and who 
 hear him whisper sceptical words in our ear ; we who would 
 love, and feel his arid breath pass over our hearts; we 
 who want to concentrate our minds on God, and before 
 whom Satan displays the most paltry of earth's toys ; we 
 who wrestle unto blood, torn, often overcome by him ; we 
 who rise battered from our fall, and lift to our Father 
 maimed and trembling hands; we who know that our 
 enemy is there, always there, even to that death-bed by 
 which He stays to watch us ; why, to be freed from Satan, 
 the great resister, the unpitying adversary this for us is 
 the crowning deliverance. 
 
 No more barriers between Jesus and the nations; no 
 longer an accuser between the soul and God. 
 
 If original sin remain, the tempter no longer aggravates 
 it ; if the old leaven be still there, Satan is not there to 
 make it rise. 
 
 We had need of faith ; those happy ones have sight, joy, 
 harmony, everything to lead them to give their heart to 
 holiness. 
 
 Oh, I can understand that hymn of rapture which marks 
 our earth's course through the skies. The ground is moved, 
 the forests clap their hands, the streams fertilise the sandy 
 wastes, the rose blooms in the desert. No more desolate
 
 THE COMING OF CHRIST. 299 
 
 places, no more broken hearts, we hear no longer the lion's 
 roar, the shrieks of the slaughtered are changed to songs 
 of thanksgiving. The Lord's alliance with His creatures 
 glorifies the universe. 
 
 You are shocked at this ! Such a scheme seems to you 
 unworthy of God who is a Spirit. For my part, it leaves 
 me penetrated with reverence, admiring reverence. With- 
 out this restoration of all things there lacked one ray of 
 my God's perfect glory. 
 
 It well beseems the Creator to re-establish His work in 
 its pristine beauty ; to restore to it the lustre it possessed 
 when He spake the word and it was made. It becomes 
 His power to snatch it entire from the grasp of Satan. It 
 befits His glory to display it radiant once more ; more 
 touchingly beautiful, because it has known suffering ; more 
 precious, because Jesus has died for it ; more firmly rooted 
 in holiness, because it has struggled to recover it. 
 
 You would have this earth in which God has taken de- 
 light, left by Him to perish under the curse ; you would 
 have Him to leave this triumph to Satan; not so, the 
 rebellious angel shall not occupy it. From the depths of 
 the abyss he will see the earth renewed, the true Monarch 
 govern the kingdom he, Satan, had for a season usurped ; 
 the child of God serve Him in this enlarged Eden ; the 
 delivered creature willingly obey man ; murders and 
 lamentations cease ; the restoration of all things be accom- 
 plished. Satan will see all this. If he did not see it, if 
 we did not see it, Satan would have gained some advan- 
 tage in the conflict ; he would have successfully resisted 
 God. 
 
 And now, tell me, do not you find such a restoration 
 sublime ? Does it not seem to you worthy of the Lord, 
 this restoration of a world lost by the madness of man ;
 
 300 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 tormented by the rage of the great enemy, saved by the 
 very Son of an offended God 1 
 
 The mountains of Judea have beheld Thy cross, Jesus, 
 Thou Holy of Holies ; the walls of Jerusalem have heard 
 the shouts of the maddened crowds that dragged Thee 
 from Caiaphas to Pilate ; Gethsemane has drunk Thy 
 blood ; Golgotha has echoed with the mocking laughter 
 of the Eoman soldiers; the sighs of Thy agony have 
 passed over this land. Thy own country, Lord, the land 
 of promise, shall see thy triumph ; and stirred to its 
 inmost depths, shall break forth in a cry of love and wel- 
 come. 
 
 In east and west, the children of this land have led a 
 painful life. They have been mocked, trampled upon, till 
 at times even they doubted, despaired of themselves and 
 Thee. The earth that saw them so wretched, so prostrated 
 beneath the hatred of the world, shall see them humble 
 still, but radiant with joy, surround their God who reigns 
 in the midst of them. 
 
 Oh, the tears of thy mourners, Earth ! the lonely steps 
 of those who walked among thy tombs ! Thou who hast 
 swallowed up generations of cherished beings; and to 
 those who asked of thee their dead, hast shewn thy dust 
 as sole reply. Thou wilt restore them all, eternally young 
 and happy ; they will deck thee like a burst of new flowers ; 
 two and two, in families, in companies, they will walk 
 again, singing with joy, on the sites they loved. 
 
 The beasts of thy forests ; all that move in solitudes 
 unknown to men; all that' swim in the abysses of the 
 deep, used once to tear each other to pieces. A sound as 
 of some pillaged town ; a nameless sound, which, as we 
 listen to it, fills the soul with terror, rose incessantly from 
 thy whole surface. Then they who listen will hear a hymn
 
 THE COMING OF CHRIST. 301 
 
 of deliverance burst forth from mountain and plain, and 
 the waves of ocean will repeat it to their shores. 
 
 Thou thyself, curse-stricken Earth ; thou whose breast 
 cracks at the equator beneath the breath of the simoom ; 
 whose barren poles are crushed beneath icebergs, thou 
 shalt blossom out fair and fresh, younger than in the days 
 of Eden. Thou hast borne our rebellion and our woe 
 through the immensity of space ; thou shalt then march in 
 bridal beauty through a tranquil sky; blessed among 
 worlds, bearing on thy surface the redeemed and the 
 Redeemer. 
 
 How will these things be ? 
 
 I know not, but .God knows. The least moral contra- 
 diction troubles me more than mountains of physical im- 
 possibility. 
 
 How will the dead rise ? how will the earth, at the com- 
 ing of the Lord, contain both the generations of risen 
 saints and the generations of living men ? how will the 
 strange change of which St Paul speaks be effected? in 
 what way will death, powerless over the former, still con- 
 tinue its sway over the nations that are to exist at that 
 marvellous period 1 in what way will Jesus govern ? where 
 will His children dwell 1 will there be some easy method of 
 communication between earth and heaven 1 a marvellous 
 ladder like that which Jacob saw ? 
 
 Of all this I am ignorant. All this is my Father's busi- 
 ness ; I am not at all uneasy about it. 
 
 Nothing is too hard for Him whose seven fiats created 
 the universe. 
 
 He will come soon ! Watchmen lost in the darkness, we 
 send this cry of hope one to the other.* 
 
 * Let me here quote an anecdote, related by the Count de Maistre. 
 " Some one once said to Copernicus, ' If the world were constituted
 
 302 THE HEAVENLY HORIZON'S. 
 
 Yes, the morning stars will soon sing together the hymn 
 which greeted the dawn of the seventh day ; the bones 
 that strew the ground will soon rise ; Jesus will soon re- 
 turn. 
 
 I shall see thee again, thou holy city, no longer depressed 
 and trodden down by unbelievers ; I shall see thee glorious, 
 I shall salute thee, queen of the world. Thy fountains 
 will gush forth anew, O Judea ! Under thy oaks, 
 Carmel, the turtle-dove shall fly in peace, not fearing the 
 cruel sportsman ! Desert, thy wide swamps shall change 
 to gardens ; thy swords, turned to ploughshares, shall 
 prepare thy rich harvests, country, everywhere called 
 blessed ! 
 
 You who weep, say, Are not your tears less bitter ? You 
 who are tossed upon the open sea, do you not begin to dis- 
 cern the shores of the land of life ? 
 
 as you say, Venus would have phases like the moon ; she has none, 
 however. What have you to say to that?' 
 
 " Copernicus answered, ' I have no reply to give, but God will be so 
 good as that an answer to this difficulty be found.' " 
 
 In fact, God was so good, that Galileo invented the telescope with 
 which these phases of Venus were discovered; but Copernicus was 
 dead. 
 
 God will le so good, that we shall see the prodigies of His power ; 
 but we shall then be living an eternal life, and shall only wonder at 
 one thing : our own former difficulties, when we could depend upon 
 the great God of heaven for their solution.
 
 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 
 
 fHE destinies of our globe are accomplished. The 
 world that we knew has finished its course. 
 Satan, loosed for a season, has waged his last 
 war. Jesus has for ever vanquished him. Heaven and 
 earth have fled away. There is no more time. The dead 
 of every age are gathered together. 
 
 The grave has given up its prisoners, the sea restored 
 those it had swallowed up for thousands of years. Those 
 who believed God, and those who blasphemed Him, those 
 who supremely desired, and those who rejected Him, those 
 who lived delicately, and those who ate the bread of afflic- 
 tion, are all there, gathered before the Lord. Jesus has 
 given up the kingdom to the Father. The Father, the 
 Ancient of Days, has given all judgment to the Son. 
 
 His eye reads the most hidden thoughts of the obscurest 
 creature there. The past hives and speaks. Distant ages 
 are present. Forgetfulness that infirmity of our nature 
 is annihilated ; all that man has ever felt or done, all that 
 remote centuries had folded up in their veil, all is exposed 
 to fullest light. 
 
 I know no word in our human speech that can express 
 the solemnity of such an hour. 
 
 And it will surely come. You will be there, so shall I, 
 so will those we love. A shudder passes through my whole 
 being. Jesus, Thou hast saved me. Thou, my Judge, 
 Thou hast shed Thy blood to save me. .Self-lost, by Thee
 
 304 THE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 redeemed, despite much faithlessness, I have sought to 
 serve Thee. ]STay, more, I have lived with Thee upon the 
 regenerated earth ; I am Thine, so much is certain. But, 
 beholding Thee so awful, Thou whom I knew so meek, I 
 feel my courage faiL And then my sins rise before me, 
 not one is omitted ; I see them as clearly as though I were 
 God himself. There are more, many more of them than I 
 thought ; they are uglier than I knew I abhor myself. 
 And they are all written down, and nothing that is denied 
 shall enter the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Then a voice, that awful voice which, in the forest, 
 maketh the hinds to bring forth their young that terrible 
 voice which drives far from the presence of God whosoever 
 has rejected His pardon ; that voice, the very same, fraught 
 now with inexpressible tenderness, exclaims, " Come, ye 
 blessed of my Father !" 
 
 Does not a hallelujah burst from our breast, Glory to 
 God in the Highest ! 
 
 The supreme joy of paradise will be to adore. It will 
 be to tell over, with a boundlessly expanded comprehension, 
 the sacrifice of Jesus, the love of the Father, the merciful 
 action of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The last judgment is over. 
 
 Behold the new earth, the new skies ! 
 
 Death destroyed for ever, Satan for ever overthrown. If 
 one may so speak, eternity now begins. 
 
 You do not expect a poor human creature to reveal its 
 secrets. But there are some shadowy features, some faint 
 sounds, which have reached our latitudes, and these I will 
 endeavour to describe. 
 
 Heavens and an earth. 
 
 That there should be heavens surprises no one. Heaven, 
 purity, light, the dwelling of the Most High, every one
 
 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 305 
 
 understands that in a measure, and anticipates it with con- 
 fidence. 
 
 But an earth also ! Who amongst the \vise would ever 
 have imagined that ? 
 
 The beings whom the Eternal raised from the dust, those 
 who have reigned with Him over the world, these were 
 men, they are men still, they will always be so. God, who 
 has decreed it, has supremely developed them, and placed 
 them in conditions suited to their raised estate; a new 
 earth. 
 
 What will it be like ? I do not know ; I know only 
 that God's tabernacle will be t/tere, that He will wipe away 
 our tears, that joy will reign, and I know that it will be 
 for ever. 
 
 When my eye, as it wanders over the country in summer, 
 beholds it decked with so many charms, although destined 
 to destruction, my thoughts take sudden wing to that pro- 
 mised land, before whose mysterious adorning will pale all 
 that we now call beauty. 
 
 Oh, forests, with your fresh coolness ; glades with tem- 
 pered light, filled with winged creatures rejoicing in their 
 life of a day ; mountains with grassy summits, majesty of 
 peaks of snow ; ineffable charm of the valley ; blue lakes, 
 entranced, looking up to and reflecting the sky, my God 
 made you what you are. It is God who will make the 
 new earth. Our low prose effaces your poetry ; the hymn 
 which rises from your solitudes is overpowered by our 
 jarring voices ; your flowers pass away ; the flowers of 
 paradise will be sweeter still, and will not fade. 
 
 But God has prepared still more. 
 
 Glory. 
 
 This is a sublime promise, and I would not be ungrate- 
 ful for any one of God's gifts. And yet, if I may dare to
 
 306 THE HE A VENL Y HORIZONS. 
 
 say so, whether from feebleness of nature, or conscious un- 
 worthiness, glory dazzles me, does not thrill my heart. 
 
 A sweeter certainty, a more intimate happiness, fills it 
 with emotion, that of loving. 
 
 To love my God. To have some lowly place in heaven, 
 and from thence to see my God, from thence to love Him 
 with enlarged capacities, delivered from all my coldness, 
 all my insincerity. To love my friends in God, with an 
 affection also enlarged, purified, bright, burning as the sun ; 
 no fear of idolatry, no envy to corrode, no selfishness, no 
 deceit. 
 
 I have so poorly loved those I loved most. How often 
 my affection has sunk beneath the weight of earthly cares, 
 how often I have mourned my heart's powerlessness to 
 cherish unqualifiedly. I have bruised myself against the 
 limitations of my own love for others, as well as against 
 those of the love of others for me. But now everywhere 
 there is the Infinite, in me, around me Infinite tender- 
 ness, and this co-existing with infinite purity. 
 
 I shall sin no more. 
 
 Holinesss is henceforth the air I breathe ; if it failed, I 
 should cease to breathe. I know no other now. I have 
 left sin behind me ; it will no more sully the ground I 
 tread, no more stain my white raiment. 
 
 Oh, blessing of perfection ! To sound my own heart, 
 and find only purity there ! To move at will in spon- 
 taneous obedience, as the bird floats, and traces wide circles 
 in the luminous atmosphere. 
 
 Have I not long enough dragged my chain ? have I 
 not groaned beneath the blows of a detestable tyrant whom 
 I abhorred ? have I not spread out my captive hands to 
 the Redeemer ? Liberty ! liberty ! My breast dilates as 
 with a fresh breeze from mountain tops. I feel myself a
 
 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 307 
 
 king ; I am Thy child, my God ; Thy brother, O Jesus ! 
 Yes, it is indeed for this that I was born. 
 
 Truth. 
 
 A great genius died exclaiming, " Light ! more light !" 
 His cry is ours. We believe, but there are moments when 
 the truth 'that we have so abundantly received seems to 
 melt away in our hands. The firmer we seek to grasp it, 
 the more impalpable it becomes. We thought we had a 
 strong hold of some solid thing; a mere smoke rises, 
 fading out of our sight. This is only a nightmare indeed ; 
 we wake out of it, but we wake shattered. 
 
 At times, a terrible crumbling-away process goes on 
 within us. Everything rocks to and fro, as in the countries 
 shaken by volcanic fires. We want to lay hold upon God ; 
 He escapes from us. We utter a groan of despair ; God 
 hears that, He succours us. But what a shock we have 
 had ! how it has aged us, as it were ! We have, indeed, 
 won the experience of our Father's faithfulness ; but we 
 have lost the simple confidence of childhood. We believe 
 more firmly, perhaps, than ever ; but we know that dark- 
 ness may overcast the brightest day. 
 
 But there, under new heavens, on the new earth, the 
 sun will shine with undisturbed brightness. No night, no 
 eclipse ; and our eyes will meet it undazzled. 
 
 To see truly, to think truly, to feel truly, my heart 
 beats high at such a prospect ! This breathless pursuit to 
 lay hold of truth; this desperate struggle to retain it; 
 faith, that supreme effort, that combat where the life of the 
 soul is at stake, all this is over, left far behind. My eyes 
 behold ; falsehood is annihilated ; error vanished away. 
 Truth ! thy radiance fills the sky ; thou art the medium in 
 which I live. 
 
 But thou shinest not for me alone ; thou fillest the
 
 308 TEE HEAVENLY HORIZONS. 
 
 universe with thy glory. And this is another happi- 
 ness. 
 
 There are truths, my God, that I have believed on Thy 
 word. Others denied them ; I obeyed them. I was ridi- 
 culed, but I remained faithful to them. Perhaps for a 
 moment I hesitated ; my heart sank. Nevertheless, know- 
 ing whence they came, I took courage ; and, such as they 
 were, followed them, despite the hue and cry. Yet, while 
 following them, a doubt would cross my soul, was I, in- 
 deed, right against so many ? That truth, so scoffed at, 
 contradicted, dying out it seemed, was it truth indeed ? 
 
 And now, behold it shines forth triumphant, irrefragable. 
 It was no phantom ; it was indeed Truth. 
 
 Out of all my past confusion, one confusion only remains, 
 the shame of having defended the cause of truth with so 
 faint a heart ; of having, I a believer, believed it so little. 
 
 The justice of my God will shine forth. 
 
 Do you remember those decrees of His that were wont to 
 trouble you ? 
 
 That God should punish me; that He should purify 
 even to the point of mutilation, does not surprise me. 
 But others that beloved son, that father ! And then the 
 iniquities that have been inflicted ; the atrocities endured ! 
 And again, such and such a decree, which, by taking from 
 a wife her husband, from a daughter her mother, delivers 
 them defenceless up to vice, and vice takes its prey. Those 
 poor lives which spring up in a corrupt medium, as though 
 they were devoted to degradation, and so soon become of 
 necessity degraded. 
 
 There have been seasons when I felt my mind darkened 
 by a secret dread of finding God cold to our griefs ; in- 
 different to our losses; an inexorable Destiny, himself 
 subjected to I know not what fatal general laws. But,
 
 NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH. 309 
 
 oil, I see now that this is not so ! Before, there was a 
 dark abyss, which made us giddy ; now, there is light, and 
 that light reveals the unfathomable love of God. 
 
 Thy compassion, Lord, blended with Thy justice ; Thy 
 justice throbbing with tenderness, these we shall see, 
 these the universe will see. Not one accusing sigh will 
 rise up to Thy throne. 
 
 And that justice will illumine many an unappreciated 
 brow. Many flowers, the exquisite beauty and perfume of 
 which were unsuspected, will open to that heavenly day. 
 Those who were reviled or unnoticed, will shine perfect 
 in beauty, and as we see them, our hearts will glorify 
 God. 
 
 Knowledge shall be done away. 
 
 Even so the dawn is extinguished by the sun that bursts 
 forth in the east. 
 
 Nothing will perish that was noble, generous, full of holy 
 grace and poetry. Let us prepare our souls like golden 
 vessels destined to hold this nectar, the knowledge of the 
 Divine perfection. 
 
 There will be music there. No harmony here below ; 
 not even those marvellous strains, chanted by instruments, 
 repeated by our human voices, which make us weep as 
 though coming to us from the land of the blest ; not even 
 those modulations spreading from sphere to sphere, infinite 
 in sadness, infinite in joy ; not even this glory of the ideal 
 can give any idea of the harmonies with which heaven will 
 echo. 
 
 The secrets of creation, the plans of God revealed ; 
 harmonies more touching still, it is in these that our 
 thirst of knowledge, ever satisfied, never sated, will at 
 length be quenched. 
 
 We shall be active.
 
 310 THE HEA VENLT HORIZONS, 
 
 The angels are so; Jesus is so. Active without a 
 struggle ; active without exhaustion. 
 
 Have you not known rare and transient hours of work, 
 when your mind moved freely amidst its own creations ? 
 As fast as the thought arose, it was shaped fittingly, and 
 clothed, sometimes in a garment with graceful folds, some- 
 times in one of austere simplicity, but always the idea was 
 ennobled by its expression. 
 
 That was done without difficulty. The angel, at Eden's 
 gate, had lowered his flaming sword. You wandered 
 brow all light, heart all gladness in a world where all 
 activity was delight. What ! there are men who sow in 
 tears, there are ploughs which tear the earth's breast ! 
 You could not realise it. 
 
 A breath ; Eden is closed, the sword is brandished, you 
 lie prostrate. Darkness over your spirit, your nerves 
 spent, your words powerless, your thoughts still more so, 
 and, if you struggle, a bloody sweat. 
 
 Oh, then, how feelingly you remember the earthly para- 
 dise ! But heaven has in store for us delightsome labours, 
 easy as respiration, refreshing as dew, and to these there 
 Avill be no end. 
 
 A permanent state. 
 
 This is the fulness of joy. My heart can rest in it. For 
 ever I 
 
 I have felt such bliss, that heaven, I have thought, could 
 add nothing to it; lightning-flashes of adoration, love, 
 truth, all combined ; but it was only for a moment, and 
 the certainty that it would end, cast its dark shadow over 
 it. 
 
 But in the presence of my God, in Hi a paradise there 
 will be no end. 
 
 The light will not fade, the heart will not fail, the Lord
 
 NEW HEA VENS AND NEW EARTH. 3 1 1 
 
 will not hide His face ; nothing will pale, nothing will 
 grow cold ; no defection will be possible, the full cup will 
 never break, our lips never turn away. 
 
 Eternal youth, eternal desire, eternal enjoyment. And 
 the essence of this eternity love. 
 
 We will go no further. I bow me down. Such bright- 
 ness makes my eyelids droop. My voice falters and fails. 
 Prayer alone, thanksgiving, the sigh of an humbled spirit, 
 intercession for those who weep these fill my heart, and 
 rise from it without words. 
 
 Let us pause. It is good to be here ; this is the gate of 
 heaven. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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