Chapter LXXVII: Introduction (2)

During the first days of the week, several persons came to see the Soubirous, in order to question Bernadette. Her answers were brief and exact. She might be laboring under a delusion, but it was only necessary to see her to know that she was in good faith. Her perfect simplicity, her innocent age, her tone of earnestness, all contributed to give her words a force which carried conviction. All who visited her were entirely satisfied of her veracity, and persuaded that something extraordinary had happened at the cliffs of Massabielle.

The statement, nevertheless, of an ignorant little girl could not suffice to establish firmly an event so entirely out of the ordinary course of things. There must be other proofs besides the word of a child.

But what was this apparition, supposing it to have been real? Was it an angel of light, or a spirit from the abyss? Was it not some suffering soul, wandering and seeking prayers? Might it not have been so-and-so or so-and-so, who, but recently dead in the odor of sanctity, had appeared to manifest the glory of the life to come? Faith and superstition each proposed their hypotheses.

Did the mournful ceremonies of Ash-Wednesday help to incline a certain lady and a young girl of Lourdes to one of these solutions? Did they see in the shining whiteness of the garments which the apparition wore, some likeness to a shroud or some sign of a ghost? We know not. The young girl was named Antoinette Peyret, and was a member of the society of the Children of Mary; the other was Mme. Millet.[289]

"It is undoubtedly some soul from Purgatory, who implores us to have masses offered up for it." So they thought; and they went to see Bernadette.

"Ask this lady who she is, and what she wishes," said they. "Get her to explain it to you; or, if you cannot understand, let her put it in writing."

Bernadette, who felt a keen desire to return to the grotto, obtained from her parents a new permission; and the following morning, Thursday, February the 18th, about six o'clock, at daybreak, and after having heard mass at half-past five, she, together with Antoinette Peyret and Mme. Millet, turned her steps in the direction of the grotto.

XV.

The repairs in the mill of M. de Laffite had been completed, and the canal which moved the machinery had been opened to the current; so that it was impossible to reach the end of their journey by the old way of the Châlet. They were obliged to ascend the side of the Espélugues, choosing a steep path which led to the forest of Lourdes; then to descend by a break-neck route to the grotto, over crags, and the steep, loose soil of Massabielle.

In the face of these unforeseen difficulties, the two companions of Bernadette were somewhat dismayed. But she, on the contrary, even then trembled with an eager desire to reach their destination. It seemed as if an invisible power sustained and endowed her with unwonted energy. She, usually so frail and weak, felt at that moment stout and strong. Her steps became so rapid as they began the ascent, that Antoinette and Mme. Millet, though both were strong and in perfect health, had a good task to keep up with her. The asthma, which usually hindered her from running, seemed to have left her for the time being. On reaching the summit, she was neither tired nor out of breath. Although her companions were perspiring and panting, her face was perfectly calm. She descended the cliffs, which she thus traversed for the first time, with the same ease and agility, feeling conscious that an invisible power guided and sustained her. Over these steep and sharp declivities, among slippery stones, hanging over the abyss, her step was as bold and firm as if walking upon the highway. Mme. Millet and Antoinette did not endeavor to follow at the same gait. They descended slowly, and with the precaution required by so perilous a way.

Consequently, Bernadette arrived at the grotto some minutes before them. She prostrated herself and began reciting her chaplet, earnestly regarding the niche, still empty and embowered by the entwining boughs of the eglantine.

Suddenly she uttered a cry. The well-known light of the aureole shone from the depths of the cave; she heard a voice calling her.

The wonderful apparition was again visible a few steps above her. The lovely Virgin turned toward the child her face lit up with eternal beauty, and with her hand beckoned her to approach.

At this moment, after surmounting a thousand and one difficulties, the two companions of Bernadette, Antoinette and Mme. Millet, reached the spot. They saw the features of the child transfigured with ecstasy. She heard and saw them.

"She is there!" the girl cried, "she beckons me to draw near!"

"Ask if she is annoyed because we are here with you. If so, we will go away."

Bernadette looked at the Blessed Virgin, invisible to all save herself. Then she turned toward her companions. "You may remain," she answered.

The two women knelt beside the child and lighted a blessed taper, which they had brought with them. It was, beyond doubt, the first time that such a light had ever shone in this savage place. This simple act, which seemed to inaugurate a sanctuary, had in itself a mysterious solemnity.

This visible sign of adoration, this humble flame lighted by two poor women, on the supposition that the apparition was divine, was never more to be extinguished but to brighten daily, and to grow with the lapse of years. The breath of incredulity was to exhaust itself against it in vain efforts. The storm of persecution was to arise; but this flame, lit by the devotion of the people, was to point for ever toward the throne of God. While these rustic hands lighted the first illumination in this strange grotto where a child was praying, the east had changed its color from gray to gold and purple, and the sun had begun to flood the world with light and to peep over the highest crest of the mountains.

Bernadette, in ecstasy, contemplated a cloudless beauty. "_Tota pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te_:" Thou art all beautiful, my beloved, and there is no spot in thee.

Her companions spoke to her again.

"Go toward her, if she makes a sign. Go, ask her who she is, and why she comes here?... Is she a soul from purgatory that needs our prayers, or wishes us to have masses offered up for her?... Ask her to write on this paper what she desires. We are willing to do any thing she wishes--all that is needful for her rest."

The little seer took the paper, ink, and paper, which were given her and advanced toward the apparition, whose maternal glance brightened on seeing her draw near. Nevertheless, at each step that Bernadette made, the apparition receded into the interior of the cave. The child lost sight of it for a moment, and it went under the arch of the lower grotto. There, just above her and much nearer at hand, she saw the Blessed Virgin shining in the opening of the niche.

Bernadette held in her hand the objects which had been given her; she stood on tiptoe to reach the height of the supernatural being. Her two companions advanced to hear, if possible, the conversation which was about to take place. But Bernadette, without turning, and as if obeying a gesture of the vision, signed to them not to approach. Abashed, they withdrew.

"My Lady," said the child, "if you have any thing to tell me, will you not please write what you wish?"

The heavenly Virgin smiled at this naïve request. Her lips parted and she spoke:

"What I have to tell you I do not need to write. Only do me the favor to come here every day for two weeks."

"I promise to do so!" said Bernadette.

The Blessed Virgin smiled again and made a gesture of satisfaction, showing her full confidence in the word of this poor little peasant of fourteen years. She knew that the little shepherdess of Bartrès was pure as one of those little ones whose golden heads Jesus loved to caress, saying, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

To the promise of Bernadette, she replied by a solemn engagement:

"And I for my part promise to make you happy, not in this world, but in the next."

To the child who accorded her a few days, she promised, in return, eternity.

Bernadette, without losing sight of the apparition, returned to her companions.

Following her glance, she noticed the eyes of the Blessed Virgin resting kindly and for some time on Antoinette Peyret, who was unmarried and a member of the Confraternity of the Children of Mary.

Bernadette told them what she had seen.

"She is looking at you now," said the child to Antoinette.

The latter was filled with pleasure by these words and always recalled them with joy.

"Ask," said they, "if she is willing to have us accompany you hither during the fortnight."

Bernadette addressed the apparition.

"They may come with you," answered the Blessed Virgin, "and also any other persons. I desire to see every body here."

Saying these words, she disappeared, leaving behind her that brilliant light with which she was surrounded, and which slowly melted away.

In this instance, as in others, the child noticed something which seemed a rule with regard to the aureole which always surrounded the Blessed Virgin.

"When the vision appears," said she, in her own language, "I see first the light and then the 'Lady;' when it disappears, the 'Lady' first vanishes and afterward the light."

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[287] Bascle de Lagrèze, Conseiller à la Cour Impérial de Pau, _Chronique de la Ville et du Chateau de Lourdes_.

[288] The Ordo of the diocese of Tarbes for 1858, Feb. 12, contains the rubric, _Sanctæ Genovefæ_, (_Proprium Tarbense_.)

[289] These two persons are still living. Unless the contrary be expressly stated, all those named in the course of this work are still alive, and can be questioned. We would urge our readers to examine and verify all our assertions.--THE AUTHOR.

THE "PARADISE LOST" OF ST. AVITUS.

The indebtedness of Milton to Andreini for the conception of _Paradise Lost_, is proved not only by internal evidence, but by the ascertained fact that the English poet was well acquainted with the work of the Italian. Another poet of merit, centuries before, had produced a noble work on the subject, with which we may suppose, from Milton's classical and theological learning, he was familiar, though no proof exists that he had read it. We refer to the three poems of St. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, _The Creation_, _Original Sin_, and _The Judgment of God_, which form a triad, or a poem in three parts. Its resemblance to _Paradise Lost_, in general idea and in some important details, is very striking, and a curious fact in literature. These, with other works of the author, were published at the beginning of the sixteenth century, though written long before.

Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, born about the middle of the fifth century, was of a senatorial family in Auvergne. He became bishop A.D. 490, dying in 525. His part in the church of Gaul was active and important, as he was chief among the orthodox bishops of the east and south of Gaul, and Vienne belonged to the Burgundian Arians. In the struggle to maintain the true faith against the Arians, St. Avitus had to contend not only against theological adversaries, but the civil power. In the year 499 he held a conference at Lyons with some Arian bishops, in the presence of King Gondebald; and he influenced King Sigismund to return to the true belief.

He was the most distinguished among all the Christian poets from the sixth to the eighth century, and only the obscurity of the age can account for the oblivion into which his works have fallen. It is true that his poetry abounds in labored comparisons and artificial antitheses; but in treating of sacred subjects he adheres to the scriptural simplicity, and though living much nearer to the days of paganism than Milton, has nothing like his mythological allusions and ornaments. He wrote a hundred letters on his own times, besides homilies and treatises. His six poems are in hexameter verse. They are, _The Creation_, (_De Initio Mundi_,) _Original Sin_, (_De Originali Peccato_,) _The Judgment of God_, (_De Sententia Dei_,) _The Deluge_, (_De Diluvio Mundi_,) _The Passage of the Red Sea_, (_De Transitu Maris Rubri_,) and _In Praise of Virginity_, (_De Consolatoria Laude Castitatis_, etc.) The first three constitute what may be called the _Paradise Lost_ of St. Avitus.

In the _Creation_, the peculiar features of the descriptive poetry of the sixth century appear, resembling the school founded by the Abbé Delille; elaborate beyond good taste, dissecting and anatomizing in details. This is almost painfully shown in the account of the creation of man, in which the anatomical particulars are minute and scientific to the utter destruction of the picturesque. Then comes the description of paradise, which is in curious analogy to Milton's. We translate part of it:

"Beyond the Indies, where the world begins,
Where, it is said, the confines meet of earth
And heaven, there spreads an elevated plain
To mortals inaccessible, inclosed
By barriers everlasting since for sin
Adam was cast out from that happy home.
There never change of seasons brings the frost;
There summer yields not place to winter's reign;
And while elsewhere the circle of the year
Brings stifling heat, or fields with crisp ice bound,
There bides eternal spring. Tumultuous winds
Come not, and clouds forsake skies always pure.
No need of rains; the ever genial soil
With warm, sweet moisture of its own, keeps fresh
Its vivid verdure; herbs and foliage live
Fadeless, their vigor drawn from their own sap,
Mingling their leaves with blossoms. Annual fruits
There ripen every month; the lily's sheen
The sunbeams taint not, nor the violet's blue;
The fresh rose never fades; the laden boughs
Shed odoriferous balm; the gentle breeze
Skimming the woods, with softest murmur stirs
The leaves and flowers, thence wafting sweet perfume.
Clear founts gush out from their pellucid source,
And polished gems have not their flashing lustre.
Along the crystal's margin emeralds gleam,
With varied hues of every jewel's sheen
The world holds rich, enamelling the sands,
And glistening in the meads like diadems."

Book i. 211-257

The Latin is as follows:

"Ergo ubi transmissis mundi caput incipit Indis,
Quo perhibent terram confinia jungere cœlo,
Lucus inaccessa cunctis mortalibus arca
Permanet, æterno conclusus limite, postquam
Decidit expulsus primævi criminis auctor,
Atque reis digne felici a sede revulsis,
Cœlestes hæc sancta capit nunc aula ministros,
Non hic alterni succedit temporis unquam
Bruma, nec æstivi redeunt post frigora soles,
Excelsus calidum cum reddit circulus annum,
Vel densante gelu canescunt arva pruinis.
Hic ver assiduum cœli clementia servat;
Turbidus Auster abest, semperque sub ære sudo
Nubila diffugiunt jugi cessura sereno.
Nec poscit natura loci quos non habet imbres,
Sed contenta suo dotantur germina rore.
Perpetuo viret omne solum, terræque tepentis
Blanda nitet facies; stant semper collibus herbæ,
Arboribusque comæ; quæ cum se flore frequenti
Diffundunt, celeri confortant germina succo.
Nam quidquid nobis toto nunc nascitur anno;
Menstrua maturo dant illic tempora fructu.
Lilia perlucent nullo flaccentia sole,
Nec tactus violat violas, roseumque ruborem
Servans perpetuo suffundit gratia vultu.
Sic cum desit hiems, nec torrida ferveat æstas,
Fructibus autumnus, ver floribus occupat annum.
Hic quæ donari mentitur fama Sabæsis
Cinnama nascuntur, vivax quæ colligit ales,
Natali cum fine perit, nidoque perusta
Succedens sibimet quæsita morte resurgit;
Nec contenta suo tantum semel ordine nasci;
Longa veternosi renovatur corporis ætas,
Incensamque levant exordia crebra senectam,
Illic desudans fragrantia balsama ramus
Perpetuum promit pingui de stipite fluxum.
Tum si forte levis movit spiramina ventus,
Flatibus exiguis, lenique impulsa susurro,
Dives silva tremit foliis, ac flora salubri,
Qui sparsus late maves dispensat odores.
Hic fons perspicuo resplendens gurgita surgit.
Talis in argento non fulget gratia, tantam
Nec crystalla trahunt nitido defrigore lucem.
Margine riparum virides micuere lapilli,
Et quas miratur mundi jactantia gemmas,
Illis saxa jacent; varios dant arva colores,
Et naturali campos diademate pingunt."

The parallel passage of Milton runs thus:

"Thus was this place,
A happy rural seat of various view;
Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,
Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only, and of delicious taste.
Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
Grazing the tender herb, were interposed,
Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap
Of some irriguous valley spread her store,
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose;
Another side, umbrageous grots and caves
Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
Luxuriant; meanwhile, murmuring waters fall
Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake
That to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned
Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.
The birds their choir apply; airs, vernal airs,
Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
The trembling leaves, while universal Pan
Knit with the graces and the hours in dance,
Led on th' eternal spring."

_Paradise Lost_, iv. 246, etc.

The Nile, according to religious traditions, was one of the four rivers of paradise. In his description of its fertilizing inundation, St. Avitus paints, in a poetical figure, the view presented in after-years:

"When, swollen, the river overflows its banks,
Strewing the plains with dark slime, fertile then
The soil with calm skies and terrestrial rain;
Then Memphis in the midst of a vast lake
Appears, and o'er their fields submerged in crafts
The laborers sail. The flood's decree sweeps forth
All boundaries, equalizing all, and stays
The season's labors. Joyful sees the shepherd
His meadows swallowed, and from foreign seas
Strange shoals of fish where erst his herds were fed.
Then, when the waters have espoused the earth,
Impregnating its gems, the Nile recedes,
Calls back its scattered waters, and the lake,
Once more a river, to its bed returns,
Its floods encompassed in the ancient dyke."

Book i. 266-281.

We give also the original:

"Nam quoties tumido perrumpit flumine ripas
Alveus, et nigris campos perinundat arenis,
Ubertas taxatur aqua, cœloque vacante
Terrestrem pluviam diffusus porrigit annis.
Tunc inclusa latet lato sub gurgite Memphis,
Et super absentis possessor navigat agros.
Terminus omnis abest, æquatur judice fluctu
Annua suspendens contectus jurgia limes.
Gramina nota videt lactus subsidere pastor,
Inque pecorum viridantis jugere campi
Succedunt nantes aliena per æquora pisces.
Ast postquam largo fecundans germina potu
Lympha maritavit sitientis viscera terræ,
Regraditur Nilus, sparsasque recolligit undas:
Fit fluvius pereunte lacu; tum redditur alveo
Pristina riparum conclusis fluctibus obex," etc.

An analogous phenomenon--far more vast and terrible--the descent of the waters of the upper firmament, and the overflow of earthly floods, is described by St. Avitus in his poem on _The Deluge_.

In the second part of the triad, _Original Sin_, the sacred traditions are implicitly followed; something is to be found of Andreini's conception of the prince of hell preserving in the demon the grandeur of the angel, carrying into the pit of evil the traces of a heavenly nature. The Satan of St. Avitus is not the devil of mere traditions, odious, hideous, malignant, with no elevation of feeling. He retains some traits of his first estate and a certain moral grandeur. Nevertheless the conception lacks the sublimity of Andreini's and Milton's, presenting none of those fierce conflicts of the soul, those appalling contrasts, which are so effective. It has, however, originality and energy, forcibly impressing the reader.

Satan, first entering paradise, and perceiving Adam and Eve, is thus portrayed:

"When he beheld the new-created pair
In their fair home, their happy sinless life,
Under God's laws the sovereigns of the earth,
With tranquil joy surveying all around
In peace their sway confessing--jealous rage
Like lightning raised a tempest in his soul;
Like to volcanic fires his fury burned.
Too recent his great loss; hurled down from heaven,
Down to the infernal pit, and with him fallen
The troop who shared his fate! The agony,
The shame of such defeat, with added pangs
And horror, rose afresh, when he beheld
Those happy ones; and full of bitter grief,
Envy, despite, he poured his anger forth.
Ah! woe is me; this new world sprung to life,
This odious race the offspring of our ruin!
Woe! Heaven was mine; from heaven I am expelled,
This dust of earth to angels' pomp succeeding!
Frail clay, to fair form moulded, will usurp
The power, the sovereignty torn from our hands,
To him transferred! Yet not of all despoiled,
Some power we hold, some evil we can do.
Be it done without delay! I yearn for strife!
I long to meet these foes; yea, now to meet them,
In their simplicity, which knows as yet
Naught of deceit; naught but the things they see,
Which leaves them shieldless. Easier the task
To tempt them and mislead, while thus alone,
Ere they have thrown a vast posterity
Into the eternity of ages!--No--
We will not suffer any thing immortal
To rise from earth! Let us destroy the race
Here in its source! Oh! that its chiefs defeat
May be the seed of death! Life's principle
Give rise to pangs of death! all struck in one!
The root cut and the tree for ever prone!
Such consolation in my fall is mine;
If I must never more ascend to heaven,
At least its portals shall be closed 'gainst these!
The misery I suffer is less keen
Knowing these creatures lost by a like fall;
If they, accomplices in my destruction,
Become companions in my punishment,
Sharing with us the flames I now discern
Prepared for us!
But to allure them on,
I, who have fallen, must show them the same road,
That the same pride which drove me out of heaven
May chase man from the bounds of paradise.
He spoke, and heaving a deep sigh, was silent."

Book ii. 60-117.

The Latin is as follows:

"Vidit ut iste novos homines in sede quieta
Ducere felicem nullo discrimine vitam,
Lege sub accepta Domino famularier orbis,
Subjectisque frui placida inter gaudia rebus;
Commovit subitum zeli scintilla vaporem,
Excrevitque calens in sæva incendia livor.
Vicinus tunc forte fuit, quo concidit alto,
Lapsus, et innexam traxit per prona catervam.
Hoc recolens, casumque premens in corde recentem,
Plus doluit periisse sibi quod possidet alter.
Tunc mixtus cum felle pudor sic pectore questus
Explicat, et tali suspiria voce relaxat.
Proh dolor, hoc nobis subitum consurgere plasma,
Invisumque genus nostra crevisse ruina!
Me celsum virtus habuit, nunc arce reje
Pellor, et angelico limus succedit honori.
Cœlum terra tenet, vili compage levata
Regnat humus, nobisque perit translata potestas.
Non tamen in totum periit; pars magna retentat
Vim propriam, summaque cluit virtute nocendi,
Nec differre juvat; jam nunc certamine blando
Congrediar, dum prima salus, experta nec ullos
Simplicitas ignara dolos, ad tela patebit.
Et melius soli capientur fraude, priusquam
Fecundam mittant æterna in sæcula prolem,
Immortale nihil terra prodire sinendum est;
Fons generis pereat, capitis dejectio victi
Semen mortis erit; pariat discrimina lethi
Vitæ principium; cuncti feriantur in uno;
Non faciet vivum radix occisa cacumen.
Hæc mihi dejecto tandem solatia restant.
Si nequeo clausos iterum conscendere cœlos,
His quoque claudentur," etc.

Thus Milton's Satan:

"O hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!
Into our room of bliss thus high advanced
Creatures of other mould; earth-born perhaps,
Not spirits, yet to heavenly spirits bright
Little inferior; whom my thoughts pursue
With wonder, and could love, so lively shines
In them divine resemblance, and such grace
The hand that formed them on their shape hath poured.
Ah gentle pair! ye little think how nigh
Your change approaches, when all these delights
Will vanish and deliver ye to woe!
More woe the more you taste is now of joy;
Happy, but for so happy ill secured
Long to continue, and this high seat your heaven
Ill fenced for heaven to keep out such a foe
As now is entered; yet no purposed foe
To you, whom I could pity thus forlorn,
Though I unpitied; league with you I seek,
And mutual amity, so strait, so close,
That I with you must dwell, or you with me
Henceforth; my dwelling haply may not please,
Like this fair paradise, your sense; yet such
Accept your Maker's work; he gave it me,
Which I as freely give. Hell shall unfold,
To entertain you two, her widest gates,
And send forth all her kings; there will be room,
Not like these narrow limits, to receive
Your numerous offspring; if no better place,
Thank him who puts me loath to this revenge
On you, who wrong me not, for him who wronged.
And should I at your harmless innocence
Melt as I do, yet public reason just,
Honor and empire with revenge enlarged,
By conquering this new world, compel me now
To do what else, though damned, I should abhor."

Milton's _Paradise Lost_, iv. 358-392.

More elevated, impassioned, and complex are the feelings of Milton's Satan, more eloquent his expression; yet the simple energy, the menacing concentration of the arch-fiend painted by St. Avitus, has a powerful effect.

The third book exhibits the despair of Adam and Eve after the fall; the coming of the divine Judge; his sentence, and their expulsion from paradise. Where Milton represents Adam as giving way to indignation against Eve, St. Avitus causes him to rage against the Creator himself.

"Adam thus saw himself condemned: his guilt
By inquiry made manifest. Yet not
In humble suppliance did he sue for mercy:
Nor with deep penitence, and tears, and prayers,
And self-accusing, shamed confession, plead
For the remission of his punishment;
Fallen, miserable, no pity he invoked.
With lifted front, with anger flushed, his pride
Broke forth in clamorous reproach.
'Twas then
To bring my ruin that the woman was given
To be my helpmeet! That which from thy hand,
Creator! was received as best of blessings--
She--overcome herself--has conquered me
With counsels sinister! prevailed with me
To take the fruit she had already tasted;
She is the source of evil; from her came
The sin, beguiling me too credulous;
And thou, Lord, thou didst teach me to believe her
By giving her to be my own in marriage,
With sweet ties joining us! Ah! if my life,
Lonely at first, had so continued--happy!
If I had never known this fatal union,
The yoke of such companionship!
These words
Of Adam the divine Creator heard,
And thus severely spoke to desolate Eve;
Woman, why hast thou in thy fall drawn down
Thy wretched spouse? Deceived, and then deceiving,
Instead of standing in thy guilt alone,
Why sought'st thou to dethrone the higher reason
Of this thy husband?
And the woman, full
Of shame and sorrow, daring not to raise
Her face with conscious blushes all suffused,
Answered: The serpent did beguile me; he
Persuaded me to taste the fruit forbidden."

Book iii. 96-112.

The original poem runs thus:

"Ille ubi convictum claro se lumine vidit,
Prodidit et totum discussio justa reatum,
Non prece submissa veniam pro crimine poscit,
Non votis lacrymisve rogat, nec vindice fletu
Præcurrit meritam supplex confessio pœnam.
Jamque miser factus, nondum miserabilis ille est.
Erigitur sensu, timidisque accensa querelis
Fertur in insanas laxata superbia voces.
Heu male perdendo mulier conjuncta marito!
Quam sociam misero prima sub lege dedisti,
Hæc me consiliis vicit devicta sinistris,
Et sibi jam notum persuasit sumere pomum.
Ista mali caput est, crimen surrexit ab ista.
Credulus ipse fui, sed credere tu docuisti,
Connubium donans, et dulcia vincula nectens
Atque utinam felix, quæ quondam sola vigebat,
Cœlebs vita foret, talis nec conjugis unquam
Fœdera sensisset, comiti non subdita pravæ.
Hac igitur rigidi commotus mente Creator,
Mœrentem celsis compellat vocibus Evam.
Cur miserum labens traxisti inprona maritum
Nec contenta tuo deceptrix femina casu,
Sublimi sensum jecisti, ex arce virilem!
Ilia pudens, tristique genas suffusa rubore,
Auctorem sceleris clamat decepta draconem,
Qui pomum vetito persuasit tangere morsu."

Thus Milton:

"Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld,
Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh,
Soft words to his fierce passion she essayed;
But her with stern regard he thus repelled.
Out of my sight, thou serpent! That name best
Befits thee with him leagued, thyself as false
And hateful; nothing wants, but that thy shape,
Like his, and color serpentine, may show
Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee
Henceforth; lest that too heavenly form, pretended
To hellish falsehood, snare them! But for thee
I had persisted happy; had not thy pride
And wandering vanity, when least was safe,
Rejected my forewarning, and disdained
Not to be trusted, longing to be seen,
Though by the devil himself; him overweening
To overreach; but with the serpent meeting,
Fooled and beguiled; by him thou; I by thee
To trust thee from my side, imagined wise,
Constant, mature, proof against all assaults;
And understood not all was but a show,
Rather than solid virtue; all but a rib
Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears,
More to the part sinister, from me drawn;
Well if thrown out, as supernumerary
To my just number found. Oh! why did God,
Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven
With spirits masculine, create at last
This novelty on earth, this fair defect
Of nature, and not fill the world at once
With men, as angels, without feminine;
Or find some other way to generate
Mankind? This mischief had not then befallen,
And more that shall befall; innumerable
Disturbances on earth through female snares,
And strait conjunction with this sex.'"

_Paradise Lost_, x. 863-897.

The scriptural simplicity of this passage, as found in the poem of St. Avitus, will be by many esteemed better than Milton's ornamentation.

The book ends with a prediction of the advent of Christ, who is to triumph over Satan. The leaving of paradise is touchingly described at the close of the poem.

"The sentence given, and by the trembling pair
Received, with skins of beasts the Lord himself
Clothed both the man and woman.
Then he drove
Them out for ever from the happy garden
Of paradise. Prone to the ground they fell,
Those hapless ones. They entered on the world
That was to them a wilderness. They fled
With hasty steps, as by the avenging sword
Pursued. The earth before them had its bowers
Of trees and verdant turf; green meads and fountains,
And winding streams, appear to greet their sight;
Yet ah! how hideous is the landscape drear
After thy lovely face, O Paradise!
Startled, the pair survey the doleful scene,
And weep to think of all that they have lost;
They do not see the limits of the world;
And yet it seems a narrow cell; they groan
Immured in such a prison! Even the day
Is darkness to their eyes; while the clear sun
Is shining in his strength, they bitterly
Complain that all the light has vanished from them."

A Dutch poet also--Joost Van Den Vondel--wrote a drama on the fall of man, before Andreini's. Among the personages are Lucifer and his attendant evil spirits, Gabriel, the King of Angels, Michael, Uriel, etc. Adam and Eve are attended in paradise by a chief guardian angel. The lyrics of the heavenly host have considerable poetic beauty.

THE WILLIAN GIRLS

Some persons have a natural enjoyment of tribulation. They take a real pleasure in raising their eyebrows lugubriously, holding their heads a little on one side with a sorrowful and resigned expression, and looking at the world through blue spectacles. They "always sigh in thanking God," and can find a cloud in the sunniest sky. You can never conquer such people on their own ground. If you have a slight pain in your little finger, they have an excruciating pain in their thumb; if you have caught your robe on a nail, theirs has been rent on a spike; if you have been wet in a shower, they have been soaked in a torrent. These persons have minor voices, make great use of chromatics in speaking, and their affections seem to be situated in the liver.

Mr. Christopher Willian had a taint of this "green and yellow melancholy" in his disposition, and his rapidly increasing family gave full scope for its development.

"If Eva were a boy, now," he sighed, "I could soon have some one to help me in the shop. But--nothing but girls!"

"Eva is a treasure!" Mrs. Willian answered stoutly. "I wouldn't exchange her for the best boy in the world."

"But girls are so expensive," the father objected, "and they can't earn any thing; that is, mine can't. I don't want a daughter of mine to leave my house till she marries."

"And there is no need of their doing any thing, my dear," the mother replied cheerfully. "We own our house, and your business is very good. Then, when the mortgages are paid off on your building, the rent of the upper flats will make us quite independent. In three or four years we shall be out of the wood, all our pinching and toiling over."

Mrs. Willian was a thrifty, clear-headed, energetic woman; but, though she would not have owned it, she herself found the prospect appalling. As she sat there after her husband left her, she glanced out the chamber window and saw Dinah, the one servant of the house, putting out the washing, her accusing face looming darkly over the interminable lines of wet dry-goods. Oh! the strings to tie, the buttons to button, the hooks to hook! And here on her knees lay another candidate for such services, an unconscious little affliction of two weeks old! Oh! the rents and rips to mend, the darnings and makings over, the little faces to wash and locks to comb, the faults to chide, the teasings to bear, the questions to answer! She had just got a glimpse through the door of Eva with her hair in a snarl, and of Helen with soiled stockings on; she knew that Frances had tumbled downstairs and set her nose bleeding; she could hear Anne crying pathetically for mother to come and rock her to sleep, and she was almost sure that every thing was at sixes and sevens in the kitchen.

"But I will not lose my courage!" she exclaimed vehemently, and, in proof that she would not, burst into hysterical weeping.

The fifth girl grew apace, and after her came Josephine, and after Josephine came Jane.

"Mr. Willian is among the blessed," said the priest when this seventh daughter was carried to him for baptism. "_Verily, he shall not be confounded when he shall speak to his enemies in the gate._"

Others besides the priest had their jest concerning this regiment of girls. Tradesmen smiled when purchases were made for them, people laughed and counted when invitations were to be sent to them, neighbors went to their windows to see the Willian procession start for church. They became proverbial, especially with their father.

But as years passed, words of praise began to drop in among the jests. Mothers marvelled to see how early the Willian girls learned to sew and mend, how deftly they could use the broom and duster, what womanly ways the elder had toward the younger. These mothers reproachfully told their shiftless daughters what a dignified and careful maiden Miss Eva was, and how even Anne could put a room to rights after the smaller fry, and sing Jenny to sleep with a voice like a bobolink's. For all these children took to singing as naturally as birds do, and warbled before they could speak.

Nor were their happy hearts less valuable in the house than their helpful hands. Half the mother's load of care melted from her in the brightness of their faces, and the anxious cloud on Mr. Christopher Willian's brow lightened in spite of him whenever some gushing sprite, all laughter and kisses, ran to welcome him home. He was sometimes vexed on recollecting how he had been lured from a good grumble by their baby wiles. Indeed, he was not nearly so dissatisfied as he pretended to be. Such sweet and healthy affections as theirs were, which, never having been checked, flowed out in joyous innocence; such pure, unerring instincts, that needed no knowledge of baseness in order to shrink from its contact; such open hands for the poor, such tender hands for the afflicted; and, crowning all, such steadfast, unassuming piety. Among the young ladies who, dressed to attract attention, promenaded the public streets, the Willian girls were never found; their father's house was the place where they made new acquaintances and entertained old ones. And what did they conceal from their parents? Nothing. Their hopes and plans and fears, their mistakes, their faults, all were freely told. And how pretty they were! Their father secretly made the most flowery comparisons when looking at them. He mentally challenged the dew-washed morning roses and violets to vie with their fresh faces around the breakfast table. When at evening they formed a ring of bloom around the piano, and sang for their parents, or for visitors, his private opinion was, that a choir of angels could not far excel them; and when the circle broke, like a wreath falling into flowers, and each went about some pretty employment, then Mr. Willian had not eyes enough with which to watch his seven girls. But once own to any such feeling, and there would be an end to his privilege of grumbling. He well knew what a chorus would assail his first grievance: "Why, papa, you said that we were--" etc.; or, "Now, Mr. Willian, do be consistent! With my own ears I have heard you say--" etc. So he wrapped the silver lining of his cloud inward, and showed them only the gray.

But one evening, for a wonder, he came home with a joyful face and no word of fault-finding. When Jenny, the youngest, ran to meet him, he gave her a toss nearly to the ceiling; he gave one of Fanny's curls a pull in passing her; he presented his wife with a bunch of late flowers, he praised every thing on the supper-table. Finally, when they were gathered in the evening, he told them the cause of this unusual hilarity. He had that day made the last payment on the building in which he had his shop, and now their weary economies were at an end.

"But don't imagine, you young witches, that all this is to go in finery," he said, giving the nearest one a pinch on the cheek. "The house here needs a little fitting up, and perhaps we will have a new piano. But I must begin now to lay by something. A man with such a load of girls on his shoulders has to think of the future."

They were too much accustomed to remarks like the last to be greatly disturbed by them, but this threw a momentary dampening. Then the silence was broken by Miss Eva's calm and musical voice: "The house needs to be painted and papered and furnished from basement to attic. It is very shabby."

Mr. Willian forgot to exclaim at the dimensions of this proposition when he looked in the fair face of his eldest daughter, and saw the serene grace with which she seated herself beside her mother, and smoothed down the folds of her dress. Eva was now twenty, calm, blonde, and stately.

"O papa!" cried Florence across the fireplace; "do buy a lovely landscape of Weber's we saw to-day. It is just what we want to put over the mantel-piece in the front parlor." Again the father looked, but said nothing.

Florence was a girl of artistic tastes, was frail and excitable, and had brilliant violet eyes and an unsteady scarlet in her cheeks.

"Now at last I can have a watch!" cried Frances in a ringing voice. "I've nearly got a curvature of the spine from looking round at the clock to see if I have practised long enough."

"My dear Fanny," interposed her mother, "we need a new set of china much more than you need a watch."

Frances was the romp of the family, a large girl of sixteen, with heaps of brown curls around a _piquante_ face.

"I wish I had a little rosewood writing-desk and a pearl pen-handle," came in a clear, insinuating voice very high up the scale. Anne sat in a low chair, with her chin in her hand, her elbow on her knee, and her gaze fixed intently on the cornice of the room. But perceiving no notice taken of her remark, she lowered her glance, and gave her father a look out of the corners of her eyes, which thereby got the appearance of being nearly all whites.

Anne was fourteen years of age, and had a quiet way of doing as she pleased and getting all she wanted without seeming to try. Frances called her pussy-cat.

"O papa!" broke in Georgiana, "can't I have a pair of skates and learn to skate?"

"I want a silver mug!" cried Jane, the youngest, striking in before Josephine.

Josephine sat in the shadow of her father's chair, and had two small wrinkles between her brows.

"Is there any thing else any one will have?" asked Mr. Willian with excessive politeness, after having caught breath. "Don't be bashful, I beg! It is a pity there are only seven of you, with your mother making eight. Possibly by putting a mortgage on the house, I may be able to gratify your wishes. Speak up--do!"

Ever so slight a cloud settled upon the gentleman's audience as he glanced over them, bowing suavely, and rubbing his hands with an appearance of great cordiality.

"Papa!" came in a little voice out of the shadow. Every one had forgotten Josephine.

A real smile melted the waxen mask of a smile on Mr. Willian's face.

"Poor Josie!" he said.

She came out of her corner and stood by his side. "Papa, have you got the block insured?" she asked.

Her father colored suddenly as he put his arm about the child and drew her closer to him. "Here girls," he said, "is one who thinks of the means as well as the end. She never will ruin any one by her extravagance."

"But have you, papa?" she persisted.

"This house is all right, dear; and I'm going to insure the store to-morrow."

He spoke carelessly, but there was a slight stir of uneasiness perceptible beneath.

His wife looked at him with surprise. "Why, father, how happened you to let it run out?"

"I was so busy to-day I forgot all about it," he said almost pettishly. "The policy expired only yesterday. I'll see to it the first thing in the morning. Go and sing something, girls."

All but Josie gathered about the piano, and sang one of William Blake's songs:

"Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

"Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

"Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be;
Never, never can it be!

"And can He, who smiles on all,
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird's grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear,

"And not sit beside the nest
Pouring pity in their breast?
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant's tear?

"And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
Oh! no; never can it be;
Never, never can it be!

"He doth give his joy to all;
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe,
He doth feel the sorrow too."

In the midst of the last soft strain Eva's hands paused on the keys, her sisters ceased singing, and her father and mother lifted their faces to listen; for a loud gamut of bells outside had run up the first stroke of the fire-alarm. At the last stroke, Mr. Willian started up and went into the entry for his hat. Not a word was said as he went out; but the girls gathered about their mother, and stood with the breath just hovering on their lips, counting the alarm over and over, hoping against hope. But, no; they had counted rightly at first. The loud clear strokes through that silence left no room for doubt.

The girls drew nearer their mother, their faces losing color.

"I can't bear the suspense, Eva," she said. "Get our bonnets, and we will go down-town. Don't cry, Josie! You children all stay here and say the rosary while we are gone. We will soon be back, and perhaps we shall bring good news."

Florence took her beads from her pocket, put her arm around the weeping Josie, and drew her down to her knees before their mother's chair. Mrs. Willian glanced back as the others knelt too, then shut the door, breathing a blessing on them. "If it should be God's will to spare us now," she said, "I shall be the happiest mother in the world."

It was not God's will to spare them, she soon found. As they turned the last corner and came in sight of Mr. Willian's building, they saw it the centre of a vast crowd, firemen, volunteer workers, and lookers-on. There was no appearance of fire in the lower stories, but smoke was gushing through all the interstices of the upper windows.

Mrs. Willian wrung her hands and turned away. "There go the savings and toil of a lifetime!" she said.

It was impossible for the firemen to work well at that height, and the flames were creeping to the air. In a few minutes the smoke reddened, a little tongue of flame crept through a crevice, broadened, and the fire burst forth. No effort could stay it. Leisurely descending from floor to floor, it carried all before it. A thread of smoke in a corner of the ceiling, a tiny flame, and soon the whole room would be an intolerable brightness with masses of falling flaming timbers.

At midnight the family were all at home again; Mr. Willian lying half-senseless upon a sofa, his wife and children ministering to him. In his frantic efforts to save something from the burning building, one of his arms had been broken by the falling bricks.

Those were sorrowful days that followed, verifying the proverb that it never rains but it pours. Josephine was taken ill the week after the fire; but she was sure to be well soon, they said. She was not very ill. There was a little cough, a little fever, and a great weakness. The girls thought not much of it. They were too much engaged, indeed, attending to their father, and doing an immense deal of mysterious outside business.

"If Eva were only a boy!" sighed the father weakly. "A boy of twenty could earn a good salary."

"Father," Eva began very decidedly, "a girl of twenty can earn a good salary. Let me tell you what your good-for-nothing daughters are going to do. We haven't been idle the fortnight past. I am to take immediate charge of a class in the N---- school, with a salary of five hundred dollars to begin with, and a yearly advance. I shall stay at home, by your leave, and nearly all my money will go toward the housekeeping expenses. Besides that, I have a music class of four. So much for me. I doubt if that wonderful son would spare you more out of his earnings. Florence is to take a few more lessons in Indian-ink from Mr. Rudolf, and he says that in four or five weeks she will be able to earn ten dollars a week, painting photographs. Frances has got tatten and crochet-work to do for Blake Brothers, and they promise to pay her well. She does such work beautifully. Anne is to cut out paper bordering for Mr. Sales, who is building blocks upon blocks of houses. He says that he will keep her busy three months. Georgiana is to help mother about the house, and Dinah is going away. So now, father, you can lie on your sofa and rest, and your troublesome daughters will not let you starve."

Miss Eva ended with her cheeks very red, and her head very high in the air. But her pride softened immediately when she saw her father's quivering lips, that vainly attempted to speak.

"It is our turn now, dear papa," she said, kissing him; "and we are quite proud and eager to begin. You have cast your bread upon the waters in former times; now you must lie still and see it float back to you."

"What can I do?" asked a weak little voice from the arm-chair where Josie reclined.

"You can see which will get well the most quickly, you or papa," Mrs. Willian said, bending with tearful eyes to caress the child. In this careful little one she saw embodied all the unconfessed sadness and anxiety of the one despondent period of her life. Poor Josie was the scape-goat on whose frail shoulders had been laid her mother's doubts and fears, and her father's selfish complaining.

Success almost always attends brave and cheerful effort, and the Willian girls succeeded. Besides, they were heroines in their way, and every one was sympathizing and helpful to them. But for their father's depression, they would have been happier than ever before. At last they were of use, and not only of use, but necessary. They were no longer a burden tenderly but complainingly borne, but they bore the family cares and labors on their own young shoulders. What wonderful consultations they held, what plans they laid, what economies they practised! What latent administrative powers were developed at the hour of need, and what superlative managers they proved themselves to be! How elastic a little money could be made when smoothed out by such coaxing taper fingers, and shone upon by such bright and careful eyes! Besides, they could not see but that they lived as well as ever. Their breakfasts and dinners and suppers were as good, and their home was the same.

"Half the pleasure of wealth is in the consciousness of possessing it," said Florence philosophically. "Was it John Jacob Astor who said that all he had from his riches was food and lodging? Well, we have that. Of course it is a pity that papa's arm is still bad, though it gives him time to develop his capacity for novels. What! ascetical works are they? Yes; but I have seen novels too, papa. And here's a new one for you. Take it easy. Just lie there and make believe that you have become so rich that you have retired from business. Oh! what blocks of houses you have. What ships, what lands, what bank-stock! Isn't it weary to think what heaps of money you have to spend and give away. Don't let's think about it!"

"I came past the ruins of the fire to-day, papa," Eva said, seating herself by his sofa, and looking at him with her calm, sweet eyes. "At first I was so foolish as to shrink and turn my head away, but the next moment I looked. And I thought, papa, that may be what has seemed to us a calamity may turn out a great blessing. We had built a good many hopes into that brick and mortar, and instead of the fire destroying, perhaps it has only purified them." Seeing that tears came into his eyes, she added hastily, "Fanny was with me, and, of course, took a grotesque view of the affair. She said that row of tall buildings, with ours gone, looked like somebody who had lost a front tooth."

Mr. Willian smiled faintly, but could answer nothing to their cheerful talk. Even while it comforted him, it made him feel bitterly ashamed of himself. Besides, he was very anxious about Josie.

It came upon them like a thunderbolt: Josie was dying! They could scarcely believe the doctor, or the evidence of their own senses. They hoped against hope. There was no definable disease; but the child was dying merely because, instead of having had a healthy, careless childhood, and time to learn gradually that life is not all joy and sunshine, her infant eyes had looked too early upon the cross of pain, and she had seen the shadow and felt the weight of it before she could understand its consolation.

"That'll make one less, papa," she said faintly, looking up with faded eyes as he bent over her.

"One less what, my dear?"

"One less girl to support," says Josie.

The father's face sank to the pillow. Oh! what a bitter punishment for his selfish complainings, when his own child, in dying out of his arms, thought only that she was ridding him of a burden! He could scarcely find words in which to sob out his love, his regrets, his entreaties that her tender spirit might be spared at least long enough to witness his expiation. But even while he prayed it escaped him. He clasped only a frail waxen form that answered no kiss, uttered no more any childish, plaintive word.