Chapter XVII: The End (7)

Then came the German heretics and the dawn of modern Protestantism; and one of the first of their efforts was to banish all belief in the interposition and ministry of the angelic host. They took advantage of the errors and follies of individuals to write against the whole doctrine of angelic action; and though among Catholics the faith in their guardianship and aid is constant, yet it is not now practically (of course virtually it is the same) what it was in earlier times. But here also we have another instance of how the church brings forth from her divine armory the weapon most needed to defeat the machinations of the arch-enemy; for it has been reserved for our day to see devotion to the angels taking a fuller extension and a more definite form than it ever before held in the history of the church’s inner life. In all her definitions and in all her practices there resides the spirit of prophecy. They have not only reference to the present time; they are far-seeing and far-stretching. And as the definition of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in our own time has led to the extension of her reign in the hearts of men, and is preparing the way every hour for her sweet sovereignty to “take root in an honorable people,” so does the increasing devotion to the angels who form her court harmonize therewith, and prepare for that mission of the angels which, however remote, is as certain as the day of judgment. Oh! what enlarged hearts do we need to take in, however inadequately, all that lies before us in the history of God’s creation. Far distant though it be, still is it ours, just as the past is ours, and the present; for all are united in Jesus. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Nothing shall be lost to us. No treasure of the past but has tended to brighten our own brief day, no promise of the future but what we shall reap; for we have all things in Him who contains all in himself, and who gives his whole self to us.

Let us in thought go back to Paradise, to our great progenitor before his fall. For Adam knew Jesus. Not, indeed, as we know him—the rainless skies of the garden God had planted had formed no background to the beloved sign of our redemption; for as the Redeemer Adam knew him not. We have already given our reasons for believing that besides knowing Him, by the graces of infused science, as the second Person of the Trinity, the Logos, he knew of the intended Incarnation through and by which Jesus was to unite Himself to us. We have also dared to imagine that he foresaw the Real Presence as the carrying out and completion of the Incarnation. But in those days Adam knew of no shedding of blood, of no sacrifice of suffering. The whole of that pathetic and terrible chapter, written in red characters, was a sealed one to our once sinless forefather. But in addition to the first beautiful and tender history of the future Incarnation there was a glorious page redolent with light and full of joy; for Adam looked out beyond Jesus as the Creator, and Jesus as the elder Brother of man in the Incarnation, to Jesus as the Glorificator. Adam knew that the green glades and fruit-laden forests of Paradise were not to constitute his ultimate home. He aspired after the time when the God-Man would reward his fidelity at the close of a longer or shorter probation, and admit him from the infancy of innocence into the resplendent manhood of accomplished and final grace. Then would he be like Jesus; for he would see him as he is!

Thus did Adam dwell in the contemplation of two futures—the one tender and familiar, the other glorious and triumphant—until his own act had made the rift between the two, and the blood-stained cross crowned the heights of Calvary. _O felix culpa!_ We dare to say it, because our mother the church has said it. And as Adam sees that past now, pardoned, ransomed, and glorified[121] with his glorified Lord, he beholds his children, with each stroke of eternity’s golden moments, thronging through the gates of heaven by the Sacrifice of the cross. What must not _his_ love in heaven be! Next to that of Our Lady surely his must be the greatest of all the multitude who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.

But the glory of the saints now in heaven cannot be compared with that which will follow after the second mission of our Lord at the consummation of all things; for that mission is a mission of glory, even as his first was a mission of humiliation. He came to us in the womb of Mary, in the manger at Bethlehem, hidden and unknown, poor and despised; but when the time shall be ripe for that second mission, he will come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.[122] He will come as the glorificator of His own creation, of which Mary is the first in rank, a hierarchy in herself, a sealed fountain, a garden enclosed, a second paradise, but where no sin has entered; and in that second mission his saints, as also his angels, will take part.

Thus we look back upon the first mission accomplished—that of the Incarnation and Redemption; the second mission being accomplished—that of the Holy Ghost gradually developing into the reign of the Holy Ghost; and we look forward to two other missions—that of his angels, and, finally, that of His own second coming. “Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him.”[123] “For the Lord himself shall come down from heaven with commandment, and with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead, who are in Christ, shall rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be taken up together with them in the clouds, to meet Christ, and so shall we be always with the Lord. Wherefore comfort ye one another with these words.[124]

[117] 2 Peter ii. 10-13.

[118] The redemption was an ordinance of God consequent
upon man’s fall. Had Adam never sinned, Jesus had never
been crucified. But it would seem more consonant with the
boundless love of God for his creation to believe that the
Blessed Sacrament formed part of his antecedent will; and
that a sinless race would have received spiritual and
divine food, and would have been thereby sanctified, and
ultimately glorified through participation in the Body and
Blood of the God-Man. It would have been, as it is now, the
Bread of Life; bloodless as it is now, but also unbroken as
it is not now—that is, divested of its propitiatory
character in so far as propitiation involves the idea of
offence.

[119] Isaias xi. 9.

[120] Matt. xiii. 41, 42, 43, 49.

[121] It is generally believed that Adam was amongst
the souls released from Limbo when our Lord descended
thither, and who entered heaven with him.

[122] Mark viii. 38.

[123] Apocalypse i. 7.

[124] 1 Thess. iv. 15-17.

HOBBIES AND THEIR RIDERS.

Under the general head of hobbies we class a thousand peculiarities distinguishing men which, if strictly viewed according to that accurate balance of mind known as sanity, would almost justify us in calling nine out of every ten men insane on some point, however infinitesimal. Every enthusiasm, from the most exalted moral self-forgetfulness to the most ludicrous extravagance, has been in turn called folly and ridiculed as a hobby. There is in the world a tradition, or rather a prescription, against anything which is not decent and well-behaved moderation. Even Christianity is not to be too obtrusive; even moral reform is to wear a velvet glove. No one sin, be it ever so monstrous and preponderant over other offences in your particular time or neighborhood, is to be singled out and fought against more than any other; decorous generalities and pious conventionalities are by no means to be departed from; and if your heart burns within you, you must put a seal upon your lips and carefully prevent the zeal from infecting your weaker brethren who might thuswise be led astray.

A man’s character is better revealed in his hobby than in anything else belonging to him. Oftentimes the possession of one shows him in a more lovable, human light. He must have both heart and imagination to have one. The man who is wholly incapable of fostering one would be a very unpleasant, not to say dangerous, neighbor. It is said that to have no enemies argues also that you have no friends, and that to have no prejudices implies that you are too cold-blooded to feel enthusiasm. Without taking either of these sayings literally, it is yet evident that they are built upon truth. The only person who has no individual likings, no bias, no tastes to which he is passionately attached, is either the heartless, calculating, selfish man who moves through life rather as an automaton than as a being of flesh and blood, and generally ends by ruling his fellow-beings by fear and by wealth, as many statesmen we read of in history, and pettier rulers we hear of now and then in the world of business; or the poor, nerveless being whose mind remains all his life a blank, and who sinks unnoticed into an obscure grave.

Some of our friends, especially elderly people, are often the dearer to us for their little eccentricities, which give a touch of piquancy to their character, and most often reveal some amiable trait. Hobbies do not sit so well on the young; for one always has an involuntary suspicion of their genuineness, and, even if they are genuine, youth ought to repress any attempt at thrusting itself forward and claiming undue attention. Besides, young people have yet to earn the right to occupy the attention of others otherwise than in the usual way of guidance and education, and a peculiar turn of mind may be cherished without manifesting itself by any outward sign. Sterne has a delightful consciousness of the value of a hobby as an indication of character when he shows us Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim in the back-garden at Planchy, following step by step the course of the army of the Allies by the help of a spade and some turf, placed so as to represent bastions and fortifications. This process the old soldiers went through over and over again, always with renewed zest. It was a hobby something like this—but too much mixed with vain-glory and the bad taste which nature has at last succeeded in hiding—that prompted the planting of Blenheim Park, near Oxford, in such a way as to represent the positions of the regiments at the battle of Blenheim. The trees have had time to grow out of this likeness, yet they stand in ranks and platoons which one can imagine to have looked hideous when the oaks and beeches were young saplings.

Hobbies and collections are somehow related; at least the mind is used to coupling them together. One can hardly be a collector of anything without becoming absorbed in the collection and in the knowledge required for adding to and classifying it. Even if the collection have been begun with some object of instruction or benevolence, or as a distraction from grief, it soon grows to be a great interest of life, and toil in its behalf becomes pleasure and relaxation. But oftener still the hobby precedes the collection, and many people who are taken for sober, humdrum individuals, the mere _padding_ of society, would in reality be fast and furious riders of hobby-horses if their means allowed them to give outward expression to their tastes.

A very familiar type is the collector of pictures; and the fewer he has, the more set he is on his hobby. He gets some fine specimen of an old master “for an old song” (for such miraculous bargains are half the charm, just as for many women the delight of contriving and piecing and otherwise skilfully eking out old material to look “as good as new” is much greater than to possess a new dress made of a roll of cloth just from the store); and if he is cheated, he probably never finds it out. He often is, and woe to him who, thinking to do him a good turn, undeceives him. But whether the picture be genuine or not, it is the source of unending delight to its owner. He will discuss its points by the hour—the lights and shades, the material of the colors, the style of the painter; he will “get up” the artist’s life and history, buy books on the subject, pin you to your chair while he recounts how he found it, who “restored” it, how it once got injured by a fire; and, lastly, he will put you into corners, or behind cupboards and curtains, that you may be sure to see it in the best light.

The hobby of the rich collector who can dignify his gathering of pictures with the name of gallery has a different way of showing itself; it crops out in a sort of innocent ostentation, or again an assumed indifference. There are men whose hobby it is to conceal their hobby, to ape humility and pretend to a nonchalance very far from their real feelings. Among collectors, none are more voracious, more steady-going, and generally more happy than bibliopolists. They are of all ranks and degrees, but perhaps clergymen and college professors predominate. In England the country squire is often an eager book-hunter. Books of genealogy and heraldry are favorite tidbits with him, while clergymen often have a special mania for county histories. The collectors of minor curiosities, miscellaneous objects from all parts of the world, are generally old maiden ladies, who have, as a class, the most amiable and touching weaknesses, such as that of the benevolent little fairy, Miss Farebrother, in George Eliot’s _Middlemarch_, who drops her lumps of sugar in a little basket on her lap, that she may have them to bestow upon her friends, the street-boys. Then there are collectors innumerable of stuffed beasts, of shells, of minerals, of old china, laces, and jewelry, of heathen idols, of all kinds of coins, of autographs, of postage-stamps, etc. The autograph-hunter is a very restless and persistent individual. The American who sent a cheese to Queen Victoria must have been of this species, and the queen did not fail to reward him with a letter written with her own hand.

A hobby that used to be rather prevalent, but has somewhat gone out of fashion now, was that of collecting walking-sticks, canes, snuff-boxes, and pipes. Apropos to this, a story is told of an old man whose special mania was snuff as well as snuff-boxes. He was a man of some standing in English society towards the latter end of the last century. His sitting-room was fitted up with shelves like a shop, and on these stood canisters of various kinds of snuff, their names on labels, and the locks and keys of fantastic and rather ingenious shape. This sanctum was his delight, and the shelves, which ran all round the room, were being constantly replenished with new specimens of the weed. He used snuff to an enormous extent, and willingly gave it away to his friends; but storing it was his chief pleasure, and he looked forward to the last variety in snuff—which his tobacconist had a standing order to send him as soon as it touched English soil—with the same glee with which a naturalist expects the newest kind of living ape just imported from Africa.

We have never heard but of one person who made a _spécialité_ of collecting pieces of wedding-cake; she was an old nurse who had been in the service of a lady employed about the court of William IV. She had pieces of the wedding-cakes of all the princesses of the royal family, including Queen Victoria and some of her daughters, besides remains of the cakes of her mistress’s family, a large and ramified one, and of those of any person of title or distinction of whom, through her connections, she could possibly beg these mementoes.

The horticultural mania, emphatically a hobby for the rich, is one of the most charming and desirable of hobbies; a healthy one, too, as it keeps one out in the open air to a great extent, and supplies the place of such feverish excitements as arise from an interest in politics or in the state of the funds. It even takes away the possibility of interest in petty gossip; for how is it possible to think of the success of Mrs. So-and-so’s coming tea-party when your mind is anxiously engaged on the chance of a late frost ruining your camellias, or the probable time when your _Victoria Regia_ will bloom?

A hobby rather prevalent among women is a constant attendance at auctions. They cannot resist buying little things they do not want, because they are cheap; and, besides, there is a fascination about the atmosphere of a salesroom which is not reducible to mere words. It is milk-and-water gambling, as are many other innocent-looking devices used by very worthy people to increase their stock of pretty possessions without paying full value for them. Very opposite to this is the hobby of petty economies, such as untying a knot instead of cutting it, secreting tiny bits of pencil, keeping a strict watch over matches and candle-ends, etc. It may be a mere habit of mind, but it often degenerates into a foolish hobby, such as is that of keeping every scrap of cloth, silk, or flannel, and carrying about this rubbish from place to place, for the chance of its “coming in usefully” at some future time. Of course we know how many a gorgeous quilt has been evolved from these savings of years, and how mats have been made of the coarser refuse, and the rest sometimes thriftily sold to the paper-mill; but these are often exceptions, for time and deftness are wanting to many who have the instinct of saving, and such small economies are apt to have in themselves a tendency to narrow the mind. Besides, what is thrift in one case is parsimony in another; and while one family may be praise-worthy in its attempts to “take care of the pence,” such care would be despicable in another of easier means.

Shall we call it a hobby to “have one’s finger in every pie”? Some people are not happy unless they are giving their neighbors gratuitous advice, and telling them at every turn how they would act “if I were you.” But of this kind of interference none is so dangerous and none so fascinating as the well-meant contrivances of the born match-maker. This individual is invariably a woman, and generally a most amiable and kind creature. Sometimes a young matron is bitten with the mania, and clumsily enough she sets to work extolling the delights of the honeymoon to her girl friends; sometimes a middle-aged woman who has had experience, and is more wary in her method, quietly sets her snares and unluckily succeeds once in five times—unluckily, we say; for her one success blinds her to her four failures, and she continues in the slippery path which, in the end, is almost sure to bring ruin on some special pet of hers. Even unmarried women are match-makers; they will plan, and speculate, and contrive; and it is lucky indeed if they are nothing more than indiscreet, for they are handling edged tools. You never find a man to be a match-maker; and yet women will have it that men are so much more benefited by matrimony than themselves!

Among special hobbies, one is said to have been the property of a rich old Englishman of the olden time, who altered a house on purpose to suit it. He could not bear the sight of a female servant, and so angry was he at meeting one on the stairs that he sent for a mason to contrive hiding-places here and there in which an unlucky maid, if she chanced to meet the master, might take refuge out of his sight. The whole house was full of such cunningly-placed holes, and in this odd, honey-combed state it passed to his next heir.

One or two members of a family often take upon themselves the guardianship of the family honor, and bore every relation they have, to the sixth and seventh degree, about the genealogy, intermarriages, quarterings, etc., of their collective fetich. They are learned in family “trees,” know every date, from the first mention of the name in the annals of the country to the number of goods and chattels they brought over with them in the _Mayflower_; how many shares they bought in the cow of the first settlement; when this and that portrait was painted, and so on. ‘Tis not the knowledge that is irksome, but the inappropriateness and universality of its mention in the conversation of these good people, and the unconsciousness of the narrators that they have ever spoken to you of the subject before.

Have you ever known any one whose “best parlor” was their hobby—a scrupulous, Dutch-like reverence for immaculate cleanliness and order? Scarcely any hobby is more terrible to the stranger or casual visitor. Akin to it is the excess of punctuality by which some people make their guests wretched. Both grow to be a punishment to the person himself; for he, or oftener she, suffers torture every time a guest comes in with snow on his boots, or any one puts a cup of coffee on a marble table, or leans his head on the back of an easychair. Half the day is employed in dusting and cleaning the sacred precincts, and the other half in resting from the exertions thereby incurred.

The hobbies of writers furnish some amusing stories. The historian of the queens of England—Miss Agnes Strickland, as worthy and affectionate a woman as ever breathed—had, it is well known, constituted herself the champion of Mary, Queen of Scots. So thoroughly had she succeeded in realizing the doings of the times of Elizabeth that she spoke on this subject as you would of an injustice that had been done your dearest friend, and that quite recently. It was as fresh in her mind as some wrong committed last week on a defenceless woman, and she grew excited and eloquent over it, forgetting who, with whom, and where she was. This was very unpractical and somewhat ludicrous, some may be inclined to say, but it was a peculiarity that certainly made her happy, and it was no annoyance to her listeners. How much more dignified, too, than the too common fuming over the impertinence of the servant that was discharged last week, or the chafing over the troublesome man who claims a “right of way” and threatens to bring a suit about it next month!

Political hobbies also abound. These are generally the property of old people, the traditions of whose youth have remained proof against the enlightenment of the present. There are people who boast they have never been on a railroad, and never will be—they are common in Europe, at least—and people who would scorn to be photographed; people who laugh at you if you tell them that the sun really does _not_ go round the earth, and rise and set morning and evening, and who obstinately believe that dogs only go mad during the dog-days. But there are those who, with a better education and more opportunities, are just as unprogressive. Such will buttonhole you and argue seriously that the Pope is going to involve Europe in another Thirty-Years’ War. They seriously believe it and live in dread of it. They would not hurt a fly; but they firmly believe that, if they got hold of a Jesuit, they would remorselessly run him through, and think they had rid the country of a tiger or an alligator. Dr. Newman’s _Apologia_ gives an amusing account of the awe and terror inspired by the dark house in a by-street where “it was said a Roman Catholic lady lived all alone with her servant.” In England the Jesuits and “Bony” long divided the honors of bugbear-in-chief to the British public. To this day some amiable old Welsh lady will assure you in a whisper that the whole country has underground (and it is to be supposed submarine) connection with Rome, and that _she_ never goes to bed without looking underneath to see that there is no Jesuit in disguise concealed there! Then there is the man who, under the Napoleonic _régime_, whether of the first or third emperor, would tell you in an awestruck manner of the impossibility of putting off the evil hour any longer, and the inevitable certainty of a French invasion and annexation of England to France; the landing always to take place exactly within a few miles of his own house, if he lived by the seaside. If his house were further inland, he would tell you he knew _his_ village would be the first and most convenient place to halt at and plunder.

At one time there was in London a great mania for Turkish baths. A person of some note as a writer and, we believe, an M.P. took up the subject vigorously, and had a Turkish bath built adjoining his own house. Here he passed the greater part of his time, combining his reading and writing with the delights of his new hobby. But he had an old hobby as well, which was the evil agency of Russia in the politics of Europe. Like the philosopher who asked but one question on the occasion of any disturbance—“Who is _she_?”—this man acknowledged but one possible element of discord at the bottom of any diplomatic _imbroglio_—_i.e._, Russia. A friend of his called on him one day about midday, and, being ushered into the hall, heard his voice shouting from behind the door leading to the bath: “Come in, S——, and we’ll sit here a while. Stay to luncheon, won’t you? It is only two hours to wait.” The friend was so amused that he took off his clothes and submitted to the novel invitation of spending the time of a morning call in a Turkish bath. Of course the conversation soon fell on Russia and its demoniacal secret agency in all the troubles of the world. The man was exceptionally clever, and these oddities of mind and behavior only made his society more charming to his friends and more _piquant_ to his acquaintances.

Among fixed ideas which may almost be called hobbies are certain preferences which blind us to the good done without the special adjuncts which we individually consider nearly indispensable. For instance, it is recorded—with how much truth we cannot tell—of the great architect, Pugin the elder, that one day, being in Rome, he went to Benediction in a church where it is customary to say prayers in the vernacular for the conversion of _England_. This was done after the service proper was over, and Pugin, not recognizing the extra prayers at the end of the familiar Benediction service, asked a neighbor what they meant. On being told he turned to a friend who was with him and said: “The idea of praying for the conversion of England in such a cope as that!” A clever and well-known writer for one of our leading Catholic magazines, who is confessedly somewhat eccentric, is said to have been discovered one morning by a friend in a state of violent agitation, walking up and down the breakfast-room with quick and nervous strides, and looking like a man in passionate, personal grief. On being gently asked the cause of this emotion, he answered vehemently: “I was thinking of how many souls are being eternally damned at this very moment. Is it not frightful to think of? Every minute souls are going there, to be tormented for all eternity!” Here was a fixed idea with which it was difficult to deal. It was true, and a thought which would do many good if they would realize it as he did—the innocent, large-hearted man, who did not need the idea for his own discipline—but it was decidedly an inconvenient disturbance of the domestic balance of things, and not a pleasant appetizer for the good breakfast that was before him.

Bores, pure and simple, are of a remote kindred with the riders of hobbies, and they are of as many kinds. There is the croaker, who cherishes some pet grievance and favors every one with it; the singer who is offended if he is not asked to perform, and is not applauded at the end like the leading tenor of the hour; the critic who thinks he would lose his reputation if he condescended to praise anything, or to admire and be pleased like a common mortal; the man (or woman) who sets himself up on a pedestal and assumes, subtly but unmistakably, that he is entirely above his neighbors or whatever people he may be with; the man who has quarrelled with somebody, and insists on reading you the whole correspondence; the man who is sure always to come to see you at inopportune times, and, worse still, never knows when to go away; the amateur—a terrible species—who imagines he can paint, or play the pianoforte or the flute, etc., or write poetry, or draw plans, or, in short, do anything which it requires a life-time to _learn_—for the greatest always think themselves still at the bottom of the ladder of knowledge; the man who tells stories to satiety, and expects them to be laughed at; the man who interrupts a _tête-à-tête_, or who is so full of some interest of his own that he insists on you sharing it when you show no inclination to listen to him; the man who cannot take a hint, though he is as good-natured as he is obtuse—these there are, and many more, who are the human mosquitoes of the world.

Akin to hobbies, as we said at the beginning, are tastes, harmless for the most part, often æsthetic, and almost always beneficial. Indeed, many a taste, well regulated, has become an antidote or a preservative against vice; and, to put it from a very low point of view, a taste is generally far more economical than dangerous company and degrading sin. The _Saturday Review_, in an article on this subject last year, said with truth: “Tastes are not, as a rule, exorbitantly expensive; they are certainly very much cheaper than vices. A very moderate percentage of an income, judiciously laid out, will soon secure an excellent library. It is surprising how small a sum will suffice for the purchase of every standard work worth having. The most famous private libraries cost their owners nothing in comparison with the price of a few race-horses.” Although we have somewhat disparaged amateurs as a kind of “bores,” this was not meant to dissuade young men and women from cultivating some taste which will serve as a resource for evening hours or any otherwise unoccupied time, and be a relaxation from necessary work, as well as a gradual safeguard against coarse pleasures. As long as such pursuits are undertaken with due modesty as to one’s proficiency in them, and not as a mere social “accomplishment” to be obtruded on others on all possible occasions, they are infinitely to be commended. They grow on one, too, and soon become the chief point of attraction in our intellectual life, especially if our business happens to be, as that of most persons is, of a prosaic nature. As we grow old they may develop into hobbies; never mind, they will still make us happy and never cause us shame. On the other hand, what will tendencies to convivial “pleasures,” or to frivolous and objectless conversation, or to gadding about to theatres, balls, and races, come to in the end? Dead-Sea fruit.

Among the minor arts which tend to occupy one’s leisure pleasantly and usefully are wood-carving, turning, ivory-carving, and leather-work. Even commoner things may be taken up. We have known young men who, during a long convalescence, took to mending cane chairs as a mode of making their fingers useful when their brains were still too weak to be taxed. Basket-making, decalcomania of the higher order—_i.e._, a sort of easy glass-painting akin to decalcomania, are all useful and possible methods of employing one’s self and cultivating a pleasant domestic taste. Mechanics, too, and household carpentry we have often seen fostered in young people and become their pride, while illumination—a really high style of art, though a rare gift—is not so uncommon as some may think. Of such tastes as gardening, reading, embroidering, and music we say nothing; they are too well known. Such a taste generally ends in a collection, and then the pleasure is enhanced a hundred-fold; and, as the _Saturday Review_ says, it really needs but a comparatively small outlay to secure a very fair collection of any kind. This in its turn helps to study by giving us the means of reference or comparison. And if in any family the members were seriously to look up the money really wasted—that is, the money spent in transitory, unhealthy pleasures, the value of which dies in the mere excitement of the moment, leaving no pleasant memory or useful impression behind, and often, on the contrary, leading to a remorseful, or at least an uncomfortable, remembrance—they would find that every year there goes forth imperceptibly from the collective treasury of the home enough to beautify their lives and increase their happiness if only they would lead it into the right channels. The money would not be missed, while their pleasures would be tenfold and lasting. Even the very poorest of the poor spends uselessly—and alas! often wickedly—what would make him a happy, self-respecting man; and, strictly speaking, no one can say that he cannot afford good and healthy pleasures, for, as a matter of fact, he _does_ afford bad and unhealthy, or, to say the least, unsatisfactory, ones. Let every one ask this question of his own experience: Which costs most in the long run, a healthy pleasure, say even an innocent hobby, or a vicious and lowering pursuit?

A PLEA FOR OUR GRANDMOTHERS.

That there are many flaws and deficiencies in the social structure of our bustling republic, from its foundation in the single family to the collection of families forming general society, cannot be denied. Among these none are more palpable than the failure to provide comfortable space, suitable appointments, and a well-defined position therein for our grandmothers.

Their claims to consideration as a class, existing—albeit by mere sufferance—in every city, village, and rural corner throughout the length and breadth of our wide domain, seem to have been crowded out and lost in the confusion and dust upwhirled by our great social vehicle in its onward sweep toward an imaginary and unattainable El Dorado. No one seems to comprehend the binding obligation of those claims. The force of a playful remark made by the great and good Father Burke to his mother—when she complained that she failed to hear his lecture because the hall was so crowded that she could not get in—“Ah! mother dear, wasn’t that too bad? Just think of it! _Why, if it hadn’t been for you, dear, I wouldn’t have been there myself!_” has not come home to Americans in connection with this subject. They do not pause to reflect that, but for our grandmothers, this great multitude now rushing so furiously toward every promising avenue to wealth and influence, elbowing and jostling each other in their mad career, would not have been in existence.

Nor are the annoyances to which this class is exposed in consequence of such neglect—itself the result rather of heedlessness than design—any the less burdensome that they are mainly of so negative a character as scarcely to form the basis of a positive complaint; nay, so far from this that when they find voice in such utterance as the disquieting consciousness of their reality, in spite of their unreal guise, may force from the victims, the moan is more apt to excite ill-concealed merriment in a listener, by its quaint whimsicality, than pity or sympathy.

Yet these evils are real and constantly increasing. The most serious of them are the outgrowth of modern civilization and the progressive doctrines of the last quarter of a century. In this enlightened age it is not to be supposed that people _must_ grow old, and it is highly improper for our grandmother to insist upon submitting to conditions proper enough to humanity before it flourished in the light of “advanced ideas,” but wholly out of place now. As recently as twenty-five years ago she was, perforce of that very submission, an important element in the domestic and social circle. She occupied a position quite independent of such prescribed rules and customs as govern other classes in society. She was not expected to conform to every caprice of fashion. She was permitted to dress in a manner consistent with her age, and no one respected her the less, or thought of indulging in sharp criticism of her style, if it was of an obsolete date. She could employ her time in suitable occupations, and render the useful and acceptable services to the family and neighborhood for which the skill acquired by her long acquaintance with the world and its exigencies eminently fitted her; or repose in the calm twilight of life’s evening hour, in such habiliments as best comported with her own comfort and the requirements of her gradual descent into the valley of years.

Not so now. The milliners provide her with no bonnets or caps befitting her age; nay, they utterly refuse to attempt, at any price, the construction for her of suitable head-gear. Such manufacture has taken its place among the “lost arts,” and they do not wish to revive it. The mantua-makers insist upon “the _demi-train_, at least,” and she _must_ submit in the matter of the overskirt, with its puffed abominations and puckered deformities. She is allowed no ease or comfort in her costume, but is required to assume all the grotesque discomforts invented by modern _modistes_ for the summer-day butterflies of fashion, at the risk, if she refuses, of being followed, every time she ventures to appear among them, with such remarks as, “A nice old lady? Oh! yes; but it _is_ a pity that she will persist in making such a guy of herself, with those old-fashioned sleeves and skirts, and her plain white muslin caps.”

It is curious to remark how different is the relative position of the grandfather, at home and abroad, from that of his female contemporary. How independent he is of conventional forms in his dress and intercourse with society; how free to go and come when he pleases, without giving occasion for wry faces or unkind criticisms if the fashion of his coat has not been changed for half a century! Is he not rather regarded with increased respect on that account?

But the prevailing modern rule in relation to the dress of women of all ages is that it shall change in style with every change of the moon, and, above all, that as much expense in material and labor shall be lavished upon its elaboration as the inventive genius of skilled artists can possibly devise. And American women—even grandmothers—are so foolish as to bow in slavish submission to this intolerable tyranny, which is working such widespread ruin and desolation in our country! “Let _Fashion_ rule, though the heavens fall,” say they.

So completely have all correct ideas pertaining to true taste in the discriminating consistency of different costumes adapted to the different periods of life been swallowed up in the all-prevailing fashion-worship, that there is now scarcely any distinction, save in length of skirt, between the dress of the little girl of five and that of her grandmother, mother, or the young lady, her elder sister. Pitiable indeed is this loss of all sense of the fitness of things for the two extremes of human life, which should be exempted from subjection to discomforts for fashion’s sake!

What spectacle can be more mournfully absurd than that of a pale, wrinkled old face set in a ghastly silvered frame of the hairdresser’s curls and crimps, and surmounted, to complete its repulsiveness, with a bedizened hat, the form of which can only be made barely tolerable by a beautiful young face beneath it; or that of a form bending under the weight of years, carrying with trembling steps a load of jewelry and such remarkable excrescences, frills, flounces, and fur-belows, as the dressmaker insists upon cumbering it withal? These pitiful sights are constantly displayed in our palace-cars, at our hotels, boarding-houses and watering-places, even by the aged invalids who frequent the latter for their healing influences.

This is all wrong! There is no good sense or propriety in it. The free-born American woman should claim immunity from such bondage, and the right to accept with cheerful grace that rest from the petty strifes and ambitions which agitate life’s noon-day to which she is entitled at its twilight-hour. If she has—either by inheritance or the successful, if not altogether honest, speculations of her male kin—come into possession of more money than she well knows how to use, she should set that inherent Yankee wit, which is her inalienable national dower, to devise some less ridiculous, at least, if not more useful, mode of disbursing it.

When we consider the multitudes of starving poor that throng our cities; the necessities of widows and orphans; the notable rarity of well-selected and amply-filled libraries among our wealthy classes, and their very meagre patronage of the fine arts, we discover that there is no lack of proper and elevating objects for expenditure. Above all, when we reflect that the possessors of wealth must inevitably be called to a rigid account of their stewardship at last, the thought is appalling, and the subject, in all its phases, for this world and the next, is a sad one to contemplate.

In pleasing contrast with the picture presented by the domestic and social attitude of the average American grandmothers of to-day is that which we have frequently been so favored as to witness among the most wealthy, as well as the poorest, classes of our faithful foreign populations; where the grandmother, in her comfortable though antiquated cap and costume, was the most honored and tenderly beloved member of the household, its arbiter in all disputes, its wise and chosen counsellor in all doubts, its nurse in sickness, comforter in affliction, and its guide to that blessed land on the confines of which her aged feet were tottering.

She indulged no worldly ambitions; gave no thought to dress, save to restrict it to the severest simplicity and neatness. She filled no brilliant _rôle_ at home or in society, nor cared for anything but to do good to all as she had opportunity. She was not learned in the philosophy of books and literature; her deficiency in such knowledge may have been so great as to excite a sneer in her American neighbor, who had enjoyed the great “advantages” of the public-school system; but even the youngest of her numerous grandchildren—who gathered around her chair in the most cosey corner, of an evening, to listen reverently to her explanations of “Christian Doctrine,” to join with her in recitations of the beads, and to give rapt attention to her tales and legends of the “dear old land”—knew that her venerable head was stored with treasures of learning more precious than all earthly lore in the sight of Him before whom the “wisdom of this world is foolishness,” and who has chosen the “weak things thereof to confound the wise.”

How will they miss her when she is gone! For how many long years will “grandmother’s” virtues and her pious instructions form the theme, and her advice and prayers the sustaining resource, of her children’s children, while they carefully transmit to theirs her unwritten memoirs as an invaluable legacy of precept and example!

FROM LAMARTINE.

Almond-bough with blossom rife,
Pride of beauty picturing;
Blooms like thee the flow’r of life,
Blooms and withers in the spring.

Missed or gathered, prized or slighted,
Still from wreath and fingered spray
One by one its petals, blighted,
Pass, like pleasures day by day.

Taste we then its brief delight,
Ere the stealthy winds go by;
Drain the laughing chalice quite,
Drink the perfume that must die.

Oft is beauty like the flow’r
Gathered for a guest at morn,
And before the festal hour
From his chilly temples torn.

One day ends: another breaks;
Spring and all her sweets decay;
Every leaf the light wind takes
Whispers, “Gather while ye may.”

Since the rose is doomed to perish—
Perish, pass, nor bloom again,
Lovers’ lips her blossom cherish,
Love her dying sweets detain.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

CATHOLIC CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN STATE. A Series of Essays on
the Relation of the Church to the Civil Power. Translated,
with the permission of the author, from the German of Dr.
Joseph Hergenröther, Professor of Canon Law and Church
History at the University of Würzburg. In two volumes.
London: Burns & Oates. 1876.

It is to be regretted that the price of this excellent work has been placed so high, although its paper covers and generally cheap style of execution give it the appearance of a German rather than an English publication. The price in England is one pound sterling, which makes it necessary to sell it for eight dollars in this country, and with a decent binding it must cost ten dollars. This great cost must impede the general circulation which such a work merits and ought to obtain. In respect to the value of its contents, it is well worth the price it costs, and ought to have a place in every public library and on the bookshelves of every Catholic of intelligence and culture—indeed, of every educated man who wishes to understand the questions mooted and discussed so generally at the present time in respect to the nature and mutual relations of the church and the state. It is a masterly scientific treatise, constructed with that solid learning and thoroughness of exposition which characterize the works of genuine German scholarship. The author is one of the most eminent of the Catholic professors of Germany, at home in canon law, history and jurisprudence, well versed in theology, and enjoying an established reputation for sound orthodoxy in doctrine. The division of his topics into separate essays, each with its distinct sections, makes it easier to follow his course of exposition and reasoning than it would be if they were arranged under a more strictly methodical form, and his abundant references, frequently accompanied by citations, give evidence of the sources he has referred to, as well as the means of referring, in case of need, to these authorities. He is succinct and brief in his treatment, yet clear and precise. The subjects about which Mr. Gladstone’s _Expostulation_ have awakened controversy are treated comprehensively and in their principles, furnishing a general defence of the Catholic Church, and a refutation of the accusations of her enemies in respect to her polity, administration, and relations to the natural and temporal order. In short, it is a text-book or manual for instruction, fitted to be used as a guide to those who have to teach, as an arsenal from which those who have to write or lecture may draw their weapons of argument, and as a standard of reference for the correct decision of the matters within its scope. The private student will find it all that is requisite for his complete and accurate information on the important topics of which it treats. We understand that the translation has been made by Miss Allies, assisted by two other ladies, and, we doubt not, under her father’s supervision. We have not seen the original, but the translation seems to have been thoroughly well executed. The work will undoubtedly take its place at once as a classic.

HISTOIRE DE MADAME BARAT, FONDATRICE DE LA SOCIETE DU
SACRE-CŒUR DE JESUS. Par M. l’Abbé Baunard. Paris:
Poussielque Frères, Rue Cassette 27. 1876.

We have had the honor of receiving one of the first copies of this long-expected biography of one of the great women of this century, and take the earliest opportunity of making the due acknowledgment. This is not a book to be dismissed by a brief notice, and we hope to make it the subject of an article in one of our future numbers, after having given it the careful perusal which it merits. It is published in two goodly volumes of fair, large type, averaging each six hundred octavo pages. The Abbé Baunard is already celebrated as the author of the _Life of St. John_. Those who read French easily and with pleasure will prefer, we suppose, to obtain the original work, which no doubt will soon be for sale in our foreign bookstores. Nevertheless, as a translation from the graceful pen of Lady Georgiana Fullerton is advertised as nearly or quite ready, we are confident that the charm of the Abbé Baunard’s style will be preserved, in so far as that is possible, in the _Life of Madame Barat_ which is soon to appear in English. It is already evident that this biography, which is at the same time a history of the institute founded by the venerable lady who is its subject, will have a worldwide circulation. In our own country there are great numbers who are eagerly desiring the opportunity of perusing it. We have as yet only commenced the pleasing task, but we have gone far enough to warrant the assurance that those who are looking forward to the reading of it as a source of great benefit and pure enjoyment will not be disappointed.

ARE YOU MY WIFE? By the author of _A Salon in Paris before
the War_, _Number Thirteen_, _Pius VI._, etc. New York: The
Catholic Publication Society. 1876. 1 vol. 8vo. pp. 292.

The startling question that gives a title to this story has been before the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD for many months. Those who have followed out the puzzle presented to them through its monthly instalments will have found for themselves the solution of the problem, and formed their own opinion regarding its merits or demerits. The story is now published in book-form, and adds one more to the number of admirable original works of fiction given to the Catholic public through the pages of THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

_Are You My Wife?_ is remarkable, and welcome, at least in this: that it shakes itself loose from the mouldy traditions which seem to form the stock-in-trade of most of our Catholic writers of English fiction. It is a bold effort and well sustained. The story is full of interest from beginning to end; the characters clean-cut and distinct; the incidents varying and rapid; and the secret carefully concealed to the very last. It is not, perhaps, of the first, but certainly of a very good, order of art, and possesses this exceptional merit over its fellows, that while the facts on which it hangs are as interesting as those in the best works of non-Catholic novelists, the purity and moral elevation of the whole are far beyond what even the best of such writers can furnish.

It is needless here to sketch the plot, which, though woven out of natural materials, is ingeniously intricate. Many of the characters are such as may be met with any day in England. The nominal heroine is a wild, weird creation; the real heroine is Franceline, as charming a girl as ever met us in the pages of a novel or stole our hearts away in real life. No wonder all the young men go wild over her; no wonder that the old men do the same. She grows up and develops under our sight the dreamy, happy child, until she, and we with her, suddenly start to find she is a woman.