moved by his preaching, and
was desirous of knowing him. She quickly won his confidence, and
became, what she ever continued to be, a ministering angel to his
spirit. She was much older than he, much more profoundly versed in
human nature, much more soberly balanced and calm in soul. With a
vigilance, a wisdom, and a tenderness that were unwearied and
inexhaustible, she watched his course, studied the wants of his mind
and heart, and labored, as need was, alternately to confirm his
sinking courage and to soothe his excited imagination. Without being
ostensibly such, she was really his spiritual director. "Her subtile
and tender spirit," as Dora Greenwell has remarked, "seems to move
across his heart, to woo and to caress it to peace and goodness, to
call out its deepest concords, as the hand of the skilled musician
moves across his instrument, knowing well each fret and chord of the
sweet viol he doth love."

It was the greatness, not the weakness, of Lacordaire, that, before
loving God, he had loved glory. Few men have spirit enough truly to
seek fame: it is notice which they wish. The heart of Lacordaire was
a pure fire, encased in a cold intellect. It reminds us of an intense
flame clothed in transparent ice. Sometimes, he said, he hardly knew
whether his voice was moved from within by the spirit, or from
without by renown. In regard to every such scruple Madame Swetchine
was an infallible counsellor. Her advice was as the speech of
incarnate reason and love in their most purified and exalted form.
The heavy perfume that drenched his oratoric atmosphere would have
intoxicated most men with self-adulation; but he offset every such
allurement by constantly withdrawing from trifles, excitements, and
seductions, and spending long hours in the unbroken solitude of
thought and the awful neighborhood of God. If both these extremes
brilliant public triumphs, and severe seclusion and asceticism had
their special dangers, Madame Swetchine was his resistless guardian
against them both. No one who has not read their correspondence,
reaching richly through a whole generation, can easily imagine the
services rendered by this gifted and saintly woman to this holy and
powerful man. Community of faith, of loyalty, of nobleness, joined
them. It was in looking to heaven together that their souls grew
united. Drawn by the same attractions, and held by one sovereign
allegiance, such souls need no vows, nor lean on any foreign support.