nundated with joy." Again he says, "I found in your last letter the
expression of an affection so tender, and a watchfullness so fixed,
that I was melted by it, even to tears." "Your letters are always to
me a balm and a force." In excuse of his own reserve, he strikingly
writes, "Women have this admirable quality, that they can talk as
much as they wish, as they wish, with what expression they wish:
their heart is a fountain that flows naturally. The heart of man,
especially mine, is like those volcanoes whose lava leaps forth only
at intervals after a convulsion." We find Madame Swetchine saying, in
one of her letters to Lacordaire, "I protest against long silences:
they are to me that vacuum of which nature has a horror." The
exceeding care which this discreet woman took always to administer
her advice, her praise, or rebuke, in such a way as not to offend or
injure the most sensitive recipient of it, is a rare lesson for
others. Lacordaire once wrote to her, although he knew very well how
guileless was the motive of her managements, "You say, dear friend,
that you fear to displease me in speaking your thought about me. I
assure you my sole reproach is, that you are too circumspect and
delicate in your style of expression. I appreciate all the more that
flattery which is the guardian escort of truth, because it is wholly
wanting to me. I speak things out too bluntly; and it is true that
almost always men need an extreme sweetness in the language of those
who would benefit them. The heart is like the eyes: it cannot bear
too glaring a light. However, I find you excessive in the art of
shades." Soon afterwards he says, "Excuse my franknesses; with you,
as with God. I can say every thing." Scarcely ever did a man owe more
to a woman than this eloquent and heroic priest to the heavenly-
minded friend who said she loved him as father, brother, and son, all
at once. He deeply felt his debt, and faithfully paid it. He paid it
in loving words and attentions, while she lived, and in a tribute of
immortal eloquence when she was dead. "You appeared to me," he tells
her, "between two distinct parts of my life, as the angel of the Lord
might appear to a soul wavering between life and death, between earth
and heaven." To a common friend he wrote of her, "Her soul was to
mine what the shore is to the plank shattered by the waves; and I
still remember, after the lapse of twenty-five years, all the light
and strength she afforded to m