, love, anxiety to please, fearfullness to
offend, meekness, pity, an overflowing good-will manifested in kind
words and deeds, and they may see in the example before us how high
and lasting its empire is. This is the true secret revealed, this the
genuine lesson taught, by the rare career which we have been
reviewing.

After this glorious example of the moral mission of woman, glorious
despite its acknowledged imperfections, it is not necessary to deny
the common assertion, that men have a monopoly of the sentiment of
friendship. Neither is it necessary to expatiate on the great
happiness this sentiment is capable of yielding in the comparatively
narrow and quiet lives of women, or to insist on the larger space
which ought to be assigned to the cultivation of it in those lives.
The moral of the whole subject may be put into one short sentence,
namely this: The chief recipe for giving richness and peace to the
soul is, less of vague passion, less of ambitious activity, anti more
of dedicated sentiment in the private personal relations of the inner
life.

How little matter unto us the great!
What the heart touches, that controls our fate.
From the full galaxy we turn to one,
Dim to all else, but to ourselves the sun;
And still, to each, some poor, obscurest life
Breathes all the bliss, or kindles all the strife.
Wake up the countless dead; ask every ghost,
Whose influence tortured or consoled the most?
How each pale spectre of the host would turn
From the fresh laurel and the glorious urn,
To point where rots, beneath a nameless stone,
Some heart in which had ebbed and flowed its own!

The salon which Madame Swetchine opened in the Rue Saint-Dominique
was one of the powers of Paris for over forty years. Here she drew
around her all that was most select, most distinguished, most
exalted, in Catholic France; and subdued all by the holy dignity of
her character, the authority of her wisdom, the sweetness of her
spirit, and the charm of her manners. In the homage she inspired, the
favors she distributed, and the tributes she received, she was truly
a queen. Her days were divided into parts, observed with strict
uniformity. She reserved the morning to herself, hearing mass and
visiting the poor until eight o'clock; then returning home, and
closing her door until three. From three to six she received company;
secluded herself from six to nine; and welcomed her friends again
from nine until midnight. Her drawing-room, i