is the Godhead, as thou thyself well knowest, for the fire and the
glow which make heaven and all the holy ones burn and shine, all flow
from His divine breath, and from His human mouth, through the wisdom
of the Holy Ghost. How couldest thou endure it for an hour?"

And the soul answers: "The fish cannot drown in the water, the bird
cannot sink in the air, gold cannot perish in the fire, where it gains
its clear and shining worth. God has granted to each creature to
cherish its own nature. How can I withstand my nature? I must go from
all things to God, who is my Father by Nature, my Brother through His
Humanity, my Bridegroom through Love, and I am His for ever."

Silenced by this wondrous flight of holy passion, we bid farewell to
Mechthild. She lived for her time, and she lives for us, as one of
"humanity's pioneers on the only road to rest." "Out of the depths,"
she cried to Heaven. We leave her in the music of the spheres.

A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY ART-PATRON AND PHILANTHROPIST, MAHAUT, COUNTESS
OF ARTOIS

It has been well said that "out of things unlikely and remote may be
won romance and beauty." Perhaps the truth of this reflection has
never been more signally exemplified than in the case of Mahaut,
Countess of Artois and Burgundy, the record of whose life, in the
absence of any contemporary biographer, has been ably deciphered from
such commonplace material as the household accounts of her
stewards.[26] This great lady, one of the greatest patrons of art of
her time, lived at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the
fourteenth century. She was a great-niece of St. Louis. No poet has
sung of her. It is merely through the prose of daily expenditure that
she is made known to us. She stands before us, not the ideal creation
of the mediaeval romancer, but a real woman, with her virtues and
failings, her joys and sorrows, real by very reason of this union of
contrasts, a woman trying to grapple with difficulties forced upon her
by her position, and by an age when intrigue and cunning were as
freely resorted to, and as deftly handled, as the sword and the lance.

[26] Richard (Jules Marie), _Une Petite Niece de S. Louis:
Mahaut, Comtesse d'Artois_.

Dehaisnes (M. le Chanoine), _L'Histoire de l'art dans la
Flandre, l'Artois, et le Hainaut avant le XVme siecle_.

Mahaut was the daughter of Robert the Second, Count of Artois, a
valiant and chivalrous man, and of Amicie de Courtenay,