nd Guy de Maupassant, with
whom she started a correspondence under a feigned name and without
revealing her identity.

See Mathilde Blind, _A Study of Marie Bashkirtseff_ (T. Fisher Unwin,
1892); _The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff: an Exposure and a Defence_, by
"S." (showing that there is throughout a mistake of four years in the date
of the diary); _Black and White_, 6th Feb. and 11th April 1891, pp. 17,
304; _The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff_, translated, with an Introduction,
by Mathilde Blind (2 vols., London, 1890); _The Letters of Marie
Bashkirtseff_ (1 vol.).

(B. K.)

BASIL,[1] known as BASIL THE GREAT (_c._ 330-379), bishop of Caesarea, a
leading churchman in the 4th century, came of a famous family, which gave a
number of distinguished supporters to the Church. His eldest sister,
Macrina, was celebrated for her saintly life; his second brother was the
famous Gregory of Nyssa; his youngest was Peter, bishop of Sebaste; and his
eldest brother was the famous Christian jurist Naucratius. There was in the
whole family a tendency to ecstatic emotion and enthusiastic piety, and it
is worth noting that Cappadocia had already given to the Church men like
Firmilian and Gregory Thaumaturgus. Basil was born about 330 at Caesarea in
Cappadocia. While he was still a child, the family removed to Pontus; but
he soon returned to Cappadocia to live with his mother's relations, and
seems to have been brought up by his grandmother Macrina. Eager to learn,
he went to Constantinople and spent four or five years there and at Athens,
where he had Gregory (_q.v._) of Nazianzus for a fellow-student. Both men
were deeply influenced by Origen, and compiled the well-known anthology of
his writings, known as _Philocalia_ (edited by J. A. Robinson, Cambridge,
1893). It was at Athens that he seriously began to think of religion, and
resolved to seek out the most famous hermit saints in Syria and Arabia, in
order to learn from them how to attain to that enthusiastic piety in [v.03
p.0467] which he delighted, and how to keep his body under by maceration
and other ascetic devices. After this we find him at the head of a convent
near Arnesi in Pontus, in which his mother Emilia, now a widow, his sister
Macrina and several other ladies, gave themselves to a pious life of prayer
and charitable works. He was not ordained presbyter until 365, and his
ordination was probably the result of the entreaties of his ecclesiastical
superiors, who wished