Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/245

Rh keeps me here consists, on the contrary, in a contest which both interests and amuses me. It is a controversy with the bare-footed Carmelite monk, Père Marie Louis, who comes every afternoon, and converses with me for two or three hours—sometimes longer—and so far from my being at all fatigued, I feel rather enlivened by the discussion. His solid erudition (he has given up a professorship in one of the southern towns of France, whilst still young—he appears not much above thirty—that he might enter into the strict Carmelite order), his acute reasoning powers, his unmistakable piety, his unruffled calmness and moderation during controversy, united with the natural esprit of the Frenchman, made discussion with him both instructive and agreeable. He himself seems amused by it, as well as I, and it seems to concentrate more and more decidedly around two main points, namely, the infallibility of the Catholic church, and the right it thence derives to decide upon that which must be believed and taught, and the ability of the human being to perceive of himself and to comprehend the divine, eternal Truth. He asserts the former, and denies the latter. I deny the former, and assert the latter. And the conversation, with each succeeding day, goes still deeper into the ground of the questions. We each express our opinions without reserve, and I feel that he is perfectly candid, and like myself, alone wishful to discover the truth.

Above the writing-table in my large and light room, with its view into the garden of the convent, hangs a portrait of Ignatius Loyola, with its fatally cunning expression, precisely the true Jesuit, as the