Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/261

Rh fact, which left only one of purity and pleasantness. I seem to myself to have been contending with an angel. He has not conquered my spirit, but he has won my heart. My last words to him were:

“I have the same love as you. Can we not be united in it—in the love of Jesus, in his heart? This love is indeed the essential to the professing, believing Christian. It is not for nothing that we two have met here, in the Sacré Cœur! Will you not give me your hand, and not allow differences in outward dogmas to separate us?” Père Marie Louis did not extend to me his hand, but he said:

“I shall pray for you. Remember that. I shall think of you every day with prayer during the mass, whilst I hold him—the Holy One—between my hands. And I believe that he will hear me; I believe that you will one day return into the bosom of the true church. You will not long remain where you now are.” And thus we parted, probably forever on earth. But would that I might have a friend near me in my dying hour, as pious and kind as this Carmelite monk! He is shortly setting out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and I perhaps too may go there in a while!

Casa Tarpeia, Monte Tarpeia, April 27th.—My dwelling is now upon the old Capitoline rock, and—words cannot express how good I find it for me to be here, and how happy I am far away from the noisy, dusty Corso, where one cannot have any peace for incessant festivals, and from the Convent, with its walls immuring both soul and body, its wearying labor of