nd never degrade, the influences which banish envy and
mistrust,--then there is a precious life in it which survives all
change. In the atmosphere of admiration, respect, and sympathy suspicion
dies, and base desires pass away for lack of their accustomed
nourishment; we see defects through the glass of our own charity, with
eyes of love and pity, while all that is beautiful is rendered radiant;
a halo surrounds the mortal form, like the glory which mediaeval
artists aspired to paint in the faces of Madonnas; and adoration
succeeds to sympathy, since the excellences we admire are akin to the
perfections we adore. "The occult elements" and "latent affinities," of
which material pursuits never take cognizance, are "influences as potent
in adding a charm to labor or repose as dew or air, in the natural
world, in giving a tint to flowers or sap to vegetation."

In that charmed circle, in which it would be difficult to say whether
Jerome or Paula presided, the aesthetic mission of woman was seen
fully,--perhaps for the first time,--which is never recognized when love
of admiration, or intellectual hardihood, or frivolous employments, or
usurped prerogatives blunt original sensibilities and sap the elements
of inward life. Sentiment proved its superiority over all the claims of
intellect,--as when Flora Macdonald effected the escape of Charles
Stuart after the fatal battle of Culloden, or when Mary poured the
spikenard on Jesus' head, and wiped his feet with the hairs of her head.
The glory of the mind yielded to the superior radiance of an admiring
soul, and equals stood out in each other's eyes as gifted superiors whom
it was no sin to venerate. Radiant in the innocence of conscious virtue,
capable of appreciating any flights of genius, holding their riches of
no account except to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, these friends
lived only to repair the evils which unbridled sin inflicted on
mankind,--glorious examples of the support which our frail nature needs,
the sun and joy of social life, perpetual benedictions, the sweet rest
of a harassed soul.

Strange it is that such a friendship was found in the most corrupt,
conventional, luxurious city of the empire. It is not in cities that
friendships are supposed to thrive. People in great towns are too
preoccupied, too busy, too distracted to shine in those amenities which
require peace and rest and leisure. Bacon quotes the Latin adage, _Magna
civitas, magna solitudo_.