spectacle of a double Pope--so that no
man, except through political bias, could even guess which was Heaven's
vicegerent, and which the creature of hell--she was already rehearsing, as
in still earlier forms she had rehearsed, the first rent in her foundations
(reserved for the coming century) which no man should ever heal.

These were the loftiest peaks of the cloudland in the skies, that to the
scientific gazer first caught the colors of the _new_ morning in advance.
But the whole vast range alike of sweeping glooms overhead, dwelt upon all
meditative minds, even those that could not distinguish the altitudes nor
decipher the forms. It was, therefore, not her own age alone, as affected
by its immediate calamities, that lay with such weight upon Joanna's mind;
but her own age, as one section in a vast mysterious drama, unweaving
through a century back, and drawing nearer continually to crisis after
crisis. Cataracts and rapids were heard roaring ahead; and signs were seen
far back, by help of old men's memories, which answered secretly to signs
now coming forward on the eye, even as locks answer to keys. It was not
wonderful that in such a haunted solitude, with such a haunted heart,
Joanna should see angelic visions, and hear angelic voices. These voices
whispered to her the duty imposed upon herself, of delivering France. Five
years she listened to these monitory voices with internal struggles. At
length she could resist no longer. Doubt gave way; and she left her home in
order to present herself at the Dauphin's court.

The education of this poor girl was mean according to the present standard:
was ineffably grand, according to a purer philosophic standard; and only
not good for our age, because for us it would be unattainable. She read
nothing, for she could not read; but she had heard others read parts of the
Roman martyrology. She wept in sympathy with the sad _Misereres_ of the
Romish chaunting; she rose to heaven with the glad triumphant _Gloria in
Excelcis_: she drew her comfort and her vital strength from the rites of
her church. But, next after these spiritual advantages, she owed most to
the advantages of her situation. The fountain of Domremy was on the brink
of a boundless forest; and it was haunted to that degree by fairies that
the parish priest (_cure_) was obliged to read mass there once a year, in
order to keep them in any decent bounds. Fairies are important, even in a
statistical view; certain weed