BIOGIîAPHICAL SKETCH. XXVU 



Q Ycs, yc arc still niy _i;l(irv ami niy joy. 



In my chaste thoiii;]its iiaui^hl baser sli;ill alloy 

 The holy niemorics I still adore 

 "With si)irit jiurc and vir^^iii cNennore. 



But while he was closeted in the seclusion of this " family con- 

 vent," in the prosecution of solid classical studies, there was one 

 door of his retreat that ojiened out upon a view of the great 

 world of livin;^ questions and interests and men; and this was 

 the library-door. The period of Father Ilyacinthe's youth was a 

 golden age in French literature. Jouifroy, on whom had fall(;n 

 the mantle of Royer-Collard, was expounding and developing the 

 l)hilosophy of the Scotch school as against the debasing mate- 

 rialism of the previous generation ; while Victor Cousin, with 

 eloquence hardly paralleled in the chair of philosophy since the 

 time of Plato, was delineating the philosophy of all schools and 

 ages, and fascinating the students of other lands as Avell as France 

 Mith his brilliant eclecticism. In the department of the higher 

 politics, while the visionary schemes of the Socialists were giving 

 daily and painful proof of the seriousness of the questions to be 

 dealt with, Guizot, in the volumes of his Lectures on the History 

 of Civilization, and de Tocqueville, in his unrivalled exposition 

 of Democracy in America, were furnishing, from the past and 

 from the present, the materials for their solution. In the firma- 

 ment of religious literature, two greater lights shone so brightly 

 on the vision of the young recluse at Pau, as to throw all others 

 into obseurit}'. The first of these was Lacordaire, in whose per- 

 s(jn the broken succession of the illustrious preachers of France 

 seemed to be renewed. Having the grace and earnestness to keep 

 clear of " pulpit eloquence," he became, indeed, a great orator. 

 Notwithstanding his monkish garb and discipline, he ever felt 

 himself a man among men, and most of all when dealing Mith 

 religious questions, for he dealt with them in their relations with 

 men's current philosophies, feelings, doubts, aspirations, hopes. 

 His wonder-working eloquence stirred the old vault of Noti-e 

 Dame, and transformed the venerable cathedral from a lounging- 



