Catherine

“ Catherine and Jean go roaming through the flowery meadows. As they go, Catherine gathers a nosegay. She picks blue centauries, scarlet poppies, cuckoo-flowers, and buttercups, which she also knows as little chicks. She picks those pretty purple blossoms that grow in hedgerows and are called Venus’ looking-glasses. She picks the dark ears of the milkwort, and crane’s-bill and lily of the valley, whose tiny white bells shed a delicious perfume at the least puff of wind. Catherine loves flowers because they are beautiful; and she loves them too because they make such pretty ornaments. ”

“ In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary:
Dearest daughter in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, thy poor unworthy mother, want thee to attain that perfection for which God has chosen thee. It seems to me that one wishing so to attain should walk with and not without moderation. And yet every work of ours ought to be done both without and with moderation: it befits us to love God without moderation, putting to that love neither limit nor measure nor rule, but loving Him immeasurably. And if thou wish to reach the perfection of love, it befits thee to set thy life in order. ”

“ Catherine! thou hast seen her in her beauty, the cherished, the beloved of all who knew her—seen her when no loveliness could mate with hers. Thou seest now the wreck that misery has made, though she has numbered but few more years than thou hast! Detest, abhor, avoid her faith—for that we command thee; but her sex, her sorrow, have a claim to sympathy and aid, which not even her race can remove. Jewess though she be, if thou can look on her thus, and still speak of pollution and danger, thou art not what we deemed thee! ”

“ I said to Saint Catherine: ‘Since God will help those at Compiègne, I wish to be there.’ Saint Catherine said to me, ‘Be resigned, and do not falter: you will not be delivered before seeing the King of England.’ I answered her: ‘Truly I do not wish to see him; I would rather die than fall into the hands of the English.’”
“Is it true that you said to Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret: ‘Will God leave these good people of Compiègne to die so horribly’?” ”

“ CHAPTER XVIII Catherine’s lips were tightly set as she turned from the shadows of St. Antonia’s elms, where the sunlight made a moving fret of gold upon the grass. The sky was a broad canopy of blue above the town, the wooded hills about it far and faint with haze. To Catherine the summer stillness of the place, the dim blazoned windows of the church, the wreathing smoke, the circling pigeons, were parts of a quaint and homely tenderness that made her realize the more the repellent coldness of the house she had just left. ”

“ Catherine was, therefore at once satisfied and fasting; deprived of all exteriorly, but abundantly nourished in the interior; thirsty in her body, but inundated in her soul, by torrents of living waters, and always when necessary strong and joyous. But the old and tortuous serpent could not endure such a great favor from Heaven, without seeking to empoison it with the venom of envy. He excited against the servant of God, on the occasion of her extraordinary fast, all those who knew her, whether laymen or Religious. ”

“ One day as Catherine was sitting in her chamber, the door suddenly opened of itself, and there entered a tall, beautiful lady, who held in her hand a wheel. "Catherine," said she, "when would you rather enjoy your life, in youth or in old age?" Catherine gazed at her in amazement, and could make no answer. The beautiful lady again asked: "Catherine, when would you rather enjoy your life, in youth or in old age?" Then thought Catherine: "If I say in youth, I must suffer for it in old age; wherefore I will rather enjoy my life in old age, and in youth God's will be done." ”

“ For the first time in her two-and-twenty years, Catherine had sensed the power, the virility of a real man—not of the make-believe, manicured and tailored parasites of her own class—and something elemental in her, some urge of primitive womanhood, grappled her to that memory and, all against her will, caused her to live and re-live those moments, time and time again, as the most strange and vital of her life. ”

“ With a heart full of compassion, Catherine promised her father to satisfy the divine justice for him, and the vision disappeared.
From that moment Catherine, rising above the weakness of her age and sex, applied herself to those amazing austerities which have made her a prodigy of penance. To open Heaven to her father, she freely sheds, in bloody scourgings, the first fruits of that virginal blood which is to flow for half a century in innumerable torments. ”

“ Catherine, who was extremely modest, had no desire to shine, and on most social occasions, as they are called, you would have found her lurking in the background. She was extremely fond of her father, and very much afraid of him; she thought him the cleverest and handsomest and most celebrated of men. The poor girl found her account so completely in the exercise of her affections that the little tremor of fear that mixed itself with her filial passion gave the thing an extra relish rather than blunted its edge. ”

“ The king put on his spectacles and looked at Catherine. “Faith!” said he, “thou art much wiser than most girls of thy age, and—ahem! very pretty, too, I vow!” Then, turning to the baron, “Prefer your charge, baron,” said he. Hereupon the baron told how Catherine had given him the goose for her father’s freedom and the golden cup, and how she had sworn that every egg it should lay would be of pure gold.
“Well,” said the king, “did she forswear herself?”
“N-no, not exactly,” hesitated the baron.
“I said that every egg it laid for you should be of pure gold, did I not?” said Kate to the baron. ”

“ NARYSHKIN. You are in high spirits this morning, Little Mother.
CATHERINE [with sudden levity.] I am always in high spirits, even when people do not bring me my slippers. [She runs to the chair and sits down, thrusting her feet out.]
The two ladies rush to her feet, each carrying a slipper. Catherine, about to put her feet into them, is checked by a disturbance in the antechamber.
PATIOMKIN [carrying Edstaston through the antechamber] . Useless to struggle. Come along, beautiful baby darling. Come to Little Mother. ”

“ Arderne gave Catherine's brow a quick kiss.
'Naturally I think most of Toddie's speeches sweet. Go on training my babes in the knowledge of the Creator, Catherine, for I—I shouldn't like them to grow up to be worldly like their mother.'
'You only try to be worldly, your heart isn't one bit so.'
'Yes, it is; I love all the pleasures and vanities of life. ”

“ Jemima Dodd.
LETTER XVIII. MARY ANNE DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OF BALLYDOOLAN Grand Hôtel du Rhin, Bonn.
Dearest Catherine,—Forgive me if I substitute for the loved appellation of infancy the more softly sounding epithet which is consecrated to verse in every language of Europe. Yes, thou mayst be Kate of all Kates to the rest of Christendom, but to me thou art Catherine,—"Catrinella mia," as thou wilt.
Here, dearest, as I sit embowered beside the wide and winding Rhine, the day-dream of my childhood is at length realized. I live, I breathe, in the land glorified by genius. ”

“ The Catherine Flint of the old times had vanished—the Catherine of country club days, and golf and tennis, and the opera—the Catherine of Newport, of the horse show, of Paris, of "society." In her place now lived another and a nobler woman, a woman known and loved the length and breadth of the land, a woman exalted and strengthened by new, high and splendid race-aspirations; by a vision of supernal beauty—the vision of the world for the workers, each for all and all for each! ”

“ The more Catherine pondered this conversation, the more she felt drawn towards Margaret, and moreover "she was all agog" with curiosity, a potent passion with us all, and nearly omnipotent with those, who, like Catherine, do not slake it with reading. At last, one fine day, after dinner, she whispered to Kate, "Keep the house from going to pieces, an ye can;" and donned her best kirtle and hood, and her scarlet clocked hose and her new shoes, and trudged briskly off to Sevenbergen, troubling no man's mule. ”

“ Catherine arose from the place in which she was praying, and advancing to meet him, graciously and respectfully saluted him. The aged knight said to her with a profound inclination: " Madame, I have done what you prescribed to me; I confessed all my sins to Friar Thomas, who assigned me a penance, and I am resolved to accomplish it, such as it is imposed on me." Catherine responded: " You have acted wisely for the salvation of your soul, now avoid all your former practices and combat as valiantly for Jesus Christ, as you have done for the world." ”

“ Why Gerard's Margaret."
"Gerard's Margaret," screamed Catherine; "how dare you say such a word to me? And I rede you never mention that hussy's name in this house, that she has laid bare. She is the ruin of my poor boy, the flower of all my flock. She is the cause that he is not a holy priest in the midst of us, but is roaming the world, and I a desolate broken-hearted mother. There, do not cry, my girl, I do ill to speak harsh to you. But, oh, Kate! you know not what passes in a mother's heart. ”

“ In the beginning of her visions, Catherine related to her Confessors, that our Lord appeared to her, while she was meditating and said to her: " Know, my daughter, what you are and what I am; if you learn these two things, you shalt be truly blest: you are what is not, and I am the great I Am; if thy soul is deeply penetrated with this truth, the enemy cannot deceive you and you will avoid all his snares; you will never consent to do any thing against my commandments, and you will acquire without difficulty, grace, truth and peace." ”

“ But although no man ever deposed the shepherd from the first place in Elizabeth's favour, it must not be imagined that he was her only lover. The daughter of the hot-blooded Peter and the lusty scullery wench had always as great a passion for men as the second Catherine, who had almost as many favourites in her boudoir as gowns in her wardrobes. ”

“ Catherine had herself performed the office of humanity she had so vainly asked of the stranger; she stooped down, and beckoning to her father and Harriet, who were descending the rocks, to hasten their steps, she raised up the painter's head, and endeavoured, with a faltering hand, to loosen the neckcloth from his throat. Struck by expressions so rude and unfeeling, she looked up for a moment, and for the first time took hasty note of the person and lineaments of her preserver. ”

“ Above all it can teach us, I think, with a rare completeness, wherein lies the secret of a persuasive holiness. For Catherine lets us see, with unusual clearness, how this winningness lies in the pathetically dramatic spectacle and appeal presented by a life engaged in an ever-increasing ethical and spiritual energizing,—whether in a slow shifting and pushing of its actual centre, down and in from the circumference of the soul to its true centre, and from this true centre enlarging and reorganizing its whole ever-expanding being again and again ”

“ Catherine was the very belle idéale of a sovereign châtelaine in that stormy fifteenth century. Her aims and ambitions were those of her husband; and she was ever ready in sunshine or in storm to take her full share of the burden of the day; and, indeed, in time of trouble and danger, far more than what was even then deemed a woman's share in meeting and overcoming them. ”

“ Catherine’s whole convert life is one long series of the most striking examples of an heroic delicacy in self-knowledge and self-fighting in this matter: a delicacy which, as to the degree of its possibility and desirableness in any particular soul, is, however, peculiarly dependent upon that soul’s special circumstances, temperament, attrait, and degree of perfection reached and to be reached. ”

“ Forever and a day, to leave us free once more, free men and women, standing erect and facing God's own sunlight, our heritage and birthplace in this world!"
Catherine made no answer, but her hand clasped his. The light on her magnificent masses of copper-golden hair, braided about her head, enhanced her beauty. And so for a moment, the little group sat there about the table—the group on which now so infinitely much depended; and the lamp-glow shone upon their precious plans, reports and diagrams. ”

“ CLAIRE [seeing him and throwing herself on her knees at his side] . Oh, how dare they tie you up like that! [To Catherine.] You wicked wretch! You Russian savage! [She pounces on the straps, and begins unbuckling them.]
CATHERINE [conquering herself with a mighty effort] . Now self-control. Self-control, Catherine. Philosophy. Europe is looking on. [She forces herself to sit down.]
EDSTASTON. Steady, dearest: it is the Empress. Call her your Imperial Majesty. Call her Star of the North, Little Mother, Little Darling: that's what she likes; but get the straps off. ”

“ That evening Catherine had seemed to me even more beautiful and witty. She had been more admired and more deferred to than usual; and, to our shame be it said, the praise or censure of the indifferent or envious invariably cause love to fluctuate between fervour and coldness. ”

“ So one day Catherine set out very early in the morning, carrying in her pocket a small loaf of bread, just in case the ravens should forget to come to a little girl-hermit.
In those days it was not safe to live outside the city walls, and there were no farms nor houses to be seen as Catherine slipped through the gates and began to find her way down the hillside, among tangled briars and over rough stones. ”