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235
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
139
VIII.
I
have
been
reading
Sainte-Beuve's
Port
Royal,
a
book
I
have
often
thought
of
reading,
but
its
length,
and
my
slight
interest
in
that
period,
always
held
me
aloof.
Happily,
chance
and
mood
came
together,
and
I
am
richer
by
a
bit
of
knowledge
well
worth
acquiring.
It
is
the
kind
of
book
which,
one
may
reasonably
say,
tends
to
edification.
One
is
better
for
having
lived
a
while
with
"Messieurs
de
Port-Royal";
the
best
of
them
were,
surely,
not
far
from
the
Kingdom
of
Heaven.
Theirs
is
not,
indeed,
the
Christianity
of
the
first
age;
we
are
among
theologians,
and
the
shadow
of
dogma
has
dimmed
those
divine
hues
of
the
early
morning,
yet
ever
and
anon
there
comes
a
cool,
sweet
air,
which
seems
not
to
have
blown
across
man's
common
world,
which
bears
no
taint
of
mortality.
A
gallery
of
impressive
and
touching
portraits.
The
great-souled
M.
de
Saint-Cyran,
with
his
vision
of
Christ
restored;
M.
Le
Maitre,
who,
at
the
summit
of
a
brilliant
career,
turned
from
the
world
to
meditation
and
penitence;
Pascal,
with
his
genius
and
his
triumphs,
his
conflicts
of
soul
and
fleshly
martyrdom;
Lancelot,
the
good
Lancelot,
ideal
schoolmaster,
who
wrote
grammar
and
edited
classical
books;
the
vigorous
Arnauld,
doctoral
rather
than
saintly,
but
long-suffering
for
the
faith
that
was
in
him;
and
all
the
smaller
names--Walon
de
Beaupuis,
Nicole,
Hamon--spirits
of
exquisite
humility
and
sweetness--a
perfume
rises
from
the
page
as
one
reads
about
them.
But
best
of
all
I
like
M.
de
Tillemont;
I
could
have
wished
for
myself
even
such
a
life
as
his;
wrapped
in
silence
and
calm,
a
life
of
gentle
devotion
and
zealous
study.
From
the
age
of
fourteen,
he
said,
his
intellect
had
occupied
itself
with
but
one
subject,
that
of
ecclesiastical
history.
Rising
at
four
o'clock,
he
read
and
wrote
until
half-past
nine
in
the
evening,
interrupting
his
work
only
to
say
the
Offices
of
the
Church,
and
for
a
couple
of
hours'
breathing
at
mid-day.
Few
were
his
absences.
When
he
had
to
make
a
journey,
he
set
forth
on
foot,
staff
in
hand,
and
lightened
the
way
by
singing
to
himself
a
psalm
or
canticle.
This
man
of
profound
erudition
had
as
pure
and
simple
a
heart
as
ever
dwelt
in
mortal.
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