Part 16 (2/2)
On June 7th a very brave soldier, who feared none but God, was called to his reward Here my Diary stops for nearly a year[16]
CHAPTER XXIV
MOSTLY A ROMAN DIARY
Palm Sunday, 1911, found me in Rome, on the eve of my son's ordination as priest One of those extraordinary occurrences which have happened in my life took place that day Four of us joined at the appointed place and hour: I and Eileen from Ireland (dick, already in Rome) and Patrick, just landed, in the nick of time, from India! We three met at the foot of the Aventine and went up to Sant' Ansel the Pal service was ended He intoned the Gospel as deacon, and when his deep voice reached us in the gallery we looked at each other with a s tireat day dick assumed the chasuble, and is officially kno as Father Urban, though 'dick' he will ever remain with us The weather was Ro deacons were to be on their knees in the great Lateran Church, fasting, fro ti of the bells which should announce the beginning of the Easter tireat basilica at 915 We had places in two balconies, right over the altar Below us stood about forty deacons, with our particular one in theirhis folded chasuble across his ar fellows, in their white and gold deacons' vest Each one was called up by name in turn, and ascended the altar steps, where sat the consecrating bishop, who looked more like a spirit than a mere human creature When Urbano Butler (pronounced _Boutler_, of course, by the Italian voice) was called, hoe craned forward! To ive up! ('Well,' answers a voice, 'they give up the world, and a good thing too!')
”We went, when the ceremony was co priests' first blessing These young fellows ran out of the sacristy towards the crowd of expectant parents and friends, their newly-acquired chasubles flying behind them as they ran, with outstretched hands, for the kisses of that kneeling crowd that awaited theht! Can any one paint it and do it justice? Old and young, gentlefolk and peasants, s hands that blessed them dick came to his mother first, then to his soldier brother, then to his sister, and I saw hi hiers knelt to him and to the others, and I saw, in its perfection, what isand holy faces There was one exception A poor young Irish boy, somehow, had no relative to bless--no one--he see Perhaps his mother was 'beyond the beyond' in far Connemara? I heard of this afterwards Had I seen hi too So it is--always soet hold of dick, in his plain habit, we hurried him to a little _trattoria_ across the piazza, where his dear friend and chuood cup of chocolate to break his long fast”
It was quite a necessary anti-cliain at the hotel and sat down, to the nuave in honour of the day A very celebrated English cardinal honoured me with his presence there
”_Easter Sunday_--Patrick, Eileen and I received Holy Communion in the crypt of Sant' Anselmo from dick's hands at his first Mass These feords contain the culmination of all
”_April 17th_--In the afternoon ere all off, piloted by dick, to the celebrated Benedictineway doards Naples, to spend a few days, Patrick as guest within the precincts, and E and I lodging at the guest-house, which forreat precipice The sheer rock plunges down to the base of the mountain whereon stands the wonderful reat do of such vast proportions, containing one of the greatest libraries in the world A mule path was all the monks intended for coe road takes us up by an easy zigzag
”_April 18th_--Every hour of our visit to Monte Cassino must be lived
I made a sketch of the reat height, with angry red clouds gathering over the tops of the snowy mountains But my sketches are too didactic; and, indeed, who but Turner could convey to the beholder the awful spirit of that scene?
The teood thunderstorm amidst those severe mountains that have the appearance of a petrified chaos Last night E woke up to find the rooht, which at first she took to be the dawn because, through the open s, she heard the whole land thrilling with the song of birds But such a _blue_ light for dawn? She got up to see The light was that of the full ales
”I was enchanted to see the beautiful dress of the peasant wolie_ are looped back in a raceful line than the Ros, like poor relations of the tall, pink Valentia variety which I have already signalised, browse on the steep ascent to this great stronghold, and everything still looks wild, in spite of the carriage road I should have preferred couest-house were Spartan Rather disuests at this festive(!) board Our intellectual food, however, was rich The abbot and his monks did the honours of far-fa veryBrother Urban, whose father's nareat estee-expected audience with Pio Deci eleven English naval officers, to be presented I had my little speech ready, but e ca instead of restfully seated, and he looked so fatigued and so aged since I last saw hi as short a tienito, ufficiale_;” then ”_lia_” He spoke a little while to dick in Latin, and then we knelt and received his blessing and departed, to see hi to have seen Leo XIII and Pius X, as I have had the opportunity of seeing them Both have left a deep ireat statesile scabbard of the flesh one wondered how the keen sword of the spirit could be held at all within it It was his diplomatic tact that smoothed away many of the difficulties that obtruded themselves between the Vatican and the Quirinal, and that tact kept the Papacy on good terms with France and her Republic, to which he called on all French Catholics to give their support It was he who forced ”the ainst the Church in Germany, and to allow the evicted bishops to return to their Sees Diplomatic relations with Gere and education had to be re-admitted by the Government Even the dark ”Orthodox” intolerance of Russia bent sufficiently to his influence to allow of the establishment of Catholic episcopal Sees in that country, and the cessation of the imprisonment of priests The episcopate in Scotland, too, was restored We owe to him that spread of Catholicis been such a surprise to the onlooker Then there are his great encyclicals on the Social Question, setting forth the Christian teaching on the relations between capital and labour; establishi+ng the social movement on Christian lines
How clearly he saw the threat of a great European war at no very distant date from his time unless armaments were reduced That refined mind inclined hi Students thank hi the Vatican archives to the to fear from the publication of the Truth” His is the Vatican observatory--one of the most famous in the world ItKaiser William II, who seems to have struck the Holy Father as somewhat bumptious on the occasion of his historic visit
”That young man,” as he called hi much to learn
What a contrast Pius X presents to his predecessor! The son of a postman at Rieti, a little town in Venetia I reon their bicycles, that he told them how ed boy, he had to trudge every day seven miles to school and back Needless to say, he had no diplo, but he led the truly siies chiefly to the purely pastoral side of his office We are grateful to him for his reform of Church music (and it needed it in Italy!) He was very e frequent communion and early communion for children His condelad he re for the Italian Parlia them to obtain influential positions in public life He took a fir encroachment of the French Government on the liberties of the Church in his day His policy is being aarden party, after the Papal audience, at the British Elorious, far-spreading gardens I can remember, nearly all turned to-day into deadly streets on which a gridiron of traht brought in the Queen-Mother, Margherita, to the lahere the dancing took place The Rennell-Rodd children as little fairies were pretty and danced char, was not in her first youth, and unkindly dealt with by the searching daylight To have to caper airily on that grass was no joke It was heavy going for her and made me melancholy, in conjunction with ardens and the vanished pines
On October 26th hter, Eileen, was married to Lord Gormanston, at the Brompton Oratory, the church so loved by our mother, and where I was received Our dear dick married them I had the reception in Lowndes Square in the beautiful house lent by a friend
Ireland has s, and one of these becahter's new home in Meath Shakespeare's ”cloud-capp'd towers”
seemed not so much the ”baseless fabric” of the poet's vision when I saw, one day, the low-lying trail of a bright Irishof visions, too, is realised there in a cloister carved so solidly out of the dense foliage of the yew that never uity of shade”
I spent the winter of 1911--12 in London, and worked hard at water colours, of which I was able to exhibit a goodly nuood old ”Roll Call,” and the whole thing was a success I showed many landscapes there as well as smy travels, and scenes in Ireland These exhibitions in a well-lighted gallery are pleasant, and the private view day a social rendezvous for one's friends
Through my sister, hom I revisited Rothey are, and responsive (I don't mean the mere tourist!), whereas my dear compatriots are very heavy in hand sometimes American women are particularly well read and cultivated and full of life They don't travel in Europe for nothing I have had so, at our solemn British dinners, on cosmopolitan subjects for conversation What was I to say to a ave it as his opinion that it was only ”a second-rate Cheltenham”? I tried that unlucky Florentine subject on another He: ”Florence? Oh, yes, I liked that--that--__ by the side of the--the--er----” I: ”The Duoloomy despair): ”Do you mean Giotto's Tower?” Collapse of our conversation
Very probably I bade my last farewell to St Peter's that year I had ood-bye” at sundown on leaving Roainst the western glory from the familiar terrace on Monte Pincio, only to return, on a further visit, and see it again with the old, fresh feeling of thankfulness My initial enthusiasm, crudely chronicled as it is in ht of St Peter's, was a young artist's emotion, but to the maturer mind what a miracle that Sermon in Stone reveals! The tomb of one Simon, no better, before his call, than any ordinary fisherman one may see to-day on our coasts--and now? ”TU ES PETRUS”