A Novelist and a Saint
Dimnet, Ernest
38 THE COMMONWEAL May 19, 1926 There is no direct evidence whether this catechism League, and the Moscow...
...growth are watched with a great interest by the lead- In England, it is true, the movement is going on ers...
...which, so recently, her Amen floated from the nuns' But how many unprepared critics would not take exchoir, to be more than superficially critical...
...Cui, a military engineer...
...ence possessed of a degree of familiarity with musical Only the second-rate musician is inspired by prizes...
...amateur but in possession of a providentially excellent What, then, is of any real value in this book of a camera...
...if you will, but I believe in the influence of saints, the I shall not take it over to your shrine-it is not perpossibility of miracles, and the power of prayer...
...at the communist children's section we are taught workMr...
...of us who have lived long enough to remember how This is not all...
...Letters from "enlightened" communsiderable space to reports on the various activities of ist boys and girls sufficiently show the trend of the these schools in England...
...And this view she has assimilated from the Shortly after the canonization of Saint Theresa, contemplation and protracted study, first of the photoMadame Delarue-Mardrus took one of the farm graph she so rightly prefers and, second, from the women with her and went to Lisieux...
...She also heard view showing how completely even a nun's sister can that the poilus in their trenches would rather invoke forget the essence of the cloistered life...
...Yet it Schumann's mother obliged him to study jurispruis precisely the hearer whose education is being most dence...
...the more graceful aspects of her saintliness...
...She asks a lay sister why astonishing than all the rest, she reads the real meanSaint Theresa, in the true Spanish tradition, is dressed ing into Theresa's stupendous affirmation that "the in velvet instead of russet, and the answer: "Do you three years of her father's martyrdom seem to her the think people are dressed in russet in heaven...
...was a chemist...
...divine) Breath continuing after the human being Let this unhallowed wax, burned in homage to you, the half-sister of the Rose, convince you of my willingvisited by the Breath is no longer with us...
...of Youth-had the following statement in its number of September, 1922: "By an agreement with the This is written by a boy aged eleven...
...At the very start of the new "education" enterprise a Soviet reporter secured an interview with A. MacManus, president of the Communist party in Comrades, what are we taught at the council schools...
...Indeed, the position, execution, appreciation...
...Paris: Gras- village church, and even, as she puts it, "the gestures of set) also written from the orthodox standpoint, but the Mass," and no doubt has only contempt for antito which a constant striving after literary distinction clericalism, but her masculine intellect has come into gives a special character...
...Rather than offer inducements to the American comAnd so, the public gets blamed for the crudity of its poser, suppose his path be made more thorny...
...Moussorgsky, A great deal of nonsense has been written about a soldier...
...Borodine thoroughly neglected...
...whether a work of art is good or bad, one must, none Handel's father tried to make a lawyer out of him...
...saint...
...It scandalready to act on people-sick, wretched, anxious-bet- izes a few Catholics, but rejoices many others...
...She knows that modern opens a vista on what she thinks to be the disguises science, with its confidence and its blinkers, will not of self-love masquerading as self-sacrifice...
...but Notre Dame de Fourviere or Notre Dame de la again, the moment she sees greatness, even of the Garde or Notre Dame 1'Albert, are disappointed in, kind least appreciated by the world, she recognizes and but not shocked by Lisieux...
...EDUCATING THE MUSICAL PUBLIC By AVERY CLAFLIN T successful production of music requires cul- half-baked theories materialized to facilitate the adtural development in three distinct fields: com- vancement of the American composer...
...nervous troubles, to conclude that she was abnormal With this disappointment all the early part of the and morbid...
...MacManus said that "the growth of socialistic ers' history...
...instead most blessed of her life, and she would not exchange of showing her the poor nun's admiration of heaven them for sublime ecstasies...
...more more unforgivable statue...
...Mardrus, nate tendency was and still remains religious, her book the famous translator of the Arabian Nights, is a leaves no doubt, and some pages of it show this in poet and novelist whose forceful facility, indifference a touching manner, while her assimilation of saintto mere effect, and preference for the higher strata liness to genius marks her off from the herd of everyof her subjects have long made famous, half-way be- day scoffers: Lucie Delarue is certainly fitted to write tween Colette and the Comtesse de Noailles...
...The not be downed by the buffets of his own generation...
...But our surprise in- what little I know how to do...
...If we believe what they tell us in day school about Russia, we would think that the RusSunday schools in England is of tremendous impor- sians are very wicked, but we comrades know that Russia tance to the development of anti-religious propaganda is now the finest country in the world, having overthrown among the British masses...
...Those ter provided with faith than I am...
...Reasons The born composer needs no further incentive to get for the non-attainment of the ideal are variously his education and pursue his art...
...Agreeing with Andre L'Hote that neither the will obliterate the surplus of second-raters and not general public nor the snobs have the right to judge impede the genius any more than it did in the past...
...she saw the farm women go on pilgrimages to Lisieux These pages, I have been told, have grieved the "that the men might not be killed...
...Both make use of these ciples remain just the same...
...Please creases when, toward the end of her patient and obvi- accept it...
...If he has the inascribed...
...This: the touchingly ful with a spiritual beauty, but the head is erect, the humble, but resolute and powerfully expressed realizabrow strikingly intelligent, and the eyes look at one tion of Saint Theresa's sublimity, as distinguished from as only eyes exceptionally made to see can look...
...Nowhere Theresa, so near to us, than even Joan of Arc...
...also, he would in the Carmelite chapel to be conscious, as we Catho- dwell on the startling sincerity with which Theresa, lics are, of a soul of faith in it all: believers feel too side by side with the description of her spiritual prognear the relics of a saint, too near the grille through ress, fearlessly describes her temptations and doubts...
...methods of attacking religion, both are out "to smash Three years after the opening of proletarian schools Christianity-which is a useless legacy of a useless (in 1921) another movement was begun...
...the volume is concluded with a few Tolstoyism, a mere imitation of Christianity, helped entirely orthodox pages on the possibility of an imita- many of us to realize the value of the gem half fortion of Saint Theresa in our daily lives...
...This interview is interesting for the light We are taught about King Alfred who burnt the cakesthrown by it on the relationship between the socialistic and Queen Elizabeth with her love for dresses, whereas Sunday schools and those of the Communist party...
...In other Clearly, if this face had not belonged to a saint, it words, this outsider goes straight to the view which would have belonged to a rare human being...
...The musically well-educated deplore the spiration that will stand the ravages of time he will general banality of our concert programs...
...spelling is apt to be uncertain, her grammar loose, her How did such a writer feel an interest in a saint composition remote from the formal French canons, whose pretty nicknames, the Little Flower, the Little but her soul is in every page...
...And mitted to light a candle there-but I beg of you to as I believe in the projection of will beyond death, I receive the tiny light I am trying to strike in minds, unbelieve in the energy derived from I know not what religious like mine, and not knowing you yet...
...etc.] and to teach them to organize this resentment Bulletin, the organ of the Young Communist for the class struggle...
...A NOVELIST AND A SAINT By ERNEST DIMNET T HREE volumes have recently been published in lic," as she herself says, more regretfully than deFrance on the increasingly fascinating subject of fiantly, that is to say, a person who was born a Cathothe young saint of Lisieux : one by Monsignor lic, was probably educated in Catholic surroundingsLaveille (Sainte Therese de l'Enfant Jesus...
...Notic- and willingness, from any source, are contagious...
...This tastes...
...But she protests...
...and Rimsky-Korsakof in the navy...
...Little is fail to place such assertions beside the two mystic really understood and the pilgrim goes home in dis- phenomena in Theresa's life and her own admission of gust...
...Amen...
...But ception to the young sister's realization of her own Madame Delarue is conscious of nothing but the ugli- vocation to saintliness, as they take exception to Saint ness, the commercialism rampant in the little town, Paul's personal defense in Galatians and Corinthians the hurried answers of the priests, the utilitarianism III Madame Delarue is not shocked to see Theresa of the ex-votos, the stupidity which transformed speak of her victories, her giant strides, her prophecy Therese Martin's home into a chapel and a museum, that "the whole world will love her," or that "the and concealed the very site of her grave with one Lord will work wonders on her account...
...the capitalist system, and put in its place a workers' Soviet Again, the British Communist organ-International republic...
...Finally, does Madame Delarue seem to be aware that, as a nun of her acquaintance gave her a photograph of Lacordaire puts it, love is eternally watching at the Sister Theresa, which produced an extraordinary ef- grave : she uses a special type to make us realize the fect upon her...
...Every now and then, in the foland bury in the earth of the Carmelites' lot a bit of lowing chapters, we encounter phrases or a point of paper bearing their humble petition...
...Nor has any pragmatist musicians of all time...
...Violent and almost brutal as her piety in famous pilgrimage centres, as well as observers tone is in speaking of Lisieux banality, it becomes alof architectural decadence even in such sanctuaries as most timid the moment she approaches religion...
...Berlioz was educated for medicine...
...England...
...This photograph is reproduced on the "horror" of the Carmelite solitude, oubliettes, she cover of her book and positively sums it up...
...Lucie Delarue was unbeliever abounding in France, an "unreligious Catho- born, and still lives several months a year, in NorMay i9, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 39 mandy: Sister Theresa was her countrywoman, and that if the Church, who used to have beauty constantly she repeats it on twenty occasions...
...Catholics ac- reading of the History of a Soul, written by Sister customed from childhood to popular manifestations of Theresa herself...
...another by M. Gaetan Berno- She is an artist who loves the cathedral and even the ville (Sainte Therese de l'Enfant Jesus...
...concluded there must be another God...
...During the war on her side, now disregards it, she will be the loser...
...In many ing the constant progress which page after page beplaces, this so-called unbeliever, certainly ignorant of trays, we are more touched than startled to read the a great deal that is elementary in Catholicism, aston- final ex-voto ishes us by her comprehension of much that is far Saint Theresa of Lisieux: from being elementary, or is entirely remote from the Like the juggler of Notre Dame, I have done for you tendencies of modern scepticism...
...That her inMadame Lucie Delarue, the wife of Dr...
...And the former has schools already in existence, but the their teachers say: "It is our task to make them [the Young Communist Comrades will go there to work"- children] realize and resent these things [capitalism, which they have been doing since...
...The face is beautiful, of course, and beauti- writer far above the average...
...Delarue, who begins her book with an invocation to Any poet of the mental calibre of Madame Delarue Chartres, would inevitably be too cross at the display would naturally be struck by the similarity between of glaring marbles, ugly statues, and cold electricity genius and saintliness, and revere it...
...its drastically the scope of its own pleasure...
...of my rage against the poor taste of the Lisieux chapel, I am convinced that this chapel is full of fluids What will be the effect of such a book...
...artists contend they must make them so, or starve...
...literature and some critical discrimination...
...I hate," she says, book is filled, with threatening allusions to the fact "the execrable science trying to confine to a hospital 40 THE COMMONWEAL May i9, 1926 -all human beings striving after superiority...
...Sawthe development of a national music and a good many ing through a few knots of life will develop a creative...
...Carmel: one of her sisters is a nun-but, in time, more or less Lisieux) which bids fair to be the final word from the lost her faith and does not know how to regain it...
...This attracts all truly spiritually-minded Catholics and apis what the photograph says and what the whole pears in what they say or write concerning the new volume strives to express...
...The net result but provides a yet pointed out that from his standpoint, the goal is livelihood for a number of dubious musicians endowed not the creation or competent rendition of a work of thereby with a distorted estimate of their own merits...
...In spite ness and love...
...That the last funds, prizes, scholarships, and inducements now of these is quite as important as the first has never established would have supported for life the great been adequately stressed...
...A woman like Madame proclaims it...
...Her hagiography as it appeals to lovers of the sublime...
...Rose, the Little Queen, dear to popular piety, are, Madame Delarue-Mardrus is the curious sort of however, irritating to outsiders...
...Here is my book...
...The vocabu- gotten in our hand, will not be ready to dismiss the lary is not the one to which we are accustomed- matter with a mere statement that there are enough often too accustomed-but the spirit is the truly books written about Sister Theresa by Catholics : love Catholic spirit of submission and renunciation...
...finally, Sainte Therese de contact with the warped popular presentment of Lisieux (Paris: Fasquelle) by Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Catholicism, and, like Valentine or Marcion, she has to which alone I wish to draw the reader's attention...
...The Soviet on a far lesser scale than in Russia, but the nuclei are anti-religious paper, Atheist, has of late devoted con- there already...
...Nothing calls it also: only in one place does she appear to come could be more different from the conventional icon- near the point of view familiar to us, but she spoils ography than this picture, the work possibly of a mere it by speaking of the nuns as a "holy harem...
...Ideal results can be obtained, provided the music and similarly that the inculcable factors had best be is interesting, the executants competent, and the audi- left unlearned by those lacking the permanent ones...
...they would go Lisieux Carmelites, and they give offense to most to the cemetery where the young saint was still lying, Catholic readers...
...in a composer are just those which cannot be taught...
...A little girl socialistic Sunday school organization, the Young Com- of ten writes that "we must be given to understand munist League will not form any new schools where how to learn to fight together to get our aim...
...purely Catholic side...
...38 THE COMMONWEAL May 19, 1926 There is no direct evidence whether this catechism League, and the Moscow Atheist are absolutely idenis in actual use today-but the proletarian school prin- tical in tone and treatment...
...of the Soviet education in Moscow...
...music, but the bestowal upon its hearers of a maxi- Yet it must be evident that the only permanent values mum of pleasure and stimulation...
...the less, admit that the former's gross ignorance lim- Schubert was a schoolmaster when he had to be...
...ously happy analysis of the History of a Soul, Madame Such as it is, with its fervor and its flippancy, its Delarue comes out with the calm statement: "Laugh mockery and its exalted emotiveness, please accept it...
...So-called age"-or, as they say elsewhere, "a shameful remnant communist schools were founded-whose progress and of bygone slavery...
Vol. 4 • May 1926 • No. 2
