of a paralysis of the larynx, which deprived her of speech. Her suffering, which was insupportable, expressed itself in sobs and torrents of tears. The physician-in-chief sub- jected her to a rigorous and, for a long time, fruitless treatment. At length, one night when she attempts, as usual, to move her rebellious windpipe, a word escapes, she speaks, she is saved! What does she do? Doubtless she calls her companions in misery, and says to them, 'I speak!' — tells it to them in order to hear the sound of her own voice? No, she is silent. Six o'clock, seven o'clock strikes; the guardian sisters bring her nourish- ment; she keeps silent, and only now and then, hiding her head beneath the bed-clothes, she assures herself of her recovery by a few half-uttered syllables. At last the door opens; the physician enters and approaches her bed; then, with a smile full of tears, 'Monsieur,' says she, 'I speak, and I wished to keep my first word for my preserver.'" A woman only could have acted thus, for to her belongs the empire of the heart. But which weighs most in the bal- ance, the intellect or the heart? Which does most for the perfection and the happiness of humanity? One cannot love without thinking, but one can think without loving. What are all the systems of philosophy, all the social and political Utopias, all the creations of the mind — works which are often evanescent, sublime to-day, and sterile or ridiculous, perhaps, to-morrow? What are all these in comparison with that immutable and adorable quality which has neither beginning nor end, and which, alone, really brings us nearer to God — charity? Genius may dis- appear from the face of the world, but if tenderness, if charity were abolished, the earth would be hell itself. St. Theresa expressed this when she exclaimed; "How I pity the demons; they do not love."
