The book contained a number of written meditations, a collection of passages and thoughts, together with some faded photographs of his mother, and of his earliest Jesuit teachers at Stonyhurst.
On the last page was a paragraph that only the night before he had copied from one of his habitual books of devotion--copying it as a spiritual exercise--making himself dwell upon every word of it.
"_When shall I desire Thee alone--feed on Thee alone--O my Delight, my only good! O my loving and almighty Lord! free now this wretched heart from every attachment, from every earthly affection; adorn it with Thy holy virtues, and with a pure intention of doing all things to please Thee, that so I may open it to Thee, and with gentle violence compel Thee to come in, that Thou, O Lord, mayest work therein without resistance all those effects which from all Eternity Thou hast desired to produce in me._"
He lingered a little on the words, his face buried in his hands. Then slowly he turned back to an earlier page--
"_Man must use creatures as being in themselves indifferent. He must not be under their power, but use them for his own purpose, his own first and chiefest purpose, the salvation of his soul._"
A shudder passed through him. He rose hastily from his seat, and began to pace the room. He had already passed through a wrestle of the same kind, and had gone away to fight down temptation. To-night the struggle was harder. The waves of rising passion broke through him.
"Little pale, angry face! I gave her a scolding like a child--what joy to have forgiven her like a child!--to have asked her pardon in return--to have felt the soft head against my breast. She was very fierce with me--she hates me, I suppose. And yet--she is not indifferent to me!--she knows when I am there. Downstairs she was conscious of me all through--I knew it. Her secret was in her face. I guessed it--foolish child--from the first moment. Strange, stormy nature!--I see it all--her passion for her father, and for these peasants as belonging to him--her hatred of me and of our faith, because her father hated us--her feeling for Augustina--that rigid sense, of obligation she has, just on the two or three points--points of natural affection. It is this sense, perhaps, that makes the soul of her struggle with this house--with me. How she loathes all that we love--humility, patience, obedience! She would sooner die than obey. Unless she loved! Then what an art, what an enchantment to command her! It would tax a lover's power, a lover's heart, to the utmost. Ah!"