The glory of the mind yielded to the superior radiance of an admiring
soul, and equals stood out in each other's eyes as gifted superiors whom
it was no sin to venerate. Radiant in the innocence of conscious virtue,
capable of appreciating any flights of genius, holding their riches of
no account except to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, these friends
lived only to repair the evils which unbridled sin inflicted on
mankind,--glorious examples of the support which our frail nature needs,
the sun and joy of social life, perpetual benedictions, the sweet rest
of a harassed soul.

Strange it is that such a friendship was found in the most corrupt,
conventional, luxurious city of the empire. It is not in cities that
friendships are supposed to thrive. People in great towns are too
preoccupied, too busy, too distracted to shine in those amenities which
require peace and rest and leisure. Bacon quotes the Latin adage, _Magna
civitas, magna solitudo_. It is in cities where real solitude dwells,
since friends are scattered, "and crowds are not company, and faces are
only as a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where
there is no love."

The history of Jerome and Paula suggests another reflection,--that the
friendship which would have immortalized them, had they not other and
higher claims to the remembrance and gratitude of mankind, rarely exists
except with equals. There must be sympathy in the outward relations of
life, as we are constituted, in order for men and women to understand
each other. Friendship is not philanthropy: it is a refined and subtile
sentiment which binds hearts together in similar labors and experiences.
It must be confessed it is exclusive, esoteric,--a sort of moral
freemasonry. Jerome, and the great bishops, and the illustrious ladies
to whom I allude, all belonged to the same social ranks. They spent