look into her shipment, or have somebody else do so, with my permission to take out anything that you may judge unsuitable or not worth the freight. Once, a few years ago, as I was leaving for Havre, Mademoiselle sent me a big package for America. I opened it up in Paris, and what do you think there was in it? Nothing but old rags, frightful images of saints, daubed with colors, exactly in the taste of the Blackfeet and Crows of the Rocky Mountains, and finally some German holy virgins and christs, which would really scare a man and make him laugh at the same time. I left the whole thing in Paris. In regard to these things, follow your own discretion, and do just as you think best."
He was very fond of good stories, and while he naturally did not indulge much in that line in his formal writings on missionary matters, a good many crept into his personal correspondence and some of them are given in the present edition of his writings.(2)
The cheerfulness and optimism of his temperament were united with the deepest sentiments of tenderness and affection. He was moved to tears as easily as a woman, and all his life long it was his natural manner to " rejoice with those that do rejoice and weep with those that weep."
He possessed in an eminent degree those qualities that go to the making of a home, and one cannot but feel that the world, in gaining a good priest, lost a better husband and father. He was passionately fond of his family in Belgium and his letters to his brothers, nephews and nieces breathe the tenderest affection. He was always impatient for letters from them. " Exilement, even when it is voluntary," he once wrote, "or when, rather, it is imposed by conscience or religion, cannot destroy in a man's heart the sweet sentiments there implanted by kinship or love of country. Hence the vacancy that I feel within me, at not having received for so long a time any of your letters, always so good and interesting, and so consoling to your American exile."
(2)See page 14i6 of the Letters.