At the entrance to the chapel of the Augustine Sisters in that town, of which Borel had painted the nave and the choir, there stood a figure of an Abbess of the fourteenth century, Saint Clare of Montefalcone, in the black robes of an Augustinian Nun, against the stone walls of her cell, an open book on one side of the figure and a brass lamp on the other, somewhat behind her on a table.
In that face, bent over the Crucifix she was pressing to her lips, in that countenance, at once sweet and hungering, in the movement of the arms closely folded over her bosom, raised to her face, and themselves forming a cross, he had seen the complete absorption of a bride, the rapt, ecstatic joy of the purest love, and at the same time something of the anxious affection of a mother cherishing the Christ she kissed, and seemed to shelter in her bosom like a suffering child.
And this was all set forth without any theatrical attitude or forced gestures, with perfect simplicity.

This Saint Clare has no ravings, no outcries, like Saint Magdalen of Pazzi; she does not soar with the flight of divine intoxication.

The mystic possession manifests itself in a mute rapture; her transports are controlled, and her inebriety is grave; she does not diffuse herself, but opens her soul, and Jesus, as He enters in, stamps her with His likeness, impresses her with the image of the Crucifix she holds, and of which the impress was found graven on her heart when it was examined after her death.
This was the most remarkable religious painting of our time, and it was achieved with no borrowing from the Early painters, no trickery of awkward attitudes supported by iron bars, no affectations, no artifice.
And what a devout Catholic, what an emotionally pious artist must the man be who could produce such a work! After him the rest was silence.

Among the religious youth of to-day no one is to be found equal to the presentment of Church subjects.

"Only one," said Durtal, thinking it over, "gave any hope of such powers, for he stands apart from the rest, and, at any rate, has talent." He rose and went to turn over his portfolios, picking out the lithographs by Charles Dulac.
This artist had begun with a series of landscapes, idealizing nature, at first with a timid hand--extravagantly large pools, and trees with leaves that looked like wild wigs tossed by the wind; then he had produced a rendering in black and white of a Canticle of the Sun, or of Creation, and had poured out in nine plates, printed in different states of tone, that effluence of mystical feeling which in his first set was still latent and undecided.
The rather hackneyed dictum that "a landscape is a state of mind," was strictly appropriate to this work; the artist had stamped his faith on these views, studied, no doubt, from nature, but seen, it was evident, not by the eyes alone, but by a captivated spirit singing in the open air Daniel's hymn and David's psalm, as interpreted by Saint Francis, and repeating after them the thought that all the Elements shall sing to the glory of Him who created them.
Among these plates two were genuinely inspiring: that with the title, _Stella Matutina_, and the other with the words, _Spiritus Sancte Deus_; but another, the broadest, the most decisive, and the simplest of them all, bearing the title _Sol Justitiae_, seemed best of all to set forth the individual sympathies of the artist.
It was thus composed: A light, remote, translucent distance was lost in infinitude--a peninsula, a desert waste of waters with ribs of shore, tongues of land planted with trees repeated in the mirror of the lake; on the horizon the sun, half set, cast its beams reflected by the sheet of waters; that was all, but amazing placidity and calm, a sense of fulness was shed over all.