M. de Moutalembert's last letter, written not many hours before
his death, contains a curious and touching expression of the intense realism of our day, as it affected the heart of one of the greatest of modern idealists. It was a letter to Baron Helmer, the diplomatist, on the first volume of his life of Pope Sixtus V., which Montalembert had just finished and greatly enjoyed. He wrote :—" I know no work more sincere than yours. At my age, or in my state, when a man's sole remaining ambition is to pass quickly into the tomb open before him, you would hardly believe how much one appreciates a sincerity so rarely met with in this world, while one is at least sure of having it to one's heart's content in the next [tandis que l'on a du moms ]'assurance d'en etro rammed dans l'autre.]" Sincerity and no illusions ! That is as much the cry of the idealist as of the most matter-of-fact science of our day. M. de Moutalembert achieved the last escape from illusion of which we are capable in this life within a few hours of writing this letter, which he did in the middle of the night before the morning on which he died. Has he, we wonder, already found sincerity to his heart's content where he now is ? Or is not the practice of blinding ourselves with illusions one which it is as slow work putting off, as it is putting off all the other spiritual, or rather unspiritual, habits of which we would fain be rid ?
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