A curious psychological study might be made of the Abbé de Lamennais, especially by comparing him with other poets of his day. The author of the _Essai sur l'indifférence_ saw little and saw that but imperfectly; there was a cloud over his eyes and on his brain; the sole perception, the only sense he had of the outside world, which seemed to be always alert and awake, was that of hearing, a sense equivalent to the musical faculty: he played the piano and especially delighted in the compositions of Liszt. Hence arose, probably, his profound affection for that great artist. As regards all other outward senses of the objective world, his perceptions seem to have been within him, and when he wishes to see, it is in his own soul that he looks. To this peculiarity is owing the nature of his style, which is psychological in treatment. If he describes scenery, as in his _Paroles d'un Croyant_, or in the descriptions sent from his prison, it is always the outlines of the infinite that is drawn by his pen in vague horizons; with him it is his thoughts which visualise, not his eyes. M. de Lamennais belongs to the race of morbid thinkers, of whom Blaise Pascal is a sample. Let not the medical faculty even attempt to cure these sensitive natures: it will be but to deprive them of their genius. The journey, with its enforced waits for relays of horses, often afforded the Abbé de Lamennais leisure for the study of our modern school of literature, with which he was but little acquainted. In an Italian monastery, where the pilgrims received hospitality, MM. de Lamennais and Lacordaire read _Notre-Dame de Paris_ and _Henri III._ for the first time. When they reached Rome, the Abbé de Lamennais put up at the same hotel and suite of rooms that had been occupied a few months previously by the Comtesse Guiccioli. His one fixed idea was to see the Pope and to settle his affairs, those of religious democracy, with him direct. After long delays and a number of fruitless applications, after seven or eight requests for an audience still without result, the Abbé de Lamennais complained; then a Romish ecclesiastic, to whom he poured out his grievances, naively suggested that he had perhaps omitted to deposit the sum of ... in the hands of Cardinal.... The Abbé de Lamennais confessed that he would have been afraid of offending His Eminence by treating him like the doorkeeper of a common courtesan. "You need no longer be surprised at not having been received by His Holiness," was the Italian abbé's reply.