Mrs. Augustus Craven’s last work, _Le Mot de l’Enigme_, which, under the title of _The Veil Withdrawn_, appeared in THE CATHOLIC WORLD simultaneously with its issue in the _Correspondant_ of Paris, is known to most of the readers of the present article, but we would ask them if, when enjoying its persual, they have sometimes stopped to consider what a genuine achievement the book was, and how pregnant with promise for the lighter Catholic literature of the future? Any book by the author of the _Récit d’une Sœur_ is sure to command a wide audience in Europe and America among readers of different languages and creeds; but there are reasons why _The Veil Withdrawn_ should meet with a specially triumphant welcome from us Catholics, for it is in truth a triumph over prejudices whose narrow and tyrannical rule have hitherto been fatal to Catholic fiction. The _Récit d’une Sœur_, the peerless story that stands unrivalled amidst the literature of the world, taught many lessons to our day, but no one, perhaps, more important, considering its possible results, than that which it conveyed to Catholic writers—namely, that religion, in its most ardent form and its most rigid application, is compatible with the tenderest romance; that human hearts and imaginations, far from being chilled or fettered by the sublime truths of the faith, are kindled and enlarged by their influence; that human passions come into play as powerfully in souls ruled by the divine law as in those that reject and defy it, the only difference being that to the former they are weapons used in noble warfare, servants and auxiliaries, whereas to the others they are tyrants that strike only to destroy. The loves of Alexandrine and Albert revealed this secret to the world, and this alone would have sufficed to immortalize the _Récit_. No romance ever reached the skyey heights to which these lovers soared; and yet, while their hearts sang their sweet love-song together, their souls were fixed on God, dreaming of heaven, where their love was to find its perfect consummation, scorning the pitiful meed of earthly happiness, unless it might lead them to the secure possession of the eternal bliss of which this was but the transient foretaste. “_Pour la vie, c’est trop court!_”[70] was Alexandrine’s reply when Albert asked her for the ring on which the words were graven, _Pour la vie!_ And such should be the motto of all love worthy of the name.