This pure key-note is struck and sustained with a master-hand throughout the whole story of _The Veil Withdrawn_, and the success with which the principle it enunciates has been forced into the service of art is the point which we would invite Catholic writers in all countries to consider attentively. Our grand mistake, as a rule, is to assume that Catholic literature, in order to be true to its mission, must be constantly talking of holy things, bringing forward pious maxims and practices; that the heroes and heroines of its stories must be pious people, or else very wicked people whose final cause is the glorification of the pious ones who are to convert them; it must never deal openly with the great problems of life, never grapple with its deepest mysteries, never describe men and women as they ordinarily exist around us—human beings endowed at their birth with the fatal inheritance of Adam, with mighty capabilities for good and evil, with passions and instincts that have to work out their issue to ruin or to endless victory; souls where all the forces are clashing in deadly and desperate strife—these things are forbidden ground to the Catholic novelist. He may tread timidly on the outskirts of the battle-field, but he must not venture into the thick of the fight; he must not lift the veil and let us look upon the scene where this momentous combat is going forward, where nature and grace and all the allied enemies of the human heart are wrestling and striving in fierce war. These things would not be “edifying”; they would not be fit reading for young girls; they might put ideas into their heads and excite their imaginations. And why, we ask, is it invariably taken for granted that Catholic writers only write for young girls? Are there no Catholic men in the world? It might be urged, with better show of reason, that young girls are not obliged to read novels at all—stories, yes; but novels do not form any necessary part of their education. These are intended for men and women—people who have found out the “answer to the riddle,” learned some of the dark and painful lessons of life; who turn to the pages of a novel to find an hour’s harmless recreation, if nothing more, and to forget the dull round of care and vexing realities in the amusement or excitement of imaginary troubles and joys. We are far from saying that the novel has no higher purpose than this; but if it claimed no other, this, in itself, is a legitimate one. Human nature must have relaxation. The most ascetic saints sought recreation of some kind from the strain of work and contemplation. Still more must ordinary mortals seek it; and as novel-reading has become one of the easiest and most popular forms of mental diversion, it is of the highest importance that it should be of good and wholesome quality. Now, a novel is neither good nor wholesome when it ignores the canons of art, and eschews the true study of human