François MAURIAC. L.A.S. "Fr. M.", Paris Pentecost 1941, to his friend Jacques Laval; 3 pages in-8. Beautiful letter, on the return from the Pentecost mass. "Dear Jacques. Only love can save love. I dare to hope that you feel it today more than on any other day, by reading the first gospel". He writes to her after Mass, "with this feeling so deep, so strange, of an obviousness. That I, this novelist, this playwright, this sick person, the being I am and that you know, received this host with confidence, abandonment, without any fear - and that there is so much peace in him, suddenly! "I give you my peace"... It is not a vain promise, - but you are at the height of your youth, of "this long and dark storm". You have to suffer a lot, all the more so as you still sometimes seek consolation where it is not. Your consolation is to console others. You are the born comforter"... In this ever darker world, nothing is more important than "this current of grace that flows between us: the kingdom that is not of this world and against which this world can do nothing, is ours, James, and you play an immense role in it because in spite of your weak heart, which is too loving, or rather because of this weak heart, you have charity"...