My life is at such a remove from Saint Therese de Liseaux. I bought this book simply because I couldn't get it out of my mind. I'm a retired American guy. I've read a fair amount of French history, writing and the like; and perhaps, like some of you, I have had an uncanny attraction, something approaching a bond in the Spirit, with a much earlier heroine and Saint in French history, Iehanne d'Domremy d'Arcy - Joan of Arc. This happened when I was three years old - 64 years ago. I feel that she is with me still. This may not make much sense to many of you, especially as I am not a Roman Catholic and it would take an extraordinary generosity to describe me as a Christian. Nevertheless, over the sturdy decades which have flowed under the bridge, I've met a few others who are so deeply affected by La Pucelle that oftentimes, we break into uncontrollable sobs whenever we give more than a passing thought to her. Joan, like her Master, calls whom she will; and having read this peculiar but exquisitely lovely story, I can see her in hand guiding me to buy it and to read it. Dismiss these words as the fancy of a deluded old man if you will, the opinions of others matter not. But if you have a thirst for knowing what a Saint is like from the inside out, you'll find out in the reading of this book.Again, here in America I am at a far remove from the world of Therese and her world and time. My children grew into adults without and with my guidance, like many American kids, they did more to raise themselves than either their mother or I ever did, and they did a good job, too. Now at the door to middle age, they are, metaphorically speaking, somewhat past that mid-life point that Dante Alighieri described in the first Canto of the 'Inferno' as being "hopelessly lost in a dark wood;" they have their Virgils, as I had mine. But the very idea that either of them would grow up hoping that God would call them into a cloistered life is perhaps the most alien of things about 19th century France. Yet that is the very thing that Therese describes, and describes with an artless simplicity and beauty which made me forget that she was often quoting the Bible, Saint John of the Cross, the Imitation of Christ and other standards of monastic writers. I suppose that it's my good fortune that over the years I have read these works as well. But I hasten to add, that such a reading background as mine is not needed to appreciate her; indeed, in some it might prove a hindrance to seeing her as she shows herself. What is it that I see, then? I see that Therese loved God; and since I am in no position to dispute it, it's evident that God loved her in return.But as I read through the book, there were two photographs on page 44 which made my heart stand still: There is little Therese, dressed in a much earlier period's clothing; at her left, a shield which plainly bears La Pucelle's Fleur-des-Lys; for Saint Therese of Liseaux portrayed Joan in a play which the novices had put on. Think what you will of me. But I see in La Petite Fleur a sister in the entourage of Iehannette, and I have little doubt that we shall meet someday and laugh about all of the divisions of religion that exist here. In hoc signo tansit.