Their Lordships were suspicious, with good reason - " . . . she receives a very large sum annually from very wealthy people in this Dominion, as hush money, to look after the results of vice in high places. It is well-known that they are not the children of the poor . . ." - for this was, after all, a French nun clearly with substantial funds and property, who refused to hand them over to the Church.
Their Lordships were discussing Mother Suzanne Aubert, one of the most remarkable women ever to live in this country, and her Homes of Compassion.
Their correspondence is included in Letters on the Go, the correspondence of Suzanne Aubert, edited by Aubert's biographer, Jessie Munro (Bridget Williams Books, $69.99, pbk).
Aubert's life here, first as a missionary, then as the founder of New Zealand's first home-grown Catholic congregation, was brilliantly described by Munro, whose biography The Story of Suzanne Aubert won the Book of the Year award in the 1997 Montana Book Awards.
This selection of a large number of her letters is a far more testing read, and at more than 600 pages might best be dipped into from time to time.
There is a linking text, and most thorough it is, but the real pleasure of the book lies in the character and richness of the letters - people really wrote letters in those days - and some of these are miniature masterpieces.
What struck me most forcefully, too, was their quite unexpected humour. - Bryan James.
