{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_13138/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_13138","id":"gutenberg_13138","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13138","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Diaries","Mysticism"],"text":"THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLD\n\nA Journal of Arthur Middleton\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTO W.S.B.\n\nFOR SUBSTANTIAL EMBODIMENT\n\n\nPREFATORY NOTE\n\nBefore Arthur Middleton died he gave me this record among others in\nthe belief that it would help to tell me what he had always known in\nthe silences, yet could never in life transmute into the friendly\ncounters of speech. During the last years of his all too brief\nexperience of his friends, more than once he shyly sought to tell what\nhe knew, yet always silence claimed him, and nothing but the wonder of\nhis eyes revealed the dream that consumed his heart. Because beauty\nclaims these words in a deeper knowledge than we had before, I have\ntranscribed this fragment of them here, confident that in these white\nintuitions of his youth there is a revelation of the Light behind\nbeauty beyond our poor knowledge and still poorer faith. I have\nomitted only what was most sacred to the privacies of his heart and\nour affection. He was of the old faith and would have wished had he\npublished these pages to have expressed his entire and passionate\nloyalty to the Roman Catholic Church in faith and deed, and to have\ndisclaimed any word therein which conflicted with the intimacies of\nits truth. I can do no more than to echo his wish, and mourn the\nunhappy chance which took him from us on an April tide, though it\nbefell on the Easter that he loved and at that hour when the flaming\nsymbol of the Divine Sacrifice was setting in the west. So the passion\nof the sun and tide which reflected his belief witnessed the\nconsummation of his great desire.--THE EDITOR.\n\nTHE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLD\n\n\nTHE JOURNAL\n\n(N.B.--On the opening pages of the blank book in which this journal is\ncontained there is a short fragment which bears no relation that I can\ndiscover to the entries that follow, and I am inclined to believe that\nit is the beginning of an autobiography which Middleton never\ncontinued. In my uncertainty, however, I print it, and accordingly it\nis transcribed below.--THE EDITOR.)\n\n_Fragment_.--I was not more than three years old when the sunlight\nfirst made me happy as it stole through the curtains and over the\ncoverlet till it kissed my lips and wrapped me in its warm embrace.\nThen I would fall asleep again and my dreams, if I dreamed at all,\nwere white and faintly stirred me to a smile. I never tried to catch\nthe sunbeams, for I felt their gold in my heart, nor could they have\nbeen nearer than they were, being associated with my mother's\nwatchfulness as she stole in to smile upon my slumbers and claim the\nsecond silent unconscious kiss. On Sunday morning they would be\nfreighted with a quiet whiter light, more peaceful and hushed to the\nfeeling of the day, and somehow the peace was guarded with finger on\nlip throughout the house, so that it was implicit in my nest of images\nlong before reason took note of it or sought to explain it to my\nconsciousness. Once again as a boy of fifteen I knew it with a catch\nof delighted and almost tearful surprise when I stroked the breast of\na wounded pigeon who found shelter in my room. The world is not as\nquiet in these days, nor is the hum of traffic in the mart attuned so\nkindly to the flow of light as when it ran so gently by the bedside of\nthe dreaming boy. ...\n\n(The journal now follows, written in a small cramped hand, without\nparagraphing or division. I omit the first few entries as purely\npersonal. Middleton had gone to a group of remote western islands, and\nthese notes are the fruit of his sojourn there.)--THE EDITOR.\n\n\nJuly 5.\n\nYesterday found me on the island with its silences, and last night the\nhost was red and sacrificial and rode on a thunder cloud. This\nafternoon the planets go singing through my flesh and my song of\npraise has widened to the arches of the sun. The sea is moaning slowly\non the sand. I stripped to the cool salt air for the first time. ...\nWalking I found my way out on the long gray dunes.\n\nJuly 6.\n\nOn the dunes today with my mother. My hand swept idly over the soft\nwhite sand, shifting the order of many thousands of starry worlds.\nWhat a chord of music if one could but hear it in its entirety! As it\nwas, I caught wonderful echoes that would light the beauties of many a\nsunrise. The silent man reminds me of Synge in his drifting life and\nthe fires glowing in his eyes. Today I saw the-beauty of a flower. ...\nSome day I shall write a play about the stars. The action will burn in\ntheir seedtime and blow on the winds of Fate with all its ironies. ...\nTonight in the sitting room I heard in my heart the singing of the\nsands. It is on the shifting desert, I feel, that we shall discover\nthe secret origin of language. How the infinitely aspiring music must\nsound tonight along the dunes!\n\n\nJuly 7.\n\nThe night before last after I retired I felt that lifted feeling\nphysically which represents the beating of the tides. Last night it\ncoalesced with the singing of the sands. At Mass this morning the\nvoices at the Credo thundered out _Et Homo factus est_ in a torrent of\nliving sound. At the elevation I saw a thin white flame rise from the\nuplifted chalice and disappear. It takes a beam of light one hundred\nand eight years to travel from Arcturus to the earth. Are we similar\ntraveling beams, and is death merely our arrival on another planet\nwhich we illumine? Today I read aloud on the cliffs from the glories\nof Plato's _Phaedrus_.\n\n\nJuly 8.\n\nIn the morning I wandered onto the dunes leading out toward Wonder\nIsland, but was driven off by the terns who were nesting. ... The\nbillows of the wind today mingled in me with the sands and the tide,\nso that I experienced from a new angle Landor's \"We are what suns and\nwinds and waters make us.\" ...\n\n\nJuly 9.\n\nMy life will see much traveling.\n\n\nJuly 10.\n\nMorning on the dunes. A cold clear bath while mists drove over the\nsands. Returning home, as I came to the deep sand on the road, I\nperceived the mystery of the resurrection of the body. In death there\nis no physical decay. The singing planets of the human body merely\npart to combine in other songs, recurring again in the end to their\nold disposal and song, exchanging other worlds for their own once\nmore, and recurring to the first motif of the symphony. I was sad this\nafternoon for the will failed me in my work. Sitting on the sand this\nmorning the singing dunes had attained to the harmony of silence. All\nat once a little wisp of seaweed--hardly more than a thread--started\nto beat time upon the sands. And then I knew and saw it to be in its\nhappy beating the pulse that governed the music of the stars. Can the\nheart conduct the symphony of the body? Tonight the sun set, borne\naway--a Grail--by angels from the questing Galahad. There was a great\nsilence in my heart as I sat in the crowded room.\n\n\nJuly 11.\n\nA day of northeast wind and upward thunder. The joy of the wind was in\nme, and I lost the sense of space. The air was so buoyant that it was\nclosely kin to the sea. ... Today I succeeded a little better with my\nwill. I had a strange sensation this afternoon, which told me that\nbare lonely places are the only places to write drama, since there\nonly can we find the pure dynamic forces of life disentangled from the\nsubtle and complicated web of human ambitions and interests. The air\nwas very thin and clear at twilight, but the sun was hidden in the\nclouds. ...\n\n\nJuly 12.\n\n... There was a great silence this evening in the crowded room.\nClosing my eyes, I raised the upper lids as far as possible without\nseeing material things, and so saw myself in fearful wonder elevating\nthe host and chalice on high. I know now the inner meaning of \"Domine,\nnon sum dignus _ut intres sub tecta mea_.\" Under these two arched\nroofs of the eyes hidden from all light save Light, there is a secret\ndwelling. ... A day of close-shrouded palling fog--a chrism confirming\nthe strength of beauty.\n\n\nJuly 13.\n\nThis morning the wind blew through the fields of grass like countless\nangels in the courts of heaven. Shadow and color and light and\nmovement dancing before the first syllable of the Name. A gull flew\ndown almost to my hand, and the sunlight thundered in my ears. Last\nnight the sea was sadly purifying the earth. I now understand the\nWasher of the Ford. Majesty lies in darkness, and grief is only the\nprivilege of seeing Majesty. Today on the porch with closed eyes\nburied in my hands the winds swept over me in a torrent of living\nlight. A symphony is a wonderful symbol. In the first place, it is\nmusic. In the second place, it is a name of praise with four\nsyllables. Then it completes a cycle, and returns on a higher plane to\nthe motif with which it began. It is the history of a soul, and in its\nlast movement typifies the resurrection of the body, by means of this\nvery return,--a return to the order and disposal in which it was\ncreated and which it now reassumes to praise its Creator for all\neternity by the harmony of the original Thought. I looked at twilight\ninto the tiny white heart of a flower that grew among the grasses, and\nout of the heart pulsed the Sacred Body in wounds all glorified, with\nHands outstretched conducting the music of the worlds. I know now that\nthe flower was a chalice. The sadness of it cannot die as the Man can,\nand I know that it is with me ready to be shared. As I write this,\nthere is a mist within my room. I always sleep now like one ready to\nsoar. In the crowded room tonight I felt myself making the movements\nof swimming, as if the air were water and I an expert swimmer.\n\n\nJuly 14.\n\n     _Views of the unveiled heavens alone forth bring Prophets who\n     cannot sing_.\n\nA day of tempestuous wind and rain with all the keen dynamic life of\ntime poised 'mid eternities. The happiest of my days battling with the\nelements in wonderful silences. At Mass with wonder the shining of the\nHost. My eyes were veiled from the chalice, but I felt two angels\n--guarding the acolytes. Again at the Credo the thunder of _Et Homo\nfactus est_. With Shelley in the afternoon and a perilous walk on the\ncliffs. ... I am gaining in detachment. The desire and passion for\nsolitude grows and I meditate a winter on the islands. How unworthy I\nam to partake of mysteries! They fill me with fear, for it is hard for\nthe body to live in eternity. In the evening with Gordon Craig. Is he\nright about masks? A mask is a symbol, but a face may be a sacrament.\nThe Mass, after all, is the supreme dream and drama of the world.\nSadness is majesty, as I found the other night, and majesty is always\nimpenetrable, for it is a secret full of awe and mysterious silence.\nTonight I see that great drama, whether it be a tragedy or no, must\nreveal time poised in infinity. Beauty, I think, contains everything\nsave the human will, and it is the ideal of the will to be thus\ncontained and of beauty to be the container. ... In the supreme drama\nof Gethsemane and Calvary, Christ used the human body as the supreme\nvisible instrument of drama.\n\n\nJuly 15.\n\n... Tonight the fog broke through the sunset and scattered gold across\nthe sea. Clouds hung over the cliffs. ... I prayed through the sunset,\nand won a victory for the will.\n\n\nJuly 16.\n\nLast night in the darkness I learned many things. The human will is\nthe unit, the core of flame which binds all elements together. It is\nsad because it is the force of impact tearing things from their\ndetached and comfortable places and placing them in new relations. It\nis the magnet, the summoning voice, our own conscience, the expression\nof Majesty. It disposes reluctant and conflicting notes in harmony.\nAnd we have control of it given into our hands. And then, too, I\nlearnt that words are worlds. At every breath, nay, by the slightest\nthought, we create planets. Pray that they harmonize! They have power.\nAre they angels? They convey our messages, but their harmony of\ninter-woven song and meaning was lost at Babel to our ears. Yet by\nthem if our will is strong and we do not fail in deeds we may take our\npart in the symphony as truly as life itself. And so we must not use\nthem idly. How can anyone dare to tell a lie? One begins to see how\nGod is a Name. I felt before how the secret of language was to be\nfound among the sands. It is because the sands are the nearest and\nmost visible planets we possess. Words are planets. But planets are\nsands on the shore of eternity. Words are sands. We are little words\nmade flesh, little echoes in the image of the great Word made Flesh.\nHis creation is the complete echo made flesh, His Image and likeness\nwhich He contemplates. And so we are in our measure part of the song\nmade flesh, and the little common words that we use are our brothers.\n\n\nJuly 17.\n\nThe sunset tonight was a glorious crucifixion after the day of clouds.\nIt was human in its beckoning. I cannot find the secret of the moon,\nbut it reminds me of Lionel's phrase, if it be his, \"golden\nmediocrities.\" Is it the astral embodiment of \"They also serve who\nonly stand and wait\"? Why is it that the little human beauties of\nNature pass me by as entities, and that I seek bare places? Is there a\nparallel in my personal attitude toward all but those who are\nspecially dear to me? I thought of how I looked down on the city from\nthe mountain in May, and felt the whole city to be my prayer. It had\nbeen given into my control for a few minutes, and the only worthy use\nto which I could put it was to offer it up with a prayer for my people\nand all the desire of my heart that the prayer would be answered. The\nhalf-million souls with all their dreams were under my care then, and\ntheir acts were mine. So little are cities, and so little I found my\nworthiness that I could not hide my tears. Later I crossed to the\nheight looking down on the cemetery, the world was silent save for the\nflaming heart of the city pulsing below, and reflecting the Flaming\nHeart above as the sun set. The woodpeckers did not fear me, and I\nsank slowly and deeply into God. I think that some day I shall know\nHis wounds. I cannot understand why I was delivered from temptation at\nthe moment that the city was put into my hands.\n\n\nJuly 18.\n\n... I bathed on the dunes on Wonder Island. The sun set tonight\nsacramentally just as it set that night at ---- when I failed to\nspeak. Never had I felt stronger, but something held me back from\ntelling him how the dearest wish of my life was that he should\nparticipate in the Holy Eucharist. The flame was in my hands to lay\nupon his heart, but something bade me wait. I distrusted it, and asked\nhim to walk with me on the shore. The thunder of the tide and the moon\nwere too strong. Why could I not have told him? We were silent for\nhours while his heart lay with the _Titanic_, and even his little\ndaughter was quiet in the room.\n\n\nJuly 19.\n\nThe stars are the dust rubbed off from human souls. \"Dust unto dust\nthou shalt return.\" At the last judgment, they will fly together in an\nangelic hosting, and clothe once more the souls which moved in them,\nand our souls will rule their songs. Human suffering is the friction\nof angels making stars. ... I know now that the end of one's forty\ndays is not complete knowledge, but only a clear indication of the\nroad. The joy is in that, and also the sorrow. It is the direction\ngiven to the will, orders to be so carefully obeyed. This is the\ngreatest discovery of all. Words do not reveal it. It is absolutely\nprosaic, though it is eternal beauty. But what I have written does not\nreflect it even faintly as it seems to me. Read Hello this afternoon.\nThe freedom of the dunes this morning seemed to extend more than is\nusual. Later I read from Plato's \"Symposium.\"\n\n\nJuly 20.\n\n... The proverbial symbol of impermanence is writing upon sand. What\ncould be more gloriously permanent? To have one's message spelled out\nby singing planets, to write upon the stars. It is so that our songs\nhave immortality. \"Verba scripta manent\" takes on a majestic\nsignificance. Are not joy and sadness the same? The only difference is\none of rapidity. Sadness is made up of the long, slow, majestic chords\nof the song. It seems to me that when a wheel seems to cease motion,\nand finally attains a state of motionlessness, it is perhaps merely\nturning into a terrible speed which we cannot perceive. It is the\nturning of an hour-glass. When I am dead, I wish only my faults to be\nchronicled, for these alone have any value for the world. I have\ndreamt always of cycles of infinities. As a decimal always tends by\nevolution towards a number, so also we evolve toward an infinity. Yet\nat that goal another infinity starts, as another infinity starts in\nnumbers,--the symbol of patience after all.\n\n\n     \"Unto the man of yearning thought\n     And aspiration, to do nought\n     Is in itself almost an act,--\n     Being chasm-fire and cataract\n     Of the soul's utter depths unseal'd.\n     Yet woe to thee if once thou yield\n     Unto the act of doing nought!\"\n\nRead Hello and Elia. I am learning how to see in crowds. These past\nfew days I have succeeded in withdrawing into life for long periods in\nthe midst of a general conversation, yet my absence was not noted in\nthe least. Out of it I hope will develop the ability to be with life\nalways in the tangle and confusion of city circumstance. This\nafternoon I read _Phaedrus_ aloud on a sunny cliff, and in the evening\nread aloud Keats' \"I stood tiptoe\" on the green heights in the wind\nand the rain. Rossetti's lines do not forbid a life of contemplation,\nbut rather encourage it as distinguished from quietism. ... Through\nthe summer I am to see the Crucifixion. How I envy St. Francis the\nStigmata! Even as a little boy I desired them--but I shall never be\nable perhaps to love passionately enough. The nights that I cried as a\nlittle fellow without knowing why, just because I loved, were nearer\nthan I shall ever be again.\n\n\nJuly 21.\n\nAt Benediction after Mass today I saw the Wonder in all Humanity with\nLight surrounding It, and I shook with an awful thunder of sound. ...\nToday I have been happy to tears, and in the blue afternoon on the\ncliffs with my mother, I shared \"Endymion\" and \"Epipsychidion.\" ... I\ndo not understand why silence is spoken of as a precept. To me it is\nthe living attribute of God. ... How nobly scornful is Sir Aubrey De\nVere's phrase, \"witless ecstasies\"!\n\n\nJuly 22.\n\nSimply a day of hard work. But I was happy in it. In an odd way I felt\nas I wrote all day on the smooth white paper that I was stroking the\nsleek breasts of doves. Tonight the steady patter of the rain upon the\neaves.\n\n\nJuly 23.\n\nA day of hard routine work. ... Tonight in the inky darkness I walked\nto the postoffice in the thundering wind and rain and surf, and\nlearned how the deeps can praise the Lord. I have always felt the\nwonder of that psalm.\n\n\nJuly 24.\n\nRose at 4:30 and saw the sun rise a pure and shimmering symbol of the\nHost above the silver outline of Wonder Island. The day was dumb. A\nlittle boy has come whose face is his sacrament. What a song he must\nsing! I look forward to the morrow as a day of special grace and\nwonder. ...\n\n\nJuly 25.\n\nIt is evident to me that music is wrong before a play or during\nintermissions. But it is necessary until our dramatists provide some\nother prelude. That prelude must be a beautiful setting of silence for\na few moments showing the protagonist under the light of eternity. In\nthe beginning all words contained a spiritual \"import,\"--were angels.\nAt Babel many fell. Now all our spiritual words are material words\ngrown out of their meanings. When expression becomes passion, it is\nthe passion of creation, clothing itself in images as God does through\neternity in the Passion of Creation. This is near the heart of life's\nmost awful secret, but words conceal it except from experience. For\nPassion proceeds from Creation as Preservation proceeds from both,\nthough they are all from Eternity in the Unity of the Godhead. All my\nplanets at the contemplation of This are dancing before the throne.\nThe thunderous rhythm of their music is shaking me physically like the\nengines of a steamer in shallow water. Every atom struggles against\nthe law of cohesion. God loves the beautiful boy. His name is Henry\nR----. The Greeks, Emerson says, called the world _Cosmos_, Beauty.\nReading this on the veranda this afternoon, I closed my eyes and sank\ncontentedly into life. When I returned the faces were foreign, and\neven my mother never knew. On the dunes this morning I heard the\nsilence of Eternity on the edge of time. I think it is a pine forest.\nBabel took away the Word, until It came to earth, and in material form\ntook on supreme Spirit coming from the Father. ...\n\n\nJuly 26.\n\nI wish I could raise a singing altar of planets by some great\nsacrifice. My fingers drummed upon the sands this morning a crude and\nsimple rhythm. I thought of its influence in displacing planets, and\nof the almost infinite musical variations that were set in motion, and\nthen I compared my crude thrumming with the majestic thunders of the\nsea, and realized the insupportable beauty of absolute music. A dog\ntalks by smell. There are vibrations of smell, as well as of sound or\nof heat or of light. And the blind reveal vibration of touch, the\nholiest of the senses. We talk now by sound, but are learning to talk\nby heat and light. When shall we learn to talk by smell and touch?\nFlowers, too, talk by smell. There is nothing but vibration in the\nimage of God, for LIFE IS NOTHING MORE THAN THE TREMBLING OF HIS\nBEAUTY. The awful speed of Truth hardens into fact. Words must not say\nmore.\n\nA dog taught me this,--Prince, the companion of the silent man. One\nshould be a priest when he marries two ideas. In any one of the\nplanets within the singing tissue of my flesh are Dantes and St.\nFrancises. Creation requires of us infinite crucifixions which we\nshall never be able to consummate alone. When I lie on my breasts on\nthe sand and bury my face in my hands, all Nature receives me as a\nhuman bridegroom, and I sink through time to eternity _creating_ space\naround me, that widens and narrows to the reaches of immortality. It\nis always on the sands that I find the friendliest depths, or in the\nsnow drift of cold planets upon a winter day or else within in the\nterrible energy of my body, as my heart beats time to the universal\nspheral rhythm. Think of the literal meaning of \"universal!\" Tonight\nin the silence I read _Prometheus Bound_. I love the grace of the\nboy's eyes. I pray to be guarded from the pride of humility.\n\n\nJuly 27.\n\n[Illustration: Circle with a cross through it.]\n\n... It was a day of silences. I traced this figure idly on the sand\ntoday, and suddenly understood the symbolism of the scarab. But did\nthe Egyptians anticipate the Redemption? As men are impressed by the\nface of the world, so is the world impressed by their faces. The face,\nas mirror of the soul, shines forth with electricity and makes an\nimpression on life, altering the song of those it acts upon as the\nviolin sound alters the formation of sands resting on a tightened\ndrum. By what ancient intuition does the Latin word \"malum\" mean both\n\"apple\" and \"evil\"? Music creates substance through the speed of\ngaiety, and God in His Creation is a cosmic humorist. (Cosmic means\nbeautiful.) To distinguish between fascination and sympathy is a\ncounsel of perfection for critics which has its spiritual analogies.\n... Angels ran in hosts through the grasses.\n\n\nJuly 28.\n\n     \"His soul's most secret thought,\n     Eternal Light declares.\"\n\nI read Lionel's poems on the cliffs, and almost discovered the secret\nof the blue. Today for the first time I realized the remoteness of\nthese islands, and it was a great joy. It was a golden day of sunshine\non the cliffs with blue cloudless sky over quiet waters. Life is\nturning inward to the heart of silence, and out of it will come the\nbeauty of my dream if life is willing.\n\n\nJuly 29.\n\n ... I met a man today who knew beauty. He was a French country\nlawyer. ... The sunset tonight revealed all the sadness of the Burning\nBabe. I failed today.\n\n\nJuly 30.\n\nAnother sadder failure of the will. Yet beauty came in the evening.\nThe love of man, far more the love of God, is God in heaven descended\nupon earth, eternity made time in beauty, \"majestic instancy,\" the\nWord made Flesh. The soul is the pool wherein God and we see our\nimages, and Heaven will be the mutual contemplation of our souls. So\nthat human love is the adoration of God in human flesh, and therein\nmay the beloved be seen as the image of God in time. The praise of Our\nLady should then be the praise of God. Was this Patmore's secret? Or\nDante's and Petrarch's? \"My lady was desired in the high heaven.\" ...\nI see now how in Heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage.\nFar flowing ramparts of a starry world! The _flammantia moenia mundi_\nof Lucretius. To contemplate Beauty FACE TO FACE! What a wonderful\nproof of the beauty of our souls. Twin mirrors of a single singing\nthought, the face of man looking into the Face of God, soul mingling\nwith Soul in immortal music, bathed in the cool wind of Our Lady's\neyes. Today I lost a nation in the cycle of my soul. What is the blood\nbut the history of my planets as engraved upon the constellations of\nmy flesh? It is the book of the angel of judgment for the first\nsyllable of my song, as the emotions, the intellect, and, alas, the\nwill, for the second, third, and fourth. The flesh is the ebb tide\nfrom God, as the emotions are the flood. The intellect is the second\nebb, and in the will pray God that it may be flood! The other is\nHell....\n\n\nJuly 31.\n\n... A victory for the will this morning. ... Tomorrow is the first of\nAugust, and I shall enter upon my forty days. The ringing in my ears\nis the ringing of my fleshly stars \"toned all in Time.\" I have\ncommenced an anthology of high imaginings more worthy than a book of\nessays of that title I have loved and desired to use for\nyears,--_Flame and Dew_. If rightly done, it may do poetry one of the\ngreatest of services by assisting it to praise Beauty on many lips in\nnaked Light. I wish to consecrate my work on it to that end. Today I\nhave been influenced by Frederick Tennyson, Traherne, and Patmore. In\nagony lies the highest music. The key is struck by circumstance,\nTime's organist, and the stars tremble with music. For the full\nthundering silence of Absolute Beauty a Divine Agony was necessary, so\nthat all Heaven and its choirs and Hell trembled in the majesty of\nthis _stricken_ Doom. Death is the final chord, the passage of our\nfull song from time to the silence of eternity. Sleep next to death is\nthe most terrible life that soul and body knows. It is the center of\nthe wheel radiating high powers to the circumference. The speed there\nis terrific, so fast that it hardens, again that \"majestic instancy.\"\nThe tiniest flame is the friction of conflicting \"universes.\" Beauty\nis alike the center and circumference of infinity, the silent wheel of\nomnipresent omnipotence, wherein all thoughts are not timed but\neternal. From eternity we were nothing: to eternity we are Beauty's\nimage. Is it strange that in sleep we are often given sight?\n\n\nAugust 1.\n\nArt is the exhibition of life in the light of eternity. I can conceive\nof no other adequate critical formula. This applies to painting,\nsculpture, literature and music. Such too is the art of life,--the\nexhibition to God and man of life in the light of eternity. I have\nbeen startled to find a kinship between Wordsworth and Millet. I found\nit today in a stooped old man who was traveling the roads with a\nwalking stick and a heavy bundle of driftwood. He was worthy of a\ngreat painter or a great poet. By the sign of the cross one draws a\nmagic circle round the soul which evil may not penetrate. It places\none \"in the name.\" On the seashore one should lie parallel with the\nwaves facing inland. Then only may one advance onward with their\nprayer.\n\n\nAugust 2.\n\nIt is absolutely true that only music may shape woods and fountains\nand the beauty of souls, for it is the only medium of expression which\nis pure. Pure music is the true white magic, as black magic is music\nmixed with clay by human hands. Naked Beauty alone may mix music with\nclay in Its own image and likeness. Even poetry fails save in so far\nas it echoes the pure natural truths of music. And all creation may\nflow from a flute if the player breathes a prayer. Some day we shall\nhave the great opera of the Incarnation and Redemption. It is the\nideal goal of music, and so of all art. But it demands the poet, the\npainter, and the sculptor, too, for its actors shall be immortal\nstatues and a living chorus singing the passion of the race against\nthe supreme dawn and the supreme sunset. But its greatest moments will\nbe silence. Christ and His Mother will live this silence in the glory\nof transfigured stone, and the drama will be played in the open with\nthe stars above as orchestra, to which the human music will be but a\nbeautiful echo. To this Wagner and Craig point the way. I read\nPatmore's _Two Infinities_ today with bewilderment and emphatic\ndisagreement. It seems absolutely lacking in vision, provincial,\nalmost challenging Creation. And yet it is essentially true. Christ\nwas a man of golden mediocrities. He speaks of the lilies of the\nfield, but never of stars or of planets. And St. Francis perhaps hints\nat the solution. To him brother Wind and brother Fire and brother Worm\nare alike and equal, for he sees them in the light of infinity. But\nall are wonderful, and we must not sneer at the stars. ... Today\nwriting as a means of expression has seemed to be absolutely futile.\nSilence is the only active way of praise that I can find, provided\nthat it informs some daily action. My will won again today. Horizons\nare wonderful. S---- told me that Lionel invited him into his Oxford\nrooms one evening at sunset and led him to a seat from which nothing\nlower than the horizon was to be seen. \"There,\" he said, \"nothing\nmatters that is below that line.\" You see he knew that our souls in\ntheir beauty are always above it.\n\n\nAugust 3.\n\nTo watch a grass-blade tapping will teach you wonderful music--the\nlanguage of the wind. The sunlight running through my flesh in-flames\nthe song of the will. I lost myself tonight in the crowded silences.\nJoy stays with me now, and if I can only join it to sorrow, the will\ncan then sing simply and freely a continuous song. The turning of the\ntide is soon to come, and my homesickness for G----ville is\ntransforming itself into a different nostalgia. My planets are rising\nin song like little candle flames. I wish I possessed their humility.\nWithin me tonight are quiet moonlit waters very full and rich with\nsilent promises of rest.\n\n\nAugust 4.\n\nAt Mass today Mr. C---- showed a fine courtesy serving with the high\nhumility of a punctilious gentleman. ... Today I saw the body of\nChrist, \"infinite riches in a little room.\" The human body of Christ\nin its passion is the sum of all our bodies, and it is this truth to\nwhich pantheism in its blindness dimly beckons. The saints and pure\npoets and those who have died for friends are the image of the Sacred\nHeart, and in them at moments of pure _reflection_ there is naked\nlight and the vision which is insupportable. Hence in the greatest\nsaints the stigmata. All God's lonely ones are the reflections of His\npain when they attain to sanctity. And holy priests are the\nreflections of His Hands. Little children and saints may look into His\nEyes and see their own. And repentant sinners may reflect His Feet in\ntheir tears. All the births and lives of the earth go to form His\nHuman Body, which is vast as Eternity and radiating with Light from\nall points and inward to the Heart of Light. To some saints it has\nbeen permitted to be the spouse of this body and soul. Magic is white\nor black. White magic is the offspring of spiritual marriage and is a\nsacrament. Black magic is the offspring of unauthorized spiritual\ncontacts. My frame tonight is possessed by angels dancing before the\nthrone in a fearfully rapid rhythm. The secret of spiritual\nachievement is unremitting labor urged without ceasing by a fearful\njoy. No drama is more vast than that of the crucifixion, and yet I\nhave seen it all in the heart of a strawberry blossom with wounds all\nglorified in an ecstasy of living trembling light, and heard the\nbeating of His Sacred Heart while universe called out to universe in\nthe anguish of His surrender and all the stars died into the Light of\nEternity. The tide has turned.\n\n\n\nAugust 5.\n\nToday looking into a narrow dome I saw the seeded planets banded by\ncircles of light whereon they turned. And color changed into silence\nat the bidding of the central suns. And these were the eyes of happy\ninnocence wherein all others died to the Living Light, God being in\nthem by their childishness. The tide turned yesterday, and today I\nhave spent entirely in eternity surrounded by a host of fair-winged\nPossibilities, God's angels to humanity. Death is glorified by their\npassage from the future to the past, and we respond by plunging our\nlights into the Light wherein it dies. _Abt Vogler_ is the musical\nphilosophy of it all. At my first symphony concert as a little boy, I\nsaw the face of the dying Christ through the wall, and in it the music\nof the seventh Symphony sang through the naked eyes calling me inward\nto the Sacred Heart. This morning and noon at table I smiled at white\nhorizons and in the evening I swam through the Host on my future\nwings. We love earth, air, fire, and water now, but the eternal joy of\nswimming through the Light of God and reflecting His Light in song and\nsilence is the infinity of all poets' dreams incarnate in the awful\nspeed of Absolute Music. It is the privilege of laughing into the Eyes\nof God, those Eyes before which the angels veil their faces. It is the\nprivilege of smelling the blossom of the Living Rose, of tasting and\nconsuming forever the Body and Blood, of touching the Sacred Knees,\nand of hearing the Divinity who is Music. Priests and poets shall swim\nin the song of his heart, and those who have died for friends will\nreflect its resolving rhythm. How I pity Blake his pride, though he\nwas preserved from the pride of humility. God will let me see more of\nHim in this life than Blake did, though it is of the most trifling\nsignificance to anticipate eternity in poor time, the crippled heir of\noriginal sin. Since it is to be, I wish with all my blood that my will\nwere worthier.\n\n\nAugust 6.\n\nA day of happy drudgery reading proofs. I rode through them in the\nwinds of eternity. That is the secret of it all,--to teach us joy. The\nhuman symbol of it is a martyr's ecstasy, which is in no way sensuous\nor voluptuous since it has completely forgotten the body. The Sacred\nHeart is the Mystical Rose spreading its petals over the Cross of\nTime. In _Flame and Dew_ is the first application of an idea and\nbelief that the day will come when anthologies will be books\ncontaining the wisdom of the poets on special sciences, such as the\nscience of childhood, the science of love, the science of death, and\nthe science of silence.\n\n\nAugust 7.\n\nImagination being Eternal Life, it shows the blind instinct of\nlanguage that the word should mean the creation of images. Imagination\nis the instrument of God's creation in his own _image_ and likeness.\nToday I came to Petrarch and Dante--the mystics of the supreme\nelements. To contrast their serenity with Blake's wrath shows the\nwhiter heights. All height is inward through narrow circles to the\nCentral Fire of Silent Love from which the angels shrink in spiral\nmessages of inspiring flame, and toward which humanity aspires in\nnarrowing and advancing circles of expiring flesh. But depth is\noutward to the hearts of men. Sirius sings to my living stars tonight\nits light in the music of the ancient winds, telling me of the\ncrucifixion in burning colors of a dying world. Why am I unworthy of\nan equal death? The blood runs toward it in a passion of harmony. The\nday is near when my morning stars shall sing their lives out together\nin praise of their Creator, though it is futile to measure it in terms\nof time. One is not curious of time if one lives in eternity. Death is\nthen only the fulfilment of our operative desires. I wish that I were\none of the tears of God. Joy is for those _of good will_.\n\n\nAugust 8.\n\nI met one of Wordsworth's old men today gathering faggots on the\nshore. \"I have been to all places and cities and I found no one happy\non the world, and now I wish me to be dead.\" ... Tonight I bowed in\nsilence under the vault of stars. To be holy is to lose the knowledge\nof good and evil through \"clinging Heaven by the hems.\" To refuse evil\nis to refuse the apple _(malum)_ of the Tree of Knowledge. There is no\npossibility of finding the ideal unless we look passionately for\nnothing but the beauty of souls, seeing therein God's image and\nrefusing to perceive the clouds of evil. Circles lead to Heaven, but\nstraight lines to Hell. Straight lines are the tangents that \"err\"\nfrom the sphere of the ideal. Miss C---- told me about a little boy\nwho was visiting Italy with his mother. He fell down hill, and stopped\nbefore a roadside crucifix. And then he forgot his fall. They found\nhim crying as if his heart would break, and he told them that it was\nbecause he was so sorry for that sad Man whom everybody had made\nsuffer so. The angels drop seed into our souls which make them\ninvisible to other men, and we also may plant seed with modesty and\nhumility. It is God's fernseed to mortals. How strange it is that we\nmeasure time by moons, cold satellites, and thus the symbol of death.\nBut after all time is the dark night of the soul. I realized for the\nfirst time today that I was born in December, the month of creation,\nwhen the flame turns in upon itself in the hard cold earth and gives\nbirth to high hopes whose fulfilment are in eternity. It is the month\nof Christmas on that account. I have begun to perceive what awful\nwings my thoughts have, and know that they are given them by God\nthrough me to carry them humbly into the most secret circle of the\nSacred Breast. We must do the labor of God with human hands, yet the\nLabor of God is the Creation of Beauty. As the vegetable kingdom\nrenews its life once a year through time and so preserves its secret,\nour souls must renew themselves in infinite recurrence through\neternity. Our life differs only in ardor which is speed. The greatest\nspeed lies in submission, for submission is the greatest strength. At\nhigh moments it is Atlas supporting the earth. At the supreme moment,\nit becomes the mystery of the Redemption.\n\n\nAugust 9.\n\nSinging through the universal stars that were woven into His Flesh, I\nsaw the Son of God tonight glorified in the joy of a living Smile. And\nall the angels bowed laughing toward Him and clapped and danced before\nHis Name, though the sum of their song was silence. And then every\nliving star was scourged by the sins of men, and died into the\ndarkness, saying \"Thy Will be done,\" and it was morning with the\nEucharist in the sky. Only Redemption trembled through the air. The\nstars are the eternal reflections of God's patience, for they endure\nHis Human Passion, since together they form the shadow of the Word\nmade Flesh. They are the singing echo in time of God's speechless\npatience, as we are destined to be if we conquer our wills. But\npatience is suffering, and Alpha must submit to the yoke of Omega.\nSince God is the Alpha and Omega he caused the Incarnation and\nPassion. THE IDEAL OF HUMAN LIFE IS THE PASSIONATE REDEMPTION OF THE\nWILL. This is life's darkest secret, _unless_ we live in the\nEucharist. We are to be the silent reflections of speechless patience\nin the still waters of eternity. The evil came when Lucifer stole fire\nfrom heaven and brought it down to men. Conquer fire, and we conquer\nthe will. Then heaven is ours. My body and blood ache with my prayer\nfor it.\n\n\nAugust 10.\n\nThe angels weave what God creates, according to their functions. His\narchangels are the weavers of time, and all the others of material\nnature, uninformed by a soul. This is a branch of the heavenly song.\nTo weave God's image is the function of the saints and of all those on\nearth. It is the wonder of incarnate Music that saved the world,\nAbsolute Silence born into Sound, and dying with all Sound into\nSilence. The archangels are God's messengers of life and death, for\nthey control the days. But they are sent from Him to His Image, and\nour weaving is made out of their materials as we adapt them to our\nsong. All outer powers and forces are brought us by the angels, and\namong the dearest to God's heart are his flame-winged Possibilities\nthat hover on the borderline between today and tomorrow, Time and\nEternity. They alone may not enter time unless we beckon them. The\nstarry heaven is the heaven of the body; the crystal sphere, of the\nintellect; and the empyrean, of the pure soul. We may live in the\nstarry heaven in this life, if God gives us the grace. But it is then\na heaven of desire. But the weaving of the angels is the whole\nphilosophy of nature. Their music explains its sympathies and sorrows,\nits deaths and resurrections, and above all its solemn silences of\nnight and noon. And the song of their weaving becomes nature's love of\nwisdom, that is to say, adoration of the Word. The saints are the only\ncomplete philosophers. The object of asceticism is generally\nmisunderstood, particularly in one phase of its endeavors,--to forget\nthe body. The truth of the matter is that the flesh and blood in their\nhighest song toward which we should strive are so occupied with\npraising God that they completely lack self-consciousness, and do not\ndistract the intellect or the will. God is with them in naked purity.\nIt is His simplest and dearest starry music. He demands that our life\nshould be a programme of infinite proportions. And yet I wonder if a\nsaint can ever be both a great prophet and a great apostle. I do not\nbelieve a great prophet can be tender enough to persuade. That is why\nprophets are scorned or ignored by their generation. Gentleness is the\nabsolute breath of music, which alone can penetrate the soul or even\nthe material body of nature. The supreme gentleness of St. Francis of\nAssisi made the birds listen to his music, for his breath ran dancing\nin a cool breeze through all their singing stars. We need a St.\nFrancis at present burningly. Is it possible to form a religious order\nof the poets? Here is an ideal. But it must be Franciscan: a gown, a\ngirdle, and sandals, poverty, chastity, and obedience. Where is the\nwise man to obey? I can believe that jewels are potent for good or\nevil, since they are condensed flame and a secret word lies hidden in\neach of their hearts. A day of tempestuous wind and rain.\n\n\nAugust 11.\n\nToday I found myself progressing slowly to a triumphant rhythm round\nthe circumference of a vast musical plane. The celestial earth is flat\nbut progresses upwards to its central point, the cone of aspiration\nand song. And then I remembered the vision of St. Frances of Rome\nwherein she saw the Supreme Godhead as a vast Circle of Light in the\nmidst of which was a Pillar, the Cone of Redemption and Silence. Death\nis the point of meeting. Perhaps the Zodiac is the merry-go-round of\nthe stars. A second day of tempest. The great message of future poetry\nwill be to proclaim that nature is the expression of man, rather than\nman of nature, and thus to reveal the essential nobility of man as the\nimage of God rather than the image of nature. Suns and winds and\nwaters are what we make them. Pantheism confuses the image of the\nimage with the face. Nature is the mirror of man as man is the mirror\nof God. Nay more, nature is the mirror in time of man's eternity, as\nman is the image in time and eternity of God. It is for this reason\nthat the stars are the open book of the future, though they are not to\nbe read by men aloud. Astrology is forbidden because it violates the\nprecept of silence, which is the courtesy we pay as gentlemen to God.\nWe may only read the stars in little children's eyes, wherein their\nfuture is concealed. The breast of Mary is the fountain of the stars,\nand round it fly the seraphim in flaming adoration of the blessed\nwomb. Her eyes are God's dew, wherein the secret of His Light is\nwhispered by the thrones. I felt through the morning His human\nPresence graciously walking the roads, and I was resting on His left\nArm that brought me to His Heart, the country wherein the dreams of my\nwill are born.\n\n\nAugust 12.\n\nI have been sick today. Rain and tempest, but God was on the wind, and\nI am happy.\n\n\nAugust 13.\n\nStill ill. Rain and fog with intermittent sunshine. But I am as happy\nas I have ever been.\n\n\nAugust 14.\n\nStill ill. Fog in the morning breaking into a wonderful pearl day of\nsummer haze. Our bodily senses are instruments in our orchestra.\n\n\nAugust 15.\n\nToday I sank into Beauty several times in the sunlight.\n\n\nAugust 16.\n\nRead through the last proofs and on the dunes with my mother in the\nafternoon I lived in the light of God. The sun I caused to smile and I\nwrapped myself in the blue of the Virgin's sky. I found myself causing\na shower twice by failing in humility. But the laughing Light of God's\neyes in my soul is eternal, and when I submit it controls the tides of\nmy body and mind. Tonight a woodpecker alighted on Father K----'s\nshoulder and stayed with him nearby. The Brahmin may attain to the\nshadow of the first syllable of the Word. He does not believe that\nthere are others. _Om_ is simply the symbol of inward breath,\ninspiration. I heard myself today very near to the Heart of Silence,\nwhose systole and diastole is the ebb and flow of Love from Eternity\nto Eternity. Time is the sound of silence and is dead to all eternity.\nIt is the only beautiful death that the angels do not mourn, for in\nthe death of Time is the Redemption of the World. It takes the circle\nof eternity to unite the four points of the cross, and a crucifixion\nto unite two parallel lines.\n\n\nAugust 17.\n\nOut of the summer I am weaving the pattern web of the future in\nthreads of desire. Every resurrection of a body is the last judgment\nof infinite planets, which fly to or flee from the human song of God's\nfirst syllable. Yet those that flee may be purchased by an infinite\nRedemption. This opens a terrible possibility of mercy. Is God\ncontinually becoming man for the love of His image? This is the joyful\nsecret of God's sad fourth syllable. I clothe it in words to guard it\nfrom my intellect. Infinite incarnations prove time an illusion, since\nthey make it eternity. God's Sacred Heart is the silent ocean beyond\nthe universe. It reflects. The Incarnation is its flood. The Host\ntonight was more white than shining silver in a lonely pearl sky. It\nwas Absolute Music unveiled to the human eye. Tonight I stood out for\nlong alone with the stars, and watched a thunderstorm come over the\nsea. We must guard our dreams and intuitions not only from the\nintellects of others but most of all from our own. Yet our faith must\nbe precisely bounded, although this boundary is to be none other than\nthe infinite succession of points where time and eternity meet and bow\ndown before God. This morning I saw His Beauty in a daisy. ... I do\nnot believe that God will reveal His mysteries if we seek to know\nthem, without inflicting a penalty. The way of knowledge is the way of\nsilent patience, which lies quietly dreaming of Love till the flood\nwashes it with Living Light.\n\n\nAugust 18.\n\nEvery time we look into another's soul we may enter Paradise. There is\nan indescribable grace in the air this first day of prescient autumn.\nThe summer has taught me the secret of loneliness and the infinite way\nof satisfying its desire. To be alone with God we must be intimate\nwith the beauty in the eyes of every face, and yet absolutely detached\nsave from one's family and friend. Life's ideal is to see the end in\nthe beginning, and act the road between. This is no other than the\neternal life of the Alpha and Omega. But the essence of it in time is\nthat the whole tide of humanity should ebb and flow in our breast. It\nrequires a crucifixion to drink in all its saltness. I found the dunes\nbeyond the lagoon this morning and sank into God in the wind of the\nsunlit blue. When I returned, the people were coming from Church.\nTonight the Host was quivering gold, and as I write the planets are\nringing in my ears. I pray that at the end I may come to the Heart of\nEternal Silence.\n\n\nAugust 19.\n\nOn the dunes this morning toward Wonder Island ... Eternity is\ninfinite speed. Time is the dragwheel, nothing more. Hence the\nsignificance of \"when eternity reaffirms the conception of an hour.\"\nFlame is the symbol of time as dew is the symbol of eternity. They\nmeet in Christ and through Him in the human race. The moon properly\nloved is the kindness of time, as the sun is the reflected love of\nEternity made Flesh in the Host on the altar. ... Tonight I desire\nonly silence to love.\n\n\nAugust 20.\n\nOn the dunes toward Wonder Island this morning I lost space and walked\nupon the blue ringing a cycle of stars in either hand. But I felt no\nsense of distance and the seed of the sands blew on the wind which\ncarried me. It taught me how to walk softly through life, and coming\nhome I had the sand in my hair. I know now what clouds are, softer\nthan the breasts of doves. God's flying sorrows are the sandals of the\nsoul. They make us His angels, Mercuries of Light. The sun has not\nbled for many a night, but has slowly descended in silver splendor,\nalways a second dawn with its fresh, keen, cool surprises. Today was\nthe grace of last night's desire. The wonder of it this morning was my\ncomplete surrender, the assurance with which I moved on the singing\nskies as my native element. I know that only the appearances remained,\nas in the Eucharist after the Consecration we seem to see the bread\nand wine. Life was the poise of infinity, and I knew of no horizon,\nfor I could look down upon the dawn. It came two weeks ago Sunday in\nmy heart. I see the mystery of the Resurrection in its beauty, and why\nwhite lilies are its deepest symbol. How can there be a prison or a\ncage? Every twilight is a white horizon. The gulls know that and the\nsea tonight has lost its sorrow.\n\n\nAugust 21.\n\nBy sailboat to P---- and G---- with the silent man, returning with the\nstars. Their hosting was like the flocking of wild geese, and they\nfollowed St. Francis of Assisi as a leader, the captain of the morning\nstars. In the silence I heard the operation of the divine mathematics.\n\nI loved those Chaldean seers to whom God talked directly and wrote His\nmessage upon the stars. I lay prone on the deck looking upwards and\nfell into the Divine Ocean slowly. The moon rode serenely to the\nsouthwest, and humanity was with me in the boat. Navigators are now\nthe only men left wise enough to follow the stars. The sunpath was\nJacob's ladder, and the Aran islanders know its secret when they see\nTir-n'an-Og in the west on calm sunset evenings. The sea had my trust,\neternal through yesterday's experience, and I believe that if faith\nand good works required it of me, I could walk softly over it. If the\nsoul is to control the body, surely spiritual gravity should be able\nto overcome material gravity. Certainly it would take more than the\nsea to quench my flame, if God made me worthy.\n\n\nAugust 22.\n\nI looked down from great heights today on all the little smiling\nintimacies. They are like happy babies to me, and my speech should\nplay with them, if I can ever become worthy of their simplicity. The\nrhythm of all music is the systole and diastole of the Sacred Heart,\nwhich is the ebb and flow of an infinite ocean. This is the meaning, I\nthink, of the old Gaelic rune, _Ri tragadh s'ri lionadh, mar a bha,\nmar a tha, mar a bhitheas gu bragh ri traghadh s'ri lionadh_. (The ebb\nand the flow, as it was, as it is, as it ever shall be, the ebb and\nthe flow.) The resolute gaze of the soul toward this in love\nconstitutes prayer in its only form. It shows blood to be the most\nrich and beautiful of human things, and its salt waves purify the\nflesh, as the salt waves of Gethsemane and Calvary redeemed the soul\nand its singing stars.\n\n\nAugust 23.\n\nMy life so far has been a word, and not a deed. But the world was not\nredeemed until the Word BECAME FLESH--AND DWELT AMONGST US. Mary S----\nmet us on the roads today and said, \"I hope that we'll be meeting in\nHeaven, we seem to meet so often now.\" I sleep at night in a cruciform\nposition adoring beauty with every faculty save my will, the most\nnecessary of all.\n\n\nAugust 24.\n\nIn the open today amid a hurricane of wind ... I walked with a\nchildish old man with a pleasant soul. The wind brought meteor showers\nof beauty to the body. It rained grace in the sky of noon.\n\nI could carry overflowing happiness now even to New York. Today\nreminded me of the sunlight on the roar of Broadway. God is on the\nwind tonight, and is beating down my will with his wings.\n\n\nAugust 25.\n\nI lay through a night of tempestuous wind with the open window at my\nhead. I awoke and saw myself face to face in my weakness. It rained\nall day. ... I can hardly bear my love today. It is a terrific dynamo\nof silence. But it will be very long before I shall fulfill my\nworthiness. If one could always remember that he is a saviour, and\ncarry humanity with him, his will would be inflexible and every act an\nexulting humility. All nature is but a mantle which the wind of my\nspirit disposes in folds about me, and humanity is the chalice in\nwhich I may communicate with God,--a chalice woven of our singing\nflesh and heart and brain and will, wherein the will is its depth, the\nAtlas which bears the Sacred Body and Blood when it is given to us.\n\n\nAugust 26.\n\nSorrow has come at last. Full moon, and life is at the flood. The\nprecept of all adversity is of course that the ebb tide of fortune is\nour flood toward God. Even the lamp tonight is singing in the room.\n\n\nAugust 27.\n\nThe experience still turns inward to the heart of life. I now see the\ncore of it. It burns, of course, but think of the wheel it carries. A\nfew days ago I was on the circumference. Now I have found the center.\nA day of rain and wind and exterior disturbances. But I have found my\ncenacle.\n\n\nAugust 28.\n\nA victory for the will. ... It is strange that every vital lesson that\nexperience teaches can never be expressed in words. The past few days\nhave taught me more than the rest of the summer. There will always be\na secrecy of the soul, and what this contains constitutes God's image\nand likeness. Life sings tonight in every atom its marvelous chemistry\nof change and prophecy. Nature knows no elegies, since it may never\ntriumph over aught but dust. But the highest dream is less worthy than\nthe simplest deed, and we must forget the knowledge of good and evil.\nI would exchange all the knowledge I have gained for the grace to\nperform the slightest act of St. Francis. God has made our opportunity\ninfinite by giving us an eternal standard of values,--that is all.\n\n\nAugust 29.\n\nI am afraid to write further for fear that I shall soon become\nself-conscious. ... It is strange that the will did not come home to\nme as a complete experience before. I simply had the foreboding of it.\nThis summer on the 9th of August I heard the Fourth Syllable in its\nawfulness for the first time, and understood the mystery of the\nRedemption. The time has now come to close this book, for the record\nis complete, and may not be reopened until I redeem my will.\n\n_They departed into their own country another way_.","title":"The Forgotten Threshold: A Journal of Arthur Middleton","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":10278}