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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13138-0.txt b/13138-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60e8c2b --- /dev/null +++ b/13138-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1099 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13138 *** + +THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLD + +A Journal of Arthur Middleton + + + + + + + +TO W.S.B. + +FOR SUBSTANTIAL EMBODIMENT + + +PREFATORY NOTE + +Before Arthur Middleton died he gave me this record among others in +the belief that it would help to tell me what he had always known in +the silences, yet could never in life transmute into the friendly +counters of speech. During the last years of his all too brief +experience of his friends, more than once he shyly sought to tell what +he knew, yet always silence claimed him, and nothing but the wonder of +his eyes revealed the dream that consumed his heart. Because beauty +claims these words in a deeper knowledge than we had before, I have +transcribed this fragment of them here, confident that in these white +intuitions of his youth there is a revelation of the Light behind +beauty beyond our poor knowledge and still poorer faith. I have +omitted only what was most sacred to the privacies of his heart and +our affection. He was of the old faith and would have wished had he +published these pages to have expressed his entire and passionate +loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church in faith and deed, and to have +disclaimed any word therein which conflicted with the intimacies of +its truth. I can do no more than to echo his wish, and mourn the +unhappy chance which took him from us on an April tide, though it +befell on the Easter that he loved and at that hour when the flaming +symbol of the Divine Sacrifice was setting in the west. So the passion +of the sun and tide which reflected his belief witnessed the +consummation of his great desire.--THE EDITOR. + +THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLD + + +THE JOURNAL + +(N.B.--On the opening pages of the blank book in which this journal is +contained there is a short fragment which bears no relation that I can +discover to the entries that follow, and I am inclined to believe that +it is the beginning of an autobiography which Middleton never +continued. In my uncertainty, however, I print it, and accordingly it +is transcribed below.--THE EDITOR.) + +_Fragment_.--I was not more than three years old when the sunlight +first made me happy as it stole through the curtains and over the +coverlet till it kissed my lips and wrapped me in its warm embrace. +Then I would fall asleep again and my dreams, if I dreamed at all, +were white and faintly stirred me to a smile. I never tried to catch +the sunbeams, for I felt their gold in my heart, nor could they have +been nearer than they were, being associated with my mother's +watchfulness as she stole in to smile upon my slumbers and claim the +second silent unconscious kiss. On Sunday morning they would be +freighted with a quiet whiter light, more peaceful and hushed to the +feeling of the day, and somehow the peace was guarded with finger on +lip throughout the house, so that it was implicit in my nest of images +long before reason took note of it or sought to explain it to my +consciousness. Once again as a boy of fifteen I knew it with a catch +of delighted and almost tearful surprise when I stroked the breast of +a wounded pigeon who found shelter in my room. The world is not as +quiet in these days, nor is the hum of traffic in the mart attuned so +kindly to the flow of light as when it ran so gently by the bedside of +the dreaming boy. ... + +(The journal now follows, written in a small cramped hand, without +paragraphing or division. I omit the first few entries as purely +personal. Middleton had gone to a group of remote western islands, and +these notes are the fruit of his sojourn there.)--THE EDITOR. + + +July 5. + +Yesterday found me on the island with its silences, and last night the +host was red and sacrificial and rode on a thunder cloud. This +afternoon the planets go singing through my flesh and my song of +praise has widened to the arches of the sun. The sea is moaning slowly +on the sand. I stripped to the cool salt air for the first time. ... +Walking I found my way out on the long gray dunes. + +July 6. + +On the dunes today with my mother. My hand swept idly over the soft +white sand, shifting the order of many thousands of starry worlds. +What a chord of music if one could but hear it in its entirety! As it +was, I caught wonderful echoes that would light the beauties of many a +sunrise. The silent man reminds me of Synge in his drifting life and +the fires glowing in his eyes. Today I saw the-beauty of a flower. ... +Some day I shall write a play about the stars. The action will burn in +their seedtime and blow on the winds of Fate with all its ironies. ... +Tonight in the sitting room I heard in my heart the singing of the +sands. It is on the shifting desert, I feel, that we shall discover +the secret origin of language. How the infinitely aspiring music must +sound tonight along the dunes! + + +July 7. + +The night before last after I retired I felt that lifted feeling +physically which represents the beating of the tides. Last night it +coalesced with the singing of the sands. At Mass this morning the +voices at the Credo thundered out _Et Homo factus est_ in a torrent of +living sound. At the elevation I saw a thin white flame rise from the +uplifted chalice and disappear. It takes a beam of light one hundred +and eight years to travel from Arcturus to the earth. Are we similar +traveling beams, and is death merely our arrival on another planet +which we illumine? Today I read aloud on the cliffs from the glories +of Plato's _Phaedrus_. + + +July 8. + +In the morning I wandered onto the dunes leading out toward Wonder +Island, but was driven off by the terns who were nesting. ... The +billows of the wind today mingled in me with the sands and the tide, +so that I experienced from a new angle Landor's "We are what suns and +winds and waters make us." ... + + +July 9. + +My life will see much traveling. + + +July 10. + +Morning on the dunes. A cold clear bath while mists drove over the +sands. Returning home, as I came to the deep sand on the road, I +perceived the mystery of the resurrection of the body. In death there +is no physical decay. The singing planets of the human body merely +part to combine in other songs, recurring again in the end to their +old disposal and song, exchanging other worlds for their own once +more, and recurring to the first motif of the symphony. I was sad this +afternoon for the will failed me in my work. Sitting on the sand this +morning the singing dunes had attained to the harmony of silence. All +at once a little wisp of seaweed--hardly more than a thread--started +to beat time upon the sands. And then I knew and saw it to be in its +happy beating the pulse that governed the music of the stars. Can the +heart conduct the symphony of the body? Tonight the sun set, borne +away--a Grail--by angels from the questing Galahad. There was a great +silence in my heart as I sat in the crowded room. + + +July 11. + +A day of northeast wind and upward thunder. The joy of the wind was in +me, and I lost the sense of space. The air was so buoyant that it was +closely kin to the sea. ... Today I succeeded a little better with my +will. I had a strange sensation this afternoon, which told me that +bare lonely places are the only places to write drama, since there +only can we find the pure dynamic forces of life disentangled from the +subtle and complicated web of human ambitions and interests. The air +was very thin and clear at twilight, but the sun was hidden in the +clouds. ... + + +July 12. + +... There was a great silence this evening in the crowded room. +Closing my eyes, I raised the upper lids as far as possible without +seeing material things, and so saw myself in fearful wonder elevating +the host and chalice on high. I know now the inner meaning of "Domine, +non sum dignus _ut intres sub tecta mea_." Under these two arched +roofs of the eyes hidden from all light save Light, there is a secret +dwelling. ... A day of close-shrouded palling fog--a chrism confirming +the strength of beauty. + + +July 13. + +This morning the wind blew through the fields of grass like countless +angels in the courts of heaven. Shadow and color and light and +movement dancing before the first syllable of the Name. A gull flew +down almost to my hand, and the sunlight thundered in my ears. Last +night the sea was sadly purifying the earth. I now understand the +Washer of the Ford. Majesty lies in darkness, and grief is only the +privilege of seeing Majesty. Today on the porch with closed eyes +buried in my hands the winds swept over me in a torrent of living +light. A symphony is a wonderful symbol. In the first place, it is +music. In the second place, it is a name of praise with four +syllables. Then it completes a cycle, and returns on a higher plane to +the motif with which it began. It is the history of a soul, and in its +last movement typifies the resurrection of the body, by means of this +very return,--a return to the order and disposal in which it was +created and which it now reassumes to praise its Creator for all +eternity by the harmony of the original Thought. I looked at twilight +into the tiny white heart of a flower that grew among the grasses, and +out of the heart pulsed the Sacred Body in wounds all glorified, with +Hands outstretched conducting the music of the worlds. I know now that +the flower was a chalice. The sadness of it cannot die as the Man can, +and I know that it is with me ready to be shared. As I write this, +there is a mist within my room. I always sleep now like one ready to +soar. In the crowded room tonight I felt myself making the movements +of swimming, as if the air were water and I an expert swimmer. + + +July 14. + + _Views of the unveiled heavens alone forth bring Prophets who + cannot sing_. + +A day of tempestuous wind and rain with all the keen dynamic life of +time poised 'mid eternities. The happiest of my days battling with the +elements in wonderful silences. At Mass with wonder the shining of the +Host. My eyes were veiled from the chalice, but I felt two angels +--guarding the acolytes. Again at the Credo the thunder of _Et Homo +factus est_. With Shelley in the afternoon and a perilous walk on the +cliffs. ... I am gaining in detachment. The desire and passion for +solitude grows and I meditate a winter on the islands. How unworthy I +am to partake of mysteries! They fill me with fear, for it is hard for +the body to live in eternity. In the evening with Gordon Craig. Is he +right about masks? A mask is a symbol, but a face may be a sacrament. +The Mass, after all, is the supreme dream and drama of the world. +Sadness is majesty, as I found the other night, and majesty is always +impenetrable, for it is a secret full of awe and mysterious silence. +Tonight I see that great drama, whether it be a tragedy or no, must +reveal time poised in infinity. Beauty, I think, contains everything +save the human will, and it is the ideal of the will to be thus +contained and of beauty to be the container. ... In the supreme drama +of Gethsemane and Calvary, Christ used the human body as the supreme +visible instrument of drama. + + +July 15. + +... Tonight the fog broke through the sunset and scattered gold across +the sea. Clouds hung over the cliffs. ... I prayed through the sunset, +and won a victory for the will. + + +July 16. + +Last night in the darkness I learned many things. The human will is +the unit, the core of flame which binds all elements together. It is +sad because it is the force of impact tearing things from their +detached and comfortable places and placing them in new relations. It +is the magnet, the summoning voice, our own conscience, the expression +of Majesty. It disposes reluctant and conflicting notes in harmony. +And we have control of it given into our hands. And then, too, I +learnt that words are worlds. At every breath, nay, by the slightest +thought, we create planets. Pray that they harmonize! They have power. +Are they angels? They convey our messages, but their harmony of +inter-woven song and meaning was lost at Babel to our ears. Yet by +them if our will is strong and we do not fail in deeds we may take our +part in the symphony as truly as life itself. And so we must not use +them idly. How can anyone dare to tell a lie? One begins to see how +God is a Name. I felt before how the secret of language was to be +found among the sands. It is because the sands are the nearest and +most visible planets we possess. Words are planets. But planets are +sands on the shore of eternity. Words are sands. We are little words +made flesh, little echoes in the image of the great Word made Flesh. +His creation is the complete echo made flesh, His Image and likeness +which He contemplates. And so we are in our measure part of the song +made flesh, and the little common words that we use are our brothers. + + +July 17. + +The sunset tonight was a glorious crucifixion after the day of clouds. +It was human in its beckoning. I cannot find the secret of the moon, +but it reminds me of Lionel's phrase, if it be his, "golden +mediocrities." Is it the astral embodiment of "They also serve who +only stand and wait"? Why is it that the little human beauties of +Nature pass me by as entities, and that I seek bare places? Is there a +parallel in my personal attitude toward all but those who are +specially dear to me? I thought of how I looked down on the city from +the mountain in May, and felt the whole city to be my prayer. It had +been given into my control for a few minutes, and the only worthy use +to which I could put it was to offer it up with a prayer for my people +and all the desire of my heart that the prayer would be answered. The +half-million souls with all their dreams were under my care then, and +their acts were mine. So little are cities, and so little I found my +worthiness that I could not hide my tears. Later I crossed to the +height looking down on the cemetery, the world was silent save for the +flaming heart of the city pulsing below, and reflecting the Flaming +Heart above as the sun set. The woodpeckers did not fear me, and I +sank slowly and deeply into God. I think that some day I shall know +His wounds. I cannot understand why I was delivered from temptation at +the moment that the city was put into my hands. + + +July 18. + +... I bathed on the dunes on Wonder Island. The sun set tonight +sacramentally just as it set that night at ---- when I failed to +speak. Never had I felt stronger, but something held me back from +telling him how the dearest wish of my life was that he should +participate in the Holy Eucharist. The flame was in my hands to lay +upon his heart, but something bade me wait. I distrusted it, and asked +him to walk with me on the shore. The thunder of the tide and the moon +were too strong. Why could I not have told him? We were silent for +hours while his heart lay with the _Titanic_, and even his little +daughter was quiet in the room. + + +July 19. + +The stars are the dust rubbed off from human souls. "Dust unto dust +thou shalt return." At the last judgment, they will fly together in an +angelic hosting, and clothe once more the souls which moved in them, +and our souls will rule their songs. Human suffering is the friction +of angels making stars. ... I know now that the end of one's forty +days is not complete knowledge, but only a clear indication of the +road. The joy is in that, and also the sorrow. It is the direction +given to the will, orders to be so carefully obeyed. This is the +greatest discovery of all. Words do not reveal it. It is absolutely +prosaic, though it is eternal beauty. But what I have written does not +reflect it even faintly as it seems to me. Read Hello this afternoon. +The freedom of the dunes this morning seemed to extend more than is +usual. Later I read from Plato's "Symposium." + + +July 20. + +... The proverbial symbol of impermanence is writing upon sand. What +could be more gloriously permanent? To have one's message spelled out +by singing planets, to write upon the stars. It is so that our songs +have immortality. "Verba scripta manent" takes on a majestic +significance. Are not joy and sadness the same? The only difference is +one of rapidity. Sadness is made up of the long, slow, majestic chords +of the song. It seems to me that when a wheel seems to cease motion, +and finally attains a state of motionlessness, it is perhaps merely +turning into a terrible speed which we cannot perceive. It is the +turning of an hour-glass. When I am dead, I wish only my faults to be +chronicled, for these alone have any value for the world. I have +dreamt always of cycles of infinities. As a decimal always tends by +evolution towards a number, so also we evolve toward an infinity. Yet +at that goal another infinity starts, as another infinity starts in +numbers,--the symbol of patience after all. + + + "Unto the man of yearning thought + And aspiration, to do nought + Is in itself almost an act,-- + Being chasm-fire and cataract + Of the soul's utter depths unseal'd. + Yet woe to thee if once thou yield + Unto the act of doing nought!" + +Read Hello and Elia. I am learning how to see in crowds. These past +few days I have succeeded in withdrawing into life for long periods in +the midst of a general conversation, yet my absence was not noted in +the least. Out of it I hope will develop the ability to be with life +always in the tangle and confusion of city circumstance. This +afternoon I read _Phaedrus_ aloud on a sunny cliff, and in the evening +read aloud Keats' "I stood tiptoe" on the green heights in the wind +and the rain. Rossetti's lines do not forbid a life of contemplation, +but rather encourage it as distinguished from quietism. ... Through +the summer I am to see the Crucifixion. How I envy St. Francis the +Stigmata! Even as a little boy I desired them--but I shall never be +able perhaps to love passionately enough. The nights that I cried as a +little fellow without knowing why, just because I loved, were nearer +than I shall ever be again. + + +July 21. + +At Benediction after Mass today I saw the Wonder in all Humanity with +Light surrounding It, and I shook with an awful thunder of sound. ... +Today I have been happy to tears, and in the blue afternoon on the +cliffs with my mother, I shared "Endymion" and "Epipsychidion." ... I +do not understand why silence is spoken of as a precept. To me it is +the living attribute of God. ... How nobly scornful is Sir Aubrey De +Vere's phrase, "witless ecstasies"! + + +July 22. + +Simply a day of hard work. But I was happy in it. In an odd way I felt +as I wrote all day on the smooth white paper that I was stroking the +sleek breasts of doves. Tonight the steady patter of the rain upon the +eaves. + + +July 23. + +A day of hard routine work. ... Tonight in the inky darkness I walked +to the postoffice in the thundering wind and rain and surf, and +learned how the deeps can praise the Lord. I have always felt the +wonder of that psalm. + + +July 24. + +Rose at 4:30 and saw the sun rise a pure and shimmering symbol of the +Host above the silver outline of Wonder Island. The day was dumb. A +little boy has come whose face is his sacrament. What a song he must +sing! I look forward to the morrow as a day of special grace and +wonder. ... + + +July 25. + +It is evident to me that music is wrong before a play or during +intermissions. But it is necessary until our dramatists provide some +other prelude. That prelude must be a beautiful setting of silence for +a few moments showing the protagonist under the light of eternity. In +the beginning all words contained a spiritual "import,"--were angels. +At Babel many fell. Now all our spiritual words are material words +grown out of their meanings. When expression becomes passion, it is +the passion of creation, clothing itself in images as God does through +eternity in the Passion of Creation. This is near the heart of life's +most awful secret, but words conceal it except from experience. For +Passion proceeds from Creation as Preservation proceeds from both, +though they are all from Eternity in the Unity of the Godhead. All my +planets at the contemplation of This are dancing before the throne. +The thunderous rhythm of their music is shaking me physically like the +engines of a steamer in shallow water. Every atom struggles against +the law of cohesion. God loves the beautiful boy. His name is Henry +R----. The Greeks, Emerson says, called the world _Cosmos_, Beauty. +Reading this on the veranda this afternoon, I closed my eyes and sank +contentedly into life. When I returned the faces were foreign, and +even my mother never knew. On the dunes this morning I heard the +silence of Eternity on the edge of time. I think it is a pine forest. +Babel took away the Word, until It came to earth, and in material form +took on supreme Spirit coming from the Father. ... + + +July 26. + +I wish I could raise a singing altar of planets by some great +sacrifice. My fingers drummed upon the sands this morning a crude and +simple rhythm. I thought of its influence in displacing planets, and +of the almost infinite musical variations that were set in motion, and +then I compared my crude thrumming with the majestic thunders of the +sea, and realized the insupportable beauty of absolute music. A dog +talks by smell. There are vibrations of smell, as well as of sound or +of heat or of light. And the blind reveal vibration of touch, the +holiest of the senses. We talk now by sound, but are learning to talk +by heat and light. When shall we learn to talk by smell and touch? +Flowers, too, talk by smell. There is nothing but vibration in the +image of God, for LIFE IS NOTHING MORE THAN THE TREMBLING OF HIS +BEAUTY. The awful speed of Truth hardens into fact. Words must not say +more. + +A dog taught me this,--Prince, the companion of the silent man. One +should be a priest when he marries two ideas. In any one of the +planets within the singing tissue of my flesh are Dantes and St. +Francises. Creation requires of us infinite crucifixions which we +shall never be able to consummate alone. When I lie on my breasts on +the sand and bury my face in my hands, all Nature receives me as a +human bridegroom, and I sink through time to eternity _creating_ space +around me, that widens and narrows to the reaches of immortality. It +is always on the sands that I find the friendliest depths, or in the +snow drift of cold planets upon a winter day or else within in the +terrible energy of my body, as my heart beats time to the universal +spheral rhythm. Think of the literal meaning of "universal!" Tonight +in the silence I read _Prometheus Bound_. I love the grace of the +boy's eyes. I pray to be guarded from the pride of humility. + + +July 27. + +[Illustration: Circle with a cross through it.] + +... It was a day of silences. I traced this figure idly on the sand +today, and suddenly understood the symbolism of the scarab. But did +the Egyptians anticipate the Redemption? As men are impressed by the +face of the world, so is the world impressed by their faces. The face, +as mirror of the soul, shines forth with electricity and makes an +impression on life, altering the song of those it acts upon as the +violin sound alters the formation of sands resting on a tightened +drum. By what ancient intuition does the Latin word "malum" mean both +"apple" and "evil"? Music creates substance through the speed of +gaiety, and God in His Creation is a cosmic humorist. (Cosmic means +beautiful.) To distinguish between fascination and sympathy is a +counsel of perfection for critics which has its spiritual analogies. +... Angels ran in hosts through the grasses. + + +July 28. + + "His soul's most secret thought, + Eternal Light declares." + +I read Lionel's poems on the cliffs, and almost discovered the secret +of the blue. Today for the first time I realized the remoteness of +these islands, and it was a great joy. It was a golden day of sunshine +on the cliffs with blue cloudless sky over quiet waters. Life is +turning inward to the heart of silence, and out of it will come the +beauty of my dream if life is willing. + + +July 29. + + ... I met a man today who knew beauty. He was a French country +lawyer. ... The sunset tonight revealed all the sadness of the Burning +Babe. I failed today. + + +July 30. + +Another sadder failure of the will. Yet beauty came in the evening. +The love of man, far more the love of God, is God in heaven descended +upon earth, eternity made time in beauty, "majestic instancy," the +Word made Flesh. The soul is the pool wherein God and we see our +images, and Heaven will be the mutual contemplation of our souls. So +that human love is the adoration of God in human flesh, and therein +may the beloved be seen as the image of God in time. The praise of Our +Lady should then be the praise of God. Was this Patmore's secret? Or +Dante's and Petrarch's? "My lady was desired in the high heaven." ... +I see now how in Heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage. +Far flowing ramparts of a starry world! The _flammantia moenia mundi_ +of Lucretius. To contemplate Beauty FACE TO FACE! What a wonderful +proof of the beauty of our souls. Twin mirrors of a single singing +thought, the face of man looking into the Face of God, soul mingling +with Soul in immortal music, bathed in the cool wind of Our Lady's +eyes. Today I lost a nation in the cycle of my soul. What is the blood +but the history of my planets as engraved upon the constellations of +my flesh? It is the book of the angel of judgment for the first +syllable of my song, as the emotions, the intellect, and, alas, the +will, for the second, third, and fourth. The flesh is the ebb tide +from God, as the emotions are the flood. The intellect is the second +ebb, and in the will pray God that it may be flood! The other is +Hell.... + + +July 31. + +... A victory for the will this morning. ... Tomorrow is the first of +August, and I shall enter upon my forty days. The ringing in my ears +is the ringing of my fleshly stars "toned all in Time." I have +commenced an anthology of high imaginings more worthy than a book of +essays of that title I have loved and desired to use for +years,--_Flame and Dew_. If rightly done, it may do poetry one of the +greatest of services by assisting it to praise Beauty on many lips in +naked Light. I wish to consecrate my work on it to that end. Today I +have been influenced by Frederick Tennyson, Traherne, and Patmore. In +agony lies the highest music. The key is struck by circumstance, +Time's organist, and the stars tremble with music. For the full +thundering silence of Absolute Beauty a Divine Agony was necessary, so +that all Heaven and its choirs and Hell trembled in the majesty of +this _stricken_ Doom. Death is the final chord, the passage of our +full song from time to the silence of eternity. Sleep next to death is +the most terrible life that soul and body knows. It is the center of +the wheel radiating high powers to the circumference. The speed there +is terrific, so fast that it hardens, again that "majestic instancy." +The tiniest flame is the friction of conflicting "universes." Beauty +is alike the center and circumference of infinity, the silent wheel of +omnipresent omnipotence, wherein all thoughts are not timed but +eternal. From eternity we were nothing: to eternity we are Beauty's +image. Is it strange that in sleep we are often given sight? + + +August 1. + +Art is the exhibition of life in the light of eternity. I can conceive +of no other adequate critical formula. This applies to painting, +sculpture, literature and music. Such too is the art of life,--the +exhibition to God and man of life in the light of eternity. I have +been startled to find a kinship between Wordsworth and Millet. I found +it today in a stooped old man who was traveling the roads with a +walking stick and a heavy bundle of driftwood. He was worthy of a +great painter or a great poet. By the sign of the cross one draws a +magic circle round the soul which evil may not penetrate. It places +one "in the name." On the seashore one should lie parallel with the +waves facing inland. Then only may one advance onward with their +prayer. + + +August 2. + +It is absolutely true that only music may shape woods and fountains +and the beauty of souls, for it is the only medium of expression which +is pure. Pure music is the true white magic, as black magic is music +mixed with clay by human hands. Naked Beauty alone may mix music with +clay in Its own image and likeness. Even poetry fails save in so far +as it echoes the pure natural truths of music. And all creation may +flow from a flute if the player breathes a prayer. Some day we shall +have the great opera of the Incarnation and Redemption. It is the +ideal goal of music, and so of all art. But it demands the poet, the +painter, and the sculptor, too, for its actors shall be immortal +statues and a living chorus singing the passion of the race against +the supreme dawn and the supreme sunset. But its greatest moments will +be silence. Christ and His Mother will live this silence in the glory +of transfigured stone, and the drama will be played in the open with +the stars above as orchestra, to which the human music will be but a +beautiful echo. To this Wagner and Craig point the way. I read +Patmore's _Two Infinities_ today with bewilderment and emphatic +disagreement. It seems absolutely lacking in vision, provincial, +almost challenging Creation. And yet it is essentially true. Christ +was a man of golden mediocrities. He speaks of the lilies of the +field, but never of stars or of planets. And St. Francis perhaps hints +at the solution. To him brother Wind and brother Fire and brother Worm +are alike and equal, for he sees them in the light of infinity. But +all are wonderful, and we must not sneer at the stars. ... Today +writing as a means of expression has seemed to be absolutely futile. +Silence is the only active way of praise that I can find, provided +that it informs some daily action. My will won again today. Horizons +are wonderful. S---- told me that Lionel invited him into his Oxford +rooms one evening at sunset and led him to a seat from which nothing +lower than the horizon was to be seen. "There," he said, "nothing +matters that is below that line." You see he knew that our souls in +their beauty are always above it. + + +August 3. + +To watch a grass-blade tapping will teach you wonderful music--the +language of the wind. The sunlight running through my flesh in-flames +the song of the will. I lost myself tonight in the crowded silences. +Joy stays with me now, and if I can only join it to sorrow, the will +can then sing simply and freely a continuous song. The turning of the +tide is soon to come, and my homesickness for G----ville is +transforming itself into a different nostalgia. My planets are rising +in song like little candle flames. I wish I possessed their humility. +Within me tonight are quiet moonlit waters very full and rich with +silent promises of rest. + + +August 4. + +At Mass today Mr. C---- showed a fine courtesy serving with the high +humility of a punctilious gentleman. ... Today I saw the body of +Christ, "infinite riches in a little room." The human body of Christ +in its passion is the sum of all our bodies, and it is this truth to +which pantheism in its blindness dimly beckons. The saints and pure +poets and those who have died for friends are the image of the Sacred +Heart, and in them at moments of pure _reflection_ there is naked +light and the vision which is insupportable. Hence in the greatest +saints the stigmata. All God's lonely ones are the reflections of His +pain when they attain to sanctity. And holy priests are the +reflections of His Hands. Little children and saints may look into His +Eyes and see their own. And repentant sinners may reflect His Feet in +their tears. All the births and lives of the earth go to form His +Human Body, which is vast as Eternity and radiating with Light from +all points and inward to the Heart of Light. To some saints it has +been permitted to be the spouse of this body and soul. Magic is white +or black. White magic is the offspring of spiritual marriage and is a +sacrament. Black magic is the offspring of unauthorized spiritual +contacts. My frame tonight is possessed by angels dancing before the +throne in a fearfully rapid rhythm. The secret of spiritual +achievement is unremitting labor urged without ceasing by a fearful +joy. No drama is more vast than that of the crucifixion, and yet I +have seen it all in the heart of a strawberry blossom with wounds all +glorified in an ecstasy of living trembling light, and heard the +beating of His Sacred Heart while universe called out to universe in +the anguish of His surrender and all the stars died into the Light of +Eternity. The tide has turned. + + + +August 5. + +Today looking into a narrow dome I saw the seeded planets banded by +circles of light whereon they turned. And color changed into silence +at the bidding of the central suns. And these were the eyes of happy +innocence wherein all others died to the Living Light, God being in +them by their childishness. The tide turned yesterday, and today I +have spent entirely in eternity surrounded by a host of fair-winged +Possibilities, God's angels to humanity. Death is glorified by their +passage from the future to the past, and we respond by plunging our +lights into the Light wherein it dies. _Abt Vogler_ is the musical +philosophy of it all. At my first symphony concert as a little boy, I +saw the face of the dying Christ through the wall, and in it the music +of the seventh Symphony sang through the naked eyes calling me inward +to the Sacred Heart. This morning and noon at table I smiled at white +horizons and in the evening I swam through the Host on my future +wings. We love earth, air, fire, and water now, but the eternal joy of +swimming through the Light of God and reflecting His Light in song and +silence is the infinity of all poets' dreams incarnate in the awful +speed of Absolute Music. It is the privilege of laughing into the Eyes +of God, those Eyes before which the angels veil their faces. It is the +privilege of smelling the blossom of the Living Rose, of tasting and +consuming forever the Body and Blood, of touching the Sacred Knees, +and of hearing the Divinity who is Music. Priests and poets shall swim +in the song of his heart, and those who have died for friends will +reflect its resolving rhythm. How I pity Blake his pride, though he +was preserved from the pride of humility. God will let me see more of +Him in this life than Blake did, though it is of the most trifling +significance to anticipate eternity in poor time, the crippled heir of +original sin. Since it is to be, I wish with all my blood that my will +were worthier. + + +August 6. + +A day of happy drudgery reading proofs. I rode through them in the +winds of eternity. That is the secret of it all,--to teach us joy. The +human symbol of it is a martyr's ecstasy, which is in no way sensuous +or voluptuous since it has completely forgotten the body. The Sacred +Heart is the Mystical Rose spreading its petals over the Cross of +Time. In _Flame and Dew_ is the first application of an idea and +belief that the day will come when anthologies will be books +containing the wisdom of the poets on special sciences, such as the +science of childhood, the science of love, the science of death, and +the science of silence. + + +August 7. + +Imagination being Eternal Life, it shows the blind instinct of +language that the word should mean the creation of images. Imagination +is the instrument of God's creation in his own _image_ and likeness. +Today I came to Petrarch and Dante--the mystics of the supreme +elements. To contrast their serenity with Blake's wrath shows the +whiter heights. All height is inward through narrow circles to the +Central Fire of Silent Love from which the angels shrink in spiral +messages of inspiring flame, and toward which humanity aspires in +narrowing and advancing circles of expiring flesh. But depth is +outward to the hearts of men. Sirius sings to my living stars tonight +its light in the music of the ancient winds, telling me of the +crucifixion in burning colors of a dying world. Why am I unworthy of +an equal death? The blood runs toward it in a passion of harmony. The +day is near when my morning stars shall sing their lives out together +in praise of their Creator, though it is futile to measure it in terms +of time. One is not curious of time if one lives in eternity. Death is +then only the fulfilment of our operative desires. I wish that I were +one of the tears of God. Joy is for those _of good will_. + + +August 8. + +I met one of Wordsworth's old men today gathering faggots on the +shore. "I have been to all places and cities and I found no one happy +on the world, and now I wish me to be dead." ... Tonight I bowed in +silence under the vault of stars. To be holy is to lose the knowledge +of good and evil through "clinging Heaven by the hems." To refuse evil +is to refuse the apple _(malum)_ of the Tree of Knowledge. There is no +possibility of finding the ideal unless we look passionately for +nothing but the beauty of souls, seeing therein God's image and +refusing to perceive the clouds of evil. Circles lead to Heaven, but +straight lines to Hell. Straight lines are the tangents that "err" +from the sphere of the ideal. Miss C---- told me about a little boy +who was visiting Italy with his mother. He fell down hill, and stopped +before a roadside crucifix. And then he forgot his fall. They found +him crying as if his heart would break, and he told them that it was +because he was so sorry for that sad Man whom everybody had made +suffer so. The angels drop seed into our souls which make them +invisible to other men, and we also may plant seed with modesty and +humility. It is God's fernseed to mortals. How strange it is that we +measure time by moons, cold satellites, and thus the symbol of death. +But after all time is the dark night of the soul. I realized for the +first time today that I was born in December, the month of creation, +when the flame turns in upon itself in the hard cold earth and gives +birth to high hopes whose fulfilment are in eternity. It is the month +of Christmas on that account. I have begun to perceive what awful +wings my thoughts have, and know that they are given them by God +through me to carry them humbly into the most secret circle of the +Sacred Breast. We must do the labor of God with human hands, yet the +Labor of God is the Creation of Beauty. As the vegetable kingdom +renews its life once a year through time and so preserves its secret, +our souls must renew themselves in infinite recurrence through +eternity. Our life differs only in ardor which is speed. The greatest +speed lies in submission, for submission is the greatest strength. At +high moments it is Atlas supporting the earth. At the supreme moment, +it becomes the mystery of the Redemption. + + +August 9. + +Singing through the universal stars that were woven into His Flesh, I +saw the Son of God tonight glorified in the joy of a living Smile. And +all the angels bowed laughing toward Him and clapped and danced before +His Name, though the sum of their song was silence. And then every +living star was scourged by the sins of men, and died into the +darkness, saying "Thy Will be done," and it was morning with the +Eucharist in the sky. Only Redemption trembled through the air. The +stars are the eternal reflections of God's patience, for they endure +His Human Passion, since together they form the shadow of the Word +made Flesh. They are the singing echo in time of God's speechless +patience, as we are destined to be if we conquer our wills. But +patience is suffering, and Alpha must submit to the yoke of Omega. +Since God is the Alpha and Omega he caused the Incarnation and +Passion. THE IDEAL OF HUMAN LIFE IS THE PASSIONATE REDEMPTION OF THE +WILL. This is life's darkest secret, _unless_ we live in the +Eucharist. We are to be the silent reflections of speechless patience +in the still waters of eternity. The evil came when Lucifer stole fire +from heaven and brought it down to men. Conquer fire, and we conquer +the will. Then heaven is ours. My body and blood ache with my prayer +for it. + + +August 10. + +The angels weave what God creates, according to their functions. His +archangels are the weavers of time, and all the others of material +nature, uninformed by a soul. This is a branch of the heavenly song. +To weave God's image is the function of the saints and of all those on +earth. It is the wonder of incarnate Music that saved the world, +Absolute Silence born into Sound, and dying with all Sound into +Silence. The archangels are God's messengers of life and death, for +they control the days. But they are sent from Him to His Image, and +our weaving is made out of their materials as we adapt them to our +song. All outer powers and forces are brought us by the angels, and +among the dearest to God's heart are his flame-winged Possibilities +that hover on the borderline between today and tomorrow, Time and +Eternity. They alone may not enter time unless we beckon them. The +starry heaven is the heaven of the body; the crystal sphere, of the +intellect; and the empyrean, of the pure soul. We may live in the +starry heaven in this life, if God gives us the grace. But it is then +a heaven of desire. But the weaving of the angels is the whole +philosophy of nature. Their music explains its sympathies and sorrows, +its deaths and resurrections, and above all its solemn silences of +night and noon. And the song of their weaving becomes nature's love of +wisdom, that is to say, adoration of the Word. The saints are the only +complete philosophers. The object of asceticism is generally +misunderstood, particularly in one phase of its endeavors,--to forget +the body. The truth of the matter is that the flesh and blood in their +highest song toward which we should strive are so occupied with +praising God that they completely lack self-consciousness, and do not +distract the intellect or the will. God is with them in naked purity. +It is His simplest and dearest starry music. He demands that our life +should be a programme of infinite proportions. And yet I wonder if a +saint can ever be both a great prophet and a great apostle. I do not +believe a great prophet can be tender enough to persuade. That is why +prophets are scorned or ignored by their generation. Gentleness is the +absolute breath of music, which alone can penetrate the soul or even +the material body of nature. The supreme gentleness of St. Francis of +Assisi made the birds listen to his music, for his breath ran dancing +in a cool breeze through all their singing stars. We need a St. +Francis at present burningly. Is it possible to form a religious order +of the poets? Here is an ideal. But it must be Franciscan: a gown, a +girdle, and sandals, poverty, chastity, and obedience. Where is the +wise man to obey? I can believe that jewels are potent for good or +evil, since they are condensed flame and a secret word lies hidden in +each of their hearts. A day of tempestuous wind and rain. + + +August 11. + +Today I found myself progressing slowly to a triumphant rhythm round +the circumference of a vast musical plane. The celestial earth is flat +but progresses upwards to its central point, the cone of aspiration +and song. And then I remembered the vision of St. Frances of Rome +wherein she saw the Supreme Godhead as a vast Circle of Light in the +midst of which was a Pillar, the Cone of Redemption and Silence. Death +is the point of meeting. Perhaps the Zodiac is the merry-go-round of +the stars. A second day of tempest. The great message of future poetry +will be to proclaim that nature is the expression of man, rather than +man of nature, and thus to reveal the essential nobility of man as the +image of God rather than the image of nature. Suns and winds and +waters are what we make them. Pantheism confuses the image of the +image with the face. Nature is the mirror of man as man is the mirror +of God. Nay more, nature is the mirror in time of man's eternity, as +man is the image in time and eternity of God. It is for this reason +that the stars are the open book of the future, though they are not to +be read by men aloud. Astrology is forbidden because it violates the +precept of silence, which is the courtesy we pay as gentlemen to God. +We may only read the stars in little children's eyes, wherein their +future is concealed. The breast of Mary is the fountain of the stars, +and round it fly the seraphim in flaming adoration of the blessed +womb. Her eyes are God's dew, wherein the secret of His Light is +whispered by the thrones. I felt through the morning His human +Presence graciously walking the roads, and I was resting on His left +Arm that brought me to His Heart, the country wherein the dreams of my +will are born. + + +August 12. + +I have been sick today. Rain and tempest, but God was on the wind, and +I am happy. + + +August 13. + +Still ill. Rain and fog with intermittent sunshine. But I am as happy +as I have ever been. + + +August 14. + +Still ill. Fog in the morning breaking into a wonderful pearl day of +summer haze. Our bodily senses are instruments in our orchestra. + + +August 15. + +Today I sank into Beauty several times in the sunlight. + + +August 16. + +Read through the last proofs and on the dunes with my mother in the +afternoon I lived in the light of God. The sun I caused to smile and I +wrapped myself in the blue of the Virgin's sky. I found myself causing +a shower twice by failing in humility. But the laughing Light of God's +eyes in my soul is eternal, and when I submit it controls the tides of +my body and mind. Tonight a woodpecker alighted on Father K----'s +shoulder and stayed with him nearby. The Brahmin may attain to the +shadow of the first syllable of the Word. He does not believe that +there are others. _Om_ is simply the symbol of inward breath, +inspiration. I heard myself today very near to the Heart of Silence, +whose systole and diastole is the ebb and flow of Love from Eternity +to Eternity. Time is the sound of silence and is dead to all eternity. +It is the only beautiful death that the angels do not mourn, for in +the death of Time is the Redemption of the World. It takes the circle +of eternity to unite the four points of the cross, and a crucifixion +to unite two parallel lines. + + +August 17. + +Out of the summer I am weaving the pattern web of the future in +threads of desire. Every resurrection of a body is the last judgment +of infinite planets, which fly to or flee from the human song of God's +first syllable. Yet those that flee may be purchased by an infinite +Redemption. This opens a terrible possibility of mercy. Is God +continually becoming man for the love of His image? This is the joyful +secret of God's sad fourth syllable. I clothe it in words to guard it +from my intellect. Infinite incarnations prove time an illusion, since +they make it eternity. God's Sacred Heart is the silent ocean beyond +the universe. It reflects. The Incarnation is its flood. The Host +tonight was more white than shining silver in a lonely pearl sky. It +was Absolute Music unveiled to the human eye. Tonight I stood out for +long alone with the stars, and watched a thunderstorm come over the +sea. We must guard our dreams and intuitions not only from the +intellects of others but most of all from our own. Yet our faith must +be precisely bounded, although this boundary is to be none other than +the infinite succession of points where time and eternity meet and bow +down before God. This morning I saw His Beauty in a daisy. ... I do +not believe that God will reveal His mysteries if we seek to know +them, without inflicting a penalty. The way of knowledge is the way of +silent patience, which lies quietly dreaming of Love till the flood +washes it with Living Light. + + +August 18. + +Every time we look into another's soul we may enter Paradise. There is +an indescribable grace in the air this first day of prescient autumn. +The summer has taught me the secret of loneliness and the infinite way +of satisfying its desire. To be alone with God we must be intimate +with the beauty in the eyes of every face, and yet absolutely detached +save from one's family and friend. Life's ideal is to see the end in +the beginning, and act the road between. This is no other than the +eternal life of the Alpha and Omega. But the essence of it in time is +that the whole tide of humanity should ebb and flow in our breast. It +requires a crucifixion to drink in all its saltness. I found the dunes +beyond the lagoon this morning and sank into God in the wind of the +sunlit blue. When I returned, the people were coming from Church. +Tonight the Host was quivering gold, and as I write the planets are +ringing in my ears. I pray that at the end I may come to the Heart of +Eternal Silence. + + +August 19. + +On the dunes this morning toward Wonder Island ... Eternity is +infinite speed. Time is the dragwheel, nothing more. Hence the +significance of "when eternity reaffirms the conception of an hour." +Flame is the symbol of time as dew is the symbol of eternity. They +meet in Christ and through Him in the human race. The moon properly +loved is the kindness of time, as the sun is the reflected love of +Eternity made Flesh in the Host on the altar. ... Tonight I desire +only silence to love. + + +August 20. + +On the dunes toward Wonder Island this morning I lost space and walked +upon the blue ringing a cycle of stars in either hand. But I felt no +sense of distance and the seed of the sands blew on the wind which +carried me. It taught me how to walk softly through life, and coming +home I had the sand in my hair. I know now what clouds are, softer +than the breasts of doves. God's flying sorrows are the sandals of the +soul. They make us His angels, Mercuries of Light. The sun has not +bled for many a night, but has slowly descended in silver splendor, +always a second dawn with its fresh, keen, cool surprises. Today was +the grace of last night's desire. The wonder of it this morning was my +complete surrender, the assurance with which I moved on the singing +skies as my native element. I know that only the appearances remained, +as in the Eucharist after the Consecration we seem to see the bread +and wine. Life was the poise of infinity, and I knew of no horizon, +for I could look down upon the dawn. It came two weeks ago Sunday in +my heart. I see the mystery of the Resurrection in its beauty, and why +white lilies are its deepest symbol. How can there be a prison or a +cage? Every twilight is a white horizon. The gulls know that and the +sea tonight has lost its sorrow. + + +August 21. + +By sailboat to P---- and G---- with the silent man, returning with the +stars. Their hosting was like the flocking of wild geese, and they +followed St. Francis of Assisi as a leader, the captain of the morning +stars. In the silence I heard the operation of the divine mathematics. + +I loved those Chaldean seers to whom God talked directly and wrote His +message upon the stars. I lay prone on the deck looking upwards and +fell into the Divine Ocean slowly. The moon rode serenely to the +southwest, and humanity was with me in the boat. Navigators are now +the only men left wise enough to follow the stars. The sunpath was +Jacob's ladder, and the Aran islanders know its secret when they see +Tir-n'an-Og in the west on calm sunset evenings. The sea had my trust, +eternal through yesterday's experience, and I believe that if faith +and good works required it of me, I could walk softly over it. If the +soul is to control the body, surely spiritual gravity should be able +to overcome material gravity. Certainly it would take more than the +sea to quench my flame, if God made me worthy. + + +August 22. + +I looked down from great heights today on all the little smiling +intimacies. They are like happy babies to me, and my speech should +play with them, if I can ever become worthy of their simplicity. The +rhythm of all music is the systole and diastole of the Sacred Heart, +which is the ebb and flow of an infinite ocean. This is the meaning, I +think, of the old Gaelic rune, _Ri tragadh s'ri lionadh, mar a bha, +mar a tha, mar a bhitheas gu bragh ri traghadh s'ri lionadh_. (The ebb +and the flow, as it was, as it is, as it ever shall be, the ebb and +the flow.) The resolute gaze of the soul toward this in love +constitutes prayer in its only form. It shows blood to be the most +rich and beautiful of human things, and its salt waves purify the +flesh, as the salt waves of Gethsemane and Calvary redeemed the soul +and its singing stars. + + +August 23. + +My life so far has been a word, and not a deed. But the world was not +redeemed until the Word BECAME FLESH--AND DWELT AMONGST US. Mary S---- +met us on the roads today and said, "I hope that we'll be meeting in +Heaven, we seem to meet so often now." I sleep at night in a cruciform +position adoring beauty with every faculty save my will, the most +necessary of all. + + +August 24. + +In the open today amid a hurricane of wind ... I walked with a +childish old man with a pleasant soul. The wind brought meteor showers +of beauty to the body. It rained grace in the sky of noon. + +I could carry overflowing happiness now even to New York. Today +reminded me of the sunlight on the roar of Broadway. God is on the +wind tonight, and is beating down my will with his wings. + + +August 25. + +I lay through a night of tempestuous wind with the open window at my +head. I awoke and saw myself face to face in my weakness. It rained +all day. ... I can hardly bear my love today. It is a terrific dynamo +of silence. But it will be very long before I shall fulfill my +worthiness. If one could always remember that he is a saviour, and +carry humanity with him, his will would be inflexible and every act an +exulting humility. All nature is but a mantle which the wind of my +spirit disposes in folds about me, and humanity is the chalice in +which I may communicate with God,--a chalice woven of our singing +flesh and heart and brain and will, wherein the will is its depth, the +Atlas which bears the Sacred Body and Blood when it is given to us. + + +August 26. + +Sorrow has come at last. Full moon, and life is at the flood. The +precept of all adversity is of course that the ebb tide of fortune is +our flood toward God. Even the lamp tonight is singing in the room. + + +August 27. + +The experience still turns inward to the heart of life. I now see the +core of it. It burns, of course, but think of the wheel it carries. A +few days ago I was on the circumference. Now I have found the center. +A day of rain and wind and exterior disturbances. But I have found my +cenacle. + + +August 28. + +A victory for the will. ... It is strange that every vital lesson that +experience teaches can never be expressed in words. The past few days +have taught me more than the rest of the summer. There will always be +a secrecy of the soul, and what this contains constitutes God's image +and likeness. Life sings tonight in every atom its marvelous chemistry +of change and prophecy. Nature knows no elegies, since it may never +triumph over aught but dust. But the highest dream is less worthy than +the simplest deed, and we must forget the knowledge of good and evil. +I would exchange all the knowledge I have gained for the grace to +perform the slightest act of St. Francis. God has made our opportunity +infinite by giving us an eternal standard of values,--that is all. + + +August 29. + +I am afraid to write further for fear that I shall soon become +self-conscious. ... It is strange that the will did not come home to +me as a complete experience before. I simply had the foreboding of it. +This summer on the 9th of August I heard the Fourth Syllable in its +awfulness for the first time, and understood the mystery of the +Redemption. The time has now come to close this book, for the record +is complete, and may not be reopened until I redeem my will. + +_They departed into their own country another way_. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13138 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..072c449 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13138 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13138) diff --git a/old/13138.txt b/old/13138.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..14fdafa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13138.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1489 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Forgotten Threshold, by Arthur Middleton + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Forgotten Threshold + +Author: Arthur Middleton + +Release Date: August 8, 2004 [eBook #13138] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLD*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLD + +A Journal of Arthur Middleton + + + + + + + +TO W.S.B. + +FOR SUBSTANTIAL EMBODIMENT + + +PREFATORY NOTE + +Before Arthur Middleton died he gave me this record among others in +the belief that it would help to tell me what he had always known in +the silences, yet could never in life transmute into the friendly +counters of speech. During the last years of his all too brief +experience of his friends, more than once he shyly sought to tell what +he knew, yet always silence claimed him, and nothing but the wonder of +his eyes revealed the dream that consumed his heart. Because beauty +claims these words in a deeper knowledge than we had before, I have +transcribed this fragment of them here, confident that in these white +intuitions of his youth there is a revelation of the Light behind +beauty beyond our poor knowledge and still poorer faith. I have +omitted only what was most sacred to the privacies of his heart and +our affection. He was of the old faith and would have wished had he +published these pages to have expressed his entire and passionate +loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church in faith and deed, and to have +disclaimed any word therein which conflicted with the intimacies of +its truth. I can do no more than to echo his wish, and mourn the +unhappy chance which took him from us on an April tide, though it +befell on the Easter that he loved and at that hour when the flaming +symbol of the Divine Sacrifice was setting in the west. So the passion +of the sun and tide which reflected his belief witnessed the +consummation of his great desire.--THE EDITOR. + +THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLD + + +THE JOURNAL + +(N.B.--On the opening pages of the blank book in which this journal is +contained there is a short fragment which bears no relation that I can +discover to the entries that follow, and I am inclined to believe that +it is the beginning of an autobiography which Middleton never +continued. In my uncertainty, however, I print it, and accordingly it +is transcribed below.--THE EDITOR.) + +_Fragment_.--I was not more than three years old when the sunlight +first made me happy as it stole through the curtains and over the +coverlet till it kissed my lips and wrapped me in its warm embrace. +Then I would fall asleep again and my dreams, if I dreamed at all, +were white and faintly stirred me to a smile. I never tried to catch +the sunbeams, for I felt their gold in my heart, nor could they have +been nearer than they were, being associated with my mother's +watchfulness as she stole in to smile upon my slumbers and claim the +second silent unconscious kiss. On Sunday morning they would be +freighted with a quiet whiter light, more peaceful and hushed to the +feeling of the day, and somehow the peace was guarded with finger on +lip throughout the house, so that it was implicit in my nest of images +long before reason took note of it or sought to explain it to my +consciousness. Once again as a boy of fifteen I knew it with a catch +of delighted and almost tearful surprise when I stroked the breast of +a wounded pigeon who found shelter in my room. The world is not as +quiet in these days, nor is the hum of traffic in the mart attuned so +kindly to the flow of light as when it ran so gently by the bedside of +the dreaming boy. ... + +(The journal now follows, written in a small cramped hand, without +paragraphing or division. I omit the first few entries as purely +personal. Middleton had gone to a group of remote western islands, and +these notes are the fruit of his sojourn there.)--THE EDITOR. + + +July 5. + +Yesterday found me on the island with its silences, and last night the +host was red and sacrificial and rode on a thunder cloud. This +afternoon the planets go singing through my flesh and my song of +praise has widened to the arches of the sun. The sea is moaning slowly +on the sand. I stripped to the cool salt air for the first time. ... +Walking I found my way out on the long gray dunes. + +July 6. + +On the dunes today with my mother. My hand swept idly over the soft +white sand, shifting the order of many thousands of starry worlds. +What a chord of music if one could but hear it in its entirety! As it +was, I caught wonderful echoes that would light the beauties of many a +sunrise. The silent man reminds me of Synge in his drifting life and +the fires glowing in his eyes. Today I saw the-beauty of a flower. ... +Some day I shall write a play about the stars. The action will burn in +their seedtime and blow on the winds of Fate with all its ironies. ... +Tonight in the sitting room I heard in my heart the singing of the +sands. It is on the shifting desert, I feel, that we shall discover +the secret origin of language. How the infinitely aspiring music must +sound tonight along the dunes! + + +July 7. + +The night before last after I retired I felt that lifted feeling +physically which represents the beating of the tides. Last night it +coalesced with the singing of the sands. At Mass this morning the +voices at the Credo thundered out _Et Homo factus est_ in a torrent of +living sound. At the elevation I saw a thin white flame rise from the +uplifted chalice and disappear. It takes a beam of light one hundred +and eight years to travel from Arcturus to the earth. Are we similar +traveling beams, and is death merely our arrival on another planet +which we illumine? Today I read aloud on the cliffs from the glories +of Plato's _Phaedrus_. + + +July 8. + +In the morning I wandered onto the dunes leading out toward Wonder +Island, but was driven off by the terns who were nesting. ... The +billows of the wind today mingled in me with the sands and the tide, +so that I experienced from a new angle Landor's "We are what suns and +winds and waters make us." ... + + +July 9. + +My life will see much traveling. + + +July 10. + +Morning on the dunes. A cold clear bath while mists drove over the +sands. Returning home, as I came to the deep sand on the road, I +perceived the mystery of the resurrection of the body. In death there +is no physical decay. The singing planets of the human body merely +part to combine in other songs, recurring again in the end to their +old disposal and song, exchanging other worlds for their own once +more, and recurring to the first motif of the symphony. I was sad this +afternoon for the will failed me in my work. Sitting on the sand this +morning the singing dunes had attained to the harmony of silence. All +at once a little wisp of seaweed--hardly more than a thread--started +to beat time upon the sands. And then I knew and saw it to be in its +happy beating the pulse that governed the music of the stars. Can the +heart conduct the symphony of the body? Tonight the sun set, borne +away--a Grail--by angels from the questing Galahad. There was a great +silence in my heart as I sat in the crowded room. + + +July 11. + +A day of northeast wind and upward thunder. The joy of the wind was in +me, and I lost the sense of space. The air was so buoyant that it was +closely kin to the sea. ... Today I succeeded a little better with my +will. I had a strange sensation this afternoon, which told me that +bare lonely places are the only places to write drama, since there +only can we find the pure dynamic forces of life disentangled from the +subtle and complicated web of human ambitions and interests. The air +was very thin and clear at twilight, but the sun was hidden in the +clouds. ... + + +July 12. + +... There was a great silence this evening in the crowded room. +Closing my eyes, I raised the upper lids as far as possible without +seeing material things, and so saw myself in fearful wonder elevating +the host and chalice on high. I know now the inner meaning of "Domine, +non sum dignus _ut intres sub tecta mea_." Under these two arched +roofs of the eyes hidden from all light save Light, there is a secret +dwelling. ... A day of close-shrouded palling fog--a chrism confirming +the strength of beauty. + + +July 13. + +This morning the wind blew through the fields of grass like countless +angels in the courts of heaven. Shadow and color and light and +movement dancing before the first syllable of the Name. A gull flew +down almost to my hand, and the sunlight thundered in my ears. Last +night the sea was sadly purifying the earth. I now understand the +Washer of the Ford. Majesty lies in darkness, and grief is only the +privilege of seeing Majesty. Today on the porch with closed eyes +buried in my hands the winds swept over me in a torrent of living +light. A symphony is a wonderful symbol. In the first place, it is +music. In the second place, it is a name of praise with four +syllables. Then it completes a cycle, and returns on a higher plane to +the motif with which it began. It is the history of a soul, and in its +last movement typifies the resurrection of the body, by means of this +very return,--a return to the order and disposal in which it was +created and which it now reassumes to praise its Creator for all +eternity by the harmony of the original Thought. I looked at twilight +into the tiny white heart of a flower that grew among the grasses, and +out of the heart pulsed the Sacred Body in wounds all glorified, with +Hands outstretched conducting the music of the worlds. I know now that +the flower was a chalice. The sadness of it cannot die as the Man can, +and I know that it is with me ready to be shared. As I write this, +there is a mist within my room. I always sleep now like one ready to +soar. In the crowded room tonight I felt myself making the movements +of swimming, as if the air were water and I an expert swimmer. + + +July 14. + + _Views of the unveiled heavens alone forth bring Prophets who + cannot sing_. + +A day of tempestuous wind and rain with all the keen dynamic life of +time poised 'mid eternities. The happiest of my days battling with the +elements in wonderful silences. At Mass with wonder the shining of the +Host. My eyes were veiled from the chalice, but I felt two angels +--guarding the acolytes. Again at the Credo the thunder of _Et Homo +factus est_. With Shelley in the afternoon and a perilous walk on the +cliffs. ... I am gaining in detachment. The desire and passion for +solitude grows and I meditate a winter on the islands. How unworthy I +am to partake of mysteries! They fill me with fear, for it is hard for +the body to live in eternity. In the evening with Gordon Craig. Is he +right about masks? A mask is a symbol, but a face may be a sacrament. +The Mass, after all, is the supreme dream and drama of the world. +Sadness is majesty, as I found the other night, and majesty is always +impenetrable, for it is a secret full of awe and mysterious silence. +Tonight I see that great drama, whether it be a tragedy or no, must +reveal time poised in infinity. Beauty, I think, contains everything +save the human will, and it is the ideal of the will to be thus +contained and of beauty to be the container. ... In the supreme drama +of Gethsemane and Calvary, Christ used the human body as the supreme +visible instrument of drama. + + +July 15. + +... Tonight the fog broke through the sunset and scattered gold across +the sea. Clouds hung over the cliffs. ... I prayed through the sunset, +and won a victory for the will. + + +July 16. + +Last night in the darkness I learned many things. The human will is +the unit, the core of flame which binds all elements together. It is +sad because it is the force of impact tearing things from their +detached and comfortable places and placing them in new relations. It +is the magnet, the summoning voice, our own conscience, the expression +of Majesty. It disposes reluctant and conflicting notes in harmony. +And we have control of it given into our hands. And then, too, I +learnt that words are worlds. At every breath, nay, by the slightest +thought, we create planets. Pray that they harmonize! They have power. +Are they angels? They convey our messages, but their harmony of +inter-woven song and meaning was lost at Babel to our ears. Yet by +them if our will is strong and we do not fail in deeds we may take our +part in the symphony as truly as life itself. And so we must not use +them idly. How can anyone dare to tell a lie? One begins to see how +God is a Name. I felt before how the secret of language was to be +found among the sands. It is because the sands are the nearest and +most visible planets we possess. Words are planets. But planets are +sands on the shore of eternity. Words are sands. We are little words +made flesh, little echoes in the image of the great Word made Flesh. +His creation is the complete echo made flesh, His Image and likeness +which He contemplates. And so we are in our measure part of the song +made flesh, and the little common words that we use are our brothers. + + +July 17. + +The sunset tonight was a glorious crucifixion after the day of clouds. +It was human in its beckoning. I cannot find the secret of the moon, +but it reminds me of Lionel's phrase, if it be his, "golden +mediocrities." Is it the astral embodiment of "They also serve who +only stand and wait"? Why is it that the little human beauties of +Nature pass me by as entities, and that I seek bare places? Is there a +parallel in my personal attitude toward all but those who are +specially dear to me? I thought of how I looked down on the city from +the mountain in May, and felt the whole city to be my prayer. It had +been given into my control for a few minutes, and the only worthy use +to which I could put it was to offer it up with a prayer for my people +and all the desire of my heart that the prayer would be answered. The +half-million souls with all their dreams were under my care then, and +their acts were mine. So little are cities, and so little I found my +worthiness that I could not hide my tears. Later I crossed to the +height looking down on the cemetery, the world was silent save for the +flaming heart of the city pulsing below, and reflecting the Flaming +Heart above as the sun set. The woodpeckers did not fear me, and I +sank slowly and deeply into God. I think that some day I shall know +His wounds. I cannot understand why I was delivered from temptation at +the moment that the city was put into my hands. + + +July 18. + +... I bathed on the dunes on Wonder Island. The sun set tonight +sacramentally just as it set that night at ---- when I failed to +speak. Never had I felt stronger, but something held me back from +telling him how the dearest wish of my life was that he should +participate in the Holy Eucharist. The flame was in my hands to lay +upon his heart, but something bade me wait. I distrusted it, and asked +him to walk with me on the shore. The thunder of the tide and the moon +were too strong. Why could I not have told him? We were silent for +hours while his heart lay with the _Titanic_, and even his little +daughter was quiet in the room. + + +July 19. + +The stars are the dust rubbed off from human souls. "Dust unto dust +thou shalt return." At the last judgment, they will fly together in an +angelic hosting, and clothe once more the souls which moved in them, +and our souls will rule their songs. Human suffering is the friction +of angels making stars. ... I know now that the end of one's forty +days is not complete knowledge, but only a clear indication of the +road. The joy is in that, and also the sorrow. It is the direction +given to the will, orders to be so carefully obeyed. This is the +greatest discovery of all. Words do not reveal it. It is absolutely +prosaic, though it is eternal beauty. But what I have written does not +reflect it even faintly as it seems to me. Read Hello this afternoon. +The freedom of the dunes this morning seemed to extend more than is +usual. Later I read from Plato's "Symposium." + + +July 20. + +... The proverbial symbol of impermanence is writing upon sand. What +could be more gloriously permanent? To have one's message spelled out +by singing planets, to write upon the stars. It is so that our songs +have immortality. "Verba scripta manent" takes on a majestic +significance. Are not joy and sadness the same? The only difference is +one of rapidity. Sadness is made up of the long, slow, majestic chords +of the song. It seems to me that when a wheel seems to cease motion, +and finally attains a state of motionlessness, it is perhaps merely +turning into a terrible speed which we cannot perceive. It is the +turning of an hour-glass. When I am dead, I wish only my faults to be +chronicled, for these alone have any value for the world. I have +dreamt always of cycles of infinities. As a decimal always tends by +evolution towards a number, so also we evolve toward an infinity. Yet +at that goal another infinity starts, as another infinity starts in +numbers,--the symbol of patience after all. + + + "Unto the man of yearning thought + And aspiration, to do nought + Is in itself almost an act,-- + Being chasm-fire and cataract + Of the soul's utter depths unseal'd. + Yet woe to thee if once thou yield + Unto the act of doing nought!" + +Read Hello and Elia. I am learning how to see in crowds. These past +few days I have succeeded in withdrawing into life for long periods in +the midst of a general conversation, yet my absence was not noted in +the least. Out of it I hope will develop the ability to be with life +always in the tangle and confusion of city circumstance. This +afternoon I read _Phaedrus_ aloud on a sunny cliff, and in the evening +read aloud Keats' "I stood tiptoe" on the green heights in the wind +and the rain. Rossetti's lines do not forbid a life of contemplation, +but rather encourage it as distinguished from quietism. ... Through +the summer I am to see the Crucifixion. How I envy St. Francis the +Stigmata! Even as a little boy I desired them--but I shall never be +able perhaps to love passionately enough. The nights that I cried as a +little fellow without knowing why, just because I loved, were nearer +than I shall ever be again. + + +July 21. + +At Benediction after Mass today I saw the Wonder in all Humanity with +Light surrounding It, and I shook with an awful thunder of sound. ... +Today I have been happy to tears, and in the blue afternoon on the +cliffs with my mother, I shared "Endymion" and "Epipsychidion." ... I +do not understand why silence is spoken of as a precept. To me it is +the living attribute of God. ... How nobly scornful is Sir Aubrey De +Vere's phrase, "witless ecstasies"! + + +July 22. + +Simply a day of hard work. But I was happy in it. In an odd way I felt +as I wrote all day on the smooth white paper that I was stroking the +sleek breasts of doves. Tonight the steady patter of the rain upon the +eaves. + + +July 23. + +A day of hard routine work. ... Tonight in the inky darkness I walked +to the postoffice in the thundering wind and rain and surf, and +learned how the deeps can praise the Lord. I have always felt the +wonder of that psalm. + + +July 24. + +Rose at 4:30 and saw the sun rise a pure and shimmering symbol of the +Host above the silver outline of Wonder Island. The day was dumb. A +little boy has come whose face is his sacrament. What a song he must +sing! I look forward to the morrow as a day of special grace and +wonder. ... + + +July 25. + +It is evident to me that music is wrong before a play or during +intermissions. But it is necessary until our dramatists provide some +other prelude. That prelude must be a beautiful setting of silence for +a few moments showing the protagonist under the light of eternity. In +the beginning all words contained a spiritual "import,"--were angels. +At Babel many fell. Now all our spiritual words are material words +grown out of their meanings. When expression becomes passion, it is +the passion of creation, clothing itself in images as God does through +eternity in the Passion of Creation. This is near the heart of life's +most awful secret, but words conceal it except from experience. For +Passion proceeds from Creation as Preservation proceeds from both, +though they are all from Eternity in the Unity of the Godhead. All my +planets at the contemplation of This are dancing before the throne. +The thunderous rhythm of their music is shaking me physically like the +engines of a steamer in shallow water. Every atom struggles against +the law of cohesion. God loves the beautiful boy. His name is Henry +R----. The Greeks, Emerson says, called the world _Cosmos_, Beauty. +Reading this on the veranda this afternoon, I closed my eyes and sank +contentedly into life. When I returned the faces were foreign, and +even my mother never knew. On the dunes this morning I heard the +silence of Eternity on the edge of time. I think it is a pine forest. +Babel took away the Word, until It came to earth, and in material form +took on supreme Spirit coming from the Father. ... + + +July 26. + +I wish I could raise a singing altar of planets by some great +sacrifice. My fingers drummed upon the sands this morning a crude and +simple rhythm. I thought of its influence in displacing planets, and +of the almost infinite musical variations that were set in motion, and +then I compared my crude thrumming with the majestic thunders of the +sea, and realized the insupportable beauty of absolute music. A dog +talks by smell. There are vibrations of smell, as well as of sound or +of heat or of light. And the blind reveal vibration of touch, the +holiest of the senses. We talk now by sound, but are learning to talk +by heat and light. When shall we learn to talk by smell and touch? +Flowers, too, talk by smell. There is nothing but vibration in the +image of God, for LIFE IS NOTHING MORE THAN THE TREMBLING OF HIS +BEAUTY. The awful speed of Truth hardens into fact. Words must not say +more. + +A dog taught me this,--Prince, the companion of the silent man. One +should be a priest when he marries two ideas. In any one of the +planets within the singing tissue of my flesh are Dantes and St. +Francises. Creation requires of us infinite crucifixions which we +shall never be able to consummate alone. When I lie on my breasts on +the sand and bury my face in my hands, all Nature receives me as a +human bridegroom, and I sink through time to eternity _creating_ space +around me, that widens and narrows to the reaches of immortality. It +is always on the sands that I find the friendliest depths, or in the +snow drift of cold planets upon a winter day or else within in the +terrible energy of my body, as my heart beats time to the universal +spheral rhythm. Think of the literal meaning of "universal!" Tonight +in the silence I read _Prometheus Bound_. I love the grace of the +boy's eyes. I pray to be guarded from the pride of humility. + + +July 27. + +[Illustration: Circle with a cross through it.] + +... It was a day of silences. I traced this figure idly on the sand +today, and suddenly understood the symbolism of the scarab. But did +the Egyptians anticipate the Redemption? As men are impressed by the +face of the world, so is the world impressed by their faces. The face, +as mirror of the soul, shines forth with electricity and makes an +impression on life, altering the song of those it acts upon as the +violin sound alters the formation of sands resting on a tightened +drum. By what ancient intuition does the Latin word "malum" mean both +"apple" and "evil"? Music creates substance through the speed of +gaiety, and God in His Creation is a cosmic humorist. (Cosmic means +beautiful.) To distinguish between fascination and sympathy is a +counsel of perfection for critics which has its spiritual analogies. +... Angels ran in hosts through the grasses. + + +July 28. + + "His soul's most secret thought, + Eternal Light declares." + +I read Lionel's poems on the cliffs, and almost discovered the secret +of the blue. Today for the first time I realized the remoteness of +these islands, and it was a great joy. It was a golden day of sunshine +on the cliffs with blue cloudless sky over quiet waters. Life is +turning inward to the heart of silence, and out of it will come the +beauty of my dream if life is willing. + + +July 29. + + ... I met a man today who knew beauty. He was a French country +lawyer. ... The sunset tonight revealed all the sadness of the Burning +Babe. I failed today. + + +July 30. + +Another sadder failure of the will. Yet beauty came in the evening. +The love of man, far more the love of God, is God in heaven descended +upon earth, eternity made time in beauty, "majestic instancy," the +Word made Flesh. The soul is the pool wherein God and we see our +images, and Heaven will be the mutual contemplation of our souls. So +that human love is the adoration of God in human flesh, and therein +may the beloved be seen as the image of God in time. The praise of Our +Lady should then be the praise of God. Was this Patmore's secret? Or +Dante's and Petrarch's? "My lady was desired in the high heaven." ... +I see now how in Heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage. +Far flowing ramparts of a starry world! The _flammantia moenia mundi_ +of Lucretius. To contemplate Beauty FACE TO FACE! What a wonderful +proof of the beauty of our souls. Twin mirrors of a single singing +thought, the face of man looking into the Face of God, soul mingling +with Soul in immortal music, bathed in the cool wind of Our Lady's +eyes. Today I lost a nation in the cycle of my soul. What is the blood +but the history of my planets as engraved upon the constellations of +my flesh? It is the book of the angel of judgment for the first +syllable of my song, as the emotions, the intellect, and, alas, the +will, for the second, third, and fourth. The flesh is the ebb tide +from God, as the emotions are the flood. The intellect is the second +ebb, and in the will pray God that it may be flood! The other is +Hell.... + + +July 31. + +... A victory for the will this morning. ... Tomorrow is the first of +August, and I shall enter upon my forty days. The ringing in my ears +is the ringing of my fleshly stars "toned all in Time." I have +commenced an anthology of high imaginings more worthy than a book of +essays of that title I have loved and desired to use for +years,--_Flame and Dew_. If rightly done, it may do poetry one of the +greatest of services by assisting it to praise Beauty on many lips in +naked Light. I wish to consecrate my work on it to that end. Today I +have been influenced by Frederick Tennyson, Traherne, and Patmore. In +agony lies the highest music. The key is struck by circumstance, +Time's organist, and the stars tremble with music. For the full +thundering silence of Absolute Beauty a Divine Agony was necessary, so +that all Heaven and its choirs and Hell trembled in the majesty of +this _stricken_ Doom. Death is the final chord, the passage of our +full song from time to the silence of eternity. Sleep next to death is +the most terrible life that soul and body knows. It is the center of +the wheel radiating high powers to the circumference. The speed there +is terrific, so fast that it hardens, again that "majestic instancy." +The tiniest flame is the friction of conflicting "universes." Beauty +is alike the center and circumference of infinity, the silent wheel of +omnipresent omnipotence, wherein all thoughts are not timed but +eternal. From eternity we were nothing: to eternity we are Beauty's +image. Is it strange that in sleep we are often given sight? + + +August 1. + +Art is the exhibition of life in the light of eternity. I can conceive +of no other adequate critical formula. This applies to painting, +sculpture, literature and music. Such too is the art of life,--the +exhibition to God and man of life in the light of eternity. I have +been startled to find a kinship between Wordsworth and Millet. I found +it today in a stooped old man who was traveling the roads with a +walking stick and a heavy bundle of driftwood. He was worthy of a +great painter or a great poet. By the sign of the cross one draws a +magic circle round the soul which evil may not penetrate. It places +one "in the name." On the seashore one should lie parallel with the +waves facing inland. Then only may one advance onward with their +prayer. + + +August 2. + +It is absolutely true that only music may shape woods and fountains +and the beauty of souls, for it is the only medium of expression which +is pure. Pure music is the true white magic, as black magic is music +mixed with clay by human hands. Naked Beauty alone may mix music with +clay in Its own image and likeness. Even poetry fails save in so far +as it echoes the pure natural truths of music. And all creation may +flow from a flute if the player breathes a prayer. Some day we shall +have the great opera of the Incarnation and Redemption. It is the +ideal goal of music, and so of all art. But it demands the poet, the +painter, and the sculptor, too, for its actors shall be immortal +statues and a living chorus singing the passion of the race against +the supreme dawn and the supreme sunset. But its greatest moments will +be silence. Christ and His Mother will live this silence in the glory +of transfigured stone, and the drama will be played in the open with +the stars above as orchestra, to which the human music will be but a +beautiful echo. To this Wagner and Craig point the way. I read +Patmore's _Two Infinities_ today with bewilderment and emphatic +disagreement. It seems absolutely lacking in vision, provincial, +almost challenging Creation. And yet it is essentially true. Christ +was a man of golden mediocrities. He speaks of the lilies of the +field, but never of stars or of planets. And St. Francis perhaps hints +at the solution. To him brother Wind and brother Fire and brother Worm +are alike and equal, for he sees them in the light of infinity. But +all are wonderful, and we must not sneer at the stars. ... Today +writing as a means of expression has seemed to be absolutely futile. +Silence is the only active way of praise that I can find, provided +that it informs some daily action. My will won again today. Horizons +are wonderful. S---- told me that Lionel invited him into his Oxford +rooms one evening at sunset and led him to a seat from which nothing +lower than the horizon was to be seen. "There," he said, "nothing +matters that is below that line." You see he knew that our souls in +their beauty are always above it. + + +August 3. + +To watch a grass-blade tapping will teach you wonderful music--the +language of the wind. The sunlight running through my flesh in-flames +the song of the will. I lost myself tonight in the crowded silences. +Joy stays with me now, and if I can only join it to sorrow, the will +can then sing simply and freely a continuous song. The turning of the +tide is soon to come, and my homesickness for G----ville is +transforming itself into a different nostalgia. My planets are rising +in song like little candle flames. I wish I possessed their humility. +Within me tonight are quiet moonlit waters very full and rich with +silent promises of rest. + + +August 4. + +At Mass today Mr. C---- showed a fine courtesy serving with the high +humility of a punctilious gentleman. ... Today I saw the body of +Christ, "infinite riches in a little room." The human body of Christ +in its passion is the sum of all our bodies, and it is this truth to +which pantheism in its blindness dimly beckons. The saints and pure +poets and those who have died for friends are the image of the Sacred +Heart, and in them at moments of pure _reflection_ there is naked +light and the vision which is insupportable. Hence in the greatest +saints the stigmata. All God's lonely ones are the reflections of His +pain when they attain to sanctity. And holy priests are the +reflections of His Hands. Little children and saints may look into His +Eyes and see their own. And repentant sinners may reflect His Feet in +their tears. All the births and lives of the earth go to form His +Human Body, which is vast as Eternity and radiating with Light from +all points and inward to the Heart of Light. To some saints it has +been permitted to be the spouse of this body and soul. Magic is white +or black. White magic is the offspring of spiritual marriage and is a +sacrament. Black magic is the offspring of unauthorized spiritual +contacts. My frame tonight is possessed by angels dancing before the +throne in a fearfully rapid rhythm. The secret of spiritual +achievement is unremitting labor urged without ceasing by a fearful +joy. No drama is more vast than that of the crucifixion, and yet I +have seen it all in the heart of a strawberry blossom with wounds all +glorified in an ecstasy of living trembling light, and heard the +beating of His Sacred Heart while universe called out to universe in +the anguish of His surrender and all the stars died into the Light of +Eternity. The tide has turned. + + + +August 5. + +Today looking into a narrow dome I saw the seeded planets banded by +circles of light whereon they turned. And color changed into silence +at the bidding of the central suns. And these were the eyes of happy +innocence wherein all others died to the Living Light, God being in +them by their childishness. The tide turned yesterday, and today I +have spent entirely in eternity surrounded by a host of fair-winged +Possibilities, God's angels to humanity. Death is glorified by their +passage from the future to the past, and we respond by plunging our +lights into the Light wherein it dies. _Abt Vogler_ is the musical +philosophy of it all. At my first symphony concert as a little boy, I +saw the face of the dying Christ through the wall, and in it the music +of the seventh Symphony sang through the naked eyes calling me inward +to the Sacred Heart. This morning and noon at table I smiled at white +horizons and in the evening I swam through the Host on my future +wings. We love earth, air, fire, and water now, but the eternal joy of +swimming through the Light of God and reflecting His Light in song and +silence is the infinity of all poets' dreams incarnate in the awful +speed of Absolute Music. It is the privilege of laughing into the Eyes +of God, those Eyes before which the angels veil their faces. It is the +privilege of smelling the blossom of the Living Rose, of tasting and +consuming forever the Body and Blood, of touching the Sacred Knees, +and of hearing the Divinity who is Music. Priests and poets shall swim +in the song of his heart, and those who have died for friends will +reflect its resolving rhythm. How I pity Blake his pride, though he +was preserved from the pride of humility. God will let me see more of +Him in this life than Blake did, though it is of the most trifling +significance to anticipate eternity in poor time, the crippled heir of +original sin. Since it is to be, I wish with all my blood that my will +were worthier. + + +August 6. + +A day of happy drudgery reading proofs. I rode through them in the +winds of eternity. That is the secret of it all,--to teach us joy. The +human symbol of it is a martyr's ecstasy, which is in no way sensuous +or voluptuous since it has completely forgotten the body. The Sacred +Heart is the Mystical Rose spreading its petals over the Cross of +Time. In _Flame and Dew_ is the first application of an idea and +belief that the day will come when anthologies will be books +containing the wisdom of the poets on special sciences, such as the +science of childhood, the science of love, the science of death, and +the science of silence. + + +August 7. + +Imagination being Eternal Life, it shows the blind instinct of +language that the word should mean the creation of images. Imagination +is the instrument of God's creation in his own _image_ and likeness. +Today I came to Petrarch and Dante--the mystics of the supreme +elements. To contrast their serenity with Blake's wrath shows the +whiter heights. All height is inward through narrow circles to the +Central Fire of Silent Love from which the angels shrink in spiral +messages of inspiring flame, and toward which humanity aspires in +narrowing and advancing circles of expiring flesh. But depth is +outward to the hearts of men. Sirius sings to my living stars tonight +its light in the music of the ancient winds, telling me of the +crucifixion in burning colors of a dying world. Why am I unworthy of +an equal death? The blood runs toward it in a passion of harmony. The +day is near when my morning stars shall sing their lives out together +in praise of their Creator, though it is futile to measure it in terms +of time. One is not curious of time if one lives in eternity. Death is +then only the fulfilment of our operative desires. I wish that I were +one of the tears of God. Joy is for those _of good will_. + + +August 8. + +I met one of Wordsworth's old men today gathering faggots on the +shore. "I have been to all places and cities and I found no one happy +on the world, and now I wish me to be dead." ... Tonight I bowed in +silence under the vault of stars. To be holy is to lose the knowledge +of good and evil through "clinging Heaven by the hems." To refuse evil +is to refuse the apple _(malum)_ of the Tree of Knowledge. There is no +possibility of finding the ideal unless we look passionately for +nothing but the beauty of souls, seeing therein God's image and +refusing to perceive the clouds of evil. Circles lead to Heaven, but +straight lines to Hell. Straight lines are the tangents that "err" +from the sphere of the ideal. Miss C---- told me about a little boy +who was visiting Italy with his mother. He fell down hill, and stopped +before a roadside crucifix. And then he forgot his fall. They found +him crying as if his heart would break, and he told them that it was +because he was so sorry for that sad Man whom everybody had made +suffer so. The angels drop seed into our souls which make them +invisible to other men, and we also may plant seed with modesty and +humility. It is God's fernseed to mortals. How strange it is that we +measure time by moons, cold satellites, and thus the symbol of death. +But after all time is the dark night of the soul. I realized for the +first time today that I was born in December, the month of creation, +when the flame turns in upon itself in the hard cold earth and gives +birth to high hopes whose fulfilment are in eternity. It is the month +of Christmas on that account. I have begun to perceive what awful +wings my thoughts have, and know that they are given them by God +through me to carry them humbly into the most secret circle of the +Sacred Breast. We must do the labor of God with human hands, yet the +Labor of God is the Creation of Beauty. As the vegetable kingdom +renews its life once a year through time and so preserves its secret, +our souls must renew themselves in infinite recurrence through +eternity. Our life differs only in ardor which is speed. The greatest +speed lies in submission, for submission is the greatest strength. At +high moments it is Atlas supporting the earth. At the supreme moment, +it becomes the mystery of the Redemption. + + +August 9. + +Singing through the universal stars that were woven into His Flesh, I +saw the Son of God tonight glorified in the joy of a living Smile. And +all the angels bowed laughing toward Him and clapped and danced before +His Name, though the sum of their song was silence. And then every +living star was scourged by the sins of men, and died into the +darkness, saying "Thy Will be done," and it was morning with the +Eucharist in the sky. Only Redemption trembled through the air. The +stars are the eternal reflections of God's patience, for they endure +His Human Passion, since together they form the shadow of the Word +made Flesh. They are the singing echo in time of God's speechless +patience, as we are destined to be if we conquer our wills. But +patience is suffering, and Alpha must submit to the yoke of Omega. +Since God is the Alpha and Omega he caused the Incarnation and +Passion. THE IDEAL OF HUMAN LIFE IS THE PASSIONATE REDEMPTION OF THE +WILL. This is life's darkest secret, _unless_ we live in the +Eucharist. We are to be the silent reflections of speechless patience +in the still waters of eternity. The evil came when Lucifer stole fire +from heaven and brought it down to men. Conquer fire, and we conquer +the will. Then heaven is ours. My body and blood ache with my prayer +for it. + + +August 10. + +The angels weave what God creates, according to their functions. His +archangels are the weavers of time, and all the others of material +nature, uninformed by a soul. This is a branch of the heavenly song. +To weave God's image is the function of the saints and of all those on +earth. It is the wonder of incarnate Music that saved the world, +Absolute Silence born into Sound, and dying with all Sound into +Silence. The archangels are God's messengers of life and death, for +they control the days. But they are sent from Him to His Image, and +our weaving is made out of their materials as we adapt them to our +song. All outer powers and forces are brought us by the angels, and +among the dearest to God's heart are his flame-winged Possibilities +that hover on the borderline between today and tomorrow, Time and +Eternity. They alone may not enter time unless we beckon them. The +starry heaven is the heaven of the body; the crystal sphere, of the +intellect; and the empyrean, of the pure soul. We may live in the +starry heaven in this life, if God gives us the grace. But it is then +a heaven of desire. But the weaving of the angels is the whole +philosophy of nature. Their music explains its sympathies and sorrows, +its deaths and resurrections, and above all its solemn silences of +night and noon. And the song of their weaving becomes nature's love of +wisdom, that is to say, adoration of the Word. The saints are the only +complete philosophers. The object of asceticism is generally +misunderstood, particularly in one phase of its endeavors,--to forget +the body. The truth of the matter is that the flesh and blood in their +highest song toward which we should strive are so occupied with +praising God that they completely lack self-consciousness, and do not +distract the intellect or the will. God is with them in naked purity. +It is His simplest and dearest starry music. He demands that our life +should be a programme of infinite proportions. And yet I wonder if a +saint can ever be both a great prophet and a great apostle. I do not +believe a great prophet can be tender enough to persuade. That is why +prophets are scorned or ignored by their generation. Gentleness is the +absolute breath of music, which alone can penetrate the soul or even +the material body of nature. The supreme gentleness of St. Francis of +Assisi made the birds listen to his music, for his breath ran dancing +in a cool breeze through all their singing stars. We need a St. +Francis at present burningly. Is it possible to form a religious order +of the poets? Here is an ideal. But it must be Franciscan: a gown, a +girdle, and sandals, poverty, chastity, and obedience. Where is the +wise man to obey? I can believe that jewels are potent for good or +evil, since they are condensed flame and a secret word lies hidden in +each of their hearts. A day of tempestuous wind and rain. + + +August 11. + +Today I found myself progressing slowly to a triumphant rhythm round +the circumference of a vast musical plane. The celestial earth is flat +but progresses upwards to its central point, the cone of aspiration +and song. And then I remembered the vision of St. Frances of Rome +wherein she saw the Supreme Godhead as a vast Circle of Light in the +midst of which was a Pillar, the Cone of Redemption and Silence. Death +is the point of meeting. Perhaps the Zodiac is the merry-go-round of +the stars. A second day of tempest. The great message of future poetry +will be to proclaim that nature is the expression of man, rather than +man of nature, and thus to reveal the essential nobility of man as the +image of God rather than the image of nature. Suns and winds and +waters are what we make them. Pantheism confuses the image of the +image with the face. Nature is the mirror of man as man is the mirror +of God. Nay more, nature is the mirror in time of man's eternity, as +man is the image in time and eternity of God. It is for this reason +that the stars are the open book of the future, though they are not to +be read by men aloud. Astrology is forbidden because it violates the +precept of silence, which is the courtesy we pay as gentlemen to God. +We may only read the stars in little children's eyes, wherein their +future is concealed. The breast of Mary is the fountain of the stars, +and round it fly the seraphim in flaming adoration of the blessed +womb. Her eyes are God's dew, wherein the secret of His Light is +whispered by the thrones. I felt through the morning His human +Presence graciously walking the roads, and I was resting on His left +Arm that brought me to His Heart, the country wherein the dreams of my +will are born. + + +August 12. + +I have been sick today. Rain and tempest, but God was on the wind, and +I am happy. + + +August 13. + +Still ill. Rain and fog with intermittent sunshine. But I am as happy +as I have ever been. + + +August 14. + +Still ill. Fog in the morning breaking into a wonderful pearl day of +summer haze. Our bodily senses are instruments in our orchestra. + + +August 15. + +Today I sank into Beauty several times in the sunlight. + + +August 16. + +Read through the last proofs and on the dunes with my mother in the +afternoon I lived in the light of God. The sun I caused to smile and I +wrapped myself in the blue of the Virgin's sky. I found myself causing +a shower twice by failing in humility. But the laughing Light of God's +eyes in my soul is eternal, and when I submit it controls the tides of +my body and mind. Tonight a woodpecker alighted on Father K----'s +shoulder and stayed with him nearby. The Brahmin may attain to the +shadow of the first syllable of the Word. He does not believe that +there are others. _Om_ is simply the symbol of inward breath, +inspiration. I heard myself today very near to the Heart of Silence, +whose systole and diastole is the ebb and flow of Love from Eternity +to Eternity. Time is the sound of silence and is dead to all eternity. +It is the only beautiful death that the angels do not mourn, for in +the death of Time is the Redemption of the World. It takes the circle +of eternity to unite the four points of the cross, and a crucifixion +to unite two parallel lines. + + +August 17. + +Out of the summer I am weaving the pattern web of the future in +threads of desire. Every resurrection of a body is the last judgment +of infinite planets, which fly to or flee from the human song of God's +first syllable. Yet those that flee may be purchased by an infinite +Redemption. This opens a terrible possibility of mercy. Is God +continually becoming man for the love of His image? This is the joyful +secret of God's sad fourth syllable. I clothe it in words to guard it +from my intellect. Infinite incarnations prove time an illusion, since +they make it eternity. God's Sacred Heart is the silent ocean beyond +the universe. It reflects. The Incarnation is its flood. The Host +tonight was more white than shining silver in a lonely pearl sky. It +was Absolute Music unveiled to the human eye. Tonight I stood out for +long alone with the stars, and watched a thunderstorm come over the +sea. We must guard our dreams and intuitions not only from the +intellects of others but most of all from our own. Yet our faith must +be precisely bounded, although this boundary is to be none other than +the infinite succession of points where time and eternity meet and bow +down before God. This morning I saw His Beauty in a daisy. ... I do +not believe that God will reveal His mysteries if we seek to know +them, without inflicting a penalty. The way of knowledge is the way of +silent patience, which lies quietly dreaming of Love till the flood +washes it with Living Light. + + +August 18. + +Every time we look into another's soul we may enter Paradise. There is +an indescribable grace in the air this first day of prescient autumn. +The summer has taught me the secret of loneliness and the infinite way +of satisfying its desire. To be alone with God we must be intimate +with the beauty in the eyes of every face, and yet absolutely detached +save from one's family and friend. Life's ideal is to see the end in +the beginning, and act the road between. This is no other than the +eternal life of the Alpha and Omega. But the essence of it in time is +that the whole tide of humanity should ebb and flow in our breast. It +requires a crucifixion to drink in all its saltness. I found the dunes +beyond the lagoon this morning and sank into God in the wind of the +sunlit blue. When I returned, the people were coming from Church. +Tonight the Host was quivering gold, and as I write the planets are +ringing in my ears. I pray that at the end I may come to the Heart of +Eternal Silence. + + +August 19. + +On the dunes this morning toward Wonder Island ... Eternity is +infinite speed. Time is the dragwheel, nothing more. Hence the +significance of "when eternity reaffirms the conception of an hour." +Flame is the symbol of time as dew is the symbol of eternity. They +meet in Christ and through Him in the human race. The moon properly +loved is the kindness of time, as the sun is the reflected love of +Eternity made Flesh in the Host on the altar. ... Tonight I desire +only silence to love. + + +August 20. + +On the dunes toward Wonder Island this morning I lost space and walked +upon the blue ringing a cycle of stars in either hand. But I felt no +sense of distance and the seed of the sands blew on the wind which +carried me. It taught me how to walk softly through life, and coming +home I had the sand in my hair. I know now what clouds are, softer +than the breasts of doves. God's flying sorrows are the sandals of the +soul. They make us His angels, Mercuries of Light. The sun has not +bled for many a night, but has slowly descended in silver splendor, +always a second dawn with its fresh, keen, cool surprises. Today was +the grace of last night's desire. The wonder of it this morning was my +complete surrender, the assurance with which I moved on the singing +skies as my native element. I know that only the appearances remained, +as in the Eucharist after the Consecration we seem to see the bread +and wine. Life was the poise of infinity, and I knew of no horizon, +for I could look down upon the dawn. It came two weeks ago Sunday in +my heart. I see the mystery of the Resurrection in its beauty, and why +white lilies are its deepest symbol. How can there be a prison or a +cage? Every twilight is a white horizon. The gulls know that and the +sea tonight has lost its sorrow. + + +August 21. + +By sailboat to P---- and G---- with the silent man, returning with the +stars. Their hosting was like the flocking of wild geese, and they +followed St. Francis of Assisi as a leader, the captain of the morning +stars. In the silence I heard the operation of the divine mathematics. + +I loved those Chaldean seers to whom God talked directly and wrote His +message upon the stars. I lay prone on the deck looking upwards and +fell into the Divine Ocean slowly. The moon rode serenely to the +southwest, and humanity was with me in the boat. Navigators are now +the only men left wise enough to follow the stars. The sunpath was +Jacob's ladder, and the Aran islanders know its secret when they see +Tir-n'an-Og in the west on calm sunset evenings. The sea had my trust, +eternal through yesterday's experience, and I believe that if faith +and good works required it of me, I could walk softly over it. If the +soul is to control the body, surely spiritual gravity should be able +to overcome material gravity. Certainly it would take more than the +sea to quench my flame, if God made me worthy. + + +August 22. + +I looked down from great heights today on all the little smiling +intimacies. They are like happy babies to me, and my speech should +play with them, if I can ever become worthy of their simplicity. The +rhythm of all music is the systole and diastole of the Sacred Heart, +which is the ebb and flow of an infinite ocean. This is the meaning, I +think, of the old Gaelic rune, _Ri tragadh s'ri lionadh, mar a bha, +mar a tha, mar a bhitheas gu bragh ri traghadh s'ri lionadh_. (The ebb +and the flow, as it was, as it is, as it ever shall be, the ebb and +the flow.) The resolute gaze of the soul toward this in love +constitutes prayer in its only form. It shows blood to be the most +rich and beautiful of human things, and its salt waves purify the +flesh, as the salt waves of Gethsemane and Calvary redeemed the soul +and its singing stars. + + +August 23. + +My life so far has been a word, and not a deed. But the world was not +redeemed until the Word BECAME FLESH--AND DWELT AMONGST US. Mary S---- +met us on the roads today and said, "I hope that we'll be meeting in +Heaven, we seem to meet so often now." I sleep at night in a cruciform +position adoring beauty with every faculty save my will, the most +necessary of all. + + +August 24. + +In the open today amid a hurricane of wind ... I walked with a +childish old man with a pleasant soul. The wind brought meteor showers +of beauty to the body. It rained grace in the sky of noon. + +I could carry overflowing happiness now even to New York. Today +reminded me of the sunlight on the roar of Broadway. God is on the +wind tonight, and is beating down my will with his wings. + + +August 25. + +I lay through a night of tempestuous wind with the open window at my +head. I awoke and saw myself face to face in my weakness. It rained +all day. ... I can hardly bear my love today. It is a terrific dynamo +of silence. But it will be very long before I shall fulfill my +worthiness. If one could always remember that he is a saviour, and +carry humanity with him, his will would be inflexible and every act an +exulting humility. All nature is but a mantle which the wind of my +spirit disposes in folds about me, and humanity is the chalice in +which I may communicate with God,--a chalice woven of our singing +flesh and heart and brain and will, wherein the will is its depth, the +Atlas which bears the Sacred Body and Blood when it is given to us. + + +August 26. + +Sorrow has come at last. Full moon, and life is at the flood. The +precept of all adversity is of course that the ebb tide of fortune is +our flood toward God. Even the lamp tonight is singing in the room. + + +August 27. + +The experience still turns inward to the heart of life. I now see the +core of it. It burns, of course, but think of the wheel it carries. A +few days ago I was on the circumference. Now I have found the center. +A day of rain and wind and exterior disturbances. But I have found my +cenacle. + + +August 28. + +A victory for the will. ... It is strange that every vital lesson that +experience teaches can never be expressed in words. The past few days +have taught me more than the rest of the summer. There will always be +a secrecy of the soul, and what this contains constitutes God's image +and likeness. Life sings tonight in every atom its marvelous chemistry +of change and prophecy. Nature knows no elegies, since it may never +triumph over aught but dust. But the highest dream is less worthy than +the simplest deed, and we must forget the knowledge of good and evil. +I would exchange all the knowledge I have gained for the grace to +perform the slightest act of St. Francis. God has made our opportunity +infinite by giving us an eternal standard of values,--that is all. + + +August 29. + +I am afraid to write further for fear that I shall soon become +self-conscious. ... It is strange that the will did not come home to +me as a complete experience before. I simply had the foreboding of it. +This summer on the 9th of August I heard the Fourth Syllable in its +awfulness for the first time, and understood the mystery of the +Redemption. The time has now come to close this book, for the record +is complete, and may not be reopened until I redeem my will. + +_They departed into their own country another way_. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLD*** + + +******* This file should be named 13138.txt or 13138.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/3/13138 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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