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 inthe belief that it would help to tell me what he had always known inthe silences, yet could never in life transmute into the friendlycounters of speech. During the last years of his all too briefexperience of his friends, more than once he shyly sought to tell whathe knew, yet always silence claimed him, and nothing but the wonder ofhis eyes revealed the dream that consumed his heart. Because beautyclaims these words in a deeper knowledge than we had before, I havetranscribed this fragment of them here, confident that in these whiteintuitions of his youth there is a revelation of the Light behindbeauty beyond our poor knowledge and still poorer faith. I haveomitted only what was most sacred to the privacies of his heart andour affection. He was of the old faith and would have wished had hepublished these pages to have expressed his entire and passionateloyalty to the Roman Catholic Church in faith and deed, and to havedisclaimed any word therein which conflicted with the intimacies ofits truth. I can do no more than to echo his wish, and mourn theunhappy chance which took him from us on an April tide, though itbefell on the Easter that he loved and at that hour when the flamingsymbol of the Divine Sacrifice was setting in the west. So the passionof the sun and tide which reflected his belief witnessed theconsummation 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 iscontained there is a short fragment which bears no relation that I candiscover to the entries that follow, and I am inclined to believe thatit is the beginning of an autobiography which Middleton nevercontinued. In my uncertainty, however, I print it, and accordingly itis transcribed below. --THE EDITOR. )

_Fragment_. --I was not more than three years old when the sunlightfirst made me happy as it stole through the curtains and over thecoverlet 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 catchthe sunbeams, for I felt their gold in my heart, nor could they havebeen nearer than they were, being associated with my mother'swatchfulness as she stole in to smile upon my slumbers and claim thesecond silent unconscious kiss. On Sunday morning they would befreighted with a quiet whiter light, more peaceful and hushed to thefeeling of the day, and somehow the peace was guarded with finger onlip throughout the house, so that it was implicit in my nest of imageslong before reason took note of it or sought to explain it to myconsciousness. Once again as a boy of fifteen I knew it with a catchof delighted and almost tearful surprise when I stroked the breast ofa wounded pigeon who found shelter in my room. The world is not asquiet in these days, nor is the hum of traffic in the mart attuned sokindly to the flow of light as when it ran so gently by the bedside ofthe dreaming boy. . .. 

(The journal now follows, written in a small cramped hand, withoutparagraphing or division. I omit the first few entries as purelypersonal. Middleton had gone to a group of remote western islands, andthese notes are the fruit of his sojourn there. )--THE EDITOR. 

July 5. 

Yesterday found me on the island with its silences, and last night thehost was red and sacrificial and rode on a thunder cloud. Thisafternoon the planets go singing through my flesh and my song ofpraise has widened to the arches of the sun. The sea is moaning slowlyon 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 softwhite 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 itwas, I caught wonderful echoes that would light the beauties of many asunrise. The silent man reminds me of Synge in his drifting life andthe 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 intheir 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 thesands. It is on the shifting desert, I feel, that we shall discoverthe secret origin of language. How the infinitely aspiring music mustsound tonight along the dunes!

July 7. 

The night before last after I retired I felt that lifted feelingphysically which represents the beating of the tides. Last night itcoalesced with the singing of the sands. At Mass this morning thevoices at the Credo thundered out _Et Homo factus est_ in a torrent ofliving sound. At the elevation I saw a thin white flame rise from theuplifted chalice and disappear. It takes a beam of light one hundredand eight years to travel from Arcturus to the earth. Are we similartraveling beams, and is death merely our arrival on another planetwhich we illumine? Today I read aloud on the cliffs from the gloriesof Plato's _Phaedrus_. 

July 8. 

In the morning I wandered onto the dunes leading out toward WonderIsland, but was driven off by the terns who were nesting. . .. Thebillows 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 andwinds 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 thesands. Returning home, as I came to the deep sand on the road, Iperceived the mystery of the resurrection of the body. In death thereis no physical decay. The singing planets of the human body merelypart to combine in other songs, recurring again in the end to theirold disposal and song, exchanging other worlds for their own oncemore, and recurring to the first motif of the symphony. I was sad thisafternoon for the will failed me in my work. Sitting on the sand thismorning the singing dunes had attained to the harmony of silence. Allat once a little wisp of seaweed--hardly more than a thread--startedto beat time upon the sands. And then I knew and saw it to be in itshappy beating the pulse that governed the music of the stars. Can theheart conduct the symphony of the body? Tonight the sun set, borneaway--a Grail--by angels from the questing Galahad. There was a greatsilence 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 inme, and I lost the sense of space. The air was so buoyant that it wasclosely kin to the sea. . .. Today I succeeded a little better with mywill. I had a strange sensation this afternoon, which told me thatbare lonely places are the only places to write drama, since thereonly can we find the pure dynamic forces of life disentangled from thesubtle and complicated web of human ambitions and interests. The airwas very thin and clear at twilight, but the sun was hidden in theclouds. . .. 

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 withoutseeing material things, and so saw myself in fearful wonder elevatingthe host and chalice on high. I know now the inner meaning of "Domine, non sum dignus _ut intres sub tecta mea_. " Under these two archedroofs of the eyes hidden from all light save Light, there is a secretdwelling. . .. A day of close-shrouded palling fog--a chrism confirmingthe strength of beauty. 

July 13. 

This morning the wind blew through the fields of grass like countlessangels in the courts of heaven. Shadow and color and light andmovement dancing before the first syllable of the Name. A gull flewdown almost to my hand, and the sunlight thundered in my ears. Lastnight the sea was sadly purifying the earth. I now understand theWasher of the Ford. Majesty lies in darkness, and grief is only theprivilege of seeing Majesty. Today on the porch with closed eyesburied in my hands the winds swept over me in a torrent of livinglight. A symphony is a wonderful symbol. In the first place, it ismusic. In the second place, it is a name of praise with foursyllables. Then it completes a cycle, and returns on a higher plane tothe motif with which it began. It is the history of a soul, and in itslast movement typifies the resurrection of the body, by means of thisvery return, --a return to the order and disposal in which it wascreated and which it now reassumes to praise its Creator for alleternity by the harmony of the original Thought. I looked at twilightinto the tiny white heart of a flower that grew among the grasses, andout of the heart pulsed the Sacred Body in wounds all glorified, withHands outstretched conducting the music of the worlds. I know now thatthe 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 tosoar. In the crowded room tonight I felt myself making the movementsof 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 oftime poised 'mid eternities. The happiest of my days battling with theelements in wonderful silences. At Mass with wonder the shining of theHost. My eyes were veiled from the chalice, but I felt two angels--guarding the acolytes. Again at the Credo the thunder of _Et Homofactus est_. With Shelley in the afternoon and a perilous walk on thecliffs. . .. I am gaining in detachment. The desire and passion forsolitude grows and I meditate a winter on the islands. How unworthy Iam to partake of mysteries! They fill me with fear, for it is hard forthe body to live in eternity. In the evening with Gordon Craig. Is heright 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 alwaysimpenetrable, for it is a secret full of awe and mysterious silence. Tonight I see that great drama, whether it be a tragedy or no, mustreveal time poised in infinity. Beauty, I think, contains everythingsave the human will, and it is the ideal of the will to be thuscontained and of beauty to be the container. . .. In the supreme dramaof Gethsemane and Calvary, Christ used the human body as the supremevisible instrument of drama. 

July 15. 

. .. Tonight the fog broke through the sunset and scattered gold acrossthe 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 isthe unit, the core of flame which binds all elements together. It issad because it is the force of impact tearing things from theirdetached and comfortable places and placing them in new relations. Itis the magnet, the summoning voice, our own conscience, the expressionof Majesty. It disposes reluctant and conflicting notes in harmony. And we have control of it given into our hands. And then, too, Ilearnt that words are worlds. At every breath, nay, by the slightestthought, we create planets. Pray that they harmonize! They have power. Are they angels? They convey our messages, but their harmony ofinter-woven song and meaning was lost at Babel to our ears. Yet bythem if our will is strong and we do not fail in deeds we may take ourpart in the symphony as truly as life itself. And so we must not usethem idly. How can anyone dare to tell a lie? One begins to see howGod is a Name. I felt before how the secret of language was to befound among the sands. It is because the sands are the nearest andmost visible planets we possess. Words are planets. But planets aresands on the shore of eternity. Words are sands. We are little wordsmade flesh, little echoes in the image of the great Word made Flesh. His creation is the complete echo made flesh, His Image and likenesswhich He contemplates. And so we are in our measure part of the songmade 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, "goldenmediocrities. " Is it the astral embodiment of "They also serve whoonly stand and wait"? Why is it that the little human beauties ofNature pass me by as entities, and that I seek bare places? Is there aparallel in my personal attitude toward all but those who arespecially dear to me? I thought of how I looked down on the city fromthe mountain in May, and felt the whole city to be my prayer. It hadbeen given into my control for a few minutes, and the only worthy useto which I could put it was to offer it up with a prayer for my peopleand all the desire of my heart that the prayer would be answered. Thehalf-million souls with all their dreams were under my care then, andtheir acts were mine. So little are cities, and so little I found myworthiness that I could not hide my tears. Later I crossed to theheight looking down on the cemetery, the world was silent save for theflaming heart of the city pulsing below, and reflecting the FlamingHeart above as the sun set. The woodpeckers did not fear me, and Isank slowly and deeply into God. I think that some day I shall knowHis wounds. I cannot understand why I was delivered from temptation atthe moment that the city was put into my hands. 

July 18. 

. .. I bathed on the dunes on Wonder Island. The sun set tonightsacramentally just as it set that night at ---- when I failed tospeak. Never had I felt stronger, but something held me back fromtelling him how the dearest wish of my life was that he shouldparticipate in the Holy Eucharist. The flame was in my hands to layupon his heart, but something bade me wait. I distrusted it, and askedhim to walk with me on the shore. The thunder of the tide and the moonwere too strong. Why could I not have told him? We were silent forhours while his heart lay with the _Titanic_, and even his littledaughter was quiet in the room. 

July 19. 

The stars are the dust rubbed off from human souls. "Dust unto dustthou shalt return. " At the last judgment, they will fly together in anangelic hosting, and clothe once more the souls which moved in them, and our souls will rule their songs. Human suffering is the frictionof angels making stars. . .. I know now that the end of one's fortydays is not complete knowledge, but only a clear indication of theroad. The joy is in that, and also the sorrow. It is the directiongiven to the will, orders to be so carefully obeyed. This is thegreatest discovery of all. Words do not reveal it. It is absolutelyprosaic, though it is eternal beauty. But what I have written does notreflect it even faintly as it seems to me. Read Hello this afternoon. The freedom of the dunes this morning seemed to extend more than isusual. Later I read from Plato's "Symposium. "

July 20. 

. .. The proverbial symbol of impermanence is writing upon sand. Whatcould be more gloriously permanent? To have one's message spelled outby singing planets, to write upon the stars. It is so that our songshave immortality. "Verba scripta manent" takes on a majesticsignificance. Are not joy and sadness the same? The only difference isone of rapidity. Sadness is made up of the long, slow, majestic chordsof the song. It seems to me that when a wheel seems to cease motion, and finally attains a state of motionlessness, it is perhaps merelyturning into a terrible speed which we cannot perceive. It is theturning of an hour-glass. When I am dead, I wish only my faults to bechronicled, for these alone have any value for the world. I havedreamt always of cycles of infinities. As a decimal always tends byevolution towards a number, so also we evolve toward an infinity. Yetat that goal another infinity starts, as another infinity starts innumbers, --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 pastfew days I have succeeded in withdrawing into life for long periods inthe midst of a general conversation, yet my absence was not noted inthe least. Out of it I hope will develop the ability to be with lifealways in the tangle and confusion of city circumstance. Thisafternoon I read _Phaedrus_ aloud on a sunny cliff, and in the eveningread aloud Keats' "I stood tiptoe" on the green heights in the windand the rain. Rossetti's lines do not forbid a life of contemplation, but rather encourage it as distinguished from quietism. . .. Throughthe summer I am to see the Crucifixion. How I envy St. Francis theStigmata! Even as a little boy I desired them--but I shall never beable perhaps to love passionately enough. The nights that I cried as alittle fellow without knowing why, just because I loved, were nearerthan I shall ever be again. 

July 21. 

At Benediction after Mass today I saw the Wonder in all Humanity withLight surrounding It, and I shook with an awful thunder of sound. . .. Today I have been happy to tears, and in the blue afternoon on thecliffs with my mother, I shared "Endymion" and "Epipsychidion. " . .. Ido not understand why silence is spoken of as a precept. To me it isthe living attribute of God. . .. How nobly scornful is Sir Aubrey DeVere's phrase, "witless ecstasies"!

July 22. 

Simply a day of hard work. But I was happy in it. In an odd way I feltas I wrote all day on the smooth white paper that I was stroking thesleek breasts of doves. Tonight the steady patter of the rain upon theeaves. 

July 23. 

A day of hard routine work. . .. Tonight in the inky darkness I walkedto the postoffice in the thundering wind and rain and surf, andlearned how the deeps can praise the Lord. I have always felt thewonder of that psalm. 

July 24. 

Rose at 4:30 and saw the sun rise a pure and shimmering symbol of theHost above the silver outline of Wonder Island. The day was dumb. Alittle boy has come whose face is his sacrament. What a song he mustsing! I look forward to the morrow as a day of special grace andwonder. . .. 

July 25. 

It is evident to me that music is wrong before a play or duringintermissions. But it is necessary until our dramatists provide someother prelude. That prelude must be a beautiful setting of silence fora few moments showing the protagonist under the light of eternity. Inthe beginning all words contained a spiritual "import, "--were angels. At Babel many fell. Now all our spiritual words are material wordsgrown out of their meanings. When expression becomes passion, it isthe passion of creation, clothing itself in images as God does througheternity in the Passion of Creation. This is near the heart of life'smost awful secret, but words conceal it except from experience. ForPassion proceeds from Creation as Preservation proceeds from both, though they are all from Eternity in the Unity of the Godhead. All myplanets at the contemplation of This are dancing before the throne. The thunderous rhythm of their music is shaking me physically like theengines of a steamer in shallow water. Every atom struggles againstthe law of cohesion. God loves the beautiful boy. His name is HenryR----. The Greeks, Emerson says, called the world _Cosmos_, Beauty. Reading this on the veranda this afternoon, I closed my eyes and sankcontentedly into life. When I returned the faces were foreign, andeven my mother never knew. On the dunes this morning I heard thesilence 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 formtook on supreme Spirit coming from the Father. . .. 

July 26. 

I wish I could raise a singing altar of planets by some greatsacrifice. My fingers drummed upon the sands this morning a crude andsimple rhythm. I thought of its influence in displacing planets, andof the almost infinite musical variations that were set in motion, andthen I compared my crude thrumming with the majestic thunders of thesea, and realized the insupportable beauty of absolute music. A dogtalks by smell. There are vibrations of smell, as well as of sound orof heat or of light. And the blind reveal vibration of touch, theholiest of the senses. We talk now by sound, but are learning to talkby heat and light. When shall we learn to talk by smell and touch?Flowers, too, talk by smell. There is nothing but vibration in theimage of God, for LIFE IS NOTHING MORE THAN THE TREMBLING OF HISBEAUTY. The awful speed of Truth hardens into fact. Words must not saymore. 

A dog taught me this, --Prince, the companion of the silent man. Oneshould be a priest when he marries two ideas. In any one of theplanets within the singing tissue of my flesh are Dantes and St. Francises. Creation requires of us infinite crucifixions which weshall never be able to consummate alone. When I lie on my breasts onthe sand and bury my face in my hands, all Nature receives me as ahuman bridegroom, and I sink through time to eternity _creating_ spacearound me, that widens and narrows to the reaches of immortality. Itis always on the sands that I find the friendliest depths, or in thesnow drift of cold planets upon a winter day or else within in theterrible energy of my body, as my heart beats time to the universalspheral rhythm. Think of the literal meaning of "universal!" Tonightin the silence I read _Prometheus Bound_. I love the grace of theboy'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 sandtoday, and suddenly understood the symbolism of the scarab. But didthe Egyptians anticipate the Redemption? As men are impressed by theface of the world, so is the world impressed by their faces. The face, as mirror of the soul, shines forth with electricity and makes animpression on life, altering the song of those it acts upon as theviolin sound alters the formation of sands resting on a tighteneddrum. By what ancient intuition does the Latin word "malum" mean both"apple" and "evil"? Music creates substance through the speed ofgaiety, and God in His Creation is a cosmic humorist. (Cosmic meansbeautiful. ) To distinguish between fascination and sympathy is acounsel 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 secretof the blue. Today for the first time I realized the remoteness ofthese islands, and it was a great joy. It was a golden day of sunshineon the cliffs with blue cloudless sky over quiet waters. Life isturning inward to the heart of silence, and out of it will come thebeauty of my dream if life is willing. 

July 29. 

 . .. I met a man today who knew beauty. He was a French countrylawyer. . .. The sunset tonight revealed all the sadness of the BurningBabe. 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 descendedupon earth, eternity made time in beauty, "majestic instancy, " theWord made Flesh. The soul is the pool wherein God and we see ourimages, and Heaven will be the mutual contemplation of our souls. Sothat human love is the adoration of God in human flesh, and thereinmay the beloved be seen as the image of God in time. The praise of OurLady should then be the praise of God. Was this Patmore's secret? OrDante'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 wonderfulproof of the beauty of our souls. Twin mirrors of a single singingthought, the face of man looking into the Face of God, soul minglingwith Soul in immortal music, bathed in the cool wind of Our Lady'seyes. Today I lost a nation in the cycle of my soul. What is the bloodbut the history of my planets as engraved upon the constellations ofmy flesh? It is the book of the angel of judgment for the firstsyllable of my song, as the emotions, the intellect, and, alas, thewill, for the second, third, and fourth. The flesh is the ebb tidefrom God, as the emotions are the flood. The intellect is the secondebb, and in the will pray God that it may be flood! The other isHell. .. . 

July 31. 

. .. A victory for the will this morning. . .. Tomorrow is the first ofAugust, and I shall enter upon my forty days. The ringing in my earsis the ringing of my fleshly stars "toned all in Time. " I havecommenced an anthology of high imaginings more worthy than a book ofessays of that title I have loved and desired to use foryears, --_Flame and Dew_. If rightly done, it may do poetry one of thegreatest of services by assisting it to praise Beauty on many lips innaked Light. I wish to consecrate my work on it to that end. Today Ihave been influenced by Frederick Tennyson, Traherne, and Patmore. Inagony lies the highest music. The key is struck by circumstance, Time's organist, and the stars tremble with music. For the fullthundering silence of Absolute Beauty a Divine Agony was necessary, sothat all Heaven and its choirs and Hell trembled in the majesty ofthis _stricken_ Doom. Death is the final chord, the passage of ourfull song from time to the silence of eternity. Sleep next to death isthe most terrible life that soul and body knows. It is the center ofthe wheel radiating high powers to the circumference. The speed thereis terrific, so fast that it hardens, again that "majestic instancy. "The tiniest flame is the friction of conflicting "universes. " Beautyis alike the center and circumference of infinity, the silent wheel ofomnipresent omnipotence, wherein all thoughts are not timed buteternal. From eternity we were nothing: to eternity we are Beauty'simage. 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 conceiveof no other adequate critical formula. This applies to painting, sculpture, literature and music. Such too is the art of life, --theexhibition to God and man of life in the light of eternity. I havebeen startled to find a kinship between Wordsworth and Millet. I foundit today in a stooped old man who was traveling the roads with awalking stick and a heavy bundle of driftwood. He was worthy of agreat painter or a great poet. By the sign of the cross one draws amagic circle round the soul which evil may not penetrate. It placesone "in the name. " On the seashore one should lie parallel with thewaves facing inland. Then only may one advance onward with theirprayer. 

August 2. 

It is absolutely true that only music may shape woods and fountainsand the beauty of souls, for it is the only medium of expression whichis pure. Pure music is the true white magic, as black magic is musicmixed with clay by human hands. Naked Beauty alone may mix music withclay in Its own image and likeness. Even poetry fails save in so faras it echoes the pure natural truths of music. And all creation mayflow from a flute if the player breathes a prayer. Some day we shallhave the great opera of the Incarnation and Redemption. It is theideal goal of music, and so of all art. But it demands the poet, thepainter, and the sculptor, too, for its actors shall be immortalstatues and a living chorus singing the passion of the race againstthe supreme dawn and the supreme sunset. But its greatest moments willbe silence. Christ and His Mother will live this silence in the gloryof transfigured stone, and the drama will be played in the open withthe stars above as orchestra, to which the human music will be but abeautiful echo. To this Wagner and Craig point the way. I readPatmore's _Two Infinities_ today with bewilderment and emphaticdisagreement. It seems absolutely lacking in vision, provincial, almost challenging Creation. And yet it is essentially true. Christwas a man of golden mediocrities. He speaks of the lilies of thefield, but never of stars or of planets. And St. Francis perhaps hintsat the solution. To him brother Wind and brother Fire and brother Wormare alike and equal, for he sees them in the light of infinity. Butall are wonderful, and we must not sneer at the stars. . .. Todaywriting as a means of expression has seemed to be absolutely futile. Silence is the only active way of praise that I can find, providedthat it informs some daily action. My will won again today. Horizonsare wonderful. S---- told me that Lionel invited him into his Oxfordrooms one evening at sunset and led him to a seat from which nothinglower than the horizon was to be seen. "There, " he said, "nothingmatters that is below that line. " You see he knew that our souls intheir beauty are always above it. 

August 3. 

To watch a grass-blade tapping will teach you wonderful music--thelanguage of the wind. The sunlight running through my flesh in-flamesthe 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 willcan then sing simply and freely a continuous song. The turning of thetide is soon to come, and my homesickness for G----ville istransforming itself into a different nostalgia. My planets are risingin song like little candle flames. I wish I possessed their humility. Within me tonight are quiet moonlit waters very full and rich withsilent promises of rest. 

August 4. 

At Mass today Mr. C---- showed a fine courtesy serving with the highhumility of a punctilious gentleman. . .. Today I saw the body ofChrist, "infinite riches in a little room. " The human body of Christin its passion is the sum of all our bodies, and it is this truth towhich pantheism in its blindness dimly beckons. The saints and purepoets and those who have died for friends are the image of the SacredHeart, and in them at moments of pure _reflection_ there is nakedlight and the vision which is insupportable. Hence in the greatestsaints the stigmata. All God's lonely ones are the reflections of Hispain when they attain to sanctity. And holy priests are thereflections of His Hands. Little children and saints may look into HisEyes and see their own. And repentant sinners may reflect His Feet intheir tears. All the births and lives of the earth go to form HisHuman Body, which is vast as Eternity and radiating with Light fromall points and inward to the Heart of Light. To some saints it hasbeen permitted to be the spouse of this body and soul. Magic is whiteor black. White magic is the offspring of spiritual marriage and is asacrament. Black magic is the offspring of unauthorized spiritualcontacts. My frame tonight is possessed by angels dancing before thethrone in a fearfully rapid rhythm. The secret of spiritualachievement is unremitting labor urged without ceasing by a fearfuljoy. No drama is more vast than that of the crucifixion, and yet Ihave seen it all in the heart of a strawberry blossom with wounds allglorified in an ecstasy of living trembling light, and heard thebeating of His Sacred Heart while universe called out to universe inthe anguish of His surrender and all the stars died into the Light ofEternity. The tide has turned. 

August 5. 

Today looking into a narrow dome I saw the seeded planets banded bycircles of light whereon they turned. And color changed into silenceat the bidding of the central suns. And these were the eyes of happyinnocence wherein all others died to the Living Light, God being inthem by their childishness. The tide turned yesterday, and today Ihave spent entirely in eternity surrounded by a host of fair-wingedPossibilities, God's angels to humanity. Death is glorified by theirpassage from the future to the past, and we respond by plunging ourlights into the Light wherein it dies. _Abt Vogler_ is the musicalphilosophy of it all. At my first symphony concert as a little boy, Isaw the face of the dying Christ through the wall, and in it the musicof the seventh Symphony sang through the naked eyes calling me inwardto the Sacred Heart. This morning and noon at table I smiled at whitehorizons and in the evening I swam through the Host on my futurewings. We love earth, air, fire, and water now, but the eternal joy ofswimming through the Light of God and reflecting His Light in song andsilence is the infinity of all poets' dreams incarnate in the awfulspeed of Absolute Music. It is the privilege of laughing into the Eyesof God, those Eyes before which the angels veil their faces. It is theprivilege of smelling the blossom of the Living Rose, of tasting andconsuming forever the Body and Blood, of touching the Sacred Knees, and of hearing the Divinity who is Music. Priests and poets shall swimin the song of his heart, and those who have died for friends willreflect its resolving rhythm. How I pity Blake his pride, though hewas preserved from the pride of humility. God will let me see more ofHim in this life than Blake did, though it is of the most triflingsignificance to anticipate eternity in poor time, the crippled heir oforiginal sin. Since it is to be, I wish with all my blood that my willwere worthier. 

August 6. 

A day of happy drudgery reading proofs. I rode through them in thewinds of eternity. That is the secret of it all, --to teach us joy. Thehuman symbol of it is a martyr's ecstasy, which is in no way sensuousor voluptuous since it has completely forgotten the body. The SacredHeart is the Mystical Rose spreading its petals over the Cross ofTime. In _Flame and Dew_ is the first application of an idea andbelief that the day will come when anthologies will be bookscontaining the wisdom of the poets on special sciences, such as thescience of childhood, the science of love, the science of death, andthe science of silence. 

August 7. 

Imagination being Eternal Life, it shows the blind instinct oflanguage that the word should mean the creation of images. Imaginationis the instrument of God's creation in his own _image_ and likeness. Today I came to Petrarch and Dante--the mystics of the supremeelements. To contrast their serenity with Blake's wrath shows thewhiter heights. All height is inward through narrow circles to theCentral Fire of Silent Love from which the angels shrink in spiralmessages of inspiring flame, and toward which humanity aspires innarrowing and advancing circles of expiring flesh. But depth isoutward to the hearts of men. Sirius sings to my living stars tonightits light in the music of the ancient winds, telling me of thecrucifixion in burning colors of a dying world. Why am I unworthy ofan equal death? The blood runs toward it in a passion of harmony. Theday is near when my morning stars shall sing their lives out togetherin praise of their Creator, though it is futile to measure it in termsof time. One is not curious of time if one lives in eternity. Death isthen only the fulfilment of our operative desires. I wish that I wereone 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 theshore. "I have been to all places and cities and I found no one happyon the world, and now I wish me to be dead. " . .. Tonight I bowed insilence under the vault of stars. To be holy is to lose the knowledgeof good and evil through "clinging Heaven by the hems. " To refuse evilis to refuse the apple _(malum)_ of the Tree of Knowledge. There is nopossibility of finding the ideal unless we look passionately fornothing but the beauty of souls, seeing therein God's image andrefusing to perceive the clouds of evil. Circles lead to Heaven, butstraight lines to Hell. Straight lines are the tangents that "err"from the sphere of the ideal. Miss C---- told me about a little boywho was visiting Italy with his mother. He fell down hill, and stoppedbefore a roadside crucifix. And then he forgot his fall. They foundhim crying as if his heart would break, and he told them that it wasbecause he was so sorry for that sad Man whom everybody had madesuffer so. The angels drop seed into our souls which make theminvisible to other men, and we also may plant seed with modesty andhumility. It is God's fernseed to mortals. How strange it is that wemeasure 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 thefirst 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 givesbirth to high hopes whose fulfilment are in eternity. It is the monthof Christmas on that account. I have begun to perceive what awfulwings my thoughts have, and know that they are given them by Godthrough me to carry them humbly into the most secret circle of theSacred Breast. We must do the labor of God with human hands, yet theLabor of God is the Creation of Beauty. As the vegetable kingdomrenews its life once a year through time and so preserves its secret, our souls must renew themselves in infinite recurrence througheternity. Our life differs only in ardor which is speed. The greatestspeed lies in submission, for submission is the greatest strength. Athigh 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, Isaw the Son of God tonight glorified in the joy of a living Smile. Andall the angels bowed laughing toward Him and clapped and danced beforeHis Name, though the sum of their song was silence. And then everyliving star was scourged by the sins of men, and died into thedarkness, saying "Thy Will be done, " and it was morning with theEucharist in the sky. Only Redemption trembled through the air. Thestars are the eternal reflections of God's patience, for they endureHis Human Passion, since together they form the shadow of the Wordmade Flesh. They are the singing echo in time of God's speechlesspatience, as we are destined to be if we conquer our wills. Butpatience is suffering, and Alpha must submit to the yoke of Omega. Since God is the Alpha and Omega he caused the Incarnation andPassion. THE IDEAL OF HUMAN LIFE IS THE PASSIONATE REDEMPTION OF THEWILL. This is life's darkest secret, _unless_ we live in theEucharist. We are to be the silent reflections of speechless patiencein the still waters of eternity. The evil came when Lucifer stole firefrom heaven and brought it down to men. Conquer fire, and we conquerthe will. Then heaven is ours. My body and blood ache with my prayerfor it. 

August 10. 

The angels weave what God creates, according to their functions. Hisarchangels are the weavers of time, and all the others of materialnature, 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 onearth. It is the wonder of incarnate Music that saved the world, Absolute Silence born into Sound, and dying with all Sound intoSilence. The archangels are God's messengers of life and death, forthey control the days. But they are sent from Him to His Image, andour weaving is made out of their materials as we adapt them to oursong. All outer powers and forces are brought us by the angels, andamong the dearest to God's heart are his flame-winged Possibilitiesthat hover on the borderline between today and tomorrow, Time andEternity. They alone may not enter time unless we beckon them. Thestarry heaven is the heaven of the body; the crystal sphere, of theintellect; and the empyrean, of the pure soul. We may live in thestarry heaven in this life, if God gives us the grace. But it is thena heaven of desire. But the weaving of the angels is the wholephilosophy of nature. Their music explains its sympathies and sorrows, its deaths and resurrections, and above all its solemn silences ofnight and noon. And the song of their weaving becomes nature's love ofwisdom, that is to say, adoration of the Word. The saints are the onlycomplete philosophers. The object of asceticism is generallymisunderstood, particularly in one phase of its endeavors, --to forgetthe body. The truth of the matter is that the flesh and blood in theirhighest song toward which we should strive are so occupied withpraising God that they completely lack self-consciousness, and do notdistract the intellect or the will. God is with them in naked purity. It is His simplest and dearest starry music. He demands that our lifeshould be a programme of infinite proportions. And yet I wonder if asaint can ever be both a great prophet and a great apostle. I do notbelieve a great prophet can be tender enough to persuade. That is whyprophets are scorned or ignored by their generation. Gentleness is theabsolute breath of music, which alone can penetrate the soul or eventhe material body of nature. The supreme gentleness of St. Francis ofAssisi made the birds listen to his music, for his breath ran dancingin a cool breeze through all their singing stars. We need a St. Francis at present burningly. Is it possible to form a religious orderof the poets? Here is an ideal. But it must be Franciscan: a gown, agirdle, and sandals, poverty, chastity, and obedience. Where is thewise man to obey? I can believe that jewels are potent for good orevil, since they are condensed flame and a secret word lies hidden ineach of their hearts. A day of tempestuous wind and rain. 

August 11. 

Today I found myself progressing slowly to a triumphant rhythm roundthe circumference of a vast musical plane. The celestial earth is flatbut progresses upwards to its central point, the cone of aspirationand song. And then I remembered the vision of St. Frances of Romewherein she saw the Supreme Godhead as a vast Circle of Light in themidst of which was a Pillar, the Cone of Redemption and Silence. Deathis the point of meeting. Perhaps the Zodiac is the merry-go-round ofthe stars. A second day of tempest. The great message of future poetrywill be to proclaim that nature is the expression of man, rather thanman of nature, and thus to reveal the essential nobility of man as theimage of God rather than the image of nature. Suns and winds andwaters are what we make them. Pantheism confuses the image of theimage with the face. Nature is the mirror of man as man is the mirrorof God. Nay more, nature is the mirror in time of man's eternity, asman is the image in time and eternity of God. It is for this reasonthat the stars are the open book of the future, though they are not tobe read by men aloud. Astrology is forbidden because it violates theprecept of silence, which is the courtesy we pay as gentlemen to God. We may only read the stars in little children's eyes, wherein theirfuture is concealed. The breast of Mary is the fountain of the stars, and round it fly the seraphim in flaming adoration of the blessedwomb. Her eyes are God's dew, wherein the secret of His Light iswhispered by the thrones. I felt through the morning His humanPresence graciously walking the roads, and I was resting on His leftArm that brought me to His Heart, the country wherein the dreams of mywill are born. 

August 12. 

I have been sick today. Rain and tempest, but God was on the wind, andI am happy. 

August 13. 

Still ill. Rain and fog with intermittent sunshine. But I am as happyas I have ever been. 

August 14. 

Still ill. Fog in the morning breaking into a wonderful pearl day ofsummer 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 theafternoon I lived in the light of God. The sun I caused to smile and Iwrapped myself in the blue of the Virgin's sky. I found myself causinga shower twice by failing in humility. But the laughing Light of God'seyes in my soul is eternal, and when I submit it controls the tides ofmy body and mind. Tonight a woodpecker alighted on Father K----'sshoulder and stayed with him nearby. The Brahmin may attain to theshadow of the first syllable of the Word. He does not believe thatthere 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 Eternityto 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 inthe death of Time is the Redemption of the World. It takes the circleof eternity to unite the four points of the cross, and a crucifixionto unite two parallel lines. 

August 17. 

Out of the summer I am weaving the pattern web of the future inthreads of desire. Every resurrection of a body is the last judgmentof infinite planets, which fly to or flee from the human song of God'sfirst syllable. Yet those that flee may be purchased by an infiniteRedemption. This opens a terrible possibility of mercy. Is Godcontinually becoming man for the love of His image? This is the joyfulsecret of God's sad fourth syllable. I clothe it in words to guard itfrom my intellect. Infinite incarnations prove time an illusion, sincethey make it eternity. God's Sacred Heart is the silent ocean beyondthe universe. It reflects. The Incarnation is its flood. The Hosttonight was more white than shining silver in a lonely pearl sky. Itwas Absolute Music unveiled to the human eye. Tonight I stood out forlong alone with the stars, and watched a thunderstorm come over thesea. We must guard our dreams and intuitions not only from theintellects of others but most of all from our own. Yet our faith mustbe precisely bounded, although this boundary is to be none other thanthe infinite succession of points where time and eternity meet and bowdown before God. This morning I saw His Beauty in a daisy. . .. I donot believe that God will reveal His mysteries if we seek to knowthem, without inflicting a penalty. The way of knowledge is the way ofsilent patience, which lies quietly dreaming of Love till the floodwashes it with Living Light. 

August 18. 

Every time we look into another's soul we may enter Paradise. There isan indescribable grace in the air this first day of prescient autumn. The summer has taught me the secret of loneliness and the infinite wayof satisfying its desire. To be alone with God we must be intimatewith the beauty in the eyes of every face, and yet absolutely detachedsave from one's family and friend. Life's ideal is to see the end inthe beginning, and act the road between. This is no other than theeternal life of the Alpha and Omega. But the essence of it in time isthat the whole tide of humanity should ebb and flow in our breast. Itrequires a crucifixion to drink in all its saltness. I found the dunesbeyond the lagoon this morning and sank into God in the wind of thesunlit blue. When I returned, the people were coming from Church. Tonight the Host was quivering gold, and as I write the planets areringing in my ears. I pray that at the end I may come to the Heart ofEternal Silence. 

August 19. 

On the dunes this morning toward Wonder Island . .. Eternity isinfinite speed. Time is the dragwheel, nothing more. Hence thesignificance of "when eternity reaffirms the conception of an hour. "Flame is the symbol of time as dew is the symbol of eternity. Theymeet in Christ and through Him in the human race. The moon properlyloved is the kindness of time, as the sun is the reflected love ofEternity made Flesh in the Host on the altar. . .. Tonight I desireonly silence to love. 

August 20. 

On the dunes toward Wonder Island this morning I lost space and walkedupon the blue ringing a cycle of stars in either hand. But I felt nosense of distance and the seed of the sands blew on the wind whichcarried me. It taught me how to walk softly through life, and cominghome I had the sand in my hair. I know now what clouds are, softerthan the breasts of doves. God's flying sorrows are the sandals of thesoul. They make us His angels, Mercuries of Light. The sun has notbled for many a night, but has slowly descended in silver splendor, always a second dawn with its fresh, keen, cool surprises. Today wasthe grace of last night's desire. The wonder of it this morning was mycomplete surrender, the assurance with which I moved on the singingskies as my native element. I know that only the appearances remained, as in the Eucharist after the Consecration we seem to see the breadand 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 inmy heart. I see the mystery of the Resurrection in its beauty, and whywhite lilies are its deepest symbol. How can there be a prison or acage? Every twilight is a white horizon. The gulls know that and thesea tonight has lost its sorrow. 

August 21. 

By sailboat to P---- and G---- with the silent man, returning with thestars. Their hosting was like the flocking of wild geese, and theyfollowed St. Francis of Assisi as a leader, the captain of the morningstars. In the silence I heard the operation of the divine mathematics. 

I loved those Chaldean seers to whom God talked directly and wrote Hismessage upon the stars. I lay prone on the deck looking upwards andfell into the Divine Ocean slowly. The moon rode serenely to thesouthwest, and humanity was with me in the boat. Navigators are nowthe only men left wise enough to follow the stars. The sunpath wasJacob's ladder, and the Aran islanders know its secret when they seeTir-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 faithand good works required it of me, I could walk softly over it. If thesoul is to control the body, surely spiritual gravity should be ableto overcome material gravity. Certainly it would take more than thesea to quench my flame, if God made me worthy. 

August 22. 

I looked down from great heights today on all the little smilingintimacies. They are like happy babies to me, and my speech shouldplay with them, if I can ever become worthy of their simplicity. Therhythm 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, Ithink, 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 ebband the flow, as it was, as it is, as it ever shall be, the ebb andthe flow. ) The resolute gaze of the soul toward this in loveconstitutes prayer in its only form. It shows blood to be the mostrich and beautiful of human things, and its salt waves purify theflesh, as the salt waves of Gethsemane and Calvary redeemed the souland its singing stars. 

August 23. 

My life so far has been a word, and not a deed. But the world was notredeemed 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 inHeaven, we seem to meet so often now. " I sleep at night in a cruciformposition adoring beauty with every faculty save my will, the mostnecessary of all. 

August 24. 

In the open today amid a hurricane of wind . .. I walked with achildish old man with a pleasant soul. The wind brought meteor showersof beauty to the body. It rained grace in the sky of noon. 

I could carry overflowing happiness now even to New York. Todayreminded me of the sunlight on the roar of Broadway. God is on thewind 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 myhead. I awoke and saw myself face to face in my weakness. It rainedall day. . .. I can hardly bear my love today. It is a terrific dynamoof silence. But it will be very long before I shall fulfill myworthiness. If one could always remember that he is a saviour, andcarry humanity with him, his will would be inflexible and every act anexulting humility. All nature is but a mantle which the wind of myspirit disposes in folds about me, and humanity is the chalice inwhich I may communicate with God, --a chalice woven of our singingflesh and heart and brain and will, wherein the will is its depth, theAtlas 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. Theprecept of all adversity is of course that the ebb tide of fortune isour 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 thecore of it. It burns, of course, but think of the wheel it carries. Afew 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 mycenacle. 

August 28. 

A victory for the will. . .. It is strange that every vital lesson thatexperience teaches can never be expressed in words. The past few dayshave taught me more than the rest of the summer. There will always bea secrecy of the soul, and what this contains constitutes God's imageand likeness. Life sings tonight in every atom its marvelous chemistryof change and prophecy. Nature knows no elegies, since it may nevertriumph over aught but dust. But the highest dream is less worthy thanthe simplest deed, and we must forget the knowledge of good and evil. I would exchange all the knowledge I have gained for the grace toperform the slightest act of St. Francis. God has made our opportunityinfinite 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 becomeself-conscious. . .. It is strange that the will did not come home tome 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 itsawfulness for the first time, and understood the mystery of theRedemption. The time has now come to close this book, for the recordis complete, and may not be reopened until I redeem my will. 

_They departed into their own country another way_.