The Mystical Sense

I HAVE been lately reading a book by Mother Juliana of Norwich that a friend has sent me; — I have been doing more than read it, — it has been about my path, and about my bed, so extraordinary is the fascination of that holy woman. But I do not want to say anything about her particularly, because at present I have nothing to say. I wish rather to clear my own mind with regard to the general issue.

Mysticism, as Mr. Marjoribanks told me, with a somewhat sententious air, is "the art of divine union." That seems to me a fair definition, but like all short definitions, actually misleading, unless again one defines it. We must begin further away than that.

To-day I was looking out of my window, and saw what I suppose I have seen at least two hundred times before — an old chestnut tree outlined against the sky. I am slightly unwell; and, in spite of the obvious retort of the materialist, I must state my belief that at such times one occasionally sees beneath the surface of things in a very curious way. At any rate, I experienced a train of thought that ran somewhat as follows: —

There is that tree, I said to myself, entirely different from any other tree in the world. Some power or other prepared its seed, caused this weather and that to develop its possibilities, sent this wind and the other to bend it, this sunshiny day, that storm of rain, mellow days, biting nights, and so forth, for about seventy years. The same power brought it about that this morning was still and breathless, that the sky was pale blue, that I lifted my eyes from my book and noticed the drooping tracery, the aspiring twigs, that I continued to notice it instead of returning to my book. Now, what docs that all mean?

If we postulate two things about the Power, namely, that it is Personal and Infinite, the meaning of that series of links is simply inevitable. It was brought about that I might see it all, — I — moi qui vous parle — among other reasons, — that I might discern one tiny detail of the immense character that is in some fashion legible beneath the outward appearance of what I choose to call Creation.

Now, is not this one illustration of one department of what men have agreed to call mysticism? I do not mean that I possess that faculty — in fact, my failure to understand the meaning of the tree is a sign, I suppose, that I do not; but if a trained mystic had been sitting in my chair I cannot doubt that he would have learned something, or, more probably, perceived one more example of some principle he had already grasped. He would have looked through the tree, or still better, perhaps, into it, and seen some divine thing.

Almighty God, I take it, has made the world, and arranged causes and their effects, with at least this purpose among others — that the more intelligent of His creatures may apprehend a little more of His character than is possible to them in any other way. A kind of silence seems to fall upon the soul as one considers this....

Once upon a time three men stood side by side looking at a field — a farmer, a geologist, and a poet. The farmer saw the quality of the soil, the geologist the tilt of the strata, the poet the curves and colours. Each in the evening, for his own reasons, wrote a report of what he had seen. The farmer used a number of technical terms, recommending his friend to buy the five-acre; the geologist added a foot note in his book illustrative of some important theory; the poet composed a sonnet and published it in the Westminster Gazette. Each, in plain language, had seen the same thing, and yet each, in equally plain language, had seen a totally different thing.

A kind of silence, I say, envelops me when I think of this. I do not any longer want to laugh at materialists, or sneer at scientists; they appear to me in a light of indescribable pathos: they are perfectly right in what they say — at any rate I cannot, and do not even wish, to prove them wrong; but what is so sad about them is that, while they may be perfectly right within their own limits, they think that those limits are coincident with the range of human knowledge. There they go, with their carpet bags, and specimens, spectacled and profound, philosophically enthusiastic, thinking that it all matters very much; and there stares at the brisk group, maybe, from a wayside cottage some dirty child, finger in mouth, who knows more than them all. It is true that he does not know whether he lives on chalk or gravel, or of what chemicals his own body is composed; yet he has looked wide-eyed at a running stream, and paused, stone in hand, to hear one more phrase from the plump thrush, and a world has opened — all! why be rhetorical in a matter of such bewildering simplicity?...

This, then, seems to me to be one of the more elementary functions of the mystical sense — to look through the outward and to — I do not say understand, but — apprehend some glimmer of the Character that lies beyond. What is so seen is usually incapable of statement, though that astonishing woman. Mother Juliana of Norwich, attempts it sometimes.

He showed me a little thing [she writes], the quantity of a hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon with the eye of my understanding, and thought. What may this be? And it was answered generally thus: It is all that is made.... In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it; the second is that God loveth it; the third that God keepeth it. But what is to me verily the Maker, the Keeper and the Lover — I cannot tell; for till I am substantially united with Him, I may never have full rest nor true bliss.

What a stammering explanation; and yet is it not evident what the good woman is after? Neither you nor I can say what it is, and yet we both know.

I wonder what she would have had to say of my chestnut tree this morning.

Now, it appears to me that this slow stare upon nature is enough work for any man all his life long; for consider the amazing contradictions that he sees; there is love, patience, beauty; and there is also hatred, impatience, and ugliness, all equally obvious and eloquent. What kind of a Character then must be deduced? I do not know in the least; I think the fault lies in our attempt to deduce such anthropomorphic fancies at all; we must be content to take the symbols as they stand. And yet I, and I suppose everybody else, have had moments when the mystery seemed on the point of disclosure, when, in one sense, it was disclosed. We cannot remember it afterwards, still less can we express it even to ourselves; we cannot do better than say with ^Mother Juliana, / saw God in a point

Yet this slow stare is only the outset of the mystical life; there follows what is even greater, the using of what is seen as a means of union with the Divine Character; and here I must confess even my presumptuous pen falters. If I have taken two hours over what I have written, it would take me the rest of my life to set down what remains within even my narrow horizons. I touch only with the tips of my fingers the mystery of what they call the Way of Union; I can only picture it under a variety of images so grotesque that I dare not face their discussion. Embracing a globe, drinking from a cup, plunging into a sea, the effort of relaxing effort, consummating a marriage — all these odd phrases have been employed by saints, and it is best to leave it at that. I can only discern figures moving on mountains against the sky, to whom, I know, these phrases are not nonsense, figures whom I envy more than I can describe, to whom a sense has been given which transcends that of the artist as the artist's that of the mathematician, who have looked so long that at last they have begun to move in curious spasmodic efforts as hidicrous as those of a marionette, who stand at such an angle that they see Hghts and curves invisible to other men (as one may bend his head to catch the purple of a shot silk), and who have in some fashion made the colour their own.

I had better stop, and go and look at my tree again. After all, the mystical sense is not an essential, though its cultivation may be a duty. God has not left us to depend upon what we can find out for ourselves, if what Catholics say is true. He has given us, it seems (because I suppose we were so stupid and wilful), a more plainly written book, in which we may read His Character; and He has lived Himself the life that He would have us live. That is enough for simple folk like me: I cannot improve upon the Gospel. And yet sometimes I cannot help envying those who can verify what they have been told; to whom Calvary is not an incident, but a continuous state, as plain to their eyes as the colour of a chestnut tree; who can look upon lilies and consider them to some purpose; who stand always in a hush of silence more articulate than the sound of words....