and refer all things to him, we read in
common matters superior expressions of meaning. The deadness with
which custom invests the familiar vanishes, and existence as a whole
appears transfigured. The state of a mind thus awakened from torpor is
well expressed in these words, which I take from a friend's letter:--

"If we occupy ourselves in summing up all the mercies and bounties we
are privileged to have, we are overwhelmed by their number (so great
that we can imagine ourselves unable to give ourselves time even to
begin to review the things we may imagine WE HAVE NOT). We sum them
and realize that WE ARE ACTUALLY KILLED WITH GOD'S KINDNESS; that we
are surrounded by bounties upon bounties, without which all would fall.
Should we not love it; should we not feel buoyed up by the Eternal
Arms?"

Sometimes this realization that facts are of divine sending, instead of
being habitual, is casual, like a mystical experience. Father Gratry
gives this instance from his youthful melancholy period:--

"One day I had a moment of consolation, because I met with something
which seemed to me ideally perfect. It was a poor drummer beating the
tattoo in the streets of Paris. I walked behind him in returning to
the school on the evening of a holiday. His drum gave out the tattoo in
such a way that, at that moment at least, however peevish I were, I
could find no pretext for fault-finding. It was impossible to conceive
more nerve or spirit, better time or measure, more clearness or
richness, than were in this drumming. Ideal desire could go no farther
in that direction. I was enchanted and consoled; the perfection of
this wretched act did me good. Good is at least possible, I said.
since the ideal can thus sometimes get embodied."[320]

[320] Souvenirs de ma Jeunesse, 1897, p. 122.

In Senancour's novel of Obermann a similar transient lifting of the
veil is recorded. In Paris streets, on a March day, he comes across a
flower in bloom, a jonquil:

"It was the strongest expression of desire: it was the first perfume
of the year. I felt all the happiness destined for man. This
unutterable harmony of souls, the phantom of the ideal world, arose in
me complete. I never felt anything so great or so instantaneous. I
know not what shape, what analogy, what secret of relation it was that
made me see in this flower a limitless beauty.... I shall never
inclose in a conception this power, this immensity that nothing will