thin I saw the ladder, at the
fiery head of which is God Himself. And like Jacob (who was indeed of
our company) I made a pillow for my head of the stones of the place,
that I might dream more abundantly.

And so, as I walked to-day among the green places of the down, I made a
prayer in my heart to God, the matter of which I will now set down; and
it was that all of us who have visited that most Holy Place may be true
to the vision; and that God may reveal us to each other, as we go on
pilgrimage; and that as the world goes forward, he may lead more and
more souls to visit it, that bare and secret place, which yet holds
more beauty than the richest palace of the world. For palaces but hold
the outer beauty, in types and glimpses and similitudes. While in the
secret shrine we visit the central fountainhead, from which the water
of life, clear as crystal, breaks in innumerable channels, and flows
out from beneath the temple door, as Ezekiel saw it flow, lingering and
delaying, but surely coming to gladden the earth. I could indeed go
further, and speak many things out of a full heart about the matter. I
could quote the names of many poets and artists, great and small; and I
could say which of them belongs to the inner company, and which of them
is outside. But I will not do this, because it would but set
inquisitive people puzzling and wondering, and trying to guess the
secret; and that I have no desire to do; because these words are not
written to make those who do not understand to be curious; but they are
written to those who know, and, most of all, to those who know, but
have forgotten. No one may traffic in these things; and indeed there
is no opportunity to do so. I could learn in a moment, from a sentence
or a smile, if one had the secret; and I could spend a long summer day
trying to explain it to a learned and intelligent person, and yet give
no hint of what I meant. For the thing is not an intelligible process,
a matter of reasoning and logic; it is an intuition. And therefore it
is that those who cannot believe in anything that they do not
understand, will think these words of mine to be folly and vanity. The
only case where I have found a difficulty in deciding, is when I talk
to one who has lived much with those who had the secret, and has
caught, by a kind of natural imitation, some of the accent and cadence
of the truth. An old friend of mine, a pious woman, used in her last
days to have prayers