plation, not of God, but of Nature: which is to say, I would
first place myself, sitting, in such a position that my body would not
fall and I might completely forget it, and then would look about me
and drink in the beauty of the scene, my eyes coming finally to rest
upon the spot most beautiful to me. There they remained fixed. All
thoughts were now folded up so that my mind, flowing singly in one
direction, concentrated itself upon the beauty on which I gazed. This
soon vanished, and I saw nothing whatever, but, bearing away into a
place of complete silence and emptiness, I there assimilated and
enjoyed inwardly the soaring essence of the beauty which I had
previously drawn into my mind through my eyes, being now no
longer conscious of seeing outwardly, but living entirely from the
inward. This I did almost every day, but to do it I was obliged to
seek solitude, and absolute solitude is a hard thing to find; but I
sought it, no matter where, even in a churchyard! I saw no graves. I
saw the sky, or a marvellous cloud pink with the kisses of the sun,
and away I went. I judge this now to have been contemplation,
though I never thought of it by so fine-sounding a name; it was only
my delightful pastime, yet there was a strange inexpressible sadness
in it. Nature and beauty were not enough. The more beauty I saw,
the more I longed for something to which I could not put a name. At
times the ache of this pain became terrible, almost agonising, but I
could not forgo my pastime. Now, at last, I know what this pain was:
my soul looked for God, but my creature did not know it. For just in
this same way we contemplate God, savouring Him without seeing
Him, and being filled to the brim with marvellous delights with no
sadness.

But this condition of contemplation is very far from being the
mountain-top; it is but a high plateau from which we make the final
ascent. The summit is an indescribable contact, and this summit is
not one summit but many summits. Which is to say, we have contact
of several separate forms--that of giving, that of receiving, and that
of immersion or absorption, which _at its highest_ is altogether
unendurable as fire.

Of this last I am able only to say this: that not only is it inexpressible
by any words, but that that which is a state of extreme beatitude to
the soul is death to the creature by excess of joy. Therefore both
heart and mind fear to recall any details of the memory of this
highest attainm