Mysticism in English Literature

By

Caroline F. E. Spurgeon

"Many are the thyrsus-bearers, but feware the mystics"

Phaedo

Mysticism in English Literature

Note

The variety of applications of the term"mysticism" has forced me to restrictmyself here to a discussion of thatphilosophical type of mysticism whichconcerns itself with questions ofultimate reality. My aim, too, has beento consider this subject in connectionwith great English writers. I have had,therefore, to exclude, with regret, theliterature of America, so rich inmystical thought.

I wish to thank Mr John Murray forkind permission to make use of anarticle of mine which appeared in the

Quarterly Review, and also Dr Ward andMr Waller for similar permission withregard to certain passages in a chapterof the Cambridge History of EnglishLiterature, vol. ix.

I am also indebted to Mr BertramDobell, Messrs Longmans, Green, MrsCoventry Patmore and Mr FrancisMeynell for most kindly allowing me toquote from the works respectively ofThomas Traherne, Richard Jefferies,Coventry Patmore, and FrancisThompson.

C.F.E.S.

April 1913.

Contents

I. Introduction

Definition of Mysticism. The EarlyMystical Writers. Plato. Plotinus.Chronological Sketch of MysticalThought in England.

II. Love and Beauty Mystics

Shelley, Rossetti, Browning, CoventryPatmore, and Keats.

III. Nature Mystics

Henry Vaughan, Wordsworth, RichardJefferies.

IV. Philosophical Mystics

(i) Poets. Donne, Traherne, EmilyBronte, Tennyson.

(ii) Prose Writers. William Law, Burke,Coleridge, Carlyle.

V. Devotional and Religious Mystics

The Early English Writers: RichardRolle and Julian; Crashawe, Herbert,

and Christopher Harvey; Blake andFrancis Thompson.

Bibliography

Index

Mysticism in English Literature

Chapter I

Introduction

Mysticism is a term so irresponsiblyapplied in English that it has becomethe first duty of those who use it toexplain what they mean by it. TheConcise Oxford Dictionary (1911), afterdefining a mystic as "one who believesin spiritual apprehension of truthsbeyond the understanding," adds,"whence mysticism (n.) (oftencontempt)." Whatever may be theprecise force of the remark in brackets,it is unquestionably true that mysticismis often used in a semi-contemptuousway to denote vaguely any kind ofoccultism or spiritualism, or anyspecially curious or fantastic viewsabout God and the universe.

The word itself was originally takenover by the Neo-platonists from theGreek mysteries, where the name of[Greek: mystes] given to the initiate,probably arose from the fact that hewas one who was gaining a knowledgeof divine things about which he mustkeep his mouth shut ([Greek: myo] =close lips or eyes). Hence theassociation of secrecy or "mystery"which still clings round the word.

Two facts in connection with mysticismare undeniable whatever it may be, andwhatever part it is destined to play inthe development of thought and ofknowledge. In the first place, it is the

leading characteristic of some of thegreatest thinkers of the world of thefounders of the Eastern religions ofPlato and Plotinus, of Eckhart andBruno, of Spinoza, Goethe, and Hegel.Secondly, no one has ever been alukewarm, an indifferent, or anunhappy mystic. If a man has thisparticular temperament, his mysticismis the very centre of his being: it is theflame which feeds his whole life; andhe is intensely and supremely happyjust so far as he is steeped in it.

Mysticism is, in truth, a temper ratherthan a doctrine, an atmosphere ratherthan a system of philosophy. Variousmystical thinkers have contributed fresh

aspects of Truth as they saw her, forthey have caught glimpses of her face atdifferent angles, transfigured by diverseemotions, so that their testimony, andin some respects their views, aredissimilar to the point of contradiction.Wordsworth, for instance, gained hisrevelation of divinity through Nature,and through Nature alone; whereas toBlake "Nature was a hindrance," andImagination the only reality. But allalike agree in one respect, in onepassionate assertion, and this is thatunity underlies diversity. This, theirstarting-point and their goal, is thebasic fact of mysticism, which, in itswidest sense, may be described as anattitude of mind founded upon an

intuitive or experienced conviction ofunity, of oneness, of alikeness in allthings. From this source springs allmystical thought, and the mystic, ofwhatever age or country, would say inthe words of Krishna

There is true knowledge. Learn thou itis this: To see one changeless Life in allthe Lives, And in the Separate, OneInseparable. The Bhagavad-Gita, Book18.

This fundamental belief in unity leadsnaturally to the further belief that allthings about us are but forms ormanifestations of the one divine life,and that these phenomena are fleeting

and impermanent, although the spiritwhich informs them is immortal andendures. In other words, it leads to thebelief that "the Ideal is the only Real."

Further, if unity lies at the root ofthings, man must have some share ofthe nature of God, for he is a spark ofthe Divine. Consequently, man iscapable of knowing God through thisgodlike part of his own nature, that is,through his soul or spirit. For themystic believes that as the intellect isgiven us to apprehend material things,so the spirit is given us to apprehendspiritual things, and that to disregardthe spirit in spiritual matters, and totrust to reason is as foolish as if a

carpenter, about to begin a piece ofwork, were deliberately to reject hiskeenest and sharpest tool. The methodsof mental and spiritual knowledge areentirely different. For we know a thingmentally by looking at it from outside,by comparing it with other things, byanalysing and defining it, whereas wecan know a thing spiritually only bybecoming it. We must be the thing itself,and not merely talk about it or look atit. We must be in love if we are toknow what love is; we must bemusicians if we are to know whatmusic is; we must be godlike if we areto know what God is. For, inPorphyry's words: "Like is known onlyby like, and the condition of all

knowledge is that the subject shouldbecome like to the object." So that tothe mystic, whether he be philosopher,poet, artist, or priest, the aim of life isto become like God, and thus to attainto union with the Divine. Hence, forhim, life is a continual advance, aceaseless aspiration; and reality or truthis to the seeker after it a vista everexpanding and charged with everdeeper meaning. John Smith, theCambridge Platonist, has summed upthe mystic position and desire in onebrief sentence, when he says, "Such asmen themselves are, such will GodHimself seem to them to be." For, as ittakes two to communicate the truth,one to speak and one to hear, so our

knowledge of God is precisely andaccurately limited by our capacity toreceive Him. "Simple people," saysEckhart, "conceive that we are to seeGod as if He stood on that side and weon this. It is not so: God and I are onein the act of my perceiving Him."

This sense of unity leads to anotherbelief, though it is one not alwaysconsistently or definitely stated by allmystics. It is implied by Plato when hesays, "All knowledge is recollection."This is the belief in pre-existence orpersistent life, the belief that our soulsare immortal, and no more came intoexistence when we were born than theywill cease to exist when our bodies

disintegrate. The idea is familiar inWordsworth's Ode on the Intimations ofImmortality.

Finally, the mystic holds these viewsbecause he has lived through anexperience which has forced him to thisattitude of mind. This is hisdistinguishing mark, this is whatdifferentiates him alike from thetheologian, the logician, the rationalistphilosopher, and the man of science,for he bases his belief, not onrevelation, logic, reason, ordemonstrated facts, but on feeling, onintuitive inner knowledge.

He has felt, he has seen, and he is

therefore convinced; but his experiencedoes not convince any one else. Themystic is somewhat in the position of aman who, in a world of blind men, hassuddenly been granted sight, and who,gazing at the sunrise, and overwhelmedby the glory of it, tries, howeverfalteringly, to convey to his fellowswhat he sees. They, naturally, would besceptical about it, and would beinclined to say that he is talkingfoolishly and incoherently. But thesimile is not altogether parallel. There isthis difference. The mystic is not alone;all through the ages we have thetestimony of men and women towhom this vision has been granted, andthe record of what they have seen is

amazingly similar, considering thedisparity of personality andcircumstances. And further, the world isnot peopled with totally blind men.The mystics would never hold theaudience they do hold, were it not thatthe vast majority of people have inthemselves what William James hascalled a "mystical germ" which makesresponse to their message.

James's description of his own positionin this matter, and his feeling for a"Beyond," is one to which numberless"unmystical" people would subscribe.He compares it to a tune that is alwayssinging in the back of his mind, butwhich he can never identify nor whistle

nor get rid of. "It is," he says, "veryvague, and impossible to describe orput into words.... Especially at times ofmoral crisis it comes to me, as the senseof an unknown something backing meup. It is most indefinite, to be sure, andrather faint. And yet I know that if itshould cease there would be a greathush, a great void in my life."[1]

This sensation, which many peopleexperience vaguely and intermittently,and especially at times of emotionalexaltation, would seem to be the firstglimmerings of that secret powerwhich, with the mystics, is so finelydeveloped and sustained that itbecomes their definite faculty of vision.

We have as yet no recognised name forthis faculty, and it has been variouslycalled "transcendental feeling,""imagination," "mystic reason," "cosmicconsciousness," "divine sagacity,""ecstasy," or "vision," all these meaningthe same thing. But although it lacks acommon name, we have ampletestimony to its existence, the testimonyof the greatest teachers, philosophers,and poets of the world, who describeto us in strangely similar language

That serene and blessed mood Inwhich ... the breath of this corporealframe, And even the motion of ourhuman blood, Almost suspended, weare laid asleep In body, and become a

living soul: While with an eye madequiet by the power Of harmony, andthe deep power of joy, We see into thelife of things. Tintern Abbey.

"Harmony" and "Joy," it may be noted,are the two words used most constantlyby those who have experienced thisvision.

The mystic reverses the ordinarymethods of reasoning: he must believebefore he can know. As it is put in theTheologia Germanica, "He who wouldknow before he believeth cometh neverto true knowledge." Just as the sense oftouch is not the faculty concerned withrealising the beauty of the sunrise, so

the intellect is not the faculty concernedwith spiritual knowledge, and ordinaryintellectual methods of proof,therefore, or of argument, the mysticholds, are powerless and futile beforethese questions; for, in the words ofTennyson's Ancient Sage

Thou canst not prove the Nameless, Omy son, Nor canst thou prove theworld thou movest in: Thou canst notprove that thou art body alone, Norcanst thou prove that thou art spiritalone, Nor canst thou prove that thouart both in one: Thou canst not provethou art immortal, no, Nor yet thatthou art mortal nay, my son, Thoucanst not prove that I who speak with

thee Am not thyself in converse withthyself, For nothing worthy proving canbe proven, Nor yet disproven.

Symbolism is of immense importancein mysticism; indeed, symbolism andmythology are, as it were, the languageof the mystic. This necessity forsymbolism is an integral part of thebelief in unity; for the essence of truesymbolism rests on the belief that allthings in Nature have something incommon, something in which they arereally alike. In order to be a truesymbol, a thing must be partly the sameas that which it symbolises. Thus,human love is symbolic of divine love,because, although working in another

plane, it is governed by similar laws andgives rise to similar results; or fallingleaves are a symbol of human mortality,because they are examples of the samelaw which operates through allmanifestation of life. Some of the mostilluminating notes ever written on thenature of symbolism are in a shortpaper by R. L. Nettleship,[2] where hedefines true mysticism as "theconsciousness that everything which weexperience, every 'fact,' is an elementand only an element in 'the fact'; i.e.that, in being what it is, it is significantor symbolic of more." In short, everytruth apprehended by finite intelligencemust by its very nature only be the huskof a deeper truth, and by the aid of

symbolism we are often enabled tocatch a reflection of a truth which weare not capable of apprehending in anyother way. Nettleship points out, forinstance, that bread can only be itself,can only be food, by entering intosomething else, assimilating and beingassimilated, and that the more it losesitself (what it began by being) the moreit "finds itself" (what it is intended tobe). If we follow carefully the analysisNettleship makes of the action ofbread in the physical world, we can seethat to the man of mystic temper itthrows more light than do volumes ofsermons on what seems sometimes ahard saying, and what is at the sametime the ultimate mystical counsel, "He

that loveth his life shall lose it."

It is worth while, in this connection, toponder the constant use Christ makesof nature symbolism, drawing theattention of His hearers to theanalogies in the law we see workingaround us to the same law working inthe spiritual world. The yearly harvest,the sower and his seed, the leaven inthe loaf, the grain of mustard-seed, thelilies of the field, the action of fire,worms, moth, rust, bread, wine, andwater, the mystery of the wind, unseenand yet felt each one of these is shownto contain and exemplify a great andabiding truth.

This is the attitude, these are the things,which lie at the heart of mysticism. Inthe light of this, nothing in the world istrivial, nothing is unimportant nothingis common or unclean. It is the feelingthat Blake has crystallised in the lines:

To see a world in a grain of sand And aHeaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinityin the palm of your hand And Eternityin an hour.

The true mystic then, in the full senseof the term, is one who knows there isunity under diversity at the centre of allexistence, and he knows it by the mostperfect of all tests for the personconcerned, because he has felt it. True

mysticism and this cannot be over-emphasised is an experience and a life.It is an experimental science, and, asPatmore has said, it is asincommunicable to those who have notexperienced it as is the odour of aviolet to those who have never smeltone. In its highest consummation it isthe supreme adventure of the soul: touse the matchless words of Plotinus, itis "the flight of the Alone to theAlone."

As distinguished, therefore, from themystical thinker or philosopher, thepractical mystic has direct knowledgeof a truth which for him is absolute.He consequently has invariably acted

upon this knowledge, as inevitably asthe blind man to whom sight had beengranted would make use of his eyes.

Among English writers and poets theonly two who fulfil this strict definitionof a mystic are Wordsworth and Blake.But we are not here concernedprimarily with a study of those greatsouls who are mystics in the full andsupreme sense of the word. For anexamination of their lives and visionEvelyn Underhill's valuable bookshould be consulted. Our object is toexamine very briefly the chief Englishwriters men of letters and poets whoseinmost principle is rooted in mysticism,or whose work is on the whole so

permeated by mystical thought thattheir attitude of mind is not fully to beunderstood apart from it.

Naturally it is with the poets we findthe most complete and continuousexpression of mystical thought andinspiration. Naturally, because it hasever been the habit of the English raceto clothe their profoundest thoughtand their highest aspiration in poeticform. We do not possess a Plato, aKant, or a Descartes, but we haveShakespeare and Wordsworth andBrowning. And further, as the essenceof mysticism is to believe thateverything we see and know is symbolicof something greater, mysticism is on

one side the poetry of life. For poetry,also, consists in finding resemblances,and universalises the particulars withwhich it deals. Hence the utterances ofthe poets on mystical philosophy arepeculiarly valuable. The philosopherapproaches philosophy directly, thepoet obliquely; but the indirect teachingof a poet touches us more profoundlythan the direct lesson of a moraltreatise, because the latter appealsprincipally to our reason, whereas thepoet touches our "transcendentalfeeling."

So it is that mysticism underlies thethought of most of our great poets, ofnearly all our greatest poets, if we

except Chaucer, Dryden, Pope, andByron. Shakespeare must be left on oneside, first, because the dramatic formdoes not lend itself to the expressionof mystical feeling, and secondly,because even in the poems there is littlereal mysticism, though there is much ofthe fashionable Platonism. Shakespeareis metaphysical rather than mystical, thedifference being, roughly, that themetaphysician seeks to know thebeginnings or causes of things, whereasthe mystic feels he knows the end ofthings, that all nature is leading up tounion with the One.

We shall find that mystical thought, andthe mystical attitude, are curiously

persistent in English literature, and thatalthough it seems out of keeping withour "John Bull" character, the Englishrace has a marked tendency towardsmysticism. What we do find lacking inEngland is the purely philosophical andspeculative spirit of the detached andunprejudiced seeker after truth. TheEnglish mind is anti-speculative; it careslittle for metaphysics; it prefers theologyand a given authority. English mysticshave, as a rule, dealt little with thetheoretical side of mysticism, the aspectfor instance with which Plotinus largelydeals. They have been mainly practicalmystics, such as William Law. Those ofthe poets who have consciously had asystem and desired to impart it, have

done so from the practical point ofview, urging, like Wordsworth, theimportance of contemplation andmeditation, or, like Blake, the value ofcultivating the imagination; and in bothcases enforcing the necessity ofcleansing the inner life, if we are tobecome conscious of our divine natureand our great heritage.

For the sake of clearness, this thoughtmay first be traced very briefly as itappears chronologically; it will,however, be considered in detail, not inorder of time, but according to thespecial aspect of Being through whichthe writer felt most in touch with thedivine life. For mystics, unlike other

thinkers, scientific or philosophical,have little chronological development,since "mystic truths can neither age nordie." So much is this the case thatpassages of Plotinus and Tennyson, ofBoehme and Law, of Eckhart andBrowning, may be placed side by sideand be scarcely distinguishable inthought. Yet as the race evolves, certainavenues of sensation seem to becomemore widely opened up. This isnoticeable with regard to Nature. Love,Beauty, Wisdom, and Devotion, thesehave been well-trodden paths to theOne ever since the days of Plato andPlotinus; but, with the great exceptionof St Francis of Assisi and hisimmediate followers, we have to wait

for more modern times before we findthe intense feeling of the Divinity inNature which we associate with thename of Wordsworth. It is in theemphasis of this aspect of the mysticvision that English writers are supreme.Henry Vaughan, Wordsworth,Browning, Richard Jefferies, FrancisThompson, and a host of other poet-seers have crystallised in immortalwords this illuminated vision of theworld.

The thought which has been describedas mystical has its roots in the East, inthe great Oriental religions. Themysterious "secret" taught by theUpanishads is that the soul or spiritual

consciousness is the only source oftrue knowledge. The Hindu calls thesoul the "seer" or the "knower," andthinks of it as a great eye in the centreof his being, which, if he concentrateshis attention upon it, is able to lookoutwards and to gaze upon Reality. Thesoul is capable of this because inessence it is one with Brahman, theuniversal soul. The apparent separationis an illusion wrought by matter. Hence,to the Hindu, matter is an obstructionand a deception, and the Eastern mysticdespises and rejects and subdues allthat is material, and bends all hisfaculties on realising his spiritualconsciousness, and dwelling in that.

This type of thought certainly existedto some extent in both Greece andEgypt before the Christian era. Muchof Plato's thought is mystical inessence, and that which be points outto be the motive force of thephilosophic mind is also the motiveforce of the mystic, namely, the elementof attraction, and so of love towardsthe thing which is akin to him. Theillustration of the dog beingphilosophic because he is angry with astranger but welcomes his friend,[3]though at first it may seem, like manyof Plato's illustrations, far-fetched orfanciful, in truth goes to the very rootof his idea. Familiarity, akinness, is thebasis of attraction and affection. The

desire of wisdom, or the love ofbeauty, is therefore nothing but theyearning of the soul to join itself towhat is akin to it. This is the leadingconception of the two great mysticaldialogues, the Symposium and thePhaedrus. In the former, Socrates, inthe words of the stranger prophetessDiotima, traces the path along whichthe soul must travel, and points out thesteps of the ladder to be climbed inorder to attain to union with theDivine. From beauty of form and bodywe rise to beauty of mind and spirit,and so to the Beauty of God Himself.

He who under the influence of truelove rising upward from these begins to

see that beauty, is not far from the end.And the true order of going or beingled by another to the things of love, isto use the beauties of earth as stepsalong which he mounts upwards forthe sake of that other beauty, goingfrom one to two, and from two to allfair forms, and from fair forms to fairpractices, and from fair practices to fairnotions, until from fair notions hearrives at the notion of absolute beauty,and at last knows what the essence ofbeauty is. This ... is that life above allothers which man should live, in thecontemplation of beauty absolute.[4]

That is a passage whose music re-echoes through many pages of English

literature, especially in the poems ofSpenser, Shelley, and Keats.

Plato may therefore be regarded as thesource of speculative mysticism inEurope, but it is Plotinus, his disciple,the Neo-platonist, who is the father ofEuropean mysticism in its full sense,practical as well as speculative, and whois also its most profound exponent.Plotinus (A.D. 204-270), who was anEgyptian by birth, lived and studiedunder Ammonius Sakkas in Alexandriaat a time when it was the centre of theintellectual world, seething withspeculation and schools, teachers andphilosophies of all kinds, Platonic andOriental, Egyptian and Christian. Later,

from the age of forty, he taught inRome, where he was surrounded bymany eager adherents. He drew theform of his thought both from Platoand from Hermetic philosophy (hisconception of Emanation), but its realinspiration was his own experience, forhis biographer Porphyry has recordedthat during the six years he lived withPlotinus the latter attained four times toecstatic union with "the One." Plotinuscombined, in unusual measure, theintellect of the metaphysician with thetemperament of the great psychic, sothat he was able to analyse with themost precise dialectic, experienceswhich in most cases paralyse the tongueand blind the discursive reason. His

sixth Ennead, "On the Good or theOne," is one of the great philosophictreatises of the world, and it sums up inmatchless words the whole mysticposition and experience. There are twostatements in it which contain thecentre of the writer's thought. "God isnot external to any one, but is presentin all things, though they are ignorantthat he is so." "God is not in a certainplace, but wherever anything is able tocome into contact with him there he ispresent" (Enn. vi. 9, Sec.Sec. 4, 7). It isbecause of our ignorance of theindwelling of God that our life isdiscordant, for it is clashing with itsown inmost principle. We do not knowourselves. If we did, we would know

that the way home to God lies withinourselves. "A soul that knows itselfmust know that the proper direction ofits energy is not outwards in a straightline, but round a centre which is withinit" (Enn. vi. 9, Sec. 8).

The whole Universe is one vastOrganism (Enn. ix. 4, Sec.Sec. 32, 45),and the Heart of God, the source of alllife, is at the centre, in which all finitethings have their being, and to whichthey must flow back; for there is in thisOrganism, so Plotinus conceives, adouble circulatory movement, aneternal out-breathing and in-breathing,the way down and the way up. The waydown is the out-going of the

undivided "One" towardsmanifestation. From Him there flowsout a succession of emanations. Thefirst of these is the "Nous" or Over-Mind of the Universe, God as thought.The "Mind" in turn throws out animage, the third Principle in this Trinity,the Soul of all things. This, like the"Nous," is immaterial, but it can act onmatter. It is the link between man andGod, for it has a lower and a higherside. The lower side desires a body andso creates it, but it is not whollyincarnate in it, for, as Plotinus says, "thesoul always leaves something of itselfabove."

From this World Soul proceed the

individual souls of men, and theypartake of its nature. Its nature is triple,the animal or sensual soul, closelybound to the body, the logicalreasoning human soul, and theintellectual soul, which is one with theDivine Mind, from whence it comesand of which it is an image.

Souls have forgotten then: divine originbecause at first they were so delightedwith their liberty and surroundings(like children let loose from theirparents, says Plotinus), that they ranaway in a direction as far as possiblefrom their source. They thus becameclogged with the joys and distractionsof this lower life, which can never

satisfy them, and they are ignorant oftheir own true nature and essence. Inorder to return home, the soul has toretrace the path along which she came,and the first step is to get to knowherself, and so to know God. (See Enn.vi. 9, Sec. 7.) Thus only can she berestored to the central unity of theuniversal soul. This first stage on theupward path is the purgative life, whichincludes all the civic and social virtues,gained through general purification,self-discipline, and balance, with, at thesame time, a gradual attainment ofdetachment from the things of sense,and a desire for the things of the spirit.

The next step is to rise up to mind

(Enn. v. 1, Sec. 3) to the world of purethought, the highest unity possible to aself-conscious being. This is oftencalled the illuminative life, and it mightbe summed up as concentration of allthe faculties will, intellect, feeling uponGod. And lastly comes the unitive life,which is contemplation, the intensedesire of the soul for union with God,the momentary foretaste of which hasbeen experienced by many of themystics. This last stage of the journeyhome, the supreme Adventure, theascension to the One above thought,this cannot be spoken of or explainedin words, for it is a state beyond words,it is "a mode of vision which isecstasy." When the soul attains to this

state, the One suddenly appears, "withnothing between," "and they are nomore two but one; and the soul is nomore conscious of the body or ofwhether she lives or is a human beingor an essence; she knows only that shehas what she desired, that she is whereno deception can come, and that shewould not exchange her bliss for thewhole of Heaven itself" (paraphrasedfrom Enn. vi. 7, Sec. 24).

The influence of Plotinus upon laterChristian mysticism was immense,though mainly indirect, through thewritings of two of his spiritualdisciples, St Augustine (354-450), andthe unknown writer, probably of the

early sixth century, possibly a Syrianmonk, who ascribes his works toDionysius the Areopagite, the friend ofSt Paul. The works of "Dionysius"were translated from Greek into Latinby the great Irish philosopher andscholar, John Scotus Erigena(Eriugena), and in that form theywidely influenced later mediaevalmysticism.

The fusion of Eastern mysticism withChristianity finally brought about thegreat change which constitutes thedifference between Eastern andWestern mysticism, a change alreadyforeshadowed in Plato, for it was inpart the natural outcome of the Greek

delight in material beauty, but finallyconsummated by the teachings of theChristian faith. Eastern thought waspure soul-consciousness, its teachingwas to annihilate the flesh, to deny itsreality, to look within, and so to gainenlightenment. Christianity, on theother hand, was centred in the doctrineof the Incarnation, in the mystery ofGod the Father revealing Himself inhuman form. Hence the human body,human love and relationships becamesanctified, became indeed a means ofrevelation of the divine, and the mysticno longer turned his thoughts whollyinwards, but also outwards andupwards, to the Father who loved himand to the Son who had died for him.

Thus, in the West, mystical thought hasever recognised the deep symbolismand sacredness of all that is human andnatural, of human love, of the humanintellect, and of the natural world. Allthose things which to the Easternthinker are but an obstruction and aveil, to the Western have become thevery means of spiritual ascent[5]. Theultimate goal of the Eastern mystic issummed up in his assertion, "I amBrahman," whereas the Western mysticbelieves that "he who sees the Infinitein all things, sees God."

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuriesthe mystical tradition was carried on inFrance by St Bernard (1091-1153), the

Abbot of Clairvaux, and the Scotch orIrish Richard of the Abbey of StVictor at Paris, and in Italy, amongmany others, by St Bonaventura (1221-1274), a close student of Dionysius,and these three form the chief directinfluences on our earliest Englishmystics.

England shares to the full in the waveof mystical experience, thought, andteaching which swept over Europe inthe fourteenth and early fifteenthcenturies, and at first the mysticalliterature of England, as also ofFrance, Germany, Italy, and Sweden, ispurely religious or devotional in type,prose treatises for the most part

containing practical instruction for theinner life, written by hermits, priests,and "anchoresses." In the fourteenthcentury we have a group of suchwriters of great power and beauty, andin the work of Richard Rolle, WalterHilton, Julian of Norwich, and theauthor of the Cloud of Unknowing, wehave a body of writings dealing withthe inner life, and the steps ofpurification, contemplation, andecstatic union which throb with lifeand devotional fervour.

From the time of Julian of Norwich,who was still alive in 1413, we findpractically no literature of a mysticaltype until we come to Spenser's Hymns

(1596), and these embody a Platonismreached largely through the intellect,and not a mystic experience. It wouldseem at first sight as if these hymns, orat any rate the two later ones in honourof Heavenly Love and of HeavenlyBeauty, should rank as some of thefinest mystical verse in English. Yet thisis not the case. They are saturated withthe spirit of Plato, and they express inmusical form the lofty ideas of theSymposium and the Phaedrus: that beauty,more nearly than any other earthlything, resembles its heavenly prototype,and that therefore the sight of itkindles love, which is the excitementand rapture aroused in the soul by theremembrance of that divine beauty

which once it knew. And Spenser,following Plato, traces the stages ofascent traversed by the lover of beauty,until he is caught up into union withGod Himself. Yet, notwithstandingtheir melody and their Platonicdoctrine, the note of the real mystic iswanting in the Hymns, the note of himwho writes of these things because heknows them.

It would take some space to supportthis view in detail. Any one desirous oftesting it might read the account oftransport of the soul when rapt intounion with the One as given byPlotinus (Enn. vi. 9, Sec. 10), andcompare it with Spenser's description

of a similar experience (An Hymne ofHeavenly Beautie, 11. 253-273). Despitetheir poetic melody, Spenser's wordssound poor and trivial. Instead ofpreferring to dwell on the unutterableecstasy, contentment, and bliss of theexperience, he is far more anxious toemphasise the fact that "all that pleasedearst now seemes to paine."

The contradictory nature of his beliefis also arresting. In the early part of theHymne of Heavenly Beautie, in-speakingof the glory of God which is sodazzling that angels themselves may notendure His sight, he says, as Plato does,

The meanes, therefore, which unto us is

lent Him to behold, is on his workes tolooke, Which he hath made in beautyexcellent.

This is the view of the true mystic, thatGod may be seen in all His works, bythe eye which is itself purified. Yet, inthe last stanza of this beautiful Hymn,this is how Spenser views the joy of theunion of the soul with its source, whenit looks

at last up to that Soveraine Light, Fromwhose pure beams al perfect beautysprings, That kindleth love in everygodly spright Even the love of God;which loathing brings Of this vile world andthese gay-seeming things.

This is not the voice of the mystic. It isthe voice of the Puritan, who is also anartist, who shrinks from earthly beautybecause it attracts him, who fears it, andtries to despise it. In truth, thedominating feature in Spenser's poetryis a curious blending of Puritanism ofspirit with the Platonic mind.

In the seventeenth century, however,England is peculiarly rich in writerssteeped in mystical thought.

First come the Quakers, headed byGeorge Fox. This rediscovery andassertion of the mystical element inreligion gave rise to a great deal of

writing, much of it very interesting tothe student of religious thought.Among the Journals of the earlyQuakers, and especially that of GeorgeFox, there are passages which charm uswith their sincerity, quaintness, andpure flame of enthusiasm, but theseworks cannot as a whole be ranked asliterature. Then we have the little groupof Cambridge Platonists, Henry More,John Smith, Benjamin Whichcote, andJohn Norris of Bemerton. These are allPlatonic philosophers, and among theirwritings, and especially in those ofJohn Norris, are many passages ofmystical thought clothed in nobleprose. Henry More, who is also a poet,is in character a typical mystic, serene,

buoyant, and so spiritually happy that,as he told a friend, he was sometimes"almost mad with pleasure." Hispoetical faculty is, however, entirelysubordinated to his philosophy, and thelarger portion of his work consists ofpassages from the Enneads of Plotinusturned into rather obscure verse. Sothat he is not a poet and artist who,working in the sphere of theimagination, can directly present to usmystical thoughts and ideas, but rathera mystic philosopher who has versifiedsome of his discourses. At this timealso many of the "metaphysical poets"are mystical in much of their thought.Chief among these is John Donne, andwe may also include Henry Vaughan,

Traherne, Crashaw, and GeorgeHerbert.

Bunyan might at first sight appear tohave many of the characteristics of themystic, for he had certain very intensepsychic experiences which are of thenature of a direct revelation of God tothe soul; and in his vivid religiousautobiography, Grace Abounding, herecords sensations which are akin tothose felt by Rolle, Julian, and manyothers. But although psychically akin,he is in truth widely separated from themystics in spirit and temperament andbelief. He is a Puritan, overwhelmedwith a sense of sin, the horrors ofpunishment in hell, and the wrath of

an outside Creator and Judge, and hisdesire is aimed at escape from thiswrath through "election" and God'sgrace. But he is a Puritan endowed witha psychopathic temperament sensitiveto the point of disease and gifted withan abnormally high visualising power.Hence his resemblance to the mystics,which is a resemblance of psychicaltemperament and not of spiritualattitude.

In the eighteenth century the names ofWilliam Law and William Blake shineout like stars against a dark firmamentof "rationalism" and unbelief. Theirwritings form a remarkable contrast tothe prevailing spirit of the time. Law

expresses in clear and pointed prose themain teachings of the German seerJacob Boehme;[6] whereas Blake seesvisions and has knowledge which hestrives to condense into forms ofpicture and verse which may beunderstood of men. The influence ofBoehme in the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries is very far-reaching. In addition to completelysubjugating the strong intellect of Law,he profoundly influenced Blake. Healso affected Thomas Erskine ofLinlathen, and through him, Carlyle, J.W. Farquhar, F. D. Maurice, and others.Hegel, Schelling, and Schlegel are alikeindebted to him, and through them,through his French disciple St Martin,

and through Coleridge who was muchattracted to him some of his root-ideasreturned again to England in thenineteenth century, thus preparing theway for a better understanding ofmystical thought. The Swedish seerEmmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)was another strong influence in thelater eighteenth and the nineteenthcenturies. Swedenborg in some ways iscuriously material, at any rate inexpression, and in one point at least hediffers from other mystics. That is, hedoes not seem to believe that man haswithin him a spark of the divineessence, but rather that he is an organthat reflects the divine life. He is arecipient of life, but not a part of life

itself. God is thought of as a light orsun outside, from which spiritual heatand light (= love and wisdom) flowinto men. But, apart from thisimportant difference Swedenborg'sthought and teaching are entirelymystical. He believes in the substantialreality of spiritual things, and that themost essential part of a person's nature,that which he carries with him into thespiritual world, is his love. He teachesthat heaven is not a place, but acondition, that there is no question ofoutside rewards or punishments, andman makes his own heaven or hell; for,as Patmore pointedly expresses it

Ice-cold seems heaven's noble glow To

spirits whose vital heat is hell.

He insists that Space and Time belongonly to physical life, and when menpass into the spiritual world that love isthe bond of union, and thought or"state" makes presence, for thought isact. He holds that instinct is spiritual inorigin; and the principle of his scienceof correspondences is based on thebelief that everything outward andvisible corresponds to some invisibleentity which is its inward and spiritualcause. This is the view echoed by MrsBrowning more than once in AuroraLeigh

There's not a flower of spring, That

dies in June, but vaunts itself allied Byissue and symbol, by significance Andcorrespondence, to that spirit-worldOutside the limits of our space andtime, Whereto we are bound.

In all this and much more,Swedenborg's thought is mystical, andit has had a quite unsuspected amountof influence in England, and it isdiffused through a good deal ofEnglish literature.

Blake knew some at least ofSwedenborg's books well; two of hisfriends, C. A. Tulk and Flaxman, weredevoted Swedenborgians, and he toldTulk that he had two different states,

one in which he liked Swedenborg'swritings, and one in which he dislikedthem. Unquestionably, they sometimesirritated him, and then he abused them,but it is only necessary to read hisannotations of his copy ofSwedenborg's Wisdom of the Angels(now in the British Museum) to realisein the first place that he sometimesmisunderstood Swedenborg's positionand secondly, that when he didunderstand it, he was thoroughly inagreement with it, and that he and theSwedish seer had much in common.Coleridge admired Swedenborg, hegave a good deal of time to studyinghim (see Coleridge's letter to C. A. Tulk,July 17, 1820), and he, with Boehme,

were two of the four "Great Men"unjustly branded, about whom he oftenthought of writing a "Vindication"(Coleridge's Notes on Noble's Appeal,Collected Works, ed. Shedd, 1853 and1884, vol. v. p. 526).

Emerson owes much to Swedenborg,[7] and Emerson's thought had muchinfluence in England. Carlyle also wasattracted to him (see his letter fromChelsea, November 13, 1852); MrsBrowning studied him with enthusiasmand spent the winter of 1852-3 inmeditation on his philosophy (Letters,vol. ii. p. 141), which bore fruit fouryears later in Aurora Leigh.

Coventry Patmore is, however, theEnglish writer most saturated withSwedenborg's thought, and his Angel inthe House embodies the main features ofSwedenborg's peculiar views expressedin Conjugial Love, on sex and marriageand their significance. It is not toomuch to say that Swedenborginfluenced and coloured the wholetrend of Patmore's thought, and that hewas to him what Boehme was to Law,the match which set alight his mysticalflame. He says Swedenborg's Heaven andHell "abounds with perception of thetruth to a degree unparalleled perhapsin uninspired writing," and he assertsthat he never tires of reading him, "heis unfathomably profound and yet

simple."[8]

Whatever may be the source or reason,it is clear that at the end of theeighteenth century we begin to find amystical tinge of thought in severalthinkers and writers, such as Burke,Coleridge, and Thomas Erskine ofLinlathen. This increases in the earlynineteenth century, strengthened by theinfluence, direct and indirect, ofBoehme, Swedenborg, and the Germantranscendental philosophers and thismystical spirit is very marked in Carlyle,and, as we shall see, in most of thegreatest nineteenth-century poets.

In addition to those writers which are

here dealt with in detail, there is muchof the mystic spirit in others of thesame period, to name a few only,George Meredith, "Fiona Macleod,"Christina Rossetti, and Mrs Browning;while to-day writers like "A. E.," W. B.Yeats, and Evelyn Underhill arecarrying on the mystic tradition.

Chapter II

Love and Beauty Mystics

In studying the mysticism of the

English writers, and more especially ofthe poets, one is at once struck by thediversity of approach leading to unityof end.

"There are," says Plotinus, "differentroads by which this end [apprehensionof the Infinite] may be reached. Thelove of beauty, which exalts the poet;that devotion to the One and thatascent of science which makes theambition of the philosopher; and thatlove and those prayers by which somedevout and ardent soul tends in itsmoral purity towards perfection. Theseare the great highways conducting tothat height above the actual and theparticular, where we stand in the

immediate presence of the Infinite,who shines out as from the deeps ofthe soul." Letter to Flaccus.

We have grouped together our Englishwriters who are mystical in thought,according to the five main pathways bywhich they have seen the Vision: Love,Beauty, Nature, Wisdom, or Devotion.Even within these groups, the methodof approach, the interpretation orapplication of the Idea, often differsvery greatly. For instance, Shelley andBrowning may both be called love-mystics; that is, they look upon love asthe solution of the mystery of life, asthe link between God and man. ToShelley this was a glorious intuition,

which reached him through hisimagination, whereas the life of man ashe saw it roused in him little but madindignation, wild revolt, and passionateprotest. To Browning this wasknowledge knowledge borne in uponhim just because of human life as hesaw it, which to him was a clear proofof the great destiny of the race. Hewould have agreed with Patmore that"you can see the disc of Divinity quiteclearly through the smoked glass ofhumanity, but no otherwise." He found"harmony in immortal souls, spite ofthe muddy vesture of decay."

The three great English poets who arealso fundamentally mystical in thought

are Browning, Wordsworth, and Blake.Their philosophy or mystical belief, onein essence, though so differentlyexpressed, lies at the root, as it is alsothe flower, of their life-work. In others,as in Shelley, Keats, and Rossetti,although it is the inspiring force oftheir poetry, it is not a flame, burningsteadily and evenly, but rather a lightflashing out intermittently into brilliantand dazzling radiance. Hence the manhimself is not so permeated by it; andhence results the unsatisfied desire, thealmost painful yearning, the recurringdisappointment and disillusionment,which we do not find in Browning,Wordsworth, and Blake.

In our first group we have four poetsof markedly different temperamentsShelley intensely spiritual; Rossetti witha strong tinge of sensuousness, of"earthiness" in his nature; Browning,the keenly intellectual man of theworld, and Patmore a curious mixtureof materialist and mystic; yet to all fourlove is the secret of life, the one thingworth giving and possessing.

Shelley believed in a Soul of theUniverse, a Spirit in which all thingslive and move and have their being;which, as one feels in the Prometheus, isunnamable, inconceivable even to man,for "the deep truth is imageless." Hismost passionate desire was not, as was

Browning's, for an increased andennobled individuality, but for themystical fusion of his own personalitywith this Spirit, this object of hisworship and adoration. To Shelley,death itself was but the rending of aveil which would admit us to the fullvision of the ideal, which alone is truelife. The sense of unity in all things ismost strongly felt in Adonais, whereShelley's maturest thought andphilosophy are to be found; and indeedthe mystical fervour in this poem,especially towards the end, is greaterthan anywhere else in his writings. TheHymn to Intellectual Beauty is in someways Shelley's clearest and mostobvious expression of his devotion to

the Spirit of Ideal Beauty, its reality tohim, and his vow of dedication to itsservice. But the Prometheus is the mostdeeply mystical of his poems; indeed,as Mrs Shelley says, "it requires a mindas subtle and penetrating as Shelley'sown to understand the mystic meaningsscattered throughout the poem."

Shelley, like Blake, regarded the humanimagination as a divine creative force;Prometheus stands for the humanimagination, or the genius of the world;and it is his union with Asia, the divineIdea, the Spirit of Beauty and of Love,from which a new universe is born. It isthis union, which consummates theaspirations of humanity, that Shelley

celebrates in the marvellous love-songof Prometheus. As befitted a discipleof Godwin, he believed in the divinepotentiality of man, convinced that allgood is to be found within man's ownbeing, and that his progress depends onhis own will.

It is our will That thus enchains us topermitted ill We might be otherwise wemight be all We dream of happy, high,majestical. Where is the love, beauty,and truth we seek But in our mind

Julian and Maddalo.

In the allegorical introduction to theRevolt of Islam, which is an interesting

example of Shelley's mysticalmythology, we have an insight into thepoet's view of the good power in theworld. It is not an almighty creatorstanding outside mankind, but a powerwhich suffers and rebels and evolves,and is, in fact, incarnate in humanity, sothat it is unrecognised by men, andindeed confounded with evil:

And the Great Spirit of Good didcreep among The nations of mankind,and every tongue Cursed andblasphemed him as he passed, for noneKnew good from evil.

There is no doubt that to Shelley theform assumed by the divine in man was

love. Mrs Shelley, in her note to Rosalindand Helen, says that, "in his eyes it wasthe essence of our being, and all woeand pain arose from the war madeagainst it by selfishness or insensibility,or mistake"; and Shelley himself says,"the great secret of morals is love; or agoing out of our own nature, and anidentification of ourselves with thebeautiful which exists in thought,action or person, not our own."

Shelley was always searching for love;and, although he knew well, throughhis study of Plato, the differencebetween earthly and spiritual love, thatthe one is but the lowest step on theladder which leads to the other, yet in

actual practice he confounded the two.He knew that he did so; and only amonth before his death, he summed upin a sentence the tragedy of his life. Hewrites to Mr Gisborne about theEpipsychidion, saying that he cannot lookat it now, for

"the person whom it celebrates was acloud instead of a Juno," andcontinues, "If you are curious,however, to hear what I am and havebeen, it will tell you something thereof.It is an idealized history of my life andfeelings. I think one is always in lovewith something or other; the error andI confess it is not easy for spirits casedin flesh and blood to avoid it consists

in seeking in a mortal image thelikeness of what is, perhaps, eternal."

No poet has a more distinct philosophyof life than Browning. Indeed he has asmuch a right to a place among thephilosophers, as Plato has to oneamong the poets. Browning is a seer,and pre-eminently a mystic; and it isespecially interesting as in the case ofPlato and St Paul, to encounter thislatter quality as a dominatingcharacteristic of the mind of so keenand logical a dialectician. We see at oncethat the main position of Browning'sbelief is identical with what we havefound to be the characteristic ofmysticism unity under diversity at the

centre of all existence. The sameessence, the one life, expresses itselfthrough every diversity of form.

He dwells on this again and again:

God is seen In the star, in the stone, inthe flesh, in the soul and the clod.

And through all these forms there isgrowth upwards. Indeed, it is onlyupon this supposition that the poet canaccount for

many a thrill Of kinship, I confess to,with the powers Called Nature:animate, inanimate In parts or in thewhole, there's something there Man-like

that somehow meets the man in me.

Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau.

The poet sees that in each higher stagewe benefit by the garnered experienceof the past; and so man grows andexpands and becomes capable offeeling for and with everything thatlives. At the same time the higher is notdegraded by having worked in andthrough the lower, for he distinguishesbetween the continuous persistent life,and the temporary coverings it makesuse of on its upward way;

From first to last of lodging, I was I,And not at all the place that harboured

me.

Humanity then, in Browning's view, isnot a collection of individuals, separateand often antagonistic, but one whole.

When I say "you" 'tis the common soul,The collective I mean: the race of ManThat receives life in parts to live in awhole And grow here according toGod's clear plan.

Old Pictures in Florence.

This sense of unity is shown in manyways: for instance, in Browning'sprotest against the one-sidedness ofnineteenth-century scientific thought,

the sharp distinction or gulf set upbetween science and religion. Thissharp cleavage, to the mystic, isimpossible. He knows, howeverirreconcilable the two may appear, thatthey are but different aspects of thesame thing. This is one of the ways inwhich Browning anticipates the mostadvanced thought of the present day.

In Paracelsus he emphasises the fact thatthe exertion of power in theintelligence, or the acquisition ofknowledge, is useless without theinspiration of love, just as love is wastewithout power. Paracelsus sums up thematter when he says to Aprile

I too have sought to KNOW as thou toLOVE Excluding love as thou refusedstknowledge.... We must never part ... Tillthou the lover, know; and I, theknower, Love until both are saved.

Arising logically out of this belief inunity, there follows, as with all mystics,the belief in the potential divinity ofman, which permeates all Browning'sthought, and is continually insisted onin such poems as Rabbi ben Ezra, ADeath in the Desert, and The Ring and theBook. He takes for granted thefundamental position of the mystic,that the object of life is to know God;and according to the poet, in knowinglove we learn to know God. Hence it

follows that love is the meaning of life,and that he who finds it not

loses what he lived for And eternallymust lose it.

Christina.

For life with all it yields of joy and woeAnd hope and fear ... Is just our chanceo' the prize of learning love.

A Death in the Desert.

This is Browning's central teaching, thekey-note of his work and philosophy.The importance of love in life is toBrowning supreme, because he holds it

to be the meeting-point between Godand man. Love is the sublimestconception possible to man; and a lifeinspired by it is the highest conceivableform of goodness.

In this exaltation of love, as in severalother points, Browning muchresembles the German mystic, MeisterEckhart. To compare the two writers indetail would be an interesting task; it isonly possible here to suggest points ofresemblance. The following passagefrom Eckhart suggests severaldirections in which Browning's thoughtis peculiarly mystical:

Intelligence is the youngest faculty in

man.... The soul in itself is a simplework; what God works in the simplelight of the soul is more beautiful andmore delightful than all the other workswhich He works in all creatures. Butfoolish people take evil for good andgood for evil. But to him who rightlyunderstands, the one work which Godworks in the soul is better and noblerand higher than all the world. Throughthat light comes grace. Grace nevercomes in the intelligence or in the will.If it could come in the intelligence orin the will, the intelligence and the willwould have to transcend themselves.On this a master says: There issomething secret about it; and therebyhe means the spark of the soul, which

alone can apprehend God. The trueunion between God and the soul takesplace in the little spark, which is calledthe spirit of the soul.[9]

The essential unity of God and man isexpressed more than once by Browningin Eckhart's image: as when he speaksof God as Him

Who never is dishonoured in the sparkHe gave us from his fire of fires.

He is at one with Eckhart, and with allmystics, in his appeal from the intellectto that which is beyond intellect; in hisassertion of the supremacy of feeling,intuition, over knowledge. Browning

never wearies of dwelling on therelativity of physical knowledge, and itsinadequacy to satisfy man. This isperhaps best brought out in one of thelast things he wrote, the "Reverie" inAsolando; but it is dwelt on in nearly allhis later and more reflective poems. Hismaxim was

Wholly distrust thy knowledge, then,and trust As wholly love allied toignorance! There lies thy truth andsafety. ... Consider well! Wereknowledge all thy faculty, then GodMust be ignored: love gains him by firstleap.

A Pillar at Sebzevar.

Another point of resemblance withEckhart is suggested by his words:"That foolish people take evil for good,and good for evil." Browning's theoryof evil is part of the working-out ofhis principle of what may be called thecoincidence of extreme opposites. Thisis, of course, part of his main belief inunity, but it is an interestingdevelopment of it. This theory ismarked all through his writings; and,although philosophers have dealt withit, he is perhaps the one poet who facesthe problem, and expresses himself onthe point with entire conviction. Hisview is that good and evil are purelyrelative terms (see The Bean-stripe), and

that one cannot exist without the other.It is evil which alone makes possiblesome of the divinest qualities in mancompassion, pity, forgiveness patience.We have seen that Shelley shares thisview, "for none knew good from evil";and Blake expresses himself verystrongly about it, and complains thatPlato "knew nothing but the virtuesand vices, the good and evil.... There isnothing in all that.... Everything is goodin God's eyes." Mysticism is always areconcilement of opposites; and this, aswe have seen in connection withscience and religion, knowledge andlove, is a dominant note of Browning'sphilosophy. He brings it out moststartlingly perhaps in The Statue and the

Bust, where he shows that in his verycapacity for vice, a man proves hiscapacity for virtue, and that a failure ofenergy in the one implies acorresponding failure of energy in theother.

At the same time, clear knowledge thatevil is illusion would defeat its own endand paralyse all moral effort, for evilonly exists for the development ofgood in us.

Type needs antitype: As night needsday, as shine needs shade, so goodNeeds evil: how were pity understoodUnless by pain

This is one reason why Browning nevershrank from the evil in the world, whyindeed he expended so much of hismind and art on the analysis anddissection of every kind of evil, layingbare for us the working of the mind ofthe criminal, the hypocrite, theweakling, and the cynic; because heheld that

Only by looking low, ere looking highComes penetration of the mystery.

There are other ways in whichBrowning's thought is especiallymystical, as, for instance, his belief inpre-existence, and his theory ofknowledge, for he, like Plato, believes

in the light within the soul, and holdsthat

To know Rather consists in openingout a way Whence the imprisonedsplendour may escape, Than ineffecting entry for a light Supposed tobe without.

Paracelsus, Act I.

But the one thought which is everconstant with him, and is peculiarlyhelpful to the practical man, is hisrecognition of the value of limitationin all our energies, and the stress he layson the fact that only by virtue of thislimitation can we grow. We should be

paralysed else. It is Goethe's doctrineof Entbehrung, and it is vividlyportrayed in the epistle of Karshish.Paracelsus learns it, and makes it clearto Festus at the end.

The natural result of Browning's theoryof evil, and his sense of the value oflimitation, is that he should welcomefor man the experience of doubt,difficulty, temptation, pain; and this wefind is the case.

Life is probation and the earth no goalBut starting point of man ... To tryman's foot, if it will creep or climb'Mid obstacles in seeming, points thatprove Advantage for who vaults from

low to high And makes the stumbling-block a stepping-stone.

The Ring and the Book: The Pope, 1436-7,410-13.

It is this trust in unending progress,based on the consciousness of presentfailure, which is peculiarly inspiriting inBrowning's thought, and it is essentiallymystical. Instead of shrinking frompain, the mystic prays for it, for,properly met, it means growth.

Was the trial sore Temptation sharpThank God a second time! Why comestemptation but for man to meet Andmaster and make crouch beneath his

foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph

The Ring and the Book: The Pope, 1182-02.

Rossetti's mysticism is perhaps a moresalient feature in his art than is the casewith Browning, and the lines of it, andits place in his work, have been welldescribed by Mr Theodore Watts-Dutton.[10] We can only here indicatewherein it lies, and how it differs fromand falls short of the mysticism ofShelley and Browning. Rossetti, unlikeBrowning, is not the least metaphysical;he is not devoured by philosophicalcuriosity; he has no desire to solve theriddle of the universe. All his life he

was dominated and fascinated bybeauty, one form of which in especialso appealed to him as at times almost tooverpower him the beauty of the faceof woman.[11] But this beauty is notan end in itself; it is not the desire ofpossession that so stirs him, but ratheran absolute thirst for the knowledge ofthe mystery which he feels is hidingbeneath and beyond it. Here lies hismysticism. It is this haunting passionwhich is the greatest thing in Rossetti,which inspires all that is best in him asartist, the belief that beauty is but theexpression or symbol of something fargreater and higher, and that it haskinship with immortal things. Forbeauty, which, as Plato has told us, is of

all the divine ideas at once mostmanifest and most lovable to man, isfor Rossetti the actual and visiblesymbol of love, which is at once themystery and solution of the secret oflife.[12] Rossetti's mystical passion isperhaps most perfectly expressed in hislittle early prose romance, Hand andSoul. It is purer and more austere thanmuch of his poetry, and breathes anamazing force of spiritual vision. Onewonders, after reading it, that the writerhimself did not attain to a loftier andmore spiritual development of life andart; and one cannot help feeling thereason was that he did not sufficientlyheed the warning of Plotinus, not to letourselves become entangled in

sensuous beauty, which will engulf usas in a swamp.

Coventry Patmore was so entirely amystic that it seems to be the first andthe last and the only thing to say abouthim. His central conviction is the unityof all things, and hence their mutualinterpretation and symbolic force.There is only one kind of knowledgewhich counts with him, and that isdirect apprehension or perception, theknowledge a man has of Love, bybeing in love, not by reading about itssymptoms. The "touch" of God is nota figure of speech.

"Touch," says Aquinas, "applies to

spiritual things as well as to materialthings.... The fulness of intelligence isthe obliteration of intelligence. God isthen our honey, and we, as StAugustine says, are His; and who wantsto understand honey or requires therationale of a kiss " (Rod, Root, and Flower,xx.)

Once given the essential idea, to begrasped by the intuitive faculty alone,the world is full of analogies, ofnatural revelations which help tosupport and illustrate great truths.Patmore was, however, caught andenthralled by one aspect of unity, byone great analogy, almost to theexclusion of all others. This is that in

human love, but above all in weddedlove, we have a symbol (that is anexpression of a similar force indifferent material) of the love betweenGod and the soul. What Patmore meantwas that in the relationship and attitudeof wedded lovers we hold the key tothe mystery at the heart of life, and thatwe have in it a "real apprehension"(which is quite different from realcomprehension[13]) of the relationshipand attitude of humanity to God. Hisfirst wife's love revealed to him this,which is the basic fact of all histhought and work.

The relationship of the soul to Christas His betrothed wife is the key to the

feeling with which prayer and love andhonour should be offered to Him ... Sheshowed me what that relationshipinvolves of heavenly submission andspotless passionate loyalty.[14]

He believed that sex is a relationship atthe base of all things natural anddivine;

Nature, with endless being rife, Partseach thing into "him" and "her" And,in the arithmetic of life, The smallestunit is a pair.[15]

This division into two andreconciliation into one, this clash offorces resulting in life, is, as Patmore

points out in words curiouslyreminiscent of those of Boehme, at theroot of all existence. All realapprehension of God, he says, isdependent upon the realisation of histriple Personality in one Being.

Nature goes on giving echoes of thesame living triplicity in animal, plant,and mineral, every stone and materialatom owing its being to the synthesis or"embrace" of the two opposed forcesof expansion and contraction. Nothingwhatever exists in a single entity but invirtue of its being thesis, antithesis, andsynthesis and in humanity and naturallife this takes the form of sex, themasculine, the feminine, and the neuter,

or third, forgotten sex spoken of byPlato, which is not the absence of thelife of sex, but its fulfilment and power,as the electric fire is the fulfilment andpower of positive and negative in their"embrace."

The essay from which this passage istaken, The Bow set in the Cloud, togetherwith The Precursor, give in full detail anexposition of this belief of Patmore's,which was for him "the burning heart ofthe Universe."

Female and male God made the man;His image is the whole, not half; And inour love we dimly scan The love whichis between Himself.[16]

God he conceived of as the greatmasculine positive force, the soul as thefeminine or receptive force, and themeeting of these two, the "mysticrapture" of the marriage of Divinityand Humanity, as the source of all lifeand joy.

This profound and very difficult themeis treated by Patmore in a manner atonce austere and passionate in theexquisite little preludes to the Angel inthe House, and more especially in theodes, which stand alone in nineteenth-century poetry for poignancy of feelingand depth of spiritual passion. Theyare the highest expression of "erotic

mysticism"[17] in English; a marvellouscombination of flaming ardour andsensuousness of description withpurity and austerity of tone. This lattereffect is gained largely by the bare andirregular metre, which has a curiouslycompelling beauty of rhythm anddignity of cadence.

The book into which Patmore put thefullness of his convictions, the SponsaDei, which he burnt because he fearedit revealed too much to a world notready for it, was says Mr Gosse, whohad read it in manuscript, "atranscendental treatise on Divine desireseen through the veil of human desire."We can guess fairly accurately its tenor

and spirit if we read the prose essayDieu et ma Dame and the wonderful odeSponsa Dei, which, happily, the poet didnot destroy.

It may be noted that the other humanaffections and relationships also havefor Patmore a deep symbolic value, andtwo of his finest odes are written, theone in symbolism of mother love, theother in that of father and son.[18]

We learn by human love, so be pointsout, to realise the possibility of contactbetween the finite and Infinite, fordivinity can only be revealed byvoluntarily submitting to limitations. Itis "the mystic craving of the great to

become the love-captive of the small,while the small has a correspondingthirst for the enthralment of the great."[19]

And this process of intercoursebetween God and man is symbolised inthe Incarnation, which is not a singleevent in time, but the culmination ofan eternal process. It is the central factof a man's experience, "for it is goingon perceptibly in himself"; and in likemanner "the Trinity becomes the onlyand self-evident explanation ofmysteries which are daily wrought inhis own complex nature."[20] In thisway is it that to Patmore religion is nota question of blameless life or the

holding of certain beliefs, but it is "anexperimental science" to be lived and tobe felt, and the clues to the experimentsare to be found in natural humanprocesses and experiences interpretedin the light of the great dogmas of theChristian faith.

For Keats, the avenue to truth andreality took the form of Beauty. Theidea, underlying most deeply andconsistently the whole of his poetry, isthat of the unity of life; and closelyallied with this is the belief in progress,through ever-changing, ever-ascendingstages. Sleep and Poetry, Endymion, andHyperion represent very well three stagesin the poet's thought and art. In Sleep

and Poetry Keats depicts the growtheven in an individual life, and describesthe three stages of thought, or attitudestowards life, through which the poetmust pass. They are not quite parallel tothe three stages of the mystical laddermarked out by Wordsworth in the mainbody of his poetry, because they do notgo quite so far, but they are almostexactly analogous to the three stages ofmind he describes in Tintern Abbey. Thefirst is mere animal pleasure and delightin living

A pigeon tumbling in clear summer air;A laughing school-boy without grief orcare Hiding the springy branches of anelm.

Then follows simple unreflectiveenjoyment of Nature. The next stage issympathy with human life, with humangrief and joy, which brings a sense ofthe mystery of the world, a longing topierce it and arrive at its meaning,symbolised in the figure of thecharioteer.

Towards the end of Keats's life thisfeeling was growing stronger; and it ismuch dwelt upon in the Revision ofHyperion. There he plainly states that themerely artistic life, the life of thedreamer, is selfish; and that the onlyway to gain real insight is throughcontact and sympathy with human

suffering and sorrow; and in the lostWoodhouse transcript of the Revision,rediscovered in 1904, there are somelines in which this point is still furtheremphasised. The full realisation of thisthird stage was not granted to Keatsduring his short life; he had but gleamsof it. The only passage where hedescribes the ecstasy of vision is inEndymion (bk. i., 1. 774 ff.), and thisresembles in essentials all the otherreports of this experience given bymystics. When the mind is ready,anything may lead us to it music,imagination, love, friendship.

Feel we these things that moment havewe stept Into a sort of oneness, and

our state Is like a floating spirit's.

Keats felt this passage was inspired, andin a letter to Taylor in January 1818 hesays, "When I wrote it, it was a regularstepping of the Imagination towards atruth."

In Endymion, the underlying idea is theunity of the various elements of theindividual soul; the love of woman isshown to be the same as the love ofbeauty; and that in its turn is identicalwith the love of the principle of beautyin all things. Keats was always verysensitive to the mysterious effects ofmoonlight, and so for him the moonbecame a symbol for the great abstract

principle of beauty, which, during thewhole of his poetic life, he worshippedintellectually and spiritually. "Themighty abstract Idea I have of Beautyin all things stifles the more dividedand minute domestic happiness," hewrites to his brother George; and thelast two well-known lines of the Ode ona Grecian Urn fairly sum up hisphilosophy

Beauty is truth, truth Beauty, that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need toknow.

So that the moon represents to Keatsthe eternal idea, the one essence in all.This is how he writes of it, in what is

an entirely mystical passage in Endymion

... As I grew in years, still didst thoublend With all my ardours: thou wastthe deep glen; Thou wast themountain-top, the sage's pen, Thepoet's harp, the voice of friends, thesun; Thou wast the river, thou wastglory won; Thou wast my clarion'sblast, thou wast my steed, My gobletfull of wine, my topmost deed: Thouwast the charm of women, lovelyMoon!

In his fragment of Hyperion, Keatsshadows forth the unity of allexistence, and gives magnificentutterance to the belief that change is

not decay, but the law of growth andprogress. Oceanus, in his speech to theoverthrown Titans, sums up the wholemeaning as far as it has gone, in versewhich is unsurpassed in English

We fall by course of Nature's law, notforce Of thunder, or of Jove ... ... onour heels a fresh perfection treads, Apower more strong in beauty, born ofus And fated to excel us, as we pass

In glory that old Darkness ... ... for 'tisthe eternal law That first in beautyshould be first in might.

This is true mysticism, the mysticismKeats shares with Burke and Carlyle,

the passionate belief in continuity ofessence through ever-changing forms.

Chapter III

Nature Mystics

Vaughan and Wordsworth stand pre-eminent among our English poets inbeing almost exclusively occupied withone theme, the mystical interpretationof nature. Both poets are of ameditative, brooding cast of mind; butwhereas Wordsworth arrives at his

philosophy entirely through personalexperience and sensation, Vaughan ismore of a mystical philosopher, deeplyread in Plato and the mediaevalalchemists. The constant comparisonof natural with spiritual processes is,on the whole, the most marked featureof Vaughan's poetry. If man will butattend, he seems to say to us, everythingwill discourse to him of the spirit. Hebroods on the silk-worm's change intothe butterfly (Resurrection andImmortality); he ponders over themystery of the continuity of life asseen in the plant, dying down andentirely disappearing in winter, andshooting up anew in the spring (TheHidden Flower); or, while wandering by

his beloved river Usk, he meditates nearthe deep pool of a waterfall on itsmystical significance as it seems tolinger beneath the banks and then toshoot onward in swifter course, and hesees in it an image of life beyond thegrave. The seed growing secretly in theearth suggests to him the growth of thesoul in the darkness of physical matter;and in Affliction he points out that allnature is governed by a law ofperiodicity and contrast, night and day,sunshine and shower; and as the beautyof colour can only exist by contrast, soare pain, sickness, and trouble needfulfor the development of man. Thesepoems are sufficient to illustrate thetemper of Vaughan's mind, his keen,

reverent observation of nature in allher moods, and his intense interest inthe minutest happenings, because theyare all manifestations of the one mightylaw.

Vaughan appears to have had a moredefinite belief in pre-existence thanWordsworth, for he refers to it morethan once; and The Retreate, which isprobably the best known of all hispoems and must have furnished somesuggestion for the Immortality Ode, isbased upon it. Vaughan hasoccasionally an almost perfect felicityof mystical expression, a power heshares with Donne, Keats, Rossetti, andWordsworth. His ideas then produce

their effect through the medium of art,directly on the feelings. The poemcalled Quickness is perhaps the bestexample of this peculiar quality, whichcannot be analysed but must simply befelt; or The World, with its magnificentsymbol in the opening lines:

I saw Eternity the other night, Like agreat Ring of pure and endless light, Allcalm, as it was bright; And roundbeneath it, Time, in hours, days, years,Driv'n by the spheres, Like a vastshadow mov'd.[21]

Mysticism is the most salient feature ofWordsworth's poetry, for he was onewho saw, whose inward eye was

focussed to visions scarce dreamt of bymen. It is because of the strangenessand unfamiliarity of his vision that heis a difficult poet to understand, andthe key to the understanding of him isa mystic one. People talk of thedifficulty of Browning, but he is easyreading compared with a great deal ofWordsworth. It is just the apparentsimplicity of Wordsworth's thoughtwhich is so misleading. A statementabout him of the following kind wouldbe fairly generally accepted as the truth.Wordsworth was a simple-minded poetwith a passion for nature, he foundgreat joy and consolation in thecontemplation of the beauty of hillsand dales and clouds and flowers, and

urged others to find this too; he lived,and recommended others to live a quietretired unexciting kind of life, and hepreached a doctrine of simplicity andausterity. Now, except that Wordsworthhad a passion for Nature, there is not asingle true statement here. Wordsworthwas not only a poet, he was also a seer,a mystic and a practical psychologistwith an amazingly subtle mind, and anunusual capacity for feeling; he lived alife of excitement and passion, and hepreached a doctrine of magnificenceand glory. It was not the beauty ofNature which brought him joy andpeace, but the life in Nature. He himselfhad caught a vision of that life, heknew it and felt it, and it transformed

the whole of existence for him. Hebelieved that every man could attainthis vision which he so fully possessed,and his whole life's work took the formof a minute and careful analysis of theprocesses of feeling in his own nature,which he left as a guide for those whowould tread the same path. It would becorrect to say that the whole of hispoetry is a series of notes andinvestigations devoted to the practicaland detailed explanation of how heconsidered this state of vision might bereached. He disdained no experiencehowever trivial, apparently the workingof the mind of a peasant child or anidiot boy, the effect produced on hisown emotions by a flower, a

glowworm, a bird's note, a girl's song;he passed by nothing which might helpto throw light on this problem. Theexperience which Wordsworth was soanxious others should share was thefollowing. He found that when hismind was freed from pre-occupationwith disturbing objects, petty cares,"little enmities and low desires," that hecould then reach a condition ofequilibrium, which he describes as a"wise passiveness," or a "happy stillnessof the mind." He believed thiscondition could be deliberately inducedby a kind of relaxation of the will, andby a stilling of the busy intellect andstriving desires. It is a purifying process,an emptying out of all that is worrying,

self-assertive, and self-seeking. If wecan habitually train ourselves andattune our minds to this condition, wemay at any moment come acrosssomething which will arouse ouremotions, and it is then, when ouremotions thus purified are excited tothe point of passion, that our visionbecomes sufficiently clear to enable usto gain actual experience of the "centralpeace subsisting for ever at the heart ofendless agitation." Once seen, thisvision changes for us the whole of life;it reveals unity in what to our every-daysight appears to be diversity, harmonywhere ordinarily we hear but discord,and joy, overmastering joy, instead ofsorrow.

It is a kind of illumination, whereby ina lightning flash we see that the worldis quite different from what it ordinarilyappears to be, and when it is over forthe experience is but momentary it isimpossible to describe the vision inprecise terms, but the effect of it issuch as to inspire and guide the wholesubsequent life of the seer.Wordsworth several times depicts this"bliss ineffable" when "all his thoughtwere steeped in feeling." The well-known passage in Tintern Abbey alreadyquoted (p. 7) is one of the finestanalysis of it left us by any of the seers,and it closely resembles the accountsgiven by Plotinus and Boehme of

similar experiences.

To Wordsworth this vision camethrough Nature, and for this reason. Hebelieved that all we see round us isalive, beating with the same life whichpulsates in us. It is, he says,

my faith that every flower Enjoys theair it breathes.

and that if we will but listen and look,we will hear and see and feel thiscentral life. This is the pith of themessage we find repeated again andagain in various forms throughoutWordsworth's poetry, and perhaps bestsummed up at the end of the fourth

book of the Excursion, a book whichshould be closely studied by any onewho would explore the secret of thepoet's outlook upon life. He tells us inthe Prelude (Book iii.) that even inboyhood it was by this feeling he"mounted to community with highesttruth"

To every natural form, rock, fruits, orflower, Even the loose stones that coverthe highway, I gave a moral life: I sawthem feel, Or linked them to somefeeling: the great mass Lay bedded in aquickening soul, and all That I beheldrespired with inward meaning.

Wordsworth, in short, was haunted by

the belief that the secret of theuniverse is written clearly all round us,could we but train and purify our mindand emotions so as to behold it. Hebelieved that we are in something thesame attitude towards Nature as anilliterate untrained person might be inthe presence of a book containing thephilosophy of Hegel. To the educatedtrained thinker, who by long andarduous discipline has developed hismental powers, that book contains therevelation of the thought of a greatmind; whereas to the uneducatedperson it is merely a bundle of paperwith words printed on it. He canhandle it, touch it, see it, he can readthe words, he can even understand

many of them separately, but theessence of the book and its meaningremains closed to him until he caneffect some alteration in himself whichwill enable him to understand it.

Wordsworth's claim is that he haddiscovered by his own experience a wayto effect the necessary alteration inourselves which will enable us to catchglimpses of the truths expressingthemselves all round us. It is a greatclaim, but he would seem to havejustified it.

It is interesting that the steps in theladder of perfection, as described byWordsworth, are precisely analogous to

the threefold path or "way" of thereligious and philosophic mystic, anethical system or rule of life, of which,very probably, Wordsworth had neverheard.

The mystic vision was not attained byhim, any more than by others, withoutdeliberate renunciation. He lays greatstress upon this; and yet it is a point inhis teaching sometimes overlooked. Heinsists repeatedly upon the fact thatbefore any one can taste of these joysof the spirit, he must be purified,disciplined, self-controlled. He leavesus a full account of his purgative stage.Although he started life with a naturallypure and austere temperament, yet he

had deliberately to crush out certainstrong passions to which he was liable,as well as all personal ambition, all loveof power, all desire for fame or money;and to confine himself to thecontemplation of such objects as

excite No morbid passions, nodisquietude, No vengeance and nohatred.

In the Recluse he records how hedeliberately fought, and bent to otheruses, a certain wild passionate delighthe felt in danger, a struggle or victoryover a foe, in short, some of theprimitive instincts of a strong, healthyanimal, feelings which few would

regard as reprehensible. These naturalinstincts, this force and energy, good inthemselves, Wordsworth did not crush,but deliberately turned into a higherchannel.

At the end of the Prelude he makes hisconfession of the sins he did notcommit.

Never did I, in quest of right andwrong, Tamper with conscience from aprivate aim; Nor was in any publichope the dupe Of selfish passions; nordid ever yield Wilfully to mean cares orlow pursuits.

Such a confession, or rather boast, in

the mouth of almost any other manwould sound hypocritical or self-complacent; but with Wordsworth, wefeel it is the bare truth told us for ourhelp and guidance, as being thenecessary and preliminary step. It is ahigh standard which is held up beforeus, even in this first stage, for itincludes, not merely the avoidance ofall obvious sins against man andsociety, but a tuning-up, a transmutingof the whole nature to high and nobleendeavour. Wordsworth found hisreward, in a settled state of calmserenity, "consummate happiness,""wide-spreading, steady, calm,contemplative," and, as he tells us in thefourth book of the Prelude, on one

evening during that summer vacation,

Gently did my soul Put off her veil,and, self-transmuted, stood Naked, asin the presence of her God.

When the mind and soul have beenprepared, the next step is concentration,aspiration. Then it is borne in upon thepoet that in the infinite and in theeternal alone can we find rest, can wefind ourselves; and towards thisinfinitude we must strive withunflagging ardour;

Our destiny, our being's heart andhome, Is with infinitude, and onlythere.

Prelude, Book vi. 604.

The result of this aspiration towardsthe infinite is a quickening ofconsciousness, upon which follows theattainment of the third or unitive stage,the moment when man can "breathe inworlds to which the heaven of heavensis but a veil," and perceive "the formswhose kingdom is where time andplace are not." Such minds

need not extraordinary calls To rousethem; in a world of life they live, Bysensible impressions not enthralled, ...the highest bliss That flesh can know istheirs the consciousness Of Whom they

are.

Prelude, Book xiv. 105, 113,

Wordsworth possessed in a peculiardegree a mystic sense of infinity, of theboundless, of the opening-out of theworld of our normal finite experienceinto the transcendental; and he had arare power of putting this into words.It was a feeling which, as he tells us inthe Prelude (Book xiii.), he had fromearliest childhood, when thedisappearing line of the public highway

Was like an invitation into spaceBoundless, or guide into eternity,

a feeling which, applied to man, givesthat inspiriting certitude of boundlessgrowth, when the soul has

... an obscure sense Of possiblesublimity, whereto With growingfaculties she doth aspire.

It is at this point, and on this subject,that Wordsworth's poetical and ethicalimagination are most nearly fused. Thisfusion is far from constant with him;and the result is that there are tracts ofhis writings where the sentiments areexcellent, the philosophy illuminating,but the poetry is not great: it does notawaken the "transcendental feeling."[22] The moments when this condition

is most fully attained by Wordsworthoccur when, by sheer force of poeticimagination combined with spiritualinsight, in some mysterious andindescribable way, he flashes upon us asensation of boundless infinity. Hereinconsists the peculiar magic of such apoem as Stepping Westward; and there is atouch of the same feeling in the SolitaryReaper.

It is hardly necessary to dwell on othermystical elements in Wordsworth, suchas his belief in the one law governingall things, "from creeping plant tosovereign man," and the hint of beliefin pre-existence in the Ode onImmortality. His attitude towards life as a

whole is to be found in a few lines inthe "after-thought" to the Duddonsonnets.

The Form remains, the Function neverdies; While we, the brave, the mightyand the wise, We Men, who in ourmorn of youth defied The elements,must vanish: be it so! Enough, ifsomething from our hands have powerTo live, and act, and serve the futurehour; And if, as toward the silent tombwe go, Through love, through hope,and faith's transcendent dower, We feelthat we are greater than we know.

Richard Jefferies is closely akin toWordsworth in his overpowering

consciou