To THE SAME

We only stopped one night in Toulouse, as it was such a big dull noisy town and we didn’t like it a bit. There were two interesting churches but nought else. One was a splendid huge Romanesque church, St. Sernin, with a most lovely Gothic crypt full of the most extraordinary collection of relics I ever saw—supposed to be the best there is. They are all in splendid silver gilt and jewelled reliquaries, some like Gothic shrines and some life-sized heads and some ark-shaped coffers with carrying poles. There were bits of 6

Apostles, the True Cross, the Crown of Thorns, most of the saints one has heard of and many one hasn’t. A perfectly darling old priest exhibited them to us, and also St. Dominic’s chasuble and a lovely bit of Xth century Byzantine brocade in which St. Louis wrapped up the Crown of Thorns when he brought it from Constantinople to France. But it was rather a grisly show. “Here, Madame, we have almost half of the body of St. Barnabas. His head is unfortunately at Rome and his left arm at Montpellier.” “Here you see the head of St. Thomas Aquinas. No, Madame, he is not buried in Toulouse. He is buried in Italy: but a pious Dominican cut off his head and brought it here,” etc., etc. The collection includes a Bit of Susannah (of the Apocrypha) and most of the body of St. George (whose actual existence is very doubtful) and a bit of the wedding veil of the Blessed Virgin. But it’s a very marvellous show and most of the mediaeval relics are no doubt genuine. They also have an immense Byzantine crucifix with the figure carved in wood and covered with thin sheets of gilded copper, which was brought to Toulouse in the Crusades.

Gubbio.

April 16, ‘07.

To THE SAME.

Of course I don’t want you to copy out Father Benson’s letter for me. I shall be interested to read it all the same when I get back. I hope he has really answered your questions and not just vapoured: but it’s awfully good of him I think to take so much trouble about us. What he really means—I think—about conscience and judgement is, that the spiritual instinct one has must never be surrendered or tampered with because one’s intellectual judgement or reason does not seem to justify it. Of course I know you are not “keeping anything back”—any more than I am myself.

I’m glad there is such a nice lot of dinner and tea things—but, did you find any little dishes for entrees, etc. I s’pose we shall still want an everyday dinner set shan’t we? I think it’s a splendid idea to put those cupboards in the front room. Don’t go and destroy family papers that may be of interest: surely it’s a pity: they don’t take up such a fearful lot of room, you know. I don’t mean to “start” naked like that—I shouldn’t like it. But of course I agree with getting rid of real rubbish: I must start on mine when I get back. Will it be a very tight pack to fit in, do you think? We must leave room for Jacob, you know. I am very well and happy and do hope you are too. Goodnight dearest. All my love.

Siena.

April 22, 1907.

To M.R.

I was so very glad to hear from you again: I remember your letter well, and have thought of you more than once, and wondered how you “got on.” At the same time, I do feel a horrible sense of responsibility in answering your letter. You see (most naturally since we do not know one another) you have written with considerable reserve: therefore I don’t feel a bit sure that what I shall say will be the right thing for you. So, if my remarks seem to you to go against your own intuidons (and these are the only valid finger-posts in the last resort) I do beg of you to trust your own judgement, take no notice of what I have said, and above all do not try to twist yourself to accept my statements, if they are true, you will come round to them at the right time.

The first point is-: you say “Now I ask myself, shall I remain awake,” etc. It is absolute waste of time to ask oneself such questions as this. You are awake: it is your job to remain so. Do not ask yourself, or worry yourself, or doubt. If you choose to exert your will, you can hold on to your vision—it rests with you to do this. I allow it is hard work—particularly, perhaps, under

modern conditions. But surely it is possible to you to be alone, quiet for a little time each day? Then you can shut out all the trivialities of existence and “reset your compass.” Further, this terror of losing the Light and getting entangled in the material world is a sign, less of insight, than of “spiritual adolescence.”

It is horrid whilst it lasts, but one tends, I think, to outgrow it. When you are really sure that every bush is “aflame with God”

you ill no longer feel contempt for the triviality of the bush. You will see that the material world, although of course an illusion in the form in which it appears to us, is an illusion which has strict relations with reality. It is the dim shadow of the thought of God.

Under these conditions it falls into its right place in the scheme of things. This aspect of the material universe, as the veil through which, under the present dispensation, we must see the Divine, received its final sanction in the Incarnation of Christ.

I do not know of course how far the dogmatic side of Christianity appeals to you. I do think that if you study it, you will find there the solution of many problems and doubts. This statement does not of course apply to much “popular religion”: I make it more in reference to mystical Catholicism. I do believe as you say, that one may call one’s Supreme Reality by many names: but the old names have a way of proving themselves the best in the long run, and the old-fashioned recipes of prayer and meditation still remain, under various disguises, the “only way.” Sooner or later you will “see,” if only for a minute: but no one can anticipate that moment, it comes when one least expects it. It does not last, but the certainty which it conveys does last. All you can do, really, is to have faith and go on quietly without worrying. “Live the life, and so shalt thou learn the doctrine.”

I think I must say this to you—avoid like poison the modern creeds and sects, mostly of American manufacture, which serve up a sort of travesty of Christianity, and distort the words of Christ to the purposes of their own philosophies. I mean the “New Thought” “Higher Thought” and so forth. These lead nowhere. Follow where you feel that you are being led, wherever that may be: but do not have fears about losing what you have found, that only puts you back. “In that thou dost seek Me, thou hast already found Me.”

If you think it worth while to answer this letter, please don’t hesitate to do so. Probably I have not told you anything that is of the slightest use; but if you will say where I am wrong, or a little more definitely what your own position is, perhaps I could be more help. Anyhow I could tell you the names of books that have helped me in the past, if you would like that: some of them might be of use to you—but one never knows.

Grand Hotel la Vittona, Bibbiena.

Friday [1907].

To HUBERT STUART MOORE.

My own darling boy, I was so glad to get your letter at Arezzo this morning: I only hope you are telling me the truth and are really feeling puny and closer to one another in spite of the “depression.”

After all, as I have thought as I now think for many months, if it was to separate us you ought to have felt it coming on long ago and as the chief result has been to force us to talk openly to each other about all the real things which we sedulously kept from each other before, the final effect in spite of difference of opinion ought to be to make us much more real companions than in the past, when we each had a watertight bulk-head carefully fixed to prevent undue explorations. Also I do think it must be a great gain to you, all round, if I can make you see the real beauties of Catholicism, as well as the merely superficial corruptions on which you had been led to concentrate yourself. It is better, after all, to walk along a rather muddy path to Heavenly Syon, than not to get there at all!

Orvieto.

Wednesday evening [25 April, 1907].

To THE SAME.

Yesterday afternoon we had a beautiful drive to some Etruscan tombs outside the city. The drive was much nicer than the tombs I thought (this letter will be very disconnected as I am surrounded by 5

chattering Americans comparing coloured post cards. One has just observed, “My! ain’t this general resurrection with the skeletons popping out of their graves just sweet!”). The tombs are like caves in the side of a hill. The path down to them amongst the flowers was beautiful, there were things like blue marigolds and also some lovely shaded violets which I have never seen before. Inside the tombs there were fragments of frescoes rather like the things on Greek vases but very decayed and hard to make out by candle light.

Also there were huge spiders and oh! my darling boy, centipedes nearly 5 inches long! They ran up the walls and then fell down with a most horrid flop close by you. Also drips fell from the roof and you were not sure whether they were water or insects. Altogether my mind was much too distracted to pay proper attention to the remains of prehistoric art. But the drive back winding down the hill and getting views all the time of Orvieto standing right up on its rock against the sky was simply enchanting. We’ve spent lots of time in the Cathedral. There are some gorgeous frescoes by Signorelli and Fra Angelico, and some faint delicate lovely 14th century ones in the choir. The Signorellis are all about the last judgement, and all the souls—saved or damned or “undecided”—are naked—marvellous studies of the nude, but somehow a nude heaven seems as unspiritual as Carlyle’s naked House of Lords seems unpolitical. They are extraordinarily interesting and original though—the intense surprise and half awakened state of the newly risen, and the bewildered inability to enjoy themselves of those who find themselves in Paradise.

Goodnight. The chatter is so colossal I cannot write. All my love, darling.

Siena.

Sunday night. [1 May, 1907].

To THE SAME.

We’ve not done much to-day owing to the weather: first Mass at the Cathedral, and then went into the Cathedral-Museum till lunch time.

There I had rather a find. I think I told you about the choir stalls illustrating the Nicene Creed which I have been studying here and which no one has described so far. I’ve taken elaborate notes of them and intend to write an article on them. To-day in the Museum I found 9 small Creed pictures, the remains of a set from the Cathedral sacristy, which show interesting differences from the inlaid ones, which are much more curious. These are the only two sets of Creed pictures I’ve ever seen, and will be most useful to compare with each other. I think the pictures are a bit the older: they look like late 14th century, but are supposed to be by a man who died in 1422. The big Duccio Madonna looks lovelier than ever. I could sit with her all day! She was rather discounted this morning by a terrible parson with his rabbity daughters who arrived and began to read aloud, in a sort of preaching voice, “This celebrated picture, one of the finest works of the Sienese school,” etc. I don’t know how the pictures bear it: I’m always expecting them to come out of their frames and kick.

I have written to Charlotte and told her that we should probably want a pair of purple curtains for the dining-room. Purple is such a dreadful colour for fading that I’m sure it won’t be worth while to have anything but her fast dyed pure stuff. Materials fade most horribly, and last time I was at Alice’s I noticed the things she bought when she moved into that house, and they have already gone quite faint and dingy. I think very few draperies but very good ones is the right line to go on, don’t you? And first class linen in preference to cheap silk. I wondered whether you would see about having the mattresses re-made by Shoolbred’s whilst the furniture was away, or whether it would be better to wait till we had bought the single beds for front room? How are you going to do the different things you meant to do yourself to furniture, and the circlets for the wedding, with the house in an uproar?

A lady in Liverpool, who wrote to me three years ago, after reading Grey World, to say I had “made her see what Reality really is” (!) has just written me another, rather pathetic, letter, asking me to help her out of her spiritual tangles. I think this sort of thing is a most horrible responsibility, and rather ridiculous when the person applied to is still in just as much of a tangle as anyone else. A. also has been shying her “honest” but rather shallow doubts at my head. I wish I could make them see that I am not an authority. Suppose I tell them all wrong, how awful to feel afterwards that they were trusted to you and you didn’t do as well for them as you might have done. Don’t you ever go and “rely” on what I say, will you? I mean in that particular connection, of course. Goodnight, darling.

Tuesday morning—between Siena and Pisa.

[3 May, 1907].

To THE SAME.

I’m very sorry to leave my darling Siena: in spite of the pouring rain on Sunday, she has been very seductive this year. Yesterday we practically gave up the whole day to St. Catherine! First we went down to her house which on this day of the year is completely thrown open to the public, all the little chapels and oratories into which the rooms have been turned, trimmed up, and with candles burning.

Swarms of people going from room to room and venerating the relics, which were all exposed. Everyone in the highest spirits. A very nice little priest blessed my medals before her crucifix. Then we went up to St. Domenico for High Mass, then I rushed off to the Hospital where there are some subterranean chapels in her honour, and the tiny little cell where she used to go and rest when she was nursing the sick. This also is only open this one day. The little cell was full of flowers, laid on the recess in which she used to sleep, and they give you some to take away with you. Half the boys and youths of Siena were in the various shrines, in their confraternity dresses, tremendously content and happy, fussing about and giving away blessed bread, etc., etc. In the afternoon (or at least from 5:30 to 8!) was the big function at St. Domenico. Every imaginable candle in the church was lit—the shrine itself just a blaze of lights, it really looked lovely. They had vespers and a rather terrible sermon, during which everyone kept passing through the chapel in which St. Catherine’s head was exposed. Thanks to J.W., who has really been very attentive, we went into the sacristy, and to the back of the shrine, where you can climb up and actually stand and look into the reliquary. We also saw St. Catherine’s altar-stone and a lot of other “special” relics. Then, just as it was getting dusk, the procession—two pages in mediaeval dress, with the banners of St. Catherine’s own ward (the Goose) and St. Domenico’s ward (the Dragon), then the confraternities, carrying a huge silver bust of the saint, and a bishop and various priests in magnificent copes, and all the little girls who had made their first communions that morning, dressed like small brides and carrying immense candles, and then everyone else who could get hold of a lighted candle following on behind. It went three times round the church, everyone singing the local Italian hymn of St. Catherine, which is as “catching” as a music hall ditty! There must have been well over a thousand people in the church. After that, the Te Deum and Benediction—and then we went home, very late, to dinner.

I had rather a find in the afternoon. We plunged into an old curiosity shop near the Cathedral, and found it was of the rabbit warren nature—innumerable dirty little rooms leading out of each other. One was full of old books, largely sermons, law books, etc., but I found amongst them a very agreeable 410 in old vellum—the Italian edition of the Flos Sanctorum, 1690, with lots of woodcut vignettes and in a very good state. I looked longingly at it, but was sure it would be too dear: asked the old man how much it was. He said, “This is a very old book, with many pictures, it is worth much.” I remained silent. He said, “By good fortune I got it for 2%

francs.” I said, “What do you want for it then?” He said, “As I got it for that, you may have it for three francs!” It’s rather big to get into our box, but I had to get it.

3 Campden Hill Place, W.

May 12, 1907.

To M.R.

I am so glad you have written to me again: I hope you will continue the correspondence how and when you feel inclined (not at 3-year intervals!) if it seems good to you.

I have read your last letter very carefully. You say, I am to consider that you are an Anglican. But—there are Anglicans and Anglicans! The question, for instance, whether you really believe in the Sacraments, as actual vehicles of Spirit and not merely beautiful and helpful ideas, is a vital one. The keys of the Catholic position (and Anglicanism is of course a slightly diluted Catholicism) are,

A. The Incarnation and

B.

C. B. A mystical continuation of the Incarnation in the Sacraments.

D.

E. You see, if you accept these things as realities for you, you have at once something to “go upon.” I wonder also which are the dogmas which struck you as repellent? Many are of course most difficult on their concrete and historical side, and some hardly affect the inner life of most people. But a formal creed is not a faith: it is, as the Roman Catholics rightly call it, the “symbol” of the faith.

I am afraid, if you did deliberately turn your back on the light, you must have rather a horrid time getting back. The restlessness and sense of being “unable to grasp” is dreadful I know: the only comfort is, that it is better than apathy—and it is the experience of all the mystics that the “way of purgation” has to come before the “way of illumination.” You may also take it for granted, of course, that so long as you want the peace and illumination for your own sake, you will not get them. Self-surrender, an entire willingness to live in the dark, in pain, anything—this is the real secret. I think no one really finds the Great Companion till their love is of that kind that they long only to give and not to get.

I am sending you a short and very mixed list of books. If you care to tell me which (if any!) you like, I could then perhaps tell you some more—or if I can be of any other sort of use, I shall be so glad.

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