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Paart Two
1923-1932
O Master Christ!
Thou hast loved us with an everlasting love: Thou hast forgiven us, trained us, disciplined us: Thou hast broken us loose and laid Thy commands upon us: Thou hast set us in the thick of things and deigned to use us: Thou hast shown Thyself to us, fed us, guided us: Be graciously pleased to accept and forgive our poor efforts, $
And keep us Thy free bondslaves for ever.
6 Dec., 1923.
To L.M. (To her friend’s dog.) As for your Engagement block it is perfect and will give A special flavour to the whole year. You can think of it more or less buried in the fragment of primeval chaos which is called my writing-table and emerging every now and then with a pleasant little bark. It all makes me feel more than ever that the Psalmist must have been a bit wrong in his psyche when he wanted his darling delivered from the power of the Dog (unless of course his darling was a cat).
50 Campden Hill Square, W.
Saturday [? 1924].
To LAURA ROSE.
… I have just been asked to conduct a three day retreat at my dear Pleshey in Lent. I forget if I told you I might do it—now it is decided. It seems a great responsibility, but I think I have to do it. Of course the Chaplain will say Mass each day but I shall take all the addresses, meditations and interviews. So you must pray for this too.
Last Thursday evening was such a joy—we had a great meeting at the Albert Hall for my “Christian Citizenship Conference”; and it was splendid. Packed right up to the roof with people and everyone so keen and such a lovely spirit everywhere. The Archbishop of York [
Dr. Temple] was in the Chair, and the Bishop of Manchester gave a very beautiful address—in fact all did. I think I best liked Miss Lena Ashwell, the actress who did such wonderful work for soldiers in the war. She spoke of bringing more beauty and happiness into everyone’s lives: and suddenly she said, “There is one thing I wish to say, because I am the last sort of person you will expect to say it—we shall accomplish nothing, unless we love God. I mean real love, not saying sloppy and pious things—and that is a very hard thing to do really!” Wasn’t that fine? And we had Romans and Nonconformists speaking too, and all sitting happily together on the platform and “treating each other’s beliefs with reverence”—as our Confraternity says. I did really feel the whole thing was a triumph for the Spirit of Christ.
Feb. 6, 1924.
To L.M.
I’ve been having a lurid week-end going through proofs of 80 sheets of galley—mostly by my co-editor who has a talent for pouring forth floods of heliotrope prose and a special love for triads of abstract nouns: not only our dear old friends, Goodness, Truth and Beauty, but Anger and Scorn and Despair—Joy, Love and Peace—Shame and Penitence and Grief—etc. etc. My own contributions stick out of this with the stark austerity of quotations from the Stores List.
The St. Andrew’s Lectures are done: they are Flippant and Pious and Obscure: you see what a good thing it is that the Principal is going to be away. I’m getting so excited about coming!
March 2, 1924.
To THE SAME.
… Been working all the week at my Pleshey stuff; got four of the eight addresses ready. They are coming out a bit on the cheerful side but p’raps that is better than the opposite.
Have just been asked to be one of the three speakers on the opening day of Copec—a truly horrifying responsibility. Dr. Raven for Anglicans, Mr. Maltby for Free Churches and I (I suppose) for “Any other Colour”, as they say at the Cat Shows. Meanwhile I’m going each night to Back to Methuselah and finding it most stimulating.
Somehow the spiritual plot of it comes out far more vividly when acted than when reading the book. He’s a marvellous creature with a real visionary touch, though so often exasperating!
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
March 19, 1924.
To W. Y., A STUDENT.
Thank you so much for your very kind and interesting letter. … I am indeed glad you have come to see so clearly how necessary it is that we should try humbly to accept and use religious institutions and not cut ourselves off from history and the common life, if we are to develop a really wholesome and Christian type of spirituality. The withdrawal of the “cultured” from Church life has two very bad results,
(a) it either shrivels or puffs up their souls;
(b) it deprives the institutional life of the contribution they ought to be making to it. And as a matter of fact, though the first return to these things is hard and dry, especially to the naturally meditative temperament, the more we consent to use them, the more they gradually give us.
I don’t mean by this that I admire “Churchiness,” but that a moderate, regular sharing, in the degree suited to each, in institutional practice will always in the end enrich, calm, de-individualize our inner life.
I am glad you like Practical Mysticism—but please consider what is said there to be incomplete and requiring to be taken in conjunction with the sections on Institutional and Social spirituality in The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day—or better still with Baron von Hugel’s teaching in Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion. It is only when we grasp the redemptive and creative side of spiritual life and our obligation in respect of it, that we escape the evil of setting up an opposition between the peacefulness of communion with God and the apparently “unspiritual” aspects of practical life. I mean, enjoying Him and working with Him have got to be balanced parts of one full, rich and surrendered life.
If there are any points on which I can be of use to you, or you feel you would like to write to me again, I hope you will not hesitate to do so.
March, 1924.
To L.M.
Here’s the little Dante. I’m awfully sorry I forgot to post it yesterday, my mind being rather upset! I got back home on Wednesday to find a letter saying the Baron was seriously ill, unconscious —and had received the last sacraments and we must not even wish him to live. However, by some miracle he has rallied and is now conscious and even talking a bit though very weak, and it seems he may recover. A nasty 24 hours! … I trust you have the big flask and an extra stock of prudence to take with you to Italy and are going to come back calm and well in all dimensions… .
March 28.
To THE SAME.
So glad you find the little Dante a comfortable pocket companion.
He is an experienced traveller and has ascended Scottish and Welsh mountains and done a little yachting from time to time.
… I’m glad you like O Master Christ!; it’s my best of all one, and I like to think of your using it too. It really is almost complete… .
The address on Prayer that wasn’t so-called, went off all right; though it’s very different shouting out things like that in a big room full of 200 people and saying them intimately in a Retreat.
However, the result was a resolution to arrange for a two-day Retreat later so that’s a good thing isn’t it? Afterwards a delightful young creature came and asked whether his ears had deceived him or had he heard me use the phrase “our finite spirits”?
I replied that he certainly had heard me use it—and he then said that he regarded his own spirit as both infinite and Divine! Father Baker’s “I congratulate thee,” etc., seems to come in as the only possible response, doesn’t it?
Palm Sunday, 1924.
To THE SAME.
Thank you so much for your letters. I have so enjoyed them, especially your account of Maria. I felt sure she was wonderful but you have made me see her quite vividly and now I feel I know her much better than before.
I am going to read all those parts of your letter to Mrs. Rose tomorrow. She is already tremendously in touch with Maria and had got the idea of her quite right… . But what an appalling amount of nonsense you seem to have talked about me!! However it will be abruptly corrected when I turn up there in September… .
No! I don’t know any of them except via prayers and paper; and haven’t really done anything particular for the Entente—but it’s becoming a curiously strong little organization and the members of its inner circle do seem to be in actual spiritual touch. Your whole account makes me simply long to get out to them and bathe in that atmosphere, being at present a bit tired and chivvied and having very much to do what St. Teresa calls “drawing it all up in one’s own bucket!”
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
June 20, 1924.
To W.Y.
I was so pleased to hear from you again; for you have remained in my mind since your previous letter.
I think your “practical” difficulty is really a mental and spiritual difficulty. That is to say it arises out of the inadequacy of your present religious and philosophic outlook. You have arrived at a sort of pantheistic belief and experience and have discovered—as I think nearly every sincere person must discover sooner or later —that it provides no real incentive or sanction whatever for moral effort, and yet you can’t get away from the feeling (I think) that moral effort is part of your job! What you are really short of is the conviction of personal responsibility to a personal God—and pantheism of course can never give you that. It means genuine theism and preferably Christian theism—the true co-ordinating factor of our aesthetic and ethical life. Of course such a realization of the Divine in and through nature, as you describe, is religious as far as it goes: but it isn’t a sufficient religion for the human soul, which absolutely requires a relationship with a personal Object in which its own partial and imperfect personality is summed up and made complete. This does not mean scrapping your present outlook, but +including it in Something deeper and greater.
And (as regards specifically Christian beliefs) it means getting beyond the idea of Christ as a “perfect example,” “spiritual genius”
and so forth, to a realization of the principle of incarnation (and as a derivative therefrom, of sacramentalism also) as involving the special self-expression and self-imparting of the Infinite God, in humanity and for humanity.
If you will as it were let such ideas as these dwell in your mind, regard them favourably, be willing for them to be true, I think it probable that your religious attitude will gradually develop in the theistic direction and you will then find the clue and incentive you feel you need. But it does seem to me that you ought to try to pray.
Your spiritual sense won’t develop unless you give it education. I think you ought to take a short, regular time for this every day —perhaps only 10 minutes in the morning at first. Even if it begins merely as you say with reading a Psalm and “feeling transported.”
That is not mere selfindulgence, but quite a good preparation for subsequent objectivity and hard work. Hold on to this sense of peace and beauty, and in and with that, consider the duties, etc., of the day: surround them with that atmosphere as much as you can—and don’t expect any very startling results at first!
I wish you would read (if you have not already) Otto’s The Idea of the Holy and Baron von Hugel’s Essays and Addresses—especially the one on the “Natural and Supernatural” for I think you would find them illuminating.
July 7, 1924.
To L.M.
I’ve got the new book on Blake to read; it is mighty ingenious, but the attempt to wedge Blake into the most rigidly conceived categories of mystical science, requires a spiritual shoe-horn.
Still there are lots of interesting and suggestive things in it….
The Baron is keeping pretty well and able now to do without a nurse, though he won’t be able to go away this year… . He does not regain any physical strength. I do so trust he is happy in his soul through it all; but that of course, he would never let anyone know.
…
Do hope you are beginning to sleep a bit. Meditate upon the Sacred Cow and strive with Ruysbroeck to “become that which you behold”: it’s the right ideal for convalescents which I do trust you will soon begin to be. …
July 26, 1924.
To THE SAME.
I’ve had a heavily worldly week with all the parties to the American lawyers, ending last night with a really splendid show, the Lord Chancellor’s reception in Westminster Hall. It was a sight, that glorious architecture and roof brilliantly lit up, as one never sees it, and every one in their best, swords, orders and all. I went with my dear old papa, who looked very sweet in his, black velvet and buckled shoes. The Americans overwhelmed with awe and joy. I heard one say, “My! I’m all Eyes and Ears to-night!”
Wednesday we had them at Lincoln’s Inn and led them round and showed them the antiquities including the crooked little streets round Staples Inn, which struck them as “cunning.” Altogether it was rather fun.
Macugnaga.
Sunday, 7 September, 1924.
To CLARA SMITH.
.. . We got here Thursday afternoon, a wonderful drive mostly on the edge of precipices and through tunnels in the rock, on emerging from which you were apt to find an unexpected mule blocking the way.
This is a lovely valley, with Monte Rosa Blocking its northern end and looking simply enormous, Everesty and unclimbable. A tablet on the church says that the present Pope started from here to make two pioneer climbs before he was “called to still higher altitudes.” The Vatican must feel pretty awful after Monte Rosa, poor thing!
The flowers here are not much now—dianthus, several sorts of campanula, pansies and so forth—not real Alpines, we are hardly high enough. Still they make up quite an agreeable little bunch. We have had two lovely long days in the wilds: the first one going up to the glacier, a steep and warm affair, and the second rather milder, climbing only about 1,000 feet, much companioned and beset by goats, who had the salt out of our lunch, and ate the paper; swallowed half a yard of my scarf, which had to be pulled back to the external world not looking as nice as it did before, and chewed up the strap of Hubert’s glasses. But they were charming goats, soft and glossy, with most sweet faces; and quite content when everything else was finished to lick one’s hands.
This morning just after everyone had come out from Mass we saw a most strangely shaped object coming up the road, which turned out to be a young woman with a full-sized cradle on her back on the top of one of the local baskets. A white lace veil covered the whole cradle and over it the best family shawl, a marvellous magenta silk affair with long fringe. Inside though one could hardly believe it was a live three days’ old baby coming to be christened. The greatest pains had been taken with the packing, to exclude all air! At the church door it emerged, tightly swaddled and lying on a lace cushion, and was carried in by its papa, looking as if it came straight from a 15th century picture. Interested ladies from the hotel tried to assist in repacking it as before; but were gently repelled by the godmother, a most sweet thing with a pensive little face, who now arranged it quite differently, and threw the white lace veil over the shawl and everything observing, “Bianca sopra, adesso che e cristiana!” The cradle was strapped on her back and off she went down the valley again.
… After living in a hotel full of Italians I fully understand why St. Catherine shut herself in one room for three years—but it wouldn’t have been much good unless she had a soundproof door.
Perugia.
Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, 1924.
To L.M.
This seems a nice moment to answer your letter… . It is 2:30
and most deliriously hot and I am sitting in my room waiting for the Umbrian Horse Show to begin its jumping competitions, as we look right down on the ground—a very superior form of grandstand!
At 5 there is to be a Festa at St. Angelo beginning with a confirmation, discourse by the Archbishop and Benediction, ending with the illumination of the Church front and musica scelta by two bands!
… We are having a simply lovely time and the weather is perfect.
The whole landscape seems soaked in light; and all I can think of is Jacopone’s Splendor che dona a tutto’l mondo luces, etc. He must have thought of that on a day like one of these!
We drove to Todi yesterday. What a place! The only snag was I couldn’t get to see his tomb as the crypt was locked and not a soul about. The picture of him, very chubby and curly and holding his heart is simply detestable, I think. But it was something to be in the Church he must have used and see the actual Piazza where Monna Vanna fell.
In the morning we had been out to St. Francesco al Monte in search of B. Egidio. Found his tomb all right; admitted after a long wait by a very damp and rosy friar who had plainly executed a very vigorous clean-up after our bell rang! I loved St. Bernardino’s little cell. Rather a desperate new picture of Egidio, painted by a “signorina gentillissima” of Perugia and looking it, every inch.
Assisi.
17 September, 1924.
To CLARA SMITH.
We are having a simply divine time here and I feel as if it is the only complete holiday I have had for years—very hot, but not too much so and the evenings and mornings are perfect. I got up at 5:30
this morning and arrived at St. Damiano just at sunrise for the sung Mass, to-day being the Feast of the Stigmata. The lay congregation consisted of half a dozen peasants, a few mosquitoes, and myself.
The friars sang very nicely and the celebrant had lovely white vestments embroidered all over with stiff little roses, which I thought just right. I could just see into the tiny little choir of your patron saint, which with her little garden is one of the things I love best. After breakfast we went up to the Carceri. Did you talk to Fia Raffaele when you were there, and did he insist on playing his harmonium to you because St. Francis loved music? I found him most sympathetic and hard to get away from and he even gave me a few leaves of the tree on which the birds sat when St. Francis talked to them. I enclose one for you. He advises boiling them and drinking the water in case of sickness but I hope to preserve mine intact!
… I enclose a few bits of wild thyme from the Carceri—the same that were found still scattered all over St. Clare when her coffin was opened. How nice it is for you to have an Assisan name. I am carrying round a rosary for Rosa to all the shrines and collecting powerful incantations—it will be very fully charged before we have finished.
Spoleto.
Tuesday [1924].
To LAURA ROSE.
… Maria is all we felt. I got to the little station at 5
yesterday evening: it was just getting lovely after the heat; and then drove in the little village cab through the most beautiful country, olive woods and vineyards to the hills beyond: and just as we neared the Rifugio Miss Turton and Maria met me and I walked up with them. Maria and the Sisters have white cotton frocks, grey linen aprons, the cord of St. Francis and sandals on their bare feet. In chapel they have white aprons and white veils. Maria has the most beautiful expression, strong and humble, and a low gentle voice. I got quite a good deal of talk with her; it was wonderful to find how exactly she and my Old Man agree, in spite of great differences in mind and language, in all the deep things of the spiritual life. We talked a lot about X. … Maria said her soul was “always very present to her.” I told her X. had been asking me to increase the time she might give to prayer and asked her whether she would give her more. She said at once with surprising decision and authority, that instead of giving her more time, she would rather make her reduce the time—that X. was “an immoderate soul” though very good and humble, and had to “learn the way of simplicity” and make her whole life a prayer instead of wanting long special times for it. I said I felt less and less competent to direct her, and was afraid of holding her back—but Maria said my holding her back was “not only useful but necessary to X.” It was just the same bracing treatment that I have long been used to! though coming with such gentleness. After we’d said a good deal more I asked her for something for myself and she said, “In torment and effort, to serve the brethren.”
Baron von Hugel.
They have a little shrine of Our Lady on the staircase and yesterday evening we all said the Rosary there. Maria used your rosary as I felt sure you would like that and Miss Turton mine and I hers. There was an Italian priest there too, who came to meet me because he knew my Old Man and years ago had been helped by him and owed him everything, and so wanted to hear his latest news, and this morning he said Mass in their tiny chapel, and Maria served, and she and the little Sisters made their Communions. It was lovely and they sang sweet little Italian hymns. They put in “Our Father St. Francis”
in the Confession, etc. and have special Franciscan collects, and the Mass was for the unity of the whole Church.
My husband fetched me at lunch time and we motored here: a wonderful old city built up the side of the mountain and full of old buildings and Roman remains, but quite without the atmosphere of Assisi, which it was very hard to leave!
Your rosary has been to every possible place I think, and ended by being laid on the shrine of St. Clare, where she lies behind a class, in her Abbess’s dress, looking hardly changed from what she was in life.
Tomorrow we shall be in Rome, and in less than a fortnight home again.
… Maria loves Ruysbroeck too and was so delighted to hear how much you cared for him, and for Dante—both of them her dearest friends.
Dec. 26, 1924.
To L.M.
The Baron has been awfully bad again and again rallied but not to the point where he was before and can do very little now. However I hear he is full of joy and peace—and that is what really matters one feels.
How would you like to receive “from the … University, U.S.A.” a thickly typed questionnaire which you are requested to answer, on religious experience for the benefit of “one of our choice students who projects a work on mysticism?”
Some would make even a clergyman blush (“Do you feel God’s presence in prayer? If so, please give description and instance”) and others make a philosopher feel poorly (“Do you conceive the Cosmic Spirit as an individual? If so, how? Give detailed illustrations”). I’m keeping it for your entertainment when you come to London.
Holy Innocents’ Day, 1924.
(From bed.)
To THE SAME.
Yesterday was much enlightened by a letter and Christmas parcel from my darling little Fra Raffaele at the Carceri. I’d sent him a tiny offering from notes left over from our Italian trip… .
“Most illustrious and beloved benefactress” seems a bit strong for what works out at about 15/2 at the present exchange! I get also his prayer that I may receive “all the true riches of Paradise” and his “affectionate and paternal blessing” as a wind up! Accompanying this was a night-light box containing a very nice silver medallion in a case of the Crucifix and St. Francis embracing Our Lord; a silver Cross with the benediction of St. Francis which Julie (Rose) will wear at her 1st Communion; various other medals and crosses, a wee rosary, a rich collection of cards and the dear man’s own photograph! You can imagine the excitement of unpacking them; they seemed to bring a breath of Umbria right into the room… .
Jan 29, 1925.
To THE SAME.
Just a hurried line to thank you for your note. Yes! we are so glad the Baron has gone to God as he craved to do. It was “very peaceful”
and his last talk to G. at the end of the week, which she wrote down and sent me, was so lovely and utterly himself—how delighted he was to give himself to God and so grateful for being clear in mind and without pain. How God was so generous to us and we ought not to be niggardly in selfoffering… .
The Requiem is tomorrow, Friday, 11 o’clock. I feel he is awfully strong and happy and very much with us.
Feb. 1, 1925.
To THE SAME.
I loved what you said about the Baron—it has been a bit hard now it has come, in spite of one’s rejoicing for him. Lady Mary wrote me such a kind and beautiful letter and said “nothing could have been more tranquil and perfect than his death.” There were lots at his Requiem … the singing of the In Paradisian when they carried him away, was almost too much. …
I’m trying, with my heart in my mouth, to write a bit about the side of him I knew for next week’s Guardian, but quite anonymously: so please know nothing if you should happen to be asked about it. I hear Professor Kemp Smith, his great friend, did the Scotsman… .
I did see about Sir James Mackenzie and feared much it was your friend. I’m so sorry; it is hard when these supporting kind of people are withdrawn. But they are so safe—and their influence goes on radiating.
This was reprinted in Mixed Pastures, p. 229.
Feb. 15, 1925.
To THE SAME.
We went to Kew this morning and the Alpine house was a dream of loveliness; wee cyclamen, primulas, blue anemones. And a sort of American Mrs…. came to tea and examined me about Trance and the Laws of the Universe and what not: and I said I knew nothing about them: and she said, “But you have Concentrated along these Lines!”
The first I’ve heard of it anyhow….
May 13, 1925.
To THE SAME.
Pleshey was heavenly; though there was some rain, it was possible to be a lot in the garden, which was full all day of the song of birds: and at Compline a nightingale sang just outside the Chapel window. … I stayed an extra day—a great luxury—and came away feeling much better in body for it all… .
I’m glad you like Grou; the Baron thought great things of him, and belongs quite to his school. I love the ones on Spiritual Childhood, Abandonment, the Use of our Imperfections and Communion: but they are all the real stuff, aren’t they? One can’t go far wrong with him. The Baron’s very first published writing (when he was 39) was an article on Grou’s Spiritual Teaching. I was given a copy of it the other day….
May 15, 1925.
To THE SAME.
I’m just off to address … the Central House of the Mothers’ Union on the “value of Retreats”—the value being that once you are inside a Retreat no one can speak to you! (At Pleshey, the last morning some one said to me, “I’ve been so interested watching you”!)
I’m going to Appledore next week and I think to Devonshire for Whitsuntide, a restless but agreeable life. Goodbye. Keep very quiet and good. The only aspiration I can think of at the moment is one you probably already have,
“Thou art in me and I in Thee: and thus assembled make us ever to dwell together I pray Thee.”
Yacht Wulfmna, Salcombe, S. Devon.
Aug. 10, 1925.
To THE SAME.
We are ambling down the coast, delayed by head winds and fogs—are just returned from an adventurous effort to leave this place which is neatly entrenched behind a bar and two reefs. When we got out the fog descended on us like a blanket and as we felt our way back again, abruptly lifted to show us a ledge of particularly nasty rocks just in front of the bowsprit. The helm went hard down and we just paid off in time and cleared them. Otherwise it would have been the end of this poor old craft, as the tide was falling and there was a nasty roll coming in. Our ancient skipper, who was responsible for this error in pilotage, is now wearing what is called his “stuffed monkey” expression!
Don’t be in a hurry with your convert! it isn’t everyone who is equal to “giving themselves freely” at the beginning. Let her go along gently, following her own attrait. She will probably do best on a sugar diet for a little while and in due course find out for herself that it isn’t adequate.
… I’ve not put much in my Andrewes lately but am thinking of the prayer on p. 187 of Grou’s Meditations sur I’Amour de Dieu. Miss Small gave me the suppressed verse of Bishop Ken’s Evening Hymn —rather sweet for ending night prayers:
The faster sleep the sense doth bind The more unfettered is the mind; O may my soul from matter free, Thy Loveliness unclouded see!
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
Aug. 14, 1925.
To W.Y.
I was so very glad to hear from you and to know all that you tell me in your letter.
Of course no “apology” was needed: but, when I saw you in London I realized that there was, at the moment, nothing I could do for you further until you had quieted down. Yes!—I am quite satisfied that you have a genuine experience of God and surrendered to Him and that whatever He may demand of you in the future, you must never go back on that.
I would like to advise you at the moment, not to dwell too much on theological difficulties, Christology, and so forth. Your intellectual side is already sufficiently alert and does not need stimulating! Feed your soul quietly on those things that are already clear to you, but don’t make theories etc. excluding the doctrines which at present seem to you difficult or absurd. It is perfectly right that your conception of God should be wider than your conception of Christ. Surely He reveals to us not only God incarnate in the time series, but God Eternal and unincarnate too? And so long as you preserve your sense of the distinctness of God and don’t wash it all down into mere pantheism, it is all to the good that you should be sensitive to His self-revelation in Nature. I think that what you need here to get hold of more firmly, is the idea that this revelation is not of the “all-or-none” sort, but graded; and that it is one and the same living personal and loving Spirit whom we feel dimly in nature, more vividly as the inspirer of human goodness and heroism of all sorts, and perfectly (so far as our little souls can bear it) in Christ.
All this will grow in you as you humanize and spiritualize your experience; practising together prayer and the service of others, especially children and the poor. I could wish your “institutional connections” were with a sacramental type of religion, as this would help you a great deal. Don’t take it for granted that “lonely prayers under the sky” will always mean much more to you. They will doubtless always mean a great deal, but when corporate religion gives you what it has to give you and you badly need—and this must take time—you will find your private devotional life enriched and steadied in a way you don’t dream of now!!
Grand Hotel Lido, Lido, Venice.
4 September, 1925.
To CLARA SMITH.
… Cortina was exquisitely beautiful but terribly cold with a piercing wind off the snow, so I’m rather glad to get down to sea level again. There was a most horrible English church, so I had to go to it: all the rigours of Continental Anglicanism—the parson virile … with a bushy moustache—points which a rather nice R.C.
woman who had made friends with me, took pleasure in emphasizing!
She went to Mass at the parish church with lots of nice creatures in Tyrolese dress, with broad ribbon streamers to their hats and bright little fringed shawls.
The drive up from Bolzano was of course intensely exciting, nearly all in curves and whirls along the edge of precipices. First climbing up along narrow gorges lined with forest and then with great Dolomites all round one, and dien more and more barren till at 9,000 ft. we came to the snow. So sweet to find nearly the whole distance marked with wayside shrines—mostly crucifixes with the little roofs on them, but sometimes the Madonna in a little house with a door. I saw one woman on a very lonely hill, with a big basket on her back, who had opened the door and was leaning inside, just talking, and quite absorbed. I suppose the rational description of this would be Gross Superstition of an Unenlightened Peasantry.
Venice.
Saturday [19 September, 1925].
To THE SAME.
… Our French pilgrimage has left, and a German one, 90 strong, arrived to-day. I’ve discovered that the modern pilgrimage combines the advantages of a Cook’s Tour with those of an Ambulatory Retreat.
The French ones were rather sweet—when I went into my little church on Thursday, it was full of them, priests saying Mass at all its five little altars at once. I got a corner at one and found with some pleasure that it was the same as that to which we gave our candles at Mawnan Smith. Afterwards they all sang cantiques unaccompanied and with much vigour, the favourite being a long affair with the refrain “Nous voulons Dieu, c’est notre Roi.” This morning at 6 they all went away in 2 steamers side by side, singing.
There is an English church in Venice and by catching the 7:20 steamer tomorrow morning I can manage it, so must. Its Programme suggests that it is more of our way of thinking than the usual continental Chaplaincy effort: and anyhow there’s High Mass at St. Marco at 11:30 to finish up. St. Marco is a real, live church, and a joy to be in—or would be if one could just stay put a bit and leave off examining the works of art. In fact all the churches are nice. We went to the Dominican one this afternoon and a dear little friar, who somehow seemed to detect a sympathetic heart, lamented to me about the decay of all taste for the mortified life—“Our old friars are dying, and young ones do not come—they seem to prefer the world… .”
Did you know St. Athanasius was buried here? I never did till now-no guidebook lets it out. And to celebrate the Nicene Creed Festival here, they took him out, and carried him with great ceremony to St. Marco, and showed him to St. Mark! And the Armenians, who are the most primitive type of Christians here and have a little island and monastery of their own, carried him, and said the Mass.
Sunday. I’ve just come back from Venice and had breakfast—rather a lovely expedition really—we started in thick mist—Venice very faintly looming up in rosy and golden haze as we crossed the lagoon.
The Grand Canal was like a Turner painting exactly and the Chiesa Anglicana, hidden in a wee campo approached by a bridge over a tiny canal, took some finding. Coming back the sun was out and all the bells ringing and the great banners outside St. Marco had been hung out, and carpets over the balconies of the Palaces. Now I’m going back again to High Mass. It’s very hot again to-day; I think we must spend the afternoon on the water.
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
Oct. 11, 1925.
To W.Y.
Well! I think that you are, so to speak, getting on all right: and the chief thing I desire for you is, that you should think about it as little as possible! Your tendency is to be self-occupied and self-analytical: but attending to God means above all self-oblivion, doesn’t it? Lose yourself in work for and interest in other people and above all in thoughts of Him, of the humblest kind. I am so glad you have taken up some work among children and are living a family life—both excellent.
Yes—ambition and forecasting the future are certainly both bad for you: just try day by day to respond to God, pray quite simply and peacefully for light and support from Him, and don’t be in a hurry.
Now as to institutionalism. When I said I desired for you a more sacramental type of religion, the last thing I meant was “music, beauty and liturgy.” By all means have a taste of these from time to time if they appeal to you—but please recognize them clearly for what they are, the chocolate-creams of religion. By sacramentalism I mean the humble acceptance of grace through the medium of things —God coming into our souls by means of humblest accidents—the intermingling of spirit and sense. This is the corrective—one of the correctives—needed by your tendency to “loftiness”!
I sympathize with your determination to remain in your own Church at present: but would you please make a rule, from now onwards, of going to Communion at frequent and regular intervals? … at least once a month, if once a fortnight, all the better. By this balanced regime of sacramental acts, mental prayer, and love and service of others, you will nourish and deepen your spiritual life better than in any other way. If you want a book to use in connection with your Communions I think there is nothing better than Book IV of the Imitation of Christ—especially lovely in the old English translation published in the Everyman series. Much of the Cloud is beyond most of us! it is one of the books that keep on and on revealing new depths, Reading and meditating on the N.T. as you have been doing is of course excellent—and it is well as far as possible to do this at the same time each day. For purely devotional reading you might like St. Teresa’s Way of Perfection. The best edition of the Purgatorio for ordinary reading is, I think, the one in Dent’s Temple Classics, with Italian and English texts: or Anderson’s verse translation of the whole Divine Comedy is wonderfully good—I could lend you this if you like, or other books? …
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
All Souls’ Day, 1925
To THE SAME.
I have liked your last two letters so much: the first I left unanswered according to your orders,’ but should like to say something about the one that came to-day.
(1) Please at once check the habit of getting the bulb out of the dark to see how it is getting on! It is impossible, and also undesirable for you to judge your own progress. Just go along simply, humbly, naturally, and when tempted to self-occupation of this or any other sort, make a quiet act of trust in God. So long as you care to go along under my advice, it is my job and not yours to watch your soul and you may be quite sure I shall speak promptly when I am dissatisfied! Your faults and old fixations are going to give you lots of trouble for quite a long time and it’s part of your job not to get discouraged. You will be much stronger and more useful to God in the end, for having had something to contend with.
(2) But do please distinguish between faults and temperamental bias.
There’s nothing wicked in disliking current institutional religion (except Holy Communion). You aren’t and never will be a real “institutional soul” and are not required by God to behave like one.
Your religion must of course have some institutional element, but it is particularly important that this element should not be overdone; and it certainly is not to be used as a penance. Therefore dismiss all ideas of forcing yourself to go to the weekly prayer meeting —it’s not your attrait. I think a sufficient institutional rule for you, is to go to Church always once on Sunday, and this should be to Holy Communion by preference when obtainable. You have family worship at home; and let that, and perhaps some occasional service you may care to attend, suffice. I’d rather you gave, at present, the time to your work with children and not the prayer meeting. The’
(quite natural) horror of seeming pious will wear off gradually as you settle down into the joy and peace of your new life.
I wonder whether you realize the extraordinary support and grace you have been given in your home atmosphere? The bulb has been put in the dark in a room with central heating so to speak, instead of the usual cold shed. I did so love all you said about your mother and wish I could know her. She must be the greatest of helps to you and of course can solve all your tangles if you talk to her freely—she no doubt knows all about them all the while. There’s nothing more lovely is there than such a perfect Christian old age.
I’m glad you liked Baron von Hugel’s Essays. He was the most wonderful example of wisdom, sanctity and depth of soul that I suppose our generation is likely to see and had faced all the difficulties of a highly trained and uncompromising intellect and vehement nature. You cant have better spiritual reading of the intellectual sort than his works: for the heart, though not on the surface, is diere as well as the head—and no one I should think ever sought more persistently for the perfect humility you long for.
Dec. 22, 1925.
To V.W.
I do so hope that Christmas will bring peace and healing in its wings. … I know you are willing to accept everything, which takes away the worst of the sting—what the Baron used to call “being cross with our Crosses.” He has one lovely bit about “Gentle attempts gently to will whatever suffering God may kindly send us: the grand practice of at once meeting suffering with joy. God alone can help us to succeed in this: but what is Christianity if it be not something like this?”
Folkestone.
Jan 4 [1926].
To W.Y.
My own idea about Prayer is, that it is far more rich and complex and far more of a “force” than either Heiler or Cairns suggests. And because it is a spiritual force implanted by God, it is a duty to use it in prayer for others, as well as in direct Communion with Him.
Whether in so doing we pray for material benefits for others depends really on the importance we attach to material things. So too with illness (Prayer for the King, etc.): where sincere and generous and not just a formula, such prayer will be an agent of God, a co-operation with Him for the King’s good whatever that good may be; and will be a support to His merely human forces in their fight with disease.
I think that we are partially free and that our freedom includes a spiritual freedom and power over circumstance, though always of course penetrated and overruled by God. Therefore prayer asking God to intervene, is a real and free act; extending the area within which His intervention can take place. I more or less agree with Cairns in this; though personally I shouldn’t use this power much in respect of material goods and events. But then different people are called to quite different sorts of prayer. It’s one more case of the fact that in religion our exclusions are nearly always wrong, and our inclusions, however inconsistent, nearly always right.
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
Sep. 17 [1926].
To THE SAME.
I’m so sorry for you. Yes—of course it is a Cross, but calling things by a special name does not make them any less hard at the moment, does it? The thing is, that blows of this sort—or indeed any sort—that are partly directed at our self-esteem, can be taken either in a way that embitters us or a way that purifies us. It is up to us to decide which! And the way to make them purifying so that they help our ultimate growth as few other things can, is so far as we can, willingly to accept them as sent to us and then not to let ourselves brood on them or suck the last drop of disappointment, etc., out of them, but to turn right away from the subject towards God. This is a really difficult prescription I know—but do try to do it—then you will preserve your sense of proportion and get tranquillity and strength in the only way we really can get them-and there will be no fear of this temporary set-back making you ill.
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
25 Oct., 1926.
To A.B.
I have read your letter and considered it carefully. It is of course always very difficult to advise anyone whom one has not seen.
But it certainly does seem to me that the reason why you remain as you say frustrated and without peace, is exactly because of that doubleness in yourself which you describe. You alternate between your “dream” and the “muddy stream of doubt and fear.” And when the “dream” isn’t actually present to consciousness, as it never is continuously even to the most advanced, you lose hold of it, and let yourself be swamped in the current of lower life. To be able to pray “in spirit” in the way you wish is, after all, a great grace from God and is the continuous lot of very few. We all have to go through plenty of blank and dreary times—it is part of the discipline of the spiritual life, isn’t it? I think, what is asked of you is (1) a definite act of faith, a refusal of the temptations to doubt, etc.
—a willed confidence in God, and (2) a gentle acquiescence in the way that He leads you, altogether apart from what you want.
You speak in your last letter of “church,” and I am wondering what your ecclesiastical position is, and, e.g., whether you are a Communicant and the sacraments mean much to you. Because this, in which we can do little or nothing and much is done to us, is exactly the sort of spiritual practice which should feed and help you. It puts the emphasis on God, not on our awareness; and reminds us that the “lover and keeper of the soul” has us quite safely whether we realize Him or not, and in sua voluntate e nostra pace. Do try to drop, or turn away from thoughts of your blindness and dumbness, and all agitated striving; be content, till God gives you another kind of prayer, to practise the sort you can do, and do it quietly and steadily, by rule, at the same time each day. If you act thus, I think you will gradually find the dream will grow steadier, the fear and the doubt will fade. Do not expect quick results. It is a wholly new attitude which you have to form. And remember always, the initiative is not with you, but with God. It is for you to follow bit by bit where He guides.
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
21 November, 1926.
To THE SAME.
I am very sorry you find the idea of humility depressing! because really you know it is perfect freedom, and no more depressing than playing on the nursery floor. What is really depressing you, I think, is that you are straining, perhaps unconsciously, after something which is not in God’s purpose for you yet. After all there are many stages in the spiritual life, aren’t there? And it is for Him not you to decide on the time you remain in each. I am sure God has something to teach us in every situation in which we are put, and through every person we meet: and once we grasp that, we cease to be restless, and settle down to learn where we are.
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
March 8 [1927].
To W.Y.
Thank you so much for the beautiful tulips … that lovely mauve shade with very pale green leaves and looking their best in a dark blue jar. They were particularly comforting as I am imprisoned with “flu” not bad luckily as I have to go to Pleshey on Friday to conduct a Retreat. I will be very grateful if you and your mother and sister will pray for it.
As to what you say about the difficulties the Cross presents to you —the simple explanation is, that you are not yet grown up enough spiritually to understand it. Leave it alone and be content with the truths God has shown you—there is plenty of food there for your soul, without risking ghostly indigestion by trying mysteries which are at present too big for you. It is only disguised pride which makes us fret over what we can’t understand! You see it is true; and that is already a grace: so be content, and go on quietly! cf. the meditation in Pere Charles about the soul that will keep starting up and bounding into the air and never keeps quiet enough to make a resting-place for God… .
Yacht Wulfruna.
1 August, 1927.
To A.B.
… You have made me understand your whole position ever so much more clearly by what you have told me; and I do thank you for your frankness and confidence. Very often one feels one is floundering in the dark when trying to help people, because there is some vital situation in the background which has not been disclosed. Now I know just where you are and also that you have (or have been given rather) the courage to do the right thing, in cutting this friendship out of your life. I know in such cases it seems a hard and even cruel thing to do or advise. But the fact remains that a competing emotional interest though technically “innocent” can’t be kept in one’s life once one has given oneself to God. This very friendship may, later, return to you in the tranquil and purified form in which all one’s human loves can be woven into the substance of the spiritual life. But as things are now, I am sure you are right in feeling that a clean cut is the only way. The fruit of all you experienced at Pleshey really hangs on your willingness to make the first definite sacrifice asked: and that you have made it, is the best of guarantees for your future steadiness. Moreover the pain you quite naturally dread won’t be, in the event, so hard as it looks now. It is the willingness to suffer God asks. When we accept that, His grace comes with the pain and mysteriously takes away the real bitterness. Once the thing is done, you will know a new serenity, far better worth having than what you have given up: and all that is true and pure in this friendship will live on as a spiritual and unbreakable link and influence even through many years of silence and separation. Now as to your future course:
(1) I don’t think you should, at present anyhow, try to “go on alone.” You must expect ups and downs, difficulties, etc.—and it is much better you should have someone to whom you can tell them and who can look at your situation in a detached way. So I hope you will continue to write when you feel it is necessary.
(2) Yes, I am sure your feeling that you should do some kind of spiritual work is sound and there is no reason to think that what you are most drawn to (Intercession and Healing) is unsuitable. On the contrary, other things being equal, one should always first try to follow one’s spiritual attrait; though moderately and gradually, not exclusively and vehemently! So go gently in this direction, in the way and degree in which God suggests and opens ways for you, but balance it by your personal communion with Our Lord, in prayer, sacraments and reasonable voluntary renunciations.
(3) (Of great importance.) Develop and expand the wholesome, natural and intellectual interests of your life—don’t allow yourself to concentrate on the religious side only. Remember all life comes to you from God, and is to be used for Him—so live in it all, and so get the necessary variety and refreshment without which religious intensity soon becomes stale and hard… . You will in this way retain, in the long run, far more of the sense of God’s Presence than you would get from feverish concentration on it. Religious fervour eludes us when we chase it; but creeps back unawares. It is crucial that you should get these truths firmly fixed in your mind now, as they will have to govern your conduct (and so your growth) for years to come.
God bless you.
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
Tuesday [? 1927].
To LAURA ROSE.
… As to what you say about prayer—the Baron always taught that “very delightful prayer” was far more exhausting than one realized and must be dealt with carefully; and it was usually wise to do rather less of it than one felt drawn to. With your health I am almost certain he would say, obey the instinct which warns you not to let yourself go—and this discipline will really be better for your soul than any experience you may miss through self-restraint. I do not think this is at all want of trust in God. He expects us to behave with common-sense even in regard to His graces doesn’t He? On the other hand my Bishop [Dr. Frere] says, “if our Lord calls you to Bethany, go to Bethany and never be afraid of His closer visiting.”
But that I think is rather different from what you mean.
Plymouth.
Thursday, August 13th [? 1927].
To THE SAME.
I loved your letter, and always love it when you talk about the real things—there are so very few to whom one can speak of them, and I feel that is one of the most precious parts of our friendship when you do say those things, though I should never press you, or anyone else, to do so. Your Sister Helen must be a most beautiful soul; I should love to know her—it is nice, isn’t it? that you and she have found each other. And although she has the sorrow of not being accepted as a Sister, in such a case as hers it can’t make very much difference, for she will always lead a consecrated life.
Did I ever tell you about a Brother, who, although a most wonderful scholar, was refused as a priest and choir-monk because he is too small to celebrate at the altar—almost a dwarf. It nearly broke his heart. But he became a lay brother instead and does all the hardest and most menial work he can find, and is “the servant of all.”
Z… . has quieted down, and got far far more gentle and humble-minded and as a consequence is beginning to find things out.
She says now she has been desperately unhappy for over two years because she wanted God so much and couldn’t find Him; and realizes it was her own pride that shut her off. That she used to hate the text “Blessed are the meek”! and now the one she loves best of all is “Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart.” Isn’t that lovely? I feel so happy about it, for she is difficult and I had been wondering very much what was happening in her soul. She has been re-reading St. John’s Gospel and that has cleared up her difficulties about Our Lord, she says. Isn’t it wonderful the quick progress souls make when once God lays His hand on them?
50 Campden Hill Square, W.8.
22 October, 1927.
To A.B.
You have made your choice and a brave sacrifice, which I do not under-estimate: and now, when the natural pain of the wound subsides a little, God will gently and firmly build you up in your new life.
As Huvelin said: “We are detached in order to be attached to something better, not to fall into a hole!” And the suffering you have faced can all be offered to God, can’t it? It is of the very stuff of prayer—there is no such thing for a Christian as a vain sacrifice. I think you are at present too disturbed to see your “light”—but hold on—and peace will return and will find you stronger than before.
Dec. 6, 1927.
To L.M.
Your wonderful box came this afternoon and was unpacked with great excitement! How can I school the Rebellious Flesh to Sackcloth and Ash ideals when I’m given things like this?
Very glad there’s happier news of you and that you are resigned to lying quite still and practising patience in the 3rd degree. When I have had to do it, among other dodges to pass time, I’ve made Alphabets of Saints and had a look at each one in turn and asked each for a “grace.” It makes a picturesque sort of litany to live with.
I go for my whole day at Lloyd Square convent on Friday… . My last reviewer (Quaker) says I “share the biased views of my friend von Hugel”!—an accusation I feel I can bear!
Tony sends his love to G. He is getting quite a Cat and is very sinful but no one seems to mind. Next Thursday afternoon I have to be formally received as a Fellow of King’s College, it being Commemoration Day—awful occasion! and a Dinner afterwards!
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