The Forgotten Threshold | Page 4

Flesh. His creation is the complete echo
made flesh, His Image and likeness which He contemplates. And so we
are in our measure part of the song made flesh, and the little common
words that we use are our brothers.
July 17.
The sunset tonight was a glorious crucifixion after the day of clouds. It

was human in its beckoning. I cannot find the secret of the moon, but it
reminds me of Lionel's phrase, if it be his, "golden mediocrities." Is it
the astral embodiment of "They also serve who only stand and wait"?
Why is it that the little human beauties of Nature pass me by as entities,
and that I seek bare places? Is there a parallel in my personal attitude
toward all but those who are specially dear to me? I thought of how I
looked down on the city from the mountain in May, and felt the whole
city to be my prayer. It had been given into my control for a few
minutes, and the only worthy use to which I could put it was to offer it
up with a prayer for my people and all the desire of my heart that the
prayer would be answered. The half-million souls with all their dreams
were under my care then, and their acts were mine. So little are cities,
and so little I found my worthiness that I could not hide my tears. Later
I crossed to the height looking down on the cemetery, the world was
silent save for the flaming heart of the city pulsing below, and
reflecting the Flaming Heart above as the sun set. The woodpeckers did
not fear me, and I sank slowly and deeply into God. I think that some
day I shall know His wounds. I cannot understand why I was delivered
from temptation at the moment that the city was put into my hands.
July 18.
... I bathed on the dunes on Wonder Island. The sun set tonight
sacramentally just as it set that night at ---- when I failed to speak.
Never had I felt stronger, but something held me back from telling him
how the dearest wish of my life was that he should participate in the
Holy Eucharist. The flame was in my hands to lay upon his heart, but
something bade me wait. I distrusted it, and asked him to walk with me
on the shore. The thunder of the tide and the moon were too strong.
Why could I not have told him? We were silent for hours while his
heart lay with the Titanic, and even his little daughter was quiet in the
room.
July 19.
The stars are the dust rubbed off from human souls. "Dust unto dust
thou shalt return." At the last judgment, they will fly together in an
angelic hosting, and clothe once more the souls which moved in them,

and our souls will rule their songs. Human suffering is the friction of
angels making stars. ... I know now that the end of one's forty days is
not complete knowledge, but only a clear indication of the road. The
joy is in that, and also the sorrow. It is the direction given to the will,
orders to be so carefully obeyed. This is the greatest discovery of all.
Words do not reveal it. It is absolutely prosaic, though it is eternal
beauty. But what I have written does not reflect it even faintly as it
seems to me. Read Hello this afternoon. The freedom of the dunes this
morning seemed to extend more than is usual. Later I read from Plato's
"Symposium."
July 20.
... The proverbial symbol of impermanence is writing upon sand. What
could be more gloriously permanent? To have one's message spelled
out by singing planets, to write upon the stars. It is so that our songs
have immortality. "Verba scripta manent" takes on a majestic
significance. Are not joy and sadness the same? The only difference is
one of rapidity. Sadness is made up of the long, slow, majestic chords
of the song. It seems to me that when a wheel seems to cease motion,
and finally attains a state of motionlessness, it is perhaps merely
turning into a terrible speed which we cannot perceive. It is the turning
of an hour-glass. When I am dead, I wish only my faults to be
chronicled, for these alone have any value for the world. I have dreamt
always of cycles of infinities. As a decimal always tends by evolution
towards a number, so also we evolve toward an infinity. Yet at that
goal another infinity starts, as another infinity starts in numbers,--the
symbol of patience after all.
"Unto the man of yearning thought
And aspiration, to do nought
Is
in itself almost an act,--
Being chasm-fire