YOUTH AND EARLY WRITINGS 59 



recalled the mystery and beauty of the flesh. I thought 

 of the mind with which I could see the ocean sixty miles 

 distant, and gather to myself its glory. I thought of my 

 inner existence, that consciousness which is called the 

 soul. These — that is, myself — I threw into the balance 

 to weigh the prayer the heavier. ]\Iy strength of body, 

 mind, and soul I flung into it ; I put forth my strength ; I 

 wrestled and laboured, and toiled in might of prayer. 

 The prayer, this soul-emotion was in itself — not for an 

 object — it was a passion. I hid my face in the grass, I 

 was wholly jnostrated, I lost myself in the wrestle, I was 

 rapt and carried away.'* 



' I did not then,' he adds, ' define, or analyze, or under- 

 stand this.' Sometimes he climbed the hill ' deliberately, 

 deeming it good to do so ' ; at others, the craving carried 

 him up there of itself. The exaltation made no outward 

 show, but he reached home greatly exhausted. Later on 

 he speaks of being ' absorbed into the being or existence 

 of the universe ' ; and if we allow for the effect of after- 

 thoughts in this description, the experience was probably 

 a development of the childish dream state of Bevis into 

 a spiritual adventure. It was as far removed from the 

 religion of his habit as from the sciences of his study ; 

 yet it was in the nature of a religious ecstasy, of a passion- 

 ate demand for and a partial realization of a state of one- 

 ness with the soul of the world ; and though there is no 

 mention of the paraphernalia of religion, such acts as 

 the drinking of the spring water were sacramental. 

 ' Drinking the lucid water,' he writes in ' The Story of 

 My Heart,' ' clear as light itself in solution, I absorbed 

 the beauty and purity of it. I drank the thought of the 

 element ; I desired soul-nature pure and limpid.' 



' To this cell,' he writes in another place, f of the same 

 spring perhaps, ' I used to come once now and then on a 

 summer's day, tempted, perhaps, like the finches, by the 

 cool, sweet water, but drawn also by a feeling that could 

 not be analyzed. Stooping, I lifted the water in the 



* The Story of My Heart. | The Life of the Fields. 



