'THE STORY OF MY HEART' 185 



instrument, of an organ, with which I swelled forth the 

 notes of my soul, redoubling my own voice by their 

 power. The great sun burning with light ; the strong 

 earth, dear earth ; the warm sky ; the pure air ; the 

 thought of ocean ; the inexpressible beauty of all filled 

 me with a rapture, an ecstasy, an inflatus. With this 

 inflatus, too, I prayed. Next to myself I came and re- 

 called myself, my bodily existence. I held out my hand, 

 the sunlight gleamed on the skin and the iridescent nails ; 

 I 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. My 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 prostrated, I lost myself in the wrestle, I 

 was rapt and carried away. . . . 



' Sometimes on lying down on the sward I first looked 

 up at the sky, gazing for a long time till I could see deep 

 into the azure and my eyes were full of the colour ; then 

 I turned my face to the grass and th3^me, placing my 

 hands at each side of my face so as to shut out everything 

 and hide myself. Having drunk deeply of the heaven 

 above and felt the most glorious beauty of the day, and 

 remembering the old, old sea, which (as it seemed to me) 

 was but just yonder at the edge, I now became lost, and 

 absorbed into the being or existence of the universe. I 

 felt down deep into the earth under, and high above 

 into the sky, and farther still to the sun and stars. Still 

 farther beyond the stars into the hollow of space, and 

 losing thus my separateness of being came to seem like 

 a part of the whole. Then I whispered to the earth be- 

 neath, through the grass and thyme, down into the 

 depth of its ear, and again up to the starry space hid 



