door as if sent by Our Lady.
Doubtless if she became a
nun & we are able to help
her, she will give us her
prayers.
And the hour comes round
for Mary’s[?] Reception. We
read our Form of Reception
& go over the Hour that has
changed life for each of us
– then we pray.
A cab comes for us & we
leave a letter asking to see
Fr Prior after Benediction.
Before Benediction we are
long[?] in the church – The Organ
is mourning a few notes
that seem to iterate “And[?]
acquainted with grief”: on
the High Altar our lilies among
the candles waiting illumination,
lay-brother in their tawny
cowls saying their stationes
crucis to that lament of
a few notes.
The Feast of the Mystery of the
Incarnation & this somber
moment of its passage – truly
one realised this Mary of
Notebook 23, Page Image 137; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 64r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-137.jpg
[E.C.]
the Annunciation was also the
Mater Dolerosa of the Consumation.
I say my Stationes Crucis along
with the meditation & prayers of those
intent lay-brothers.
They do not give our Lady the Candelabra
of lights that flank the altar –
always lighted even on Sunday.
It seems a little ungenerous
of men to mark her sex thus . . .
ah, well, they have to incense
her song & lift it up before the
Holy of Holies.
Hastening down the hill to the
monastery I witness such a
quiet act of[?] Benedictine Kindness
to the Strangers. Our silver-eyed
old Pater is standing cowled
with the door wide open that
we may not have to pause in
the driving rain, & as we come
to the door he throws back his
cowl & welcomes us, dispraising
the weather of the Feast “Ah,
we should be happy if we could
sit in the Chapel all Day!”
Fr Prior tells us in his weighty
Foreign English, correct but
limited he has been well-impressed
by Georgina Moore for a year, & then
all she says about the Oblates
is true. So I suppose she will come
to us for April – & join Mrs Simmdt[?]
the new Catholic Cook.
Notebook 23, Page Image 138; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 64v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-138.jpg
[E.C.]
Friday Lovely shine after rawness
of mist. Such red[?] trickles
of ivy down the banks of
the pine-wood of
the Monastery. Well St
Benedict allowed a
pint of wine to each monk
– so the pine-coned wood
& the red[?] trickles of ivy
may feel homely among
the congregation of solemnes.
The Feast that of dear St
John Damoscene. I remember
last year & how the rigid
Gosscommon broke into
a [????] as he said to
the Neo-conversa[?] “I should
think images were quite
in your line.” And from
the midst of the strange
country the priest had
led me into I smiled
delight at the Images,
as an Englishman at the
bars of God save the King.
After the magnificent Vespers
of S t John we go to Farn-
boro Common at last, & see
a gold shoot or two of furze
– a silver jet of willow catkins[?] –
& a mass of comely[?] azure
wh : is “a distance”.
Michael goes to Confession to
Notebook 23, Page Image 139; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 65r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-139.jpg
[E.C.]
sane[?] Père Catard who told her
to go to the Tabernacle & ask
Christ “to comfort you & cheer
you up”. I wish the Dominican
Vincent had a touch of this goodly
Benedictine sanity!
Then a walk through nowhere
no-whither: but pines come
near us & we gather moss –
little armies more martial-
looking than those serried along
the highway with their drums
in front. Oh, the limit of the
forest of the sacred things within
the limit of the congregated
boughs!
Notebook 23, Page Image 140; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 65v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-140.jpg
[E.C.]
Saturday
A cab at the Abbey Door after
Vespers & we are off to Paragon
– with a 1st class rest by the way[?].
Music, dear hound, rummaging[?]
after Whym Chow – He must get
a portion of soul to reach his
little red divinity, poor old[?]
Music! Oh Whymmie! Whymie!
We had to get souls of your
power from God!
They have laid the felts all wrong[?]
– Wasting wholly my £6 – unless
without injuring the workman I can
get amendment[?] of the sheer
error of the moon!
And Paragon’s a dusty, snoring[?]
Lar – Miss M…., Kind as a
A very devoutness to us but
Unmethodical, so nearly never founding
a home in any room.
I am weary to vagueness. Two hours
after arrival – Confession. Beloved
Vineyard Church: on its altar a hill- [?]
Brow[?] of our lilies. I flash out[?] Candles
for Marry[?]. Goss gentle, intimate –
questioning do we return next Monday
week “for good”. Yesterday I forgot my Stationes
& I have neglected my meditations. So
I have 1 Pater-5 Aves & a meditation on
each of the Sacred Wounds as my holy Penance –
rather a heavy penance after the journey.
But Goss petitions “pray for me” & I know
by the prophetic breath of the Cell by mine[?] the
Confessor is happy in me this time. I am
to be confirmed at the end of May.
Notebook 23, Page Image 141; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 66r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-141.jpg
[E.C.]
Sunday
And Vincent!
The wonderful cloudy eyes gave a
scimitar-sweep to see if we were
there. The sermon’s text “Then he
began to fear & be very heavy”. I went
hot all over – ‘burns’ of anguish
all over the nerves as at some
intolerable cruelty – Vincent can
be so intolerable on the subject
of pain – he can make one’s mind
writhe as no man should.
But we escaped – though he spoke
entirely on the mental agony of
Christ, who bore every mental
torture, except actual guilt.
Vincent spoke of fear – of the
maiming fear of childhood
that often dwell on to the day
of death – he spoke of the shames
of childhood, the fringes[?] of
which are scarcely lifted in
the Confessional by the tenderest
Confessor – Love bears all fear
& all shame for its beloved. Then
he spoke of Love’s own particular
Emotions of flying from the
Beloved, the pain of leaving the
Beloved – as Christ has left the
Saints . . . all indeed of His Elected
Children, out of love & its necessity.
He spoke of the hatred Love endured
from others when it was at its work –
one of the finest sufferings possible to conceive.
Notebook 23, Page Image 142; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 66v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-142.jpg
[E.C.]
“Love is a puzzle to the Beloved
& a puzzle to the Lover as well”
He spoke finally of the mysterious
anguish Christ felt for the pain
He must bring on those to whom
He came: the Prince of Peace & yet
a Sword (as His priests often
have to be, with their hearts
bleeding for the pain of the
clearing edge) It seems often
as if he were praying for
our forgiveness in His Sorrow
for something He had done
against others – what He
in offering Redemption imposes[?]
by our acceptance. There is
no such pain as the Forgive
Me, not “them”, of Christ..
It is in every compassionate
warning “Take heed” – Can
ye drink of the cup & c”, & so
many other sayings.
Vincent is wonderful – if he
only had his mind in a skull
that was not North British.
With the sensitive eyes of a
Mediterranean Saint, under
the positive forehead, he has
the mouth of a martyr to
the Ideal, & the big sardonic
nose that of a fallen Lucifer.
His smile, in the pulpit is
quite unreal – his lips are at[?]
Notebook 23, Page Image 143; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 67r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-143.jpg
[E.C.]
their born work when preaching
sacramental suffering. Vincent
is fine, disquieted, memorable.
What a contrast with Gosscommon
Who, after a firm but sly glance
to see if we were there, preached
his little early-morning sermon,
hopeless as a sermon, supported
by “My dear brethren” & strings
of conjunctions before most
of the sentences!
So strange to pack again & again say[?]
Goodbye to her little home, collecting
the flowers for our den at Tumble
Down Dick.
A kind lady gives me her corner
seat, I look so spent, as we travel
down to Farnboro. _[?]I_ [?]13 & we learn
afterward this is her sixth day of
continual travelling from Egypt!
She is graphic of the “mirages” seen
from the train on the Numidian
Desert – islands & lakes & palms,
disappearing as the train passes –
always keeping in advance of it their
cruel embroidery of landscapes.
I think of my Ammon[?].
Cold Beef in our Parlour set between
the Bar:[ its warmed breath air saves
Michael from becoming Vincent’s
silver skeleton, like a Convert of
his we saw at the Priory ] &
Notebook 23, Page Image 144; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 67v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-144.jpg
[E.C.]
a door through wh : the Cellar
belches its Dragon Earth
-fumes. The window commands
the yard, & manure[?], or clothes
pegged on their line. And
we admonished by the
Solesmes Chant call it
“very good”.
Monday
Again to hear that Music – the
Kyrie; the Tractus of Ash
-Wednesday, wh : is just
Penitence under the element
of sound! Again as one’s
God is borne to one from
His Altar, that rustle of
a Community Kneeling
– one only hears such a
rustle in Nature when a
majestic storm is prophesied
to a forest!
And climbing again the banked
drive through the pines to hear
the ferial Vespers! We forget
to bless ourselves at the
“Magnificat” & the old Hebdomodarius
fixes the glare of an eye on
us, that whips like the osier-rods
that in the Rule punish erring
Choir-boys!
And again to climb the second
time to quiet prayer in the
Notebook 23, Page Image 145; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 68r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-145.jpg
[E.C.]
Church where all those dedicated
lives adore. “If one might sit all
day in the Chapel” sighs the
silver-visaged old Porter!
Tuesday – an emotion of spring
through the air! A letter from
Fay, intimate, revelling in
that “make up” he loves when
he assumes Fancy-Dress (
fance “Dressing-up is a blight”
Fr Gray comments.) A brilliant
picture of Peter-Pan Barrie –
Notebook 23, Page Image 146; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 68v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-146.jpg
[E.C.]
A letter too from Rothenstein
The child is to be William
Michael ____ May Dante
Gabriel forgive!
Little London will laugh; but
the H.D. wants his name
& the name of the “Noble
Michael Field” tied together
in the registry & form of his
child’s name.
Notebook 23, Page Image 147; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 69r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-147.jpg
[E.C.]
Wednesday April 1st –
After a March of cruel backward-
ness, of sudden starts in Ex-
perience – yes, & of growth if
not in the natural world, in
the supernatural World.
Again the gt. Ash-Wednesdaay Tractus
& the “stony heart of Ezekiel – &
the “Credo, Domine” of the Gospel
I remember what this awfully
Mass was to us last year!
The Church now is just awful
with ferial Masses.
After “Stationis” – at supper Michael
entreats that the fish may be
removed, almost with tears.
The bubble of joy from little Mary,
a blushing innocent of the
freshest strain!
“Mary, it does amuse you very much,
doesn’t it?”
“Oh, it does!” – & the loosed laughter
of a whole youth escapes.
I never heard anything like it – it
was enough to irrigate a country.
As we toy with our raisin[?] & pack
“little Tummie” with cheese, what
joy from the bar-parlour! ‘There
they are talking of the bridge of
sighs” & mingle chatter & mouth
-fuls of laughter with their drink.
We love to hear them.
Michael has given her Friar a
Notebook 23, Page Image 148; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 69v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-148.jpg
[E.C.]
penance. She has made him
unite with his holy hands
“The Tumble Down Dick Inn”.
She is to see him 10.30 next
Wednesday.
Here is a little Dialogue
I call Catholic Truth.
Old Brother Porter, meeting me as I
toil up the hill to the Church –
“You find it is a high thing
to do?”
“Yes, Brother, I find it very
difficult, almost impossible”.
“But you can do it – you do”.
Yesterday afternoon we went
to see our Seminary for Southwark[?]
– where Gosscommon till he went
to Paris spent his boyhood.
The Father at the head of it
is Amy’s friend – He is betrayed
by my saying in my letter
“There is business we can do
at Guldford[?]” – I meant to
walk through the old Furniture
Warehouses – So the poor
man, determined not to disturb
our plans by suggesting a
nearer station, meets us
with the Seminary four-wheeler.
On & on we drive through
Notebook 23, Page Image 149; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 70r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-149.jpg
[E.C.]
the heart-piercing remembered
slopes of Surrey – it seems as
if we should never arrive.
A Sister of the Cross brings in
heaped plain tea & we grew
friends with the sensible priest
before. Such straight eyes! –
No “guard” – only judgment &
charity in them, both heedful.
He thinks we are overstrained – Perhaps
he is come at the right moment
to keep Vincent from developing
the skelitan-instincts too far.
 He speaks so
simply of the wrong it is
for anyone to break the
absorption needed for good
work. You may – or you may
not – from time to time be
able to remember God &
say a word of prayer to[?] Him,
without breaking the Vitality
of the mood from wh : you
work – He wd prefer to have
no ejaculation rather than
that the mood should be
broken.
This priest believes in a while we
shall have, more imagination
than ever before.
That we have written about Herod
of the Massacre of Innocents, & Fair
Rosamond of Breviary Condemnation
Notebook 23, Page Image 150; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 70v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-150.jpg
[E.C.]
is rather a crux to him
– but if the plays are not
heretical – good & bad
must be portrayed by Art –
but Herod! Have we made
him attractive? We fear
we have! But we have
shown him miserable.
The priest laughs deprecatingly
& fixes the penetration of
his eyes [ he is a famed
Confessor ] on Michael.
The eyes go on their
business as if fed with
what they esteem – &
we visit the Chapel, the
great flank to a Court[?] of
St. John’s work, the Library,
the Principal’s Room
Friday April 3rd
Oh, magnificent the ferial Mass
& the gt. Ash-Wednesday Tractus! The
integrity of the Mass as the Benedictines
sing it preserved so organically!
The last time we shall hear the
waves & billows of that Tractus! Ah me!
Our afternoon of wind, hail, sune[?] sun at
one purpose – the presentation
dramatically of the Spring.
We find several Monks at their
stations – devout as bees at
the bitter heather, quiet with
full devoutness. And after the
Notebook 23, Page Image 151; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 71r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-151.jpg
[E.C.]
Benediction – our lilies, with French
courtesy, in 2 little blue vases among
the candles – Confession.
Yesterday was a bad day – a day
wherein one feels like a runaway
novice. The infamous relaxation
of spring made the world dun
as if from spent virtue.
I am glad to go to the “Torrent
by the Way” & let Absolution
flow over me.
Sat.
We go to our first last Mass –
the infinite Music only checked
by the mortality of the power
that makes ⟨it[?]⟩, puts emotion into
the sounds of the elements as
they issued[?] from God’s nature.
At the inn we bid farewell
to the nice people, who have grown
a real appetite for seeing us
go to St Michael’s Abbey – we
take with us an old jug & a
silver [????] mustard-pot belonging to their
grandmother, & a lovely old Sheffield
candlestick to look at & return
through absence of coins!
Then Vespers – Hebdomodarius
has a kind aspect – a broad smile
over his chest. And we lay down
our friend, our Benedictine Missal,
in the seat, & descend the pine-
hill to our cab, Father Prior bidding
us good-bye mid-way. Father Prior
Notebook 23, Page Image 152; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 71v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-152.jpg
[E.C.]
an eye – a good eye – of supernatural
quaintness. The more human
faces in monasteries run
to this appealing, but super-
natural quaintness. It is the
unworldliness of humour
that has taken its vow.
Such a return! The Caretaker
like a dog in devotion to us:
like a squalid Demon in the
House, the squalor so of her
being she stood chatting
devotedly, with dust &
disorder all round.
The Lar of Paragon so offended
it has taken fourteen days
to bring back a semblance
of home to the Chaos.
This personal service & sheer
cynicism toward surroundings
produce a state of insanity
into the goings of Life.
Then comes the Novice – she
can work, but grumbles; can
love the glamour of the Thames,
but insults us above its stream.
We are to her Converts; & being
English too we wound her & fret
her in all but her imperturbable
self-righteousness. To us she
becomes unbearable in importance
– her face is to me like a hard
round moon-signboard over an
Notebook 23, Page Image 153; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 72r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-153.jpg
[E.C.]
Inn that turns one away. And
she always catches me on the
stairs to pour out complaints or
superstition so gross it throws
one’s brains overboard to sink
or swim in the infinite. To make
a sad error short – she is a
failure & we are failures. She
goes to Gosscommon to confession
& tells us the falsehoods she had
said about us & Paragon on
the stairs afterward. He too
has the social tactlessness to
send through her his excuses
for not coming . . . I lose my
temper, & say some ancestral
things about Priests & the
Confessional to Michael; &
“Jenny” after more impertinence has
to go. This happens on Cold Palm-
Sunday. We go to the Blessing of the
Palms in such turmoil of spirit, the
blessing might be a Chinese Rite.
The next morning she calls Michael
“a creature” & other such phrases &
in the quietness of a snow-storm
from me she is paid & dismissed.
To our mortal nature, what joy!
I sweep away the very flowers
that have been in the Rooms where
she has afflicted us. Michael sees
Goss on the situation & carries it: –
when she speaks of her impatient temper
he quotes the motto of His Holiness
“Ignis ardens”.
Notebook 23, Page Image 154; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 72v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-154.jpg
[E.C.]
After our Return (out of place
Sunday
Vincent was so solemnly wonderful
he has laid silence on me.
Michael says so truly that as he
turns back his head into his
cowl in the choir, he looks
like a corpse, & one is not quite
sure on which side he will rise –
to be with God or Satan. But when
he lifts his lids in the pulpit one sees
eyes that look like doves hidden
in the clefts of the Rock that is
Christ. And from this tender
mystic darkness he spoke of the
Will of Christ, of His innermost
suffering.
________________________________________________________________________
In the afternoon Lady Rivett-Carnac[?]
comes to bid us goodbye – our silver-voiced
neighbor! She has a silvery smile for
the Ancient Faith – she yearns & seeks –
with a smile at discipline.
An Irish Helps’ gaze into the Tea-pot
– it seems we shall never refresh
our guest. Then “Jewel” comes &
for 3 parts of an hour I become a
seminarist under a severe Teacher
of the Divine Office. At last at 7 o’clock
Goss comes, wild[?] with running[?] trains
all afternoon. He denies the message
(His temper is clearly unsafe) I take
the denial generally, but I
do wrong[?] in letting my wound
Notebook 23, Page Image 155; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 73r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-155.jpg
[E.C.]
Elect
Yea , Thou did’st dream how I should be Thine own,
Dreaming with eyes wide from Thy Father’s throne,
Dreaming as dream young boys intent
On all the glory they will gain:
With eyes wide on the firmament,
How Thou did’st dream the labour & the pain,
The sweat, the fainting, & my Soul’s Consent.
_____
[K.B.]
Good Friday. April 17th
And in the joy[?] of the fresh spring
light, it is told me as I dress.
I am to keep this day as Henry’s
reconciliation – it was on a Friday
we kept the day of blessing, & clomb[?]
the vile little Compass Hill together
up toward the Vineyard.
– On that Friday the two disciples
heard – Beheld the Lamb of God – &
followed Jesus.
I read to Hennie[?] – after the
Necessary Miserere is said ( only
to-morrow – & then the allelujias’ ]
The Lord is My Shepherd-Dominus
Regit me.
Psalm 138
The first Chap[?] of St. John to Behold the
Lamb of God. Then the 2 disciples
followed Jesus.
“Wild was the honey then didst eat”
Notebook 23, Page Image 156; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 73v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-156.jpg
[E.C.]
take voice “Oh, it is all right,
Father; but to receive a social
message from you by one who
had been insulting me all
week did make me lose my
temper. I am sorry . . . but one
is sensitive.”
Goss is as hard as an unripe
unripe olive – we sit in the
old places remote. I arrange
for Confession early next morning,
& ask, as if I were asking
it of a stranger, that there
may be a Mass of Thanks giving
for my Anniversary as near
to Easter Day as possible.
When I say, with a little
intonation of mischief, “Don’t
say it on Bank Holiday”, he
laughs a little uncomfortable
laughs[?] that wd like to be
faunish[?], but is too light in
Christian clothes to sport.
It is a distracting grief to
be alienated from the
priest who reconciled one
at the very anniversary
of the Reconciliation.
Tuesday of Holy Week
Praying before the High Altar awaiting
my Confessor, I profoundly
realise that as I gave to Christ
Notebook 23, Page Image 157; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 74r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-157.jpg
[K.B.]
And – O happiness! of the little Fairies[?]
– Another quells,
Another reins the leopards”.
The pansies planted in the boxes
Yesterday – are for my gift to Henry –
Pensées – but now large, indulgent –
Thoughts uncorrected of the censor –
boundless cogitations – musings.
as in Charity, summer’s[?] muse, on
the large clemencies of God.
I read [????]-stuffed as the altars[?]
After breakfast-Laurels[?].
The Antiphons!
Proprio filio suo non pepercit Deus,
sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit illum
Aut. 2
Anxiatus est super me spiritus meus,
in me turbatum est cor meum.
Aut. 3
Ait latro ad latronem. Nos quidem
digna factis recipimus, hic autem quid
fecit? Memento mei Domini, dum[?]
veneris in regnum tuum.
Aut. 4
Cum conturbata fuerit omnia mea
Domine, misericordiae memor eris.
[????]Hennie[?]’s[?] 2nd Year
“Deus Dus fortitudo mea: et ponet
pedes meos quasi cervorum.
Herod felt “the sunken bowl[?]” of Lyme
Notebook 23, Page Image 158; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 74v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-158.jpg
[K.B.]
Regis – 8 or 9 years ago –
St. Peter now, praising God the Pope’s
high way, hears the “meu sum”
of denial. I cannot bear it for
St. Peter. It rends my heart.
Easter Day.
I return earlier than Henry who
Stays behind to make fuller thanks
-giving – Annie, our Catholic, Irish maid
for the moment serves me with
breakfast.
“No I do not like it at all – our Lady’s
altar like that. ( it is ill-drest ]14 No, no
–our Lady is everything – we love her
best, she is us, she is our Lady –
she is us, she is ourselves, (& her
hands pass down her body to her
feet) – we love her best.
(I give a brief[?] [????], protesting[?] [????]
without putting in a word for our
Lord, let the poem flower ] – She is
our Mother . . St. Joseph is our Father. . . .
And of Confession – the to[?] wee priest,
the Irishman[?], one is first lifted up
when one kneels to him – With another
priest one kneels down there, one
is kept[?] in a low place. Fr G_ lifts one
up a bit, but not to the height. . . So
that one is drawn up & embraced –
Notebook 23, Page Image 159; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 75r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-159.jpg
[K.B.]
– there she flows on – about Confirmation –
She was asked 3 questions
What was Confirmation?
Uncle John says the Holy Ghost came
to the fishing-men.
Question 2.
About the bishops – answer that [????]
– the end that her bishop owned the
big meadows.
Question 3.
What is the Church?
– My Mother. You see ( [????]) – our Father
was dead – our Mother always told[?]
us Father [????] is your[?] father. One’s father
just gets [????] the living [????] – Little churches
come out from the altars & go back
to the altars. We have to look after
our Father & our Mother… If the old
Man (of S. Joseph) is poor, & cannot dress
himself, we must dress him –
– We go about at home in Ireland
– to the poor ladies – & take from the
rich ladies to the poor – the mere
altars of our Lady we visit a Good Friday, the
more blessing we get.
Easter Day.
The scene Emily’s house in the Mean
Street – A Young Domincan – excited
– still, with infinite whirlpool[?]. Emily, adoring
– with every movement suggesting “Come
here & adore”. A Miss Hiely – who helped found
the observing Society – & survives the
Society! Michael watchful, interested – the
Notebook 23, Page Image 160; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 75v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-160.jpg
[K.B.]
Tea-table, in kitchen, by stove that gives
forth gas – tea begun – a ring! It is he!
–the worshippers wait to see if the
god will wave his hand, or nod.
He sits down, not magisterial at first,
trying to be found in the general talk –
Facing him, in his curate’s dress, I
see the most wonderful eyes set as
casements that look “in fairy- [????]
forlorn” from a plain, almost monastic
room. Everything – all the Romance, [????]
the poignant piety of the face, the
[????] [????] everything Godward is
in the eyes. They are full of clenely[?]
scented goodness – not sweet, nor
giving one more than a still-lighted
jewel gives –
– He is speaking of his latest death-bed.
 Yes, she
was right[?]. She could not read; but she
asked the Father to read to her – the Passion
of our Lord”. Kneeling, he read it all. But he
had to threaten her & to be angry. & say he could
not be responsible, if she refused to have the
Blessed Sacrament brought to her.
Her reverence was so great she could
not bear that Christ should come to
her quiet untidy, dirty house . . On Good
Friday Father Vincent Godly[?] remembered
she had her agony, & died on Holy Saturday
to say her allelujias in heaven on
Easter Sunday. Fellow stories from the
disciples of other death-beds, surprises
Notebook 23, Page Image 161; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 76r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-161.jpg
[K.B.]
Miracles, “Twists[?] of faith” – “My Chicken[?], do you
think I don’t know what I want” retorts
our clear-souled incurable – whose want[?]
is a priest. Meanwhile we are hoping[?]
to eat Emily’s home-made bread – & cake
with an A on it for Allelujah. If Father
Vincent does not guess his letter, he
shall have no cake. But Father Vincent
thinks he could bear this penance with
equanimity!
– I call his attention to the blue squills[?]
– See, Father, there the grape-hyacinths –
When I have the grape-hyacinths alone
Then[?] them there is nothing like the blue of scylla;
with Scylla I speak of the dusk-blue
of the grape hyacinth; when I am alone –
Thereof know which I like best –
“But Michael does not like the Shapes
of the hills” blurts Emily – when the Sacred
Wood-chester[?] district is spoken of –
“You must check your child” I suggest
She is spiteful, when you speaks of your[?]
West-country[?] she breaks in with –
“But Michael does not like the shapes
of the hills.”
I explain, Emily explains – I
was on the wrong side – where I failed[?]
Of the Severn –
More & more [????]-bells [?]succeed –
agonies, & purple lips, & unconsciousness –
For a moment I arrest the company,
speaking of my[?] Irish Annie. Then
Miss Hickey – undesired[?] of the company,
Notebook 23, Page Image 162; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 76v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-162.jpg
[K.B.]
announces, as if a paragraph should
begin to vociferate that in the Irish
tongue there are 2 words for Mary
& that no child wd. be allowed to be
baptised with the name peculiar to
our Lady.
The Catholic stories continue –
one of Father Vincent’s – only remembered[?],
not created of a woman questions[?]
concerning Jesus Christ, what did
she know of Him. Was he still alive?
“Oh yes He was alive”. She had seen
a picture, & knew it was Jesus
Christ because He had whiskers[?]
– Had He ever died – Yes & Good
Friday was a Bleak[?] Holiday.
– This converse for Easter Day!
But the woman of the scene
was irresistible, an ecclesiastical
version of MrsClutterbock( )[?]15
(Pickwick) – the potatoes[?], Sam
Weller.
Notebook 23, Page Image 163; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 77r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-163.jpg
[E.C.]
Continue Tuesday of Holy Week.
When I came into His Church a
year ago a gift that was
a vow of chastity – so now
I must give another gift
for my second year & dedicate
to Him as a gift Humility.
It is so difficult! I am compacted
of pride & false humility that
disturbs the holiest balances
of Value I abhor. The Humility
Christ needs is that that fell
as punishment & redemption,
on St. Thomas, when he said
“My Lord & My God”. It is consonance
with Christ; it is confluence, it
is co-action with Christ. It is
bending one way with a precious
Influence.
In the Confessional I remorselessly
sift the Novice incident & do not
spare myself; & I review my year
in the Church, made⟨turned⟩ by my
pride into disordered & waste; save for
that tract of redemption, where
I had humbled myself to uttermost
penitence & grown my poor little
wild lilies of chastity above the
wreckage & flood-violence of
of my pride. Then I tell my
Confessor of how I am in extreme
stife strife to bring myself to give
Christ “Humilitas”, as I had given
Notebook 23, Page Image 164; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 77v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-164.jpg
[E.C.]
Castitas. As I weep on –
he approves my method
– that of the great saints; but
he is quite hard & gives no
word of encouragement for
the future nor reviews the
past to encourage. And he
speaks of pride tactlessly
& repeats the ever-repeated
“Mitis et humilis”. . . .
Before the Absolution I am
hard in sin again – all
my pride up, & of course
I make the Sacrament
invalid.
When I leave the Confessional
to say my penance – Miserere &
5 Paters & Aves with thought
of the Sacred Wounds – I
am sobbing . . . It is “terra-motus”.
Like S t Augustine I always
have my misery heaped up
in the sight of my heart when I am
going to experience a great
change – there is always
with me, as with him, “a
mighty storm, bringing a mighty
shower of tears”. I should have
liked my business of weeping
to be solitary – but it was
not, & my Confessor passes while
the storm lifts my shoulders &
uses my breath – or sobs – &
a small neighbor at her
Notebook 23, Page Image 165; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 78r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-165.jpg
[E.C.]
prayers is witness too.
When I come home, wasted by
torrents of my tears, Michael
recognises I come from an
invalid sacrament.
And the demons rejoice, & I fall
to quarrelling with Michael
for making comments on my
spiritual life, watching it
with overanxiety. I say such
heedlessly unjust & ungrateful
things as make the Charity of
Love itself a fury of defence.
And I turn on the Church
& blaspheme her with disloyal
words . . . till the madness is
tired out & the work of pain
it has done brings Contrition.
With speedy forgiveness (I am
nerve-distracted almost to the
breaking-point) Michael takes
me to the Vineyard, & we both
know I must get Absolution
before Good Friday. I will go with
her to the Dominican Priory &
confess to Fr Vincent – Confess to
Gosscommon I cannot.
Wednesday of Holy Week April 15th
And we go to the Priory. I see
in Kneeling the Ascetic face
with a joyfulness in its pallor.
So strange to be called “my dear
Child”. Fr Vincent really rejects the idea
that a scud[?] of pride could invalidate
Notebook 23, Page Image 166; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 78v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-166.jpg
[E.C.]
the Sacrament of Penance –
Redeemed Lucifer, pale
Son of the Heavenly Morning,
Fr Vincent is very leniant to
pride. He quotes his own
St Vincent Ferrar “Pride!
oh, it comes & goes & comes
again, but I don’t find it stays”
Some pride is needed to put
in place the work Humility
has to do . . it is tacking
thread.
I say I am weary & strained.
I feel I must wander about
the wide country the early
Italian painters put round
their Crucifixions & only come
agra across the Death of my
Lord round a Knoll. Only so
can I bear it – I must wander.
“Yes, wander through the next
three days. There are those who
are wanderers to God.
Some full in their aim swoop
as a hawk & they reach it
quickly – some reach it by
circles, like the larks –
singing.”
Holy Penance – “any hymn you
know in honour of the Blessed
Sacrament” – I murmur “The
Adoro” – He breaks into praise
of the most stable poem in
the world. Then I receive
Notebook 23, Page Image 167; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 79r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-167.jpg
[E.C.]
the desired Absolution “de torrente in
via”.
I leave most grateful for the
freedom to wander – for outlet
from the choking severity of
Lent . . . but my soul is
flattered not braced as by the
steady East Wind of Goss’ rigour.
Easter Thursday brings again the
bare altar, left to dust; the
gaping[?] house of God – “there
is no God” – the fool’s saying
to his heart made by our
Sin for a day so unbearably
true to our eyes!
And aside from this awful
comment on a Godless Altar
– at our Lady’s Altar, reposing
among flowers as Adonis
at Byblis or Syracuse, the Body
of God waits the Eternal
Springtide of Easter, in the Care
of His divine Mother. So much
more profound the true symbol
than the half-true lovely
Greek one! So with all that
was shown forth before Christ;
it is inadequate, imperfect:
the dreams of all the Faith[?] come
on Him for fiat, not approximation.
And Good Friday!
The shroud ⟨let[?]⟩ fall on the priests – the
shroud that is the altar-cloth of the
Notebook 23, Page Image 168; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 79v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-168.jpg
[E.C.]
desecrated altar. What it must
be to feel that sheet over you! –
Not our own winding-sheet,
your God’s!
My Confessor has been passing
through the long ceremonies,
as if Amiens or Rheims had
sent an assistant form
from among their sculptures . . .
There is a pause & he stands
awaiting the time when he
will hold the Crucifix to be
venerated . . . He looks level
& urgent at me one moment. . .
Another great weeping streams
through me, but it is time
to rise up with the people
& go to the altar-rails.
When he reaches me, as last
year, Gosscommon delays the
Crucifix – there is time for a
long Kiss & for the Word of
my promise “Humilitas” to
be breathed on the holy feet.
I return ⟨to my place⟩ to weep again –
showers, as if the West drove
them through me; & I expand
& grow strangely fresh under the
vehemence.
In the afternoon, when praying,
we see the Italian priest, who
helps at the Vineyard, scratching
the Candle-grease[?] off the vacant
altar, as earnestly as a schoolboy
Notebook 23, Page Image 169; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 80r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-169.jpg
[E.C.]
strips a wayside stone of moss.
Easter Saturday
The Church’s real Easter Day when
she brings back light into the our
spiritual lives, Lumen Christi –
& light into the Sanctuary; when
she rings her joy-bells as wildly
as if to the beat of Whymmie’s
feet; when she blesses the
water, & restores the Host to
our Misery. O day, whose realization
is wonderful as the anticipation
of the other glad days we may[?]
spend! Yes, the moment of fulfil-
-ment is a mystic promise.
Easter Sunday – April 14th
My Birthday into the Church.
Yesterday my Confessor from the midst
of his toil ( persuading people to confess
& hearing their confessions ) sent me
a little awkward note wishing
me “many happy returns of the
day” – the awkwardness of inexpression.
What he feels & meditates goes into
retirement when he would express it.
I & Michael are two among the
throngs of Communicants we saw
come in wave-line after wave-line
to the the “Thus far & no further” of
the Holy Ground last year, we
being alone, perhaps in the Church,
Notebook 23, Page Image 170; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 80v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-170.jpg
[E.C.]
as non-communicants. And
now over us & the Vineyard
throng our hedge of lilies
behind the Tabernacle bows
to its trumpet-blast as
angels stoop out of the sky
in pictures.
While Michael goes to High Mass
at Isleworth I have my hour
with the Blessed Dead, the Blakes[?]
before me, the Chapters & Poems
of the great Easters of old un-
-forgotten. It is so endlessly
inspiring to think of the
Faith in my loved ones, that
“looked through death”, making
it a bright cleaned window
between them & Eternal Spring.
And between me & them
it is nothing more & we reach
each other as much as the
bright grass, in its nature, will
let us – and gayest through
the window & see my
Whymmie. Sweet the benignity
of the Immortal life, where
the dead are in Communion
with the living who so
infinitely love them.
Michael starts directly after
three to Hampstead to hear &
bring report of Vincent’s Easter
-night sermon. I am alone
in the white Sunroom . . .
Notebook 23, Page Image 171; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 81r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-171.jpg
[E.C.]
Now in my dark mood I had
refused to celebrate my Birthday
into the Church, but after my
Holy Week Confession I agree to
go with Michael at 4 o’clock
on the afternoon of Good Friday
to the Vineyard – Friday being
by day not date the time of
my Reception. We prayed there
& I went over the greatest
event for which I have had
my being.
Suddenly on Easter afternoon I
realise that the real day of
my Reception must have its
celebration, & I forsake the
Sun Room, wondering if my
Confessor will remember the
hour when he gave me the gifts
of the Church. The Church is empty[?].
I pray Gosscommon may know
I am faithful to the hour &
pray God to plant my will
in such magnetic strength
that like the loadstone Goss may
come. I then kneel exactly where
I knelt before the Altar in thanks-
giving. In the –dark of prayer –
I hear a sound from the Sacristy
like that of the Sunday mouse – then
a door opens & the little movement
is like a crash: . . steps come down
the Church, his steps, I know them. He
seems to go to the door – he might have
locked it (he didn’t; for the sound. He did
Notebook 23, Page Image 172; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 81v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-172.jpg
[E.C.]
lock the sacristy side-door as on
the great day – then the steps
pass me & he is gone.
After the sweet dark time
beneath the Presence, I
read my penance for my
life-confession – the Magnificat
& Te Deum – & then light
6 big candles in full half-
circle before the Altar of
the Sacred Heart. Next, I settle
to read on my knees the Matins
& Lauds – so beautiful & of
Easter Day, the Day of the Magdalen.
Again the Sacristy Door opens
& Goss comes down the Church
before my eyes . . . He is come . . .
Why does he move down the
Church? What does he expect
or desire. I am mortally shy
& he does not make any
approach. So he comes do
back up the Church & goes
into the Sacristy.
When, at night, I go to Vespers
3 large candles crown my 6 –
almost exactly burnt to the
same height.
I think he put them there as
soon as I left. During the
Benediction all those candles
make together an exultant
light.
I wonder if he hoped I should have made
Confessions of the Year at the very hour of my
life-confession. Oh, I wonder?
Notebook 23, Page Image 173; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 82r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-173.jpg
[E.C.]
April 30th Vigil of Amy’s Reconciliation
to the Church.
__
(written to her)
My Precious,
Many happy returns of the holy birthday
into the Church of Christ. . . And
there is a deeper music now in my
felicitations than there wd have
been; because I am so much more
really in the happy fields than
three weeks ago, so deep beneath
moving grass & seeds & wide
flowers & sweet leaves I am
almost hidden.
It is a beautiful thing that in the
circle of your first year you are a
full-confirmed Catholic. And
you have lighted the lights of the
Sanctuary!  A wish that the blessing
may increase seems so feeble:
one feels as if the blessing,
one realises as infinite, must
contract – the limitless becoming
personal & deep down in one forever.
I hope the Darwin tulips & the
wood-lilies will reach you in time
to make loved Grove House festive
for its Papist Mistress. Tulips &
lilies seem the only flowers one can
get that will travel in strength of
life.
I can’t tell you how charming Paragon
Notebook 23, Page Image 174; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 82v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-174.jpg
[E.C.]
looked, spite of looming mist[?],
for the ‘little Famous’, nor
how charmed he was. “You
will never leave it” ‘he said
in the glow of the most splendid
Twickenham strawberries!
Did Michael tell you he came
in a Taxy-Cab – not luxury –
Excess!”
And what a day yesterday!
Early to the Confex[?] to see
Max’s new Caricatures
(some enchantingly –or
stupendously comic ⟨in line⟩)
hoping to meet Fr Gray, but we
missed & had a most friendly
talk with Bobby, in one of
his clever moods.
Then to the At Home at the Hans
Crescent Hotel . . . first
sight[?], after the Raff & Grib,
poor Hettie Pater with the
slaty depression about her of
her brother. The sister has
neuritis, & they think feebly
of the county & Chichester . .
Oh, Pussie, she is weird & sad, &
should be in the Church, like
Miss Gribbell of the placid eyes!
The pain of her on one’s soul
was acute.
Then we talk to the Father’s
worried sister – a pretty
Germanised woman quaintly
Notebook 23, Page Image 175; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 83r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-175.jpg
[E.C.]
dressed . . . the little Father himself
far away. Dear Fr Green, like
a lustrous bee strikes his
hand in one’s own. Beyond
him . . . standing alone,
who is it with the proud,
delicate face, & the eyes abstract
& troubled as from their His
own source, like an elemental
fountain singing[?] its mystery
from its core? Can it be – yes
it is – the great Dominican Monk!!
Our eyes meet & he smiles with
an amazing power of attraction.
I am held by an old Yorkshire[?]
bore of a man Miss G. very
stupidly had introduced. Michael
had not recognised Vincent – I
thought she was playing the same
game with him the Famous was
playing with us (a game I hate)
So I broke away & reached
Vincent “I must greet Fr Vincent”.
He was enchanting! It is well
he is in the Cloister, he wins with
such lure . . . lovely compliments,
eager talk that will not be distracted
from without nor concerned with
anyone else. He longs to visit Paragon.
Michael came up & asserted her
just possession. “I knew this was
the first Spring day – I did not know
I should see the flowers so soon”. –
he said, looking gladly at Michael
Notebook 23, Page Image 176; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 83v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-176.jpg
[E.C.]
in Véréna hat of black & white
ostrich with a knob[?] of vivid
fay[?]-roses, I gave place at
once. I feel so scrupulously
what is due to another who
meets the Confessor – & he
did look joyously at Michael.
And yet having got her,
the Napoleon, the son of
the Morning, the Orator, the
Manqué Poet, the Thinker
in him – all are bent tense
to get me & attract me to his
direction. It is quite frightening
to feel such ingurgitation[?] from
such a mind! Perilous, mobile
Vincent! And yet the integrity
of his monachism[?] a thing
of Mass – in all its sway
& grace terrible!
I turned to F r Green & had a
delicious talk with him. Like
Vincent he was enchanted
to meet us in the world – looking
very nicely dressed!!
Still no Famous come from
the end of the gt. Room (the
white buffet hung with smilax
& decorated entirely with
pheasant’s eye narcissus)
We had to leave & could not even
say goodbye to the host. And as
the ‘little Famous’ had not come
up to me at all, & only spoken
Notebook 23, Page Image 177; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 84r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-177.jpg
[E.C.]
to Michael when sent for to see
Fr Vincent, we left without bidding
him goodbye – being not inclined
to break into his talk with another
priest. But it was afflicting &
tiresome. He has that hateful
way in society that Bernhard &
Mary had & all their set of ignoring
their real friends in the world,
& seeming only to think of that.
I am sorry for Michael.
As direct as we could we
got home & dressed to receive
Fay at 7.30. Our new Papist
really seems to have promise, &
our house is no more a beer-
garden of craze & superstitious
inaptitude . . So the little
dinner went all right – only
it was very hard to suppress
naughty Fay’s conversation
so that the Nursling of the
Convent might hear it unwrung[?]!
He bubbled with naughty stories
& as soon as it was safe to
tell them forsook them – as lacking
incitement.
I must end. I am asleep at
Noon. Dearest love, full of – [?]
Supernatural joy & sent in
Close Kisses –
Thy Hen.
Notebook 23, Page Image 178; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 84v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-178.jpg
[E.C.]
May Day
(from Michael to Amy)
Gaude et laetare, Virgo Maria!
Three candles at our dear
Lady’s altar, & at the Dominican
Priory – offered by Fr Vincent – a
mass of Thanksgiving for thee.
So sweet a May Day!
Bending over our little balastrade,
outside, we look down on a
group of fritillaries. Blue
scylla still lingers.
We greatly honor thee. Hennie[?]
has set up on mantelpiece
thy lovely portrait with
Dickie, &before it shine two of
the lovely little Italian
anemones that thou has established
in Paragon garden.
The Oxford widow has sent a
few fritillarias left over from
the blizzard!! I am writing
in my little gold-Room, looking
through pots of cherry-pie on to
the river.
We propose Kew this afternoon
regarding May-Day as, for us,
a holiday of obligation. Surely
the summer is begun. It is like
the turning out of the cattle to grass
when the door into the garden
can be left open all day: & we
can go in & out & find pasture.
Little Whymmie is with us. Dickie
Notebook 23, Page Image 179; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 85r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-179.jpg
[E.C.]
is beside you, as in the portrait.
And our Lady fresh from her station
at the Cross is with us, singing
her Magnificat, as among[?] the
flowering hills of old.
What a Good[?] Little One, “oo” & I are
her Children of the May!
O beata Trinitas!
Michael.
Such fritillaries from Oxford!
– fresh, round when open &
serpentine when shut – fresh
as new snakeskin, somber
as old red basalt!
Michael’s sorrow[?] –
“Fr Gray has said Mass every morning
at the Oratory at 8. I asked him
the hour – & with his eyes, he
prayed me come.
And I have not been – nor lived
simply in the super-natural, as I so
easily can, I who bore the sharp frost
at five, at Farnboro! I could have
received from his hands the Bread of
Life. And our bond wd have been
strengthened . . . Henry remembers how[?]
he looked at me with his eyes.
I feared to trouble him with Confession;
for his soul’s sake I feared – tired as
he was after Easter. It has not
apparently been blessed to me! With
Fr Gray one must be able to respond
Notebook 23, Page Image 180; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 85v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-180.jpg
[E.C.]
to the mysterious tickings of a
gnome[?] underground.
And amid all the evolutions
of worldliness one must look out
for the secret signs…
We have missed it, lost it forever!
The Blessed One Himself
teaches me, but He Himself, like
His priests, wd cure me of
his apprehensiveness, & insists
on my learning by remote tokens
& indications, & very gentle
writings on the wall.
Notebook 23, Page Image 181; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 86r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-181.jpg
[E.C.]
To go back to Easter Monday –
Fr Green comes, with a gardener’s hands,
to chat for two hours. He he is
in love with our wooden box
of cottage daisies, red & silvered.
All flowers that carry silver
are so delightful.
On the Tuesday, Amy Bell comes
into the midst of our crazy
‘service’ & forces the air to accept
her, as a Hindoo God would
force it. She, undefeated, talks
of the defeats inherent in
human life – the love that[?] shd
be firm to me, so insufficient
in constancy.
Then on Wednesday, Goss comes
& we have social talk on Wonersh
& Farnborough, & a tea, when the
Fallen[?] steps ⟨out⟩ before the Priest ⟨in Goss⟩ & a
little table is put between us ⟨for me⟩. “that
we may be quite independant". I
command the Seville Marmalade
to the table & remark[?] “I do not think
we shall be quite independant”. His
light manner is not quite natural
to him, & I begin to realise it is
due to my unfortunate phrase that
accused him of sending a ‘social
message’ from the Confessional by a
servant. Constraint falls with
the restraint of a small wind from
a bad quarter[?]. The door of the grot
opens, & M rsSmith[?] thrusts in
Notebook 23, Page Image 182; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 86v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-182.jpg
[E.C.]
the Vet who stands facing
the Priest with the assurance
of “l’Homme Moyen Sensuel”
– before I can enunciate
a syllable of explanation, Goss
is gone, as though shot; &
does not know his own
umbrella in the hall!
A most unlucky interview!
In the morning Michael had
taken the announcement
that roses were coming for
St George’s day to the Presbytery[?];
Father George – “The Jewel” –
comments that the feast is
put off till its octave.
“Oh, then I must take my
roses to Isleworth”. “No, no –
I will expose the Relics & we
will have the Feast, except
for the Mass” . . . S t George is my
Patron” – “I had remembered
that, Father”. –And so the
holy Priest flits[?] flirts with
Cleopatra & blesses her!
I get no blessing from my
frivolity!
However I write to Goss on Sat.
& ask about the Bishop &
Confirmation, with a light
explaining of the Vet. & a word
of thanks for the Birthday Wishes
I had, with fate-doubtened[?] intelligence,
Notebook 23, Page Image 183; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 87r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-183.jpg
[E.C.]
forgotten to mention. This was
visited on me by the remote
allusion, when I said “These roses
lilies were a gift for my anniversary”.
“I believe that was on Sunday”.
I had the temper of breaking
ice at the words – each
moment ground against the
other sharply . . . Then the Vet
with his insufferable stare!
A cook is a portress who
mixes goats & sheep – seeing
that all meats come to her
oven!
A delicious Low Sunday!
I write Noli Timere & Michael
Penance & we read them in
a river-lit beauty of a Sun Room, &
we sleep on the floor, & radiant
Chow is close as we are to
each other . . .
At night all changes – a demon-
storm seems to gather[?] out of Dis.
The altar-candles set up their
back & will not be lighted; when
force is used one gutters & goes
out savagely . . Jewels comes in
to preach, begins & utters, “I am
sorry, dear brethren, I can’t preach
tonight. I don’t feel up to it. The
hurried Benediction after is brought
to a ghostly pause as the organ
obstinately remains silent at the
Notebook 23, Page Image 184; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 87v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-184.jpg
[E.C.]
‘Tantum Ergo’ has to receive
a personal message from Goss
at the altar.
The evening for us is full
of bottle-clouds such as
Job saw, full & stooped[?]
toward him.
I dream Goss-common is
exorcising me, by breathing
out the dust & sin as
a vacuum cleaner, till
I reel & am giddy with
the suction, & almost
too lose sight of the dark-shut[?]
eyes & remorselessly calm
pallor under the beretta,
& over the width⟨gape[?]⟩ of the
in breathing mouth . . . Then
I hear Michael’s anxious
voice “Is it not nearly done?”
– the timbre is full of restiveness
& the tug of the exercion[?]
becomes to me such anguish
I wake quite ill.
And the whole day wearies
me.
Wednesday – 29th
I have written of the little Father’s
visit – He is vivid as a
cluster of roses, & as Fay says,
he has the force of Alexander
Borgia, estimated typically.
Now & then he shows the
Notebook 23, Page Image 185; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 88r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-185.jpg
[E.C.]
pit in his left cheek, where his
mouth keeps adders in certain
moods. He is – oh, “mei [????]
Eccossais[?]”.
His love of beauty is, I again
note, ritualistic; concerned
with the manner of beautiful
things, the relations & activities
& implications of their beauty –
eyes holden to the substance
of their beautiful quality.
He genuflects with a Credo
he does not cast Himself
before the Presence with an
adoro[?] – to compare great
things with the greatest.
And now the inevitable
priestly preoccupation with
the relation of beauty to his
Church keeps him from
direct appraisement, or
direct joy.
The ‘Famous’ ate strawberries
of summer under the lighted
candles of winter – an effect
decendant[?] enough for the
author of “Silver-points” – wh : as
Bobby Ross says ought to have
definitely closed by perfect ex-
pression a period of English
Literature.
And Confessor & Penitent smoked
one ⟨or two⟩ of the gold-tip cigarettes of
the go nineties – he smiling
Notebook 23, Page Image 186; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 88v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-186.jpg
[E.C.]
at Michael benignly. There is a
trustworthy fine day in his
smile at Michael. In the
Gold Room she charges him
to restore the poet to his
vocation, & to write with
her poems on the mysteries.
He replied of the honour it
would be, but did not refuse
& glowed[?].
April 30th I have written of the
At Home – and Vincent, not of
this world, but claiming the
Universe with subtle[?] charm.
His smile of welcome, when
he knew me, tramelled[?] up
from very far mystic depths.
It recalled the light of a candle,
coming up on a miner’s
head, through the shaft, to
our day.
Friday May Day – Amy’s Birthday
into the Church. We rejoice
with her & offer our Mass for
her & a Mass is offered by
Fr Gray.
Saturday May 2nd.
Gosse comes to his summer
strawberries . . The Sun Room
is lapped in so intense a heat-
wave Michael calls it a blizzard
of sun. My Confessor is caught by
Notebook 23, Page Image 187; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 89r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-187.jpg
[E.C.]
My Sonnet – The first in Wilder Honey
More secret art Thou than a secret thing
That peers up on the surface of the Sea
Then reappears revolting[?] instantly:
Or as some traveller’s remembering
Of shade or light in cleft or sudden spring
Of unseen fount, or movement from a tree:
Offer a moment Thou dost pause by me
It is a token in admonishing.
Thou canst not tell gauge the appoint en[?] sent sent.
Nor of what computation it befell
Nor wherefore thou must pause with such intent
And measured steps a furlong from the well.
St. Hubert’s lovely stay[?] of breathing eyes,
Amid his antlers[?] God in sacrifice!
___
______________________________________
the river – sparkles through a
lattice & seeing the cushions &
parasol on the balcony seat
murmurs[?] (with special intention in
the tone) “It is poetic”. He announces
quite apostolically “ [????] like your
house”.
I wonder why he dwells on the en-
ergy in my health & I feel that
ideal disappointment so much
more sterile than social & worldly
disappointment that the priest
brings on one when he does not
respond to the motions of one’s
Spirit.
Yet he is gentle & profoundly
interested in all I say.
He makes an effort to get
me to the public Confirmation,
but I am firm.
He speaks of the Bishop’s Visitation
& when I say I do not know
what terrible matters are
included under the phrase
He he explains “Oh it is a
very serious matter, indeed
– it means we are heaved[?]
over the coals[?]. Anyone can
see the Bishop & can make
complaints against us”
The austere ⟨young⟩ face fills with
deprecating laughter, a
smile peeps out as in
his eyes, as wild birds peeps[?]
out of a hollow tree. Shade
– with a tilt & surprise[?]
of mischief.
Over the unbending power
of strawberries Goss confesses
that he had had a long
talk with Fr Doubleday about
us – “He thought you were
overstrained – doing too much”.
So the older, wiser man
had used his opportunity. Now
I understood the solicitude[?] over
Notebook 23, Page Image 189; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 90r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-189.jpg
[E.C.]
My health Gossc showed earlier –
I don’t think anyone will shape[?]
anew[?] my obstinate & rigorous
Confessor; but the kind warning
may have tempered his austerity
not a little.
He proposes to scull[?] us up the
river & in the Norman face
the eyes [????] I wish[?] –
frolicsome. Far enough[?] from
the priesthood those eyes,
with their folk-lore stories:
Dear Goss – he is almost a
boy with his boating & his
fun. If he would but be
more simple with me, & appeal
to the Child in every poet!
Monday Evening.
Fr Green’s Maytime Revels –
Delicious! Green-leafage of
entertainment! O England –
so happy in these old days!
“The Kingdom” – children – are
so royal on a stage: a little
couple dance a minuet, & we
have the little King & Queen
of Love in all their state before
us. There is a wooing dance &
song, full of drama – & the
finest point of flirtation these
children fulfil the ideal of their
sexes at its⟨in the⟩ simplest & finest demean
-our.
Notebook 23, Page Image 190; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 90v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-190.jpg
[E.C.]
And the old dances are
[????]as[?] the old ballads –
there is sap in them, &
the suggestions of full-
blooded imagination. A
Barley-mowing dance &
song was fearless as
Burns[?] is amid the barley.
Apparitio of St Michael.
In outer cloud, we live close
together in the supernatural.
Michael’s joy is a star in
a deep well – How happy she
is as a Catholic! The
angels claim her as sharing
their world.
We stay for 2 Masses, scarcely
knowing[?] wh : is the Mass of
thanksgiving.
Notebook 23, Page Image 191; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 91r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-191.jpg
[E.C.]
Saturday S t Gregory Nazianzen.
A sweet day of Keen Maylight
over the novelties of foliage
everywhere astounding the
air, & making the Sun smile,
not once, but constantly, as
Father Gray at Michael when
she came out into the
Church.
I write out our “Fruits[?] of the
Valley” – we read that book
of good news[?], Wild Honey –
we prepare Queen Mariamne
to be sent to Fisher Unwin.
We are very happy & leading
our natural life unforbidden
by the Supernatural – but
then St Gregory Nazianzen
was a poet & he drew his
“Christus Patiens” from Euripides’
Bacchus: St. Gregory blessed
the day!
Monday May 11th
We call on the Tommy-Sisters &
Philosopher Brother. At first
the Sisters alone bicker with
their eyes & show their teeth –
Society’s form of Grace before settling
down to tea – At last the
little philosopher appears – something[?]
like an ibex – small, nimble-eyed,
with a look of having always been
Notebook 23, Page Image 192; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 91v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-192.jpg
[E.C.]
where life is high & rocky. He
appreciates everything that
carries life in what one
says. Very green is it round[?]
Richmond Green now – the
limes banter the air with
greenness, audacity of greenness.
So cold & harsh[?] it is all
the while – making one
sad to despair.
Tuesday May 12th
After tailor, corsetiere – struggle
with illness at the[?] Club, with
Maters[?] & apprehensions what it
was to go in to the Convent in
Hyde Park Place, where there is
Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed
Sacrament opposite the site of
Tyburn. The air is a-bustle
with the souls of martyrs, of
poor sufferers on their Way
to the perfecting love of
Purgatory, of murderers &
assassins, traitors & innocents.
The Presence is amply exposed –
generous; it is supported by
England’s May, & candles burn
for the King & England. To be
Catholic in this spot is to
weep with exceeding joy
the universal Church embraces
one’s country, & the two most[?]
Notebook 23, Page Image 193; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 92r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-193.jpg
[E.C.]
Sacred powers over man sway
one, whobeholding[?] the Embrace.
Wednesday – May 13th
Again our household is thrown into
confusion. The “Fairies” –from
the green circle in the Sea,
our Sister Iole – are “depressed
that the weather (a very plague
of cold & rain) makes their
insides bad. All is lost! They fancy,
⟨– & flit⟩ Our plans for the summer lay
them down as if to die in
discouragement.
I have been up the damp hill
to get strawberries for Gosse’s
tea . . . but he comes⟨calls⟩ to say he
can’t come to tea. He stays &
we talk of the Office, what a
shield it is – of Lauds strong as
a fine morning. . . but for all
that there is a “block” in our
relation. His suspicion of me,
not understanding me, makes
him lay traps for my heedless
speech; & my words grow
cautious as wild animals
in the neighbourhood of a
hunter. I am in one of those
moods, which he provokes today,
when one loses one’s dream about
a person: Shakespere’s “little Western
Notebook 23, Page Image 194; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 92v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-194.jpg
[E.C.]
flower refused to drop its juice
on one’s eyelids – & one suffers
from one’s own hard gaze
on another.
The Bishop is in the Canary
Isles – at Pentecost! What a
canary! Gosse & Michael are
fellow-rebels over Bishops.
He tells her, not me, only the
Benediction (often taken by one
priest, who is doing[?] the special work
of that week – & Benediction, Gosse
had intended to absent himself
from) keeps him from coming
suddenly to tea, by command of his Rector.
 He
kneels by Jewel, who looks like an
old bird, wizened, restrictive,
like a haughty young thrush[?]
who has been defrauded of
his worms – those strawberries!
When he called I thought of
them & the vain money spent
on them!
Didn’t he kiss his superior’s hand
as a thrush goes for a snail-
shell!
Notebook 23, Page Image 195; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 93r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-195.jpg
[E.C.]
May 14 th
Fay is going⟨off⟩ to Venice – “desolated!”
not to be able to receive us.
Michael writes – ⟨No letter from Fay – ⟩
Beloved Painter,
It is a hideous little disappointment
not to see you for one moment⟨minute⟩ in
the May. So soon the clouds return
& the latter rains with Michael
now. Yet that you are going to Venice
& to greet the sea in streams, to be
in the blue streets – & row out[?]
at night to watch the gt. apple
orchards in the clouds – I rejoice
incontinently – Alleluja!
….
This is one of the loveliest of springs
to the eyes. The happy[?] trees
look back from Nature’s breasts
& laugh.
In Italy, I am a little afraid of
Shannon’s bones. Good greeting
to him with health. And to
you all those afflictions despairs
indignations wonderments
convulsions[?] & confidence that
will make you more Painter.
Wont[?] you go a little further to Sicily
– where there are the Sicilians?
I was beginning to want to be back in
Lent again. And, in part, my prayer
is answered.
Notebook 23, Page Image 196; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 93v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-196.jpg
[E.C.]
May 23rd
One must celebrate the May – In a
most beautiful way the leaves
are come out, with a generous
passion for their eternal
types in the Invisible.
The trees that are not
blossom-trees have won
our joy more than those
that are The flowers
of this May have been stunted
by cold & they have been
rained on too dolefully.
Still these last adorable
days the tulips have stood
up a-shine & as if to make
war. The grays & violets
of their armour, the purples
& reds & embroideries of
their panoply! The Sun
Room is full of dove-coloured
Darwins & green tulips
wildly edged as an oriflamme?
Goss came yesterday “And
you have lilac,” he said simply
as he looked beyond the
gray proud tulips. & the
green monsters[?]
It was not a happy Call. He was
chafed that I seemed unwilling
to be confirmed in Catholic
theology before my Confirmation
after having spoken some
Notebook 23, Page Image 197; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 94r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-197.jpg
[K.B.]
There is in Spring what passionate replying!
For tears[?] & sighs & everlasting dying
Blood is among[?] the lovely blossoms shed :
And she who clasps Adonis from the dead,
In the black marks[?] & circles purple-red
Of little springing herbs upon the ground
In everlasting sorrow is new-found.
Adonis, why
Must such warm tears fall down among
the Rocks shocks.
Will[?] lustrous flowers & flowers of ebony,
And shade[?] & shine & summer-brimming shoots?
Who is it climbs a little hill unshaded,
A bare, gray hill from which the grass has faded?
Surely she mourns one loved & beautiful;
For[?] this Void, grievous[?] place, called[?] of a skull,
She quarels in quietness most[?] Sorrowful
As one that standeth[?] by:
His death to her in every ‘hour[?]’ is found;
She hath come up awhile from Bethany,
And mourneth with the blue flowers on the ground.
Behold: if Love doth die – it is forever;
And tears are wiped away, but tears will never
Fail from their source; they drop perennial
For loveliness that disappears in hell,
For all that of one parted breath befell.
And all the lovely wind
Is wailing Music, & the spring a place
Where one is perished; & one left behind,
Seeketh, & mourneth for the Vanished face.
Notebook 23, Page Image 198; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 94v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-198.jpg
[E.C.]
time ago of a desire to have
the Instruction I refused.
It gave me such profound
pleasure to hear you say
that: But the longer the
Sacrament is put off the
less I can prepare The
great things of my life must
be adorned with suddenness.
He cannot understand.
And he took the strawberries I
had ruined[?] my purse for, this
week, without that light
of acceptance that makes
an enjoyment beautiful.
His appearance was ugly,
because so hard & suspicious.
I must try not to distress him
– but he does not grow in
the least more able to understand
me; & it makes me rest[?] resentful
when my moods & spiritual
mysticism spread like a sea
round him, & he is only the
stiff little light-house with
God’s light turning round
neatly – though redemptively.
And the flaws of the Irish
nature, detestible[?] because
the stuff is worked into
finer beauty than much[?]
sounder[?] material he begin[?]
to show ⟨in him[?]⟩ now I have[?] had
Notebook 23, Page Image 199; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 95r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-199.jpg
[E.C.]
such daily trial from these flaws
in our service for some months.
I hardly knew my Confessor
was of Irish strain – I
observe it now inimically[?].
He doesn’t trust me half-a-
yard, though I believe he
is fond of me & concentrated
on bringing[?] me for the Super-
natural life, by his methods.
I am a little too fond of
him, I can’t imagine why –
except that when “Heaven
violated my shrinking soul”
in its awful demand for
the Life-Confession, Goss,
as the Instrument of
Heaven, was so perfect; & he
remains the repository of
my secret being – which
to a fiercely reserved nature
is a bond with a strain
of passion in it. That I must
eliminate by prayer & self-
denial – & let the tragic bond
untwist, somewhat & be
patient & firm, & abide Christ’s
will.
Michael & I plunge in the Petersham
Park – It is Verlaine’s Green
– my brain turns, like
Actaeon’s into a stag’s – all
full trees & breadth of grass.
And the stags in the Park pass
Notebook 23, Page Image 200; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 95v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-200.jpg
[E.C.]
in shadow over the emerald
jewel of the plaisance.
I wake this morning to Chestnuts
with tiers of white wax
as though ranged for a
Benediction, & below, the ⟨– a⟩
May ⟨bush⟩bloom a little throne,
of[?] hanging crimson
before our eyes.
A Confession I have the blessing
to make thorough & humiliating
O Torrent by the Wayside – when
one realises how dusty one
is – how the little shards
stick close as one’s own[?]
skin[?] to one, & one’s thirst!
I realise for the first time that
contrition[?] is really thirst –
a panting for the Waters
out of Christ’s side – it is
It is a spiritual appetite for
renewal by washing &
draught.
Goss as instrument of the Sacrament,
is gentler than usual[?] He gives
me his chosen Saint John the
Evangelist to help me in temptation
Notebook 23, Page Image 201; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 96r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-201.jpg
[E.C.]
Then why after this most solemn &
intimate reception of the Sacrament
of Death, must I meet Goss in
a few hours’ time & in a
worldly dress of the simplest
[????], my arms full of moss-
roses for my bowls! [ The
altar was a wall of lily-
trellis & our Lady’s Altar a-glow[?]
with roses ] I had an instinct
of flight, but of course had to
meet him, though I let him
choose to pause or pass – &
he paused with a full smile
of greeting Then he touched
the flowers –
“Ah, roses!”
“Are they not lovely? One only gets
them once a year when they
are cut in the cottage gardens
[ Michael calls this a lie[?] ]. – That
once is today” I explain with
a deprecating defiance.
“They are lovely”
“Yes, with the moss round them!”
“Ah, you can never be parted from
flowers!”
He smiled again, & as we shook
hands our eyes met – his
were profoundly sad.
Now why should I meet him,
like “a Faerie’s Child” just fresh
from a sweet self-indulgence
he could not have breadth to
Notebook 23, Page Image 202; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 96v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-202.jpg
[E.C.]
take in the vital spirit – while
up at the Church he wd find
Michael saying an Office
for the Dead – little wretch[?]
of a devote!
On Monday an old lady, who
once found she was 10 years
younger than she believed – I
need not say an Irishwoman –
came to see the tulips & have
some. A Dominican tertiary
has seen & received tulips this
afternoon. The red ones go to
the Church tomorrow – Amy
has some & Mr Peek came,
saw & received.
So Goss need not have looked
so sad that I should be
under the dominion of the
flowers that fade. Dear Goss!
And there was something
hauntingly supernatural
in those sad eyes in the midst
of a smile that was boyish.
Michael writes to Fr Gray of the
Ascension “It is to me a
new feast. Meditating on it,
I am beginning to see that
it is the first day or birthday
of the Kingdom of Heaven. Until
the redeeming Feet tread the
floors there may be agreeble
Music-Rooms in that Roomy there!
Notebook 23, Page Image 203; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 97r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-203.jpg
[E.C.]
Is not this last bit of May overwhelming?
The walk from Isleworth brings
one to Othello’s pause – “if it
were now to die ‘twere now to
be most happy”
June 1st
“Here June begins – just the May
getting out of her depth!
Pink hawthorns are giving
clustered tea-parties of delight,
in their cosy groups over the
heat . . . The oars keep
cool plashing till eleven.
I like to say the word North.
[K.B.]
Friday before WhitSunday[?] – June 3rd.
I go to see my great Dominican –
We speak of the Summa. It is a bond.
He says some of the very great
Mysteries St. Thomas gives
might be sung by a poet – a very great
poet. He gives 4[?] lines of his own
translation – very straight & fine,
& masculine. He only writes[?] these
down for me, “in obedience.”
In the great talk my[?] Vocation
emerges[?] – Something it may be
of the dark things of God to be set
down – And the lips[?] must learn what
quiet! [ And how high the Calling ]
Notebook 23, Page Image 204; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 97v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-204.jpg
[E.C.]
On Ascension Day I was expecting
Goss – a curt note “I have an
engagement & will⟨shall⟩ come
at 11.30 unless I hear to
the contrary.” The Church
teaches her priests in lovely
unworldly courtesy of always
giving the reason for breaking
an engagement. As I
am free for the afternoon, I
ask a lady from the Vineyard
to tea & sight of the tulips –
no – she & a friend are going
to take F r Gosscommon up the
river – he is anticipating it
like a schoolboy. I smile –
but it is well Goss does not
encounter the author of
Julia Domna or Herod for at
least an hour. The rage I
feel suspends volition. Michael
says Speak to him. A broad
smile greets me that dies
under cloud. But the grace of
railery is given to me, &
in softest tone I am able to
make him ashamed as a
priest of breaking an engagement
with me of a week’s standing,
scrupulously regarded by me
at gt inconvenience – breaking
it without apology & for his own
private pleasure. The apology is
is availingly[?] entire “I am very[?]
Notebook 23, Page Image 205; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 98r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-205.jpg
[E.C.]
sorry – it shall never happen again”.
I had almost forgiven him before
– he looked so charmingly caught
in a net when I said “I know
what your engagement is – to go
up the river”’. The Irish boy
& the trapped fawn gleamed
& lowered[?] helplessly in the
stern Norman face. His
attempted explanation he
finds[?] he heaps[?] shame [????]
him as a priest – he repented⟨s⟩
there others[?], & would have
Borne⟨bear⟩ any blows the
moment he is contrite.
“I had to speak, Father, or I . .
should have remained angry”
“I am very glad you did. It is
better for us both”.
And we turn to the Office
with softened spirits – the
light & intimacy after storm
between us.
Saturday⟨Monday⟩-May June 1st
The ‘Tommies’ come. So strange it always
is to see them & not to see our golden
Chow! The Poet has never been
baptised, being connected with “Friends”
& with Baptists (who hold the Adult Baptism
as only necessary) – he has has
all the mournful annoyance
about him of a wild waste land
Notebook 23, Page Image 206; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 98v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-206.jpg
[E.C.]
in its temerity. There is an
woefulness⟨exemption[?]⟩ haunting him –
an easy[?] exemption one
feels as a latitude that
is of the desert.
Fay has been baptised – he is
quite different. He has
soil full of garden flowers
– unpruned, or made lovely[?]
round a Pan or Diana.
Michael takes them⟨the Tommies⟩ on a
river of gray surface &
bats for its swifts.
Tommy wants to come again.
His poem is too long to read –
after gliding over Thames.
Tuesday
It is fervently[?] hot.
The Dog-Show – & we seek
Chows as if after the red Graal.
Oh, to see the sweet arch-scowl.
the nostrils playing! Like
honey-bees round what they
smell, “the sag” of the wild
limbs in their majesty, that
rejects domesticity for passion
in every recorded impulse of
the limbs little royalties!
To lay one’s hand in the
full moving-grass of fur
Notebook 23, Page Image 207; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 99r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-207.jpg
[E.C.]
on the head & neck! To touch
& to regard the type of the
natural Chow with moving
hands! . . . Oh, Whymmie, unseen
untouched, yet known to one’s
eyes & to one’s touch as long
as they serve one’s Spirit –
Oh, Whymmie, but these chows
were not – their soft heads
were not real, only sent like
Hamlet’s Father to revive
one’s almost blunted senses.
To realise what gold of
flames is gone from us
makes us wonder how
we endure the vacancy –
but the early Church endured
the loss of the Light of
the World, an expedient loss –
no marvel! That through
mystic experience we have been
brought to Catholic Faith.
I wanted my little Chow, as if
watching for the dawn of
him.
Wednesday Michael goes to Vincent.
Notebook 23, Page Image 208; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 99v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-208.jpg
[E.C.]
Mrs MacDonald writes:
Fr Gray was very genial & looked
like a boy in his wite[?] straw
hat!”
Notebook 23, Page Image 209; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 100r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-209.jpg
[E.C.]
Thursday
Goss tells me the Bishop is still in the
Canary Isles – I dare say he wd
fly to my death-bed, but he won’t
come to his see at Pentecost
& I must meet it outside its
Sacrament – that Bishop!
Goss eats his strawberries &
when Michael says we have
been up the river, he glances,
quick as a swallow, [????]
gleam at my eyes. After
that we smile deprecatingly,
plaguingly[?] at each other,
& Michael goes on with
serene mischief. .
Friday
Gordon Bottomly & his wife come
to see his “dear Sir” – But he
has suspected Michael Field of
travesty – had even heard
an on dit[?]. Gordon, a cross
between Tommy & Havelock
Ellis, sits before me with
loose hair, & eyes moving like
a doll’s, a sweet doll’s eyes
one must take care of – the
mouth hung loose & the beard
attached loosely & the cheeks
loosely salient – yet a gentle
Spirit behind in the delicate
Notebook 23, Page Image 210; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 100v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-210.jpg
[E.C.]
weariness of the voice. The
smile confiding admirations
– a beautiful sort of smile.
We took to each other, &
many were the Vale Books
& many were the Fay-
Drawings & engravings &
pictures we looked at.
“One thing I knew the
Signor di Borgia is a man”.
“Oh, I am sorry we could not
win him to come & meet you,
but he will not give up his
anonymity. So you will
have to be contented with
Michael Field”
That is not a hard doom
indeed – tho I should have
liked to meet the Signor”
And I speak of the inner
circle that admires Ricketts –
for as author of Borgia I
had told Gordon I had
50 Ricketts & Shannon pictures
in a White Room.
The wife a kind soul, a
happy-making nurse: as
all wives do, makes⟨emits⟩ the
distraction & jabber of a
mated bird over its nest –
the instinctive fuss that ma[?]
causes the wife to be a social
horror[?] near to her husband.
Notebook 23, Page Image 211; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 101r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-211.jpg
[E.C.]
Such a sweet smile Gordon gave
Michael from the carriage – so
a sun smiles over the green,
wheat he must sink hm[?]
behind & leave still green.
It made one very tender to
the gentle sufferer in his
laughter[?], to dwell in that
smile.
He has had two delicious dreams
(1)16 In a book bound in an
amber-skin this page was
shown[?] to his vision “ He
would substitute taste for
Salvation”. The Eighties
laughed[?] round are phantasmal.
Gordon reading was very much
frightened.
(2)17 Giorgione came & promised to
show him all the real
pictures he had painted, &
the tactless Gordon told
Giorgione that the Companile
was fallen . . . Giorgione vanished
. . . Fay declares not with sorry
– but with fear he had encountered
a bore!
Fay’s miniature of me kept him
drowsy[?] with wonder. I said
it frightened me, as if a seal
of the Last Judgment were on
it. “But it is only the revelation
of loveliness!” What wd Goss have
Notebook 23, Page Image 212; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 101v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-212.jpg
[E.C.]
taught this Man of taste had
he been present!
Saturday June 6th
Before the whiteness of the
Holy Spirit Confession is
dragged out of me till
I sob[?] with deep even[?]
weeping. I only[?] have
the Sancte “Veri Sancte Spiritus”
now, & for the Octave, as my
penance, & very gently my
Confessor on[?]⟨whispers to me of⟩ the greatness
& peril that we are Temples
of the Holy Ghost – capable
of losing our Divinity,
ungarnishing our Altar.
Every time he tells me I
must be “mitis & humiles”
– I used to smile to myself
in the Confessional as I
heard the words on their
way. Now I love the repetition
& revere it.
Goss is just like a mushroom
– a still cool remark without
a trace of reproach, will lift
a whole pavement of pride
or lack of charity off my e[?]
heart in the[?] time.
I do not trust anything that
depends on his narrow
human judgment – but all
Notebook 23, Page Image 213; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 102r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-213.jpg
[E.C.]
that effects out of his holiness
– for there is the Saint in him.
Fay writes he is coming to dine
& it is a Vigil – to dine is
to break one’s fast … we
scarcely think the sunny-
hearted salmon will appease
him – yet we risk the trial
with a whole windrow of
green asparagus, cherry
Tart & Stone Cream[?].
And he is placable.
But less so that we are
away (he thinks at Confession)
when he comes, so that
he has to slumber, &
sleep among the little roses
& rock-roses of the balcony.
Away when he arrives –
that was a bad attack of
heresy!
And he has a keen eye for
heresy, as he is such a Catholic
at heart, Michael says, “my
keenest rebukes, when I speak
with a convert’s impertinence,
come from you. How ably you
spoke of the peace & vigor of
the Convent life . . . A few hard-
faced nuns & insubordinate “Fairies[?]
had discouraged me”.
À propos of Fay’s remark that
he did not know any husbands
Notebook 23, Page Image 214; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 102v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-214.jpg
[E.C.]
& did not know where they have[?]
to be found [ I suggested
they were shut up by their
own sex in Clubs – their
own sex refusing to bear
what women bear from
wives ] Michael writes
“are you still looking for husbands?
I will try to bring you some,
if you really want them,
I could speak to the Woman
of Samaria about husbands.
She used to have quite a
number I believe . . . If you
really want some!”
WhitSunday
This is what Vincent has said
to Emily of Michael’s poems
“He spoke of their strength &
terseness & then, of their tenderness,
On a previous occasion, he had
dwelt on the mystic element
contained in them. Amy said
she was a little jealous of
the Divine office as she
thought the time spent on it c[?]
might keep you from singing &
she seemed to think he
shd direct you about it, as the
Notebook 23, Page Image 215; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 103r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-215.jpg
[E.C.]
loss of your song wd be serious. And
he said he did indeed feel the
responsibility of guiding the singer.
He said he was not fit for the
part he was too fond of being
sung to & then he added
something paradoxical about
one who teaches the singer
should have no ear for
Music [ Goss!! )18 But he
seemed to think the Divine
office was a good preparation
for song in wh : Religion
was to be the gt. influence &
he felt that for your songs
religion was the element
needed to bring perfection &
completion”.
Amy writes –
“He was deeply interesting of course
on Michael & loved the “Cuckoo”.
He is quite convinced that Michael
will sing, but he does not think
quite yet: the novitiate is
not yet over” He evidently
looks forward with passionate
eagerness to the time of song.
But I felt he had felt he had
got a bit of it in the “Cuckoo”
He is a wonderful living force –
I am so thankful to think
‘Oo’ have it!”
Notebook 23, Page Image 216; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 103v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-216.jpg
[E.C.]
Well, this difficult Whitsuntide
while waiting for the Sacrament
the Bishop’s jaunt[?] to the
Canary Islands(!) has
deprived me of – it is very
much to have Vincent’s
belief in our Dedication to
a new song before my
hope. I live with the
beloved old Whitsundays
& yet as a traveler in a
country he has long been
camping in when he sets down
before a city’s walls & a
gate not yet opened.
WhitMonday is vain – we
go for the Mass of Expiation
& it is at 9+ not at 10.
Everything is going away in
our home. The dreadful
& malign ‘fairies’ of the green
Island make the days wretched[?]
– in silence, violence, ingratitude &
petty thievery, lying – all
the qualities of the low
savage, crossed by strange
traces of an old cilviz civilisation
of race, & the straggle & decay
of it all about them;
religion in sentiment & a nice
method of having everything done
Notebook 23, Page Image 217; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 104r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-217.jpg
[E.C.]
for them willy-nilly – ‘well, well’.
–,the Fairies are to be avoided
with energy. There is something
infamous in their interruption –
also in their love of degrading
& levelling, & in their cruelty
masked by sycophancy, &
also in their wild mustard
-headed selfishness.
Oh, to see them, oh, to hear them
no more!
It is the “Fairy” in Goss that
is making him impossible
to my soul so often.
With an awkward note he puts
off his Thursday visit at
the last moment – so we
are off to the Burlington Fine
Art Club to see The Illuminated
Missals, Hours &c. Cockerell
has gathered together.
O Joy, of my own world calling to me
from strips of blue heaven!
Sometimes such imagination –
sometimes design so perfect
it might be raised to any size
indifferently & remain unchanged
in value. This is the great
test of design.
In a Flemish Missal a more
severe design than Leonardo created
gives a gracious St. Anne using[?]
her daughter’s lovely, sanctified
Notebook 23, Page Image 218; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 104v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-218.jpg
[E.C.]
head as reading-stand
for the book of prophecies
– while the babe thrums[?] on
the breast of the Virgin-Mother.
A design at once symbolic
& complete.
A French series of illuminations
– a blue, quiet figure of the
Creator evoking His creatures
in seven circles, & dying
for the fare creatures of
his hand’s evocation
in the last.
Two dove-gray nunlike
figures of Contemplation –
one kneels prostrate &
the Incarnate Christ stoops
to her as gift : then
she kneels erected fearless
& the Trinity is before her
as gift of her Courage.
A lovely Rossettian Group of
Lancelot touching Guinevere
with the touch of love for
the first time.
A group of blue robed Galatians
of St. Paul’s Company &
a free-bowed Centaur
aiming at them! Delicious glimpses!
We must spend hours with the
little nobilities & royalties of
this gold & blue art.
Notebook 23, Page Image 219; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 105r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-219.jpg
[E.C.]
Friday
Coming home from sitting in a
flow of air by the river we
meet Goss. He has just been
to Paragon with report of his visit
to the Bishop – & will come later
in an hour’s time. I am
throwing water over the
dazzling rose-bush on the balcony
when I discover him in the
room – He looks as if the
roses-bush were a trap baited
for him – dear Goss, with eyes as
suspicious as an animal’s.
He has really been very hard
or stupid about the Confirmation,
arranging it should be before
the Bishop’s private Mass at
8 o’clock, the day after the
General Confirmation, the
Bishop staying the night for
other business. Now such
an arrangement with fasting
& the congregation that w d
gather for the Bishop’s Mass,
is about the most brilliant
bit of Charity conceiveable.
It just passes like a shadow
of a black cloud that the 24th is
a day of Tragedy too. Still I
bow . . . Goss actually suggests I
should not take the Blessed
Sacrament, but have something
Notebook 23, Page Image 220; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 105v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-220.jpg
[E.C.]
“to fortify me”. Goss is desperately
wooden when a ceremony
is about. We sit there, strangers –
as if he had come from one
planet & I from another,
& he a little uneasy at the
roses in mine.
I shut the door after him &
suddenly open it to ask for
my usual hour of Confession
tomorrow. He is at the gate –
but at my recalling “Father!”
he comes back. I feel there
is real apprehension[?] in his
eyes as he coldly assents –
“you may come at the usual
hour”.
And we have been in an intimate
relation over a year!
I understand him far more
than he understands me – but
the world in his head is so
utterly different from mine
I am soon lost – As for him,
the instant he strays from
the road he & the Church have
cut through my mind, he is
quaking on the edge of a
morass, or terrified at a
dangerous forest hung with
flowers.
I go into little Paragon Garden
Notebook 23, Page Image 221; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 106r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-221.jpg
[E.C.]
to talk with Michael & realise I am
to be confirmed at the very hour
the Father started on his last
fatal walk. I am ready
for this new path of suffering
– but I find Michael is
in pain at the thought.
I shall feel myself dedicated
to tragedy; & at woe that
my Sacrament of full
Reception into the Catholic
Church should be associated
with Zermatt & the Festa
that is to us haunted by
the mountain whispers of
sudden death, or murder,
or lingering agony.
Then too the mercilessness
of the hour for any one, with
my frail heart-action.
She can eat no crumb till
she sees Goss & arranges
something different – Either
another hour or Confirmation
at Edinborough Edinburgh.
He is cold as felzspar[?] over
the imaginative recoil from
an afflicting past : often his Irish
Temper mixes threateningly in
his voice – but Michael may manages
him till he offers to write to the
Bishop. And at this my
Anointing is left.
Notebook 23, Page Image 222; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 106v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-222.jpg
[E.C.]
Saturday
Michael puts everything before
the great Vincent . . At first,
seeing the sorrow at[?] Zermatt
in a flash he murmurs
“But the Coming of the
Comforter”. Afterward when
he sees the tragedy with
comprehensive eyes he
deliberately judges “You did
quite⟨perfectly⟩ right. The Church allows
us to shield⟨shelter⟩ each other. She⟨She ⟩⟨allows[?]⟩⟨ so much in high way⟩ (Henry)
⟨Henry⟩ should shelter you in the
same way.”
I am glad the gt. Dominican judges
with Michael
Michael speaking of how she has
found in herself a certain
contempt for woman “I thank
Thee I am not as other women –
unable to recognise beauty &c.”
concludes with the words
“It is detestible”.
Quiet as a seal pressed deep
comes from the other side
the “grille” – Yes.
But Vincent is anxious when his
poet speaks of the crossed lips that
now are dedicated to silence –
as Christ in His way of the Cross was
Notebook 23, Page Image 223; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 107r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-223.jpg
[E.C.]
silent. “But you must remember
that all silence is not speechless
– it is listening to speech”
And he ended “ Now ⟨tomorrow⟩ you
must turn to the Everlasting
hills” – meaning the range
of the Trinity.
My Confessor is in good weather
over my confession. I can
always tell the climate of
the Confessional – I can
hear the happy breathing . .
or the little gust of change –
or the steady frost, or the
or the weight of anger & the
coming homily, or the moan
just audible of pain or –
surprise. It is marvellous
how expressive the mere
taking of the breath is to an
Ear listening with no help
from the Eye. One sense by
itself is finer than when
assisted – as every servant
is better for serving one alone.
I protest against pride in asking
him for a special time – I will
know where my place is among
his other penitents – I hope to
join them – but we are unequal :
they have been trained since
childhood to the rite. I have
Notebook 23, Page Image 224; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 107v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-224.jpg
[E.C.]
not, & the ordeal is dreadful to me
[ At the sound of the Confessor’s
step I burn as if I should
be consumed to tinder ) 19
I could not push – & should
have to wait to the end, till
I was speechless.
After a gentle little homily, Goss
says that, as for my Confession,
he wishes to take me at a
different hour at present & does
not disapprove “ I never had such
an idea in my head”. – Never??
Trinity Sunday
*20Michael has a revelation on Humility
– that it is only safe from
self-humiliation & abjectness
when it is coupled with Faith.
This is what makes the magnificent
the expression of such living
& divine Humility. This makes
a true Saint’s humility so
wonderful, & the imposter’s
humility so hateful – The one
in veritable faith sees God
& sees[?] he cannot stand in
God’s sight – the other has
no Vision of God. It is the man
who can believe who is humble :
who has such faith that, with our
Lady, he bows to the “Be it done
unto me” of a magnificent doom.
Notebook 23, Page Image 225; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 108r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-225.jpg
[E.C.]
We have to bear tribulation from
the cruelly-green window in
Church . . . I quail before a
High Mass; the same condition
borne at length, producing
anguish. And so we remain
at home in the river-stream[?]
of the day.
The Antiphons at Lauds chaunt out[?]
”Laus Deo Patri, parillique parilique
Proli, et tibi Sancte studio
perenni Spiritus, nostro resonet
ab ore, omne[?] per aevum.”
And we refuse to offer a little
pain & discomfort that we may
give to the Trinity that act of
resounding thankfulness
a Sung Mass!
Well, in penance for the sin I
shall sing these Antiphons
( as Michael will ) every day
for an Octave.
In the afternoon we go up the
hill to see Cockerell : he &
the blue dragon-fly Kingsford
Wife are spending their last
day in Richmond. He has got the
Cambridge Appointment & will live at
Cambridge, in a house whose garden
has lost its top soil, as poet
used for architectural structure.
We suggest he shd cry at nightfall
– he looks so arid-eyed after 15 years.
Notebook 23, Page Image 226; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 108v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-226.jpg
[E.C.]
Corpus Christi
And we hear the “Pange lingua”
sung, & we read the whole
Office – an Office of fearful
beauty a poet has packed
with every loveliness the
profoundest of thinkers has
found in this Day of the
greatest Mystery of Religion.
Such psalms, such antiphons –
hymns & lectiones all the
pouring forth of a poet’s golden
passion of apprehension.
Michael drives to Isleworth –
to find no procession.
Goss is to come on Monday with
the Bishop’s answer to the appeal
that I may be confirmed after
the others on the Vigil of St John
the Baptist’s Day.
On Sunday June 21st we take
the “Flower girl” ( a lady who
arranges the altars ) & her old
Mother, who was preserved in
the [????] & seems to have
been preserved in a musky
drawer of old things since, to
our Main[?] Convent, where there
is a procession, I am unable
Notebook 23, Page Image 227; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 109r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-227.jpg
[E.C.]
to follow. But in the Chapel I
am present as my Confessor
( Goss of the Father’s mischief,
now a figure of Gothic stone or
of an illumination from
a Missal ) hugs his[?] God
to his breast & takes the
Body of Christ away to the
greenwood – out among
the trees of the 4th day of
creation, out to the grass,
to the swing of the fragrant
roses out of captivity
into the air of the heavens
under wh : the Cross & its
burthen were raised. I yearned
to kneel on English grass &
adore the Presence that once
made the land so happy.
I thought of the old processions
when the symbols of the
Gods were carried out to the
mountains – or as with Adonis,
the very image of beauty was
borne out among the fresh
leafage of Earth – Now it was
the God & His symbols at one.
I heard “Pange lingua” with its
haunting tune to the classic
beat come to me over the
garden-ground.
Leaving[?], Goss said curtly “I want
to speak to you” I listen a little
offended at his tone. –[?] He cannot
come on Monday till 6.30 – so
Notebook 23, Page Image 228; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 109v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-228.jpg
[E.C.]
as the Evening is my chance
for a quiet confession I propose
to be in the Church at 1[?].
I do not think he meant to be
so curt – it was boyish tactlessness
– but it railed[?] me & made me
lonely before the coming supernatural
event.
Monday.
A wonderfully memorable day –
we go to town – Kate Reily
prepares the perfect hat for
the ceremony that needs
an open brow – just an auriole
of the blue of an old Mosaic
wreathed[?] with mole[?] brown tulle
gathered in a scarf under the
chin. Then at the Mineralapsis[?]
the mystic stone is found for
Michael’s gift to me, for my
Confirmation – a berly[?] beryl,
scribbled over with signs like
a writing – and no man can read
it – & no man of science can
quite tell how the [????] writing
came there. It costs four
pounds – but that will not
deter a poverty-stricken poet
from catching a Dream.
We return to an afternoon of
Summer glow in the Sun Room –
Silence, love reaching me from
Notebook 23, Page Image 229; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 110r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-229.jpg
[E.C.]
the mystic beryl, as I sit in the
loved hat. O silence! O Sun
shuttling its lightrays down[?] on its
central radiance as eyelids
over an eye – or[?] covert burning[?]
realisation of summer!
And at night a charming letter
from the Famous.
I shall keep this day safe –
a day like the golden ones
with Whymmie; & our love, Michael’s
& mine, unflawed at all
by the unnatural Church.
Tuesday June 23rd
But at night ⟨on Monday⟩ the Church
in her supernatural power
took up her sign. Under
the lily-wall of the Altar
I awaited Goss & asked him,
astonished at the action, to speak
with me in the Sacristy as I
had been so tormented with
anxiety. But Goss has heard nothing
from the Bishop – cruel
haunter of the Canary isles!
I am to hear not later than
5 tomorrow if I am to receive
the chrism at 9 of the[?] evening
of or 7.45 of the next morning.
Such a torment! But Goss I
find very sorry, & I learn he is
Notebook 23, Page Image 230; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 110v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-230.jpg
[E.C.]
frightened like an animal
before the ponderous force of
a bishop. This is the
trouble! You can handle
nothing with fear – the most
tactless defect of the world –
the cowed[?] rebel, cowed[?]
as priest & faun[?], a rebel
because an Irishman, cannot
handle anything with the
Bishop.
I love an Evening Confession
– when the Wayside Torrent is
in the shadow of the Rock.
I confess in the Whiteness of
the Holy Ghost the fulness
of present failings & of[?]
terrible old sins, especially
my impiety toward my dear
old father, when I wished
he might never return – &
he never returned.
I have “Veni, Creator Spiritus”
to say, Goss is sweet & “timely”
in his address tho’ he is spent
with exhaustion, having rushed
to the Church foodless from
a journey. True to his firm
discipline in humility, he will
not allow me to acknowledge
my faith 21 probably not a quarter[?]
of an hour of doubt in the year ]
without warning from the example
of the Saints that it needs most vigilant[?]
Notebook 23, Page Image 231; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 111r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-231.jpg
[E.C.]
guarding . . . Yes, I love an Evening
Confession; Compline made
into an actual sacrament.
And with my loved Michael
I end the day by the pier
watching the bats immerge[?]
from the river-side trees;
they sweep large circle with
twittering wings – the largest &
smallest motion combined
in velocity. The milky bats!
Half-birds, half-moths, yet
suckling Mothers – flying low
& yet comprehending in the
loops of their limber flight
the Darkness that awes
us all!
Tuesday itself. A day of trial
as wearying as yesterday was
a day of established joy &
peace. I have everything
prepared for the rite at night –
lilies & large hair-bells for
the altar; blue larkspurs &
cornflowers for the Lady Altar –
I have my will prepared, since
the Bishop will have mercy
& not shelve me to a day it[?]
is such added trial to have for
Confirmation – Midsummer Day –
at last Goss’ note – The Bishop
has refused to receive me after
the other Candadates – I must
Notebook 23, Page Image 232; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 111v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-232.jpg
[E.C.]
go through the Ordeal fasting
& at the th[?] hour of the
Midsummer Day that turned
the dour father’s feet onto to
his way of death.
Michael’s Agony is fearful –
she feels unable before the
severity of the trial.
I can bow myself & feel
that the pain is the movement
of ultimate blessing.
The spirit that led father
forth is leading me forth to
make perfect, through
accepted pain, all the
work begins in our lives
that day of St. John Baptist
eleven years ago.
We cannot bear to think –
the tides of all feeling in
us sink away from us . . .
We take a boat. The river
gray, a tiny smoke round
the reed-stems – the current
home swift, a recovery to
inanition!
The dull blue hat is laid out.
The cress-fold black dress – the gloves,
everything . . .
I pray myself into sleep, Thames
air & glow aiding grace.
Notebook 23, Page Image 233; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 112r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-233.jpg
[E.C.]
St. John the Baptist’s Day –
Midsummer Day –
The Day of my Chrism.
Michael at 6 reads me in
Revelation about my stone :
Then the short account of the
Passion in St. John : then we
join in Prince[?] of the Feast – the
many prayer of the Church, as
ruled by St. John Baptist.
Such words in the Masses &
Office for St. John Baptist for
a poet who is to be anointed!
The mighty Lesson of the Vigil.
Mass “Ecce dedi verba mea in
ore tuo . . . ut evellas, et destruas, et
disperdas, et dissipes, et aedifices,
et plantes : dicit ‘Dominus Olympum[?]’
– And the Lesson of the Mass of
the Feast “In umbra manus suae
protexit me, et posuit me siut
sagittam electam : in pharetra
sua abscondit [?] me. Et dixit mihi:
servus meus es tu, Israel, quia
in te gloriabor”.
I drive to the Vineyard – in the Early
Church I see Goss swinging a
falb-stool into the Sacristy &
am not surprised at his whisper
a moment later “He will do it in
the Sacristy. He’ll be down in 2 or 3
moments & I’ll come for you”
A prayer of Commendation before the
Notebook 23, Page Image 234; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 112v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-234.jpg
[E.C.]
steepness of a shock & I plunge
into hypnotic obedience to all
I am told to do.
The Bishop is a beast – a heavenly
Beast – whirling before the throne,
probably. He shows me a
purple back during long
preparations that make my
heart grow cold. But the
touch of a mystery is always
an operation – one is
bearing an unnatural rite
for one’s health & with
shut eyes I feel the chrism
scored, the anointing wiped
off – I never hear the Bishop
christen me Michael – though
I hear the reluctant tone
with wh : Goss gives him the
lofty archangelic name I
so adore.
A hand is on my shoulder –
I scarcely know it is Michael’s
– the little service, excellently
beautiful, is read into obscurity
– & I hear Goss say curtly
“Now go away”. The Deacon
opens the door – I step back for
Michael, & as we issue the
bells ring for the Elevation of
the Wine-Cup. We fall
prostrate before the High Altar
in the night of this Grace
conferred on us by God.
Notebook 23, Page Image 235; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 113r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-235.jpg
[E.C.]
I am exhausted by sleeplessness &
mere physical strain, but
I become aware that as I
knelt a place became mine.
Yes – a peace as a perfectly round
pearl, & with it a power to
measure the barren offence
of the waters I have had to
sink through after it. And
by gift, behold, it was there.
Thursday June 24th
The heat – exhileration! Mary,
the Convent-nestling, the ugly-
tempered, poor little chit, flies
into a rage, resounding up the
stairs, that she cannot go to
bed at nine o’clock because we
are dining at the Palace. Quivering
under this Fairy-gale I
almost forget the look of Shepherd’s
- Bush[?] station, till the little trees
seem to cry out to me.
We go in Kate Reily hats, & the
Artists are delighted at our sense
in eschewing evening dress under
the daylight of June. The flowers
are rare – foxglove over a bathing
pool of red-roses & near to them
a pot of eidelweiss to suggest Cold,
as a fountain does in a hot square.
Notebook 23, Page Image 236; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 113v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-236.jpg
[E.C.]
Apologies for a poor dinner – but
it turns out affectionately
choice, delicate soup, chicken
soufflé, roast fowl, sucking-peas,
a “sweet” candied & delicious,
strawberries firmly huge.
Fay, expatiating on Anatole France,
Jeanne d’Arc, striding maliciously
across the subject of the “Chevs
pères’, happy that Michael
glowed⟨s⟩ pleasure from under
her most becoming & costly
veil, fallen on to her shoulders,
left by the black &white bodice
of second empire cut. Yes, there
was[?]⟨is⟩ a George Sand human-
wholeness about the bright
Michael; & Faywent⟨goes⟩ happily
dim as a hay-field in the
full Sun – a dim face, its
expression set to Pan-pipes
in the wide noon.
Shannon is a brother to the
reality of the situation – kind
to us all.
Too soon the Cab – but Fay
takes us to the station & the
the little trees, under the
sensitiveness of the high heavens,
that have been burnt by the
sun all day, appeal as
if they were a covert & not at
the side of the Railway.
Mary has not locked us out of Paragon –
Notebook 23, Page Image 237; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 114r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-237.jpg
[E.C.]
& in answer to our prayers for her
has remained up & brings tea.
So the idyll ends holily & in joy
at heavenly influence.
Friday June 26th
We dine with the Rothensteins &
on the way we bethink ourselves
of St. Dominic’s Priory – We will
go & persuade him when we
respectfully call Vincent to
come to Paragon. He has been
coy as a society Beauty
over granting his presence.
He almost meets us in the
hall & we are in his monastic
Room.
“You a past Master in Israel &
afraid of a little pleasure!”
He doubles up with⟨in⟩ laughter.
Under his flannels he is as
flexible as a cat, with penance,
fluently plastic to emotion
as if he had no bones – or
all of them were spiritually
broken.
It is terrible to come out of
June, at evening pause in her
fervent life, to this cell in
wh : Vincent can only see a bit
of abstract sky, such as prisoners
see; where, speaking of himself
he says “I am held on by three
Notebook 23, Page Image 238; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 114v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-238.jpg
[E.C.]
wounds to a Cross”.
He speaks of obedience as a great
support – as if, like the Cyrenaen,
it helped to carry one’s cross.
As we pleaded on for the
promised visit, he says almost
harshly “But I can’t extend
my parish to Richmond – &
I leave my poor”.
Michael O Father, I cannot
expect consideration, I who
am neither a child nor a
cook”.
Again the dingy[?] form doubles
up with laughter . .
But when Michael reproaches “
“You should think of the pain
you give us, Father”, he takes,
I feel sure, the resolution,
wh : had been wavering & putting
us to test, that he will come.
He strikes his breast & his breast
echoes as to the knock of the
cilex[?], as a wife to the knock
of a cruel husband.
Vincent speaks of the activity there
is in Humility – in all the virtues
esteemed passive – there is terribleness
in the activity of suffering.
He turns to his St Thomas – to
the beautiful centrality that
reduces all difficulties in the
belief in the existence of God to
two (1)22 Intellectual – The sufficiency of Matter
Notebook 23, Page Image 239; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 115r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-239.jpg
[E.C.]
(2)23 Volitional – the Existence of Evil.
He is severe on the preacher who
too often forgets he should never
open his mouth till he has
a Burthen – only so is he true
to his priesthood . One young
Father among the Dominicans was
in such dread at the gift his
first sermon revealed of
magnatising a crowd that he
did not preach again for seven
⟨years⟩ nor till he had received his
Burthen.
At the end he turns to me
Notebook 23, Page Image 240; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 115v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-240.jpg
[E.C.]
We are in the summer evening
Again, driving fast to Will
Rothenstein’s. There we
are entertained on most
apt wisdom ( alas, the
form & substance are gone
under the indefiniteness of
the heat ) I remember
lovely trees of a garden, Noh’s
purr over our Kate Reily
hats – & a supper.
Suddenly “Do you know what
you are eating? I ask Michael,
regardless of my host & hostess
“It is fowl you’re eating”
And the day is Friday!
My question was a masterpiece
of incivility.
Wednesday July 1st
Vincent comes. The day so hot
that at 10.30 it is mid-noon.
The strange restless form! He sits
for a while on the settee
“How cool your room!
Cool & Sweet as a Dairy”.
“Father, the most perfect compliment
Paragon has ever received”.
White campanulas in the centre
Japanese irises
& in the Leeds bowl – on the
Notebook 23, Page Image 241; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 116r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-241.jpg
[E.C.]
mantlepiece the pard-lily & the
tiger-lily – the flowers somehow
suggestive of the personality
of our guest . . the fluent aerial
fineness of the iris, flickering
with spiritual nobility; the
flame, a little coarse in
substance of the red lilies, with
their dubious stars & specks. .
Michael comes in, vivid amid
the folds of her beige[?] veil –
then Vincent moves round
the room to the little settee,
& begins to animate S t. Peter’s
Epistles in our mind.
He shows how the images &
very expressions are those of
Christ, retained with a zeal of
memory that is astonishing
How robust the authority of
the style!
As Bernhard, when he stood with
one by a picture, made its life
reach one in currents on his
voice, so that one was made
inevitably into a divine critic,
creatively looking at a creation
& seeing it was good – so Vincent
will give to one the[?]⟨a⟩ life that
tingles & attaches itself to one’s
apprehension, as it is guided to
one from a Word or Chapter of
the Scriptures or from a personality
one’s mind seems to have dwelt
Notebook 23, Page Image 242; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 116v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-242.jpg
[E.C.]
on[?] my copies & suddenly
originals are before one with
their sensitiveness & power
of intimation. A wonderful
gift – but a gift of the
spoken Word neither Bernhard
nor Vincent can writes.
When we spoke about the
difficulty of lending the life
of Song & the life of Religion,
with a laugh that made
are uncomfortable as a
draught of wild air, he
said “ If I talked about
that, I should lose”.
Then he grew mystic on the
distinct jewels po building
the spiritual walls of the
Holy City – I gather he
means that Vocation must
keep its own quality, only its
use be sanctified.
He washes his hands in our
bedroom simply – but one
knows, observantly – & we
climb in cool shadows down
to the Gold Room. Michael tries
to give him but one course, but
– ha[?]!! He will be helped by the
Lady of the Salmon & the Lady
of the Chicken.
After lunch he goes into Michael’s
Notebook 23, Page Image 243; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 117r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-243.jpg
[E.C.]
little cell of gold leading out of
the Gold Room, & there, after
an anathematising gaze
at Fay in his⟨the⟩ portrait ⟨of Fay⟩ as
a painter ( in his blouse, plain
as a night-shirt ) Vincent
shoots down on to the floor
in the angle between the
ebony chest & the wall,
his arms round his knees,
his aspect that of a butterfly
perched black in a corner,
featly tucked up, lightly &
decorously wedged.
Yes, a wedge[?], but of the darkness
of closed wings, this white
flowing monk now in clerical
cloth! The wedge of a perfectly
gracious thing & a perfectly
disciplined thing. Of course the
floor receives us too, & there we
speak of Shakspere, who is to be
so much more to us when we
can read him again. Vincent begs[?]
us to begin with Macbeth in
wh : he finds Shakspere’s Catholic
sympathies appealing to a
knowing crowd. Elizabeth just
dead & James on the throne
Shakespere choose the theme of
Notebook 23, Page Image 244; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 117v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-244.jpg
[E.C.]
Mary Queen of Scots in travesty –
Lady Macbeth killing her
relative Duncan, the Scottish
King, to secure a throne. Even
the hand-washing scene wd have
the effect of a political “ gab[?]”
for there was a popular story
that Elizabeth in her last
days tried to cleanse her hands
of blood. Vincent quotes abundantly –
then there is talk of antecedents :
& Michael tells of Sion Ward
& of Mr Dawson. Vincent has
heard of both – toward the
latter hes fires, under Michael’s
tribute. The “long-headed priest”
as he calls himself, wd love
Michael to write on the
precious influence of Mr Dawson –
in fostering the spiritual life
that has eventually led to
the Church : he thinks it would
move the attention of non-
conformists.
We drink coffee in the Sun Room
when it is quite cold; & he
leaves us at 3, after 4 hours
of the most living companion-
-ship we have ever had for
so long a space.
Only one moment of “check” has
to be overcome by me. Before lunch
Notebook 23, Page Image 245; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 118r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-245.jpg
[E.C.]
Michael asks me to read my poem
“Fregit” – He welcomes the invitation
but receives the verse in silence,
that can no more produce
comment than ice a spring-
meadow. I ask why of myself –
& then hear the disappointment,
as though my watch had
gone wrong & deprived me
of a social appoint occasion.
So lightly I smile & turn the
conversation – but I had hoped
to have met a fellow-countryman
who would have understood
my speech.
We shall never see the gold
cell without that black butterfly
form of Vincent between
the wall & the ebony chest.
Thursday July 2nd
Goss! He may come to Ireland for his
holiday, & I ask him to Grove House.
I speak of the Confirmation
“a very harsh little rite” – I see
the swift cloud, as from Irish
mountains – & only say further
“I felt like a recruit at the
barracks”
There seems to be a load lifted – the
Bishop ⟨gone!⟩. Gosscommon is more like
himself of a year ago than he has
been for months. He eats deep in the
strawberries, his grave, simple
Notebook 23, Page Image 246; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 118v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-246.jpg
[E.C.]
fr⟨face⟩ lit by mischief . . no longer
sequestered, but gamboling
from covert.
“Make the good choice for
your holiday”. He hears, &
comes upstairs to the front
door.
Saturday
He is only an Amiens Saint
– a holy Embodiment of
a Sacrament, when I see
him come down the Church
to hear my Confession.
He speaks of the power a
Crucifix has in a Room
to arrest Temptation, being
the sign to us of the horror
of sin that could so mar
& torture the God who bore it
for us. He spoke as though
this sacred image was
penitential, to produce sorrow
for sin, & such contrition as
renounces it⟨sin⟩ even at the
very moment of sin’s most
blazing wound of temptation.
Strange, Gosscommon should speak
to me of the Crucifix, as I am
on the point of going to Scotland
where I spoke of it with
the recoil of this[?] apprehensive
blasphemy.
Notebook 23, Page Image 247; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 119r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-247.jpg
[E.C.]
Sunday
I only see Goss at early Mass & as
a form in the vestibule, I pass
as remotely as if it were always
there. High Mass we attend
at Isleworth, & after, we wander
among Fr Green’s flowers &
weeds, rejoicing him with the
discovery he has the holy weed
Vervaine & the wicked weed
Henborne. – If poison could be
loveable & quietly as these[?] who
love their home, poison is
this in the delicate henborne
ap[?] atop of its large sheltering
leaves.
Fr Green I do not understand – I
cannot make out his nat. order –
Isn’t Rosacae or Solanacae? Or is
he of both? He is humble &
worldly, affable & neutral, &
his Soul seems asleep in
a Magic Room that has no
locality, & for hundreds of years
that Soul has slept on a low
bed.
 She
prays forgiveness for her storms
of passion ( a grace of the Catholic
& ⟨the⟩ Irishwoman ) when I take her in
my arms & promise to pray for
her, it is like taking flesh elastic
with Demons to one’s breast.
I never felt anything so vibrant.
Notebook 23, Page Image 248; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 119v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-248.jpg
[E.C.]
I can feel it shake through
me like a pulse still.
 And yet sorry!
Miserere nobis!
I cried over her, till I was
hot for myself & ashamed.
Such strain of packing – Miss
Maxwell sets her eyes
by us as we eat : & they are[?]
table-candles, & we would
be alone & unlit.
Mrs Count & MrsDenman[?]
are the Gossips of our Journey
– sponsors for our food, our
locked boxes &c
And it is goodbye to Paragon,
that has been a lovely summer
nest this year; & goodbye to
the Vineyard & the priest, remote[?]
from all goodbye under the
lilies of the altar – & goodbye
to old Music, dear old hound[?]!
Tuesday July 4th
To Scotland & Michael’s Confirmation
so lay a journey! The husband &
wife travelling with us un-
communicatively, suddenly walk
over the Border into interest, & the
man talks of buried cities in Africa
while the great, venerable Donus[?]
Notebook 23, Page Image 249; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 120r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-249.jpg
[E.C.]
assuage us with twilight.
The man has a baby he wants
a home for – he chuckles cosily
uxoriously mid[?] humour of
the Babe, & gives us his address
to gain ours. I think he must
have been some kind of edu-
cationalist, & must have heard
through the roar of the express
some of the Latin of the Office
we murmured.
Wednesday
St Peter’s! Familiar beauty – &
the little priest so near the
Lady Altar & Michael she
breathed only as much air as
was possible for life!
Yes – there ⟨was⟩ Miss Gribell, tall &
dressed abroad, like an old
Lombardy poplar in its come-
-liness; & apart from her
Andrée expressing devotion in
heraldic twists.
Poor Michael! It is hard that
among our Priest-friends the
clemencies of first welcome
& last goodbye have been
dropped in sacrifice forever.
Miss Gribbell rustles a smile
through her poplar-quaintness
of dignity – that is all.
After lunch Michael goes to St. Peter’s
Notebook 23, Page Image 250; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 120v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-250.jpg
[E.C.]
& Fr Gray comes to Atholl [?].
“Michael will be angry” & he invites
me to converse. How carmine
he is – his colour fixed!
The oak-apple has that
fixed stain on a round
ball – & that aristocratic
“Park Lane” look about its
rose & its rotundity, &, alas,
on its paler edges that make
the stain delicate.
We talk of Fay, & Confirmation
. . . Michael comes & plays
“rich age anger”. After [????]
I leave them to talk of
the event & of preparation.
Fr Gray speaks to me of
private Confirmation as “a
hole & corner business”. I wd
I had not resisted Gosscommon’s
prayers, I knew he was offering,
that I should bow to the
rite that publishes[?] one a
Christian Catholic.
We have brought up with us the
first storm of rain to a Scotland
that has been torrid – Nothing
but cold rain – rain – mist-[?]
wind, rain! The Castle a grim
wraith in the damp, cabs
taking all our money!
Notebook 23, Page Image 251; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 121r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-251.jpg
[E.C.]
Thursday A Morning at our Rooms –
The rain breaks for us to go to Raffelocvich[?]’s
At Home in our honour.
I meet – as I think a Jap – a little
Chinaman. He is an engineer
who is learning how to open the
wealth of the celestial
mountains. He is true to the
East in his estimate of our
universal western life “You live[?]
entirely for Time – always
thinking of Time, doing everything
in a hurry – and Time is the
most cruel power that can
rule life”. Of our Art he said
“You draw from a thing there
something like it here – but all
our Art is here (24 & he swept
his fulvid temples, while his
eyes peered from the caves under
his nose – so he declared the
creativeness of true Art, its
eternal self-subsistence.
I hear he breaks into laughter at
a Picture Gallery.
He is a devout Catholic Convert.
I wonder if he has seen the beautiful
human fabric of Buddhism needs
the Death of a God to make it
an immortal Building in the
Heavens, or if he left the excellent
Sons of Confusius realizing at
last that Morality is not Worship.
Notebook 23, Page Image 252; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 121v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-252.jpg
[E.C.]
Fr Gray has the sort of passion
for Mr Yapp that the Flying
Dutchman sought to have for
his deliverers Deliverer.
Once upon a time little John
Gray saw a splendid Chinaman
at in the grounds of Greenwich
Hospital, & tob[?] told his family
he had seen & spoken with him.
For that childish untruth he
was doomed to see Chinamen &
women on many occasions, but
never did they speak to him ( not
even when he was in the Foreign
Office ). In the fulness of the
Time, he looked up as the
door of his parlour at St Peter’s
Presbytery was opened – & a
little Chinaman advanced
& spoke to him. The curse gone!
Mr Yapp a friend! Mr Yapp a
Catholic! “Nunc dimitis” . . . !
Michael meanwhile has found a
Charming Companion in a Mr
Peplav, a painter’s Brother –
Brother exclusive to savageness.
This young man has a humour
of the plastic kind, that makes
converse light, unreal & living
& delightful as a whole & moment
by moment. This gift Michael evokes
& I partake willingly. He takes talks
Notebook 23, Page Image 253; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 122r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-253.jpg
[E.C.]
of dolls, & flowers whimsically
– of a gray & white house he
lives in, all gray & white, &
with the phantasy of an
Elf-Palace about its evocation. .
Michael entreats an invitation
– it is avoided & we declare
there is no address for us to
aim at . . . of course, he is a
fraud – he lives with the savage
painter!
Fr Gray & Raffelocvich – like a
cornflower & a toadflax together –
grow round the Peplavian group
for brief whiles.
A lady passes in the War-Tartan
( currants smashed in bog-water
– the colour. ) Miss Goodcari[?] Fraser
plays & sings Gaelic laments. So
the dove & the wind make their
sounds among dark woods
⟨Friday⟩⟨ July 9⟩⟨th⟩⟨ We buy Michael a gt. Veil ⟩
⟨for her shepherdess hat, André & Miss G. call. ⟩
⟨I have an hour in S⟩⟨t⟩⟨ Peter’s while Michael ⟩
⟨takes tea & talk with the little Famous.⟩
Sat.
We drive, in rain-sweeps, to find out
little Duncan in his studio.

His eye-brows are hill-brows,
overhung with the dry white bents –
his eyes shine as the blue
granite with mica-glints – there
is the clean uncoothness of
mountain-rocks in his features –
Notebook 23, Page Image 254; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 122v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-254.jpg
[E.C.]
there is⟨are⟩ upland mists in elvish
panoply skimming about the
features : the weird smile
is like a gleam on a whistling
gust : he confides himself
to those who know him
simply as a natural object,
that has become the scene
of a fairy-project.
Wonderful little man –
what made Wordsworth write
“And in the farthest Hebrides”
makes me love him.
He is⟨begins⟩ speechless with astonishment
then glows ; a strange
Trumpet & [????] Music comes
from the ambushes of his voice.
We are to go in at 4 o’clock
to see his pictures.
A plunge into the Nat. Gal. all hail
the Lomellini[?] family – the
Tiepoles, the most heart-easing
Walteaux, the Bucher of
spotless blue & lilac!
Art forever! I am in my world!
We buy an ample mole-gray scarf
for Michael – then, led by the Spirit
of Counsel[?] we ask for Mr Blakie
at Constables’. .
He is out & we drive to the Exhibition
deluded by that fraud Peplav who
spoke of dolls inhabiting the Jap.
Section. Horror! The Jap. Section
is the destruction of a people made
Notebook 23, Page Image 255; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 123r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-255.jpg
[E.C.]
manifest, & the Spider exhibiting
close by – Cork & Son’s stall.
O East[?]! – living to the paces of
Western time & giving up to the
monster every indigenous Virtue.
The Jap. stalls pile rubbish
& proclaim ruin to the
great past.
Back to Thistle St. & Blakie! He thinks
me an American Miss Cooper from
Richmond, America – we shake
hands as strangers “I don’t believe
Mr Blakie knows me – Michael
Field” Both my hands are seized
& pressed to his breast, as he
remembers the old days, when
sweet John Gray brought me to this
room – & his friend, a handsome
Middle-Aged man, with the white
hair & black eyes that can distinguish
mid-age with more charm than
youth, gave us his interested
& most tender welcome.
Now Blakie is a ghost – all his
life involved in trouble – his
eyes spent & sad, what he says
often cynical, but with the gentle-
ness of ripe disillusion as the
real atmosphere of his quick,
sharp-disciplined nature. We agree
to leave the M.S. of Queen Mariamne
with him to print – & we will put
it out with Sidgewick or some other
young publisher. So our Lady of Good
Notebook 23, Page Image 256; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 123v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-256.jpg
[E.C.]
of Good Counsel seems to direct
us when we have sought direction
again Blakie takes both hands,
wringing them in farewell, & for
the sake of the dead hands
of the dearly-loved John Gray.
My eyes stream on as we
drive back to lunch. No-one
has loved me more lovingly than
John Gray. I gave a huge
tip to the porter-lad, who
helped us out of the train
at Edinburgh, because he had
the eyes of “the Little Hero” –
eyes a sweet version of
Stevenson’s. I love to think I
pray for him every day of my
life – after Father & Mother & Browning.
At 4 o’clock our gnome Duncan
shows us his pictures of night
in his lonely isle in the far
West, with a Gaelic name, I can
only imagine not rememb remember.
They are beautiful. He paints
moonlight & star light & the
emotions they bring to the hills,
the sea, the crevises of the
hills, the gullies of the sea-
shore. Tho’ he may paint
from nature, he paints in
these Nocturnes from his imagination
dominatingly.
He has tried a supernatural figure
Notebook 23, Page Image 257; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 124r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-257.jpg
[E.C.]
–a guardian Angel in front of a hut in
the solitude of that Northern night :
he has failed. He is not yet enough
of a Catholic to paint the Supernatural
– he wants to make it peculiar,
individualistic; he is Protestant –
the Supernatural is to him operatic,
not as to the Catholic authentic.
Of course the supernatural must
be wholly incarnate to be
divine & to be art.
Duncan’s ⟨human⟩ figures have imagination,
but no training in their
craftmanship. A sea-cave &
a sort of Tristan & Iseult gives
one the remoteness of all
Love – two prisoners between
rock & tide of the Infinite
Desire.
The Drawings have far more
genius in them, because genius
there needs so much less equip-
-ment for manifestation – one
drawing is remarkable, it is
a “found” creation ( in the French
sense ) inimitable, that never was
before : a sort of Northern Eros,
loving[?] & wild on a headland,
the north-wind in his pinions,
the cry of the sea-bird on his
mouth, the cruelty of the north
on his charm, the zeal of conflict
in his defiance : Eros became
demoniac in ultima Thule.
Notebook 23, Page Image 258; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 124v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-258.jpg
[E.C.]
The creative life is perfect in every part
of this inspiration.
How glad the shy gnome is I
find this Eros out! He says
he will come to tea, as by
chance, on Sunday when we
are at Raffovich’s on Sunday.
Artists & I are at one by
destiny.
Leaving him, we drive to St. Peter’s
All is hushed under the dusty
obscession[?] of penitence. I
have been a bad soldier &
let the enemy get such hold
of me under fascinated sloth
I have only conquered by
the cry for help – the delay has
been sinful, & again I go
to the Cupid-framed Confessional
I had made my full Confession
On Thursday Evening, after Benediction,
in solomn[?] twilight, & for the
2nd time heard myself called
“Child”. I left like Fr Gray’s shortest of
homily. “Courage, child, is the
best part of humility” & he went
on to speak of the lofty-mindedness
of despair & of discouragement.
This Saturday he says “You must have
valour, & in this way : you must be
brave enough to turn right away
from the Temptation at first –
then to turn back & look through it.
Notebook 23, Page Image 259; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 125r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-259.jpg
[E.C.]
Then you will see it is phantasmal.”
Sunday July 12 th
A Dominican, F. Gabriel Whittaker,
preaches at Sung Mass.
The sermon is not original in
thought nor practical in exposition.
When we reach Whitehouse Terrace
we contrast it with one of Vincent’s
sermons. Michael is betrayed
into the Confidence that it is not
as a preacher she admires Fr
Gray whom she loves so much . .
The dear Grib protests forbiddingly.
She will not even let André
say a word against John’s sermons –
“not a word, not a word” & she
waves her eyeglasses, like end-
branches of a dark tree of the
latter August.
John & Fr Gabriel & the Irate Sculptor
MacGilverie come in together, &
the gaunt[?] Mrs Macgilverie. . . . .[?] There
is the smile of the seed-vessel
of a cornflower in her devastated
face. She is a Pole & was thought
beautiful, is thought beautiful
still. I only[?] find beauty in the
sensitive way the eye-balls lie
under the upper lids. She is very
frank & sensitive with me, &, I hear
said I was the most charming lady
she had ever met. Goscommon wd
have been very cross with the Grib
Notebook 23, Page Image 260; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 125v; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-260.jpg
[E.C.]
who betrayed the generous praise.
Fr Gray & I, set side by side, speak
of Browning & how the Dissenter in him
spoiled the man who could
have that broad vision of
Christ in the russet moonlight
cloud.
On the other side I defend Vincent
against Fr Gabriel who finds
him rash & impetuous – so
speaking that the ignorant
take away an impression
contrary to that intended &
often a perilous impression.
I say plainly he shd be sent
to preach among those – not
ignorant, among the men of
the professional & business world
of London, then St. Domenic
shd conquer through Vincent.
The Fr, not without rancour,
declares a sermon shd be merely
exposition of doctrine that all
can understand ( He himself had
been scholastic & un-practical )
I no more took to him than to
excellent suet-pudding that has
a polish on its skin.
The irate sculptor showed me
rare flowers in the Raff’s garden –
of one he said “It is in perfect tone
– like this” & he waved his hand
round my face with the hat above
it of old-mosaic blue & beside it
Notebook 23, Page Image 261; Vol. XXIII, Add MS 46798, fol. 126r; Holly Laird; add_ms_46798-261.jpg
[E.C.]
the beaver-brown tulle. Again