"But one waiteth, even Johannes, whose body, scattered to the winds of Heaven, once lay in the cemetery of the monks, hard by the east side of the Chapel of St. Michael in the midst of the graveyard. What matter? He lives yet in the universal Memory, and speaks and acts through every channel in which the Universal Life flows.
"Yet when he is himself, he speaks well, as he was wont in the rude times that are as yesterday."
In these brief yet pregnant passages the author's philosophy is brought to a focus. Humbling the arrogance of the individual mind, because it denies that the mere mechanism of the human brain can ever originate idea, it yet raises the little limited self to the consciousness of a possibility, awful and beautiful, of a contact with something greater than itself, and yet akin; and to the dignity of a mystical fellowship in which isolation ends, and Past and Present are seen as parts of a living whole; points in the circumference of a circle whose radius is Life beyond these limitations. Our little mechanism we may attune to respond to the needs, the pleasures, and the interests of our own fragmentary span; or, disdaining these, we may harmonise it to the thought which is pictured on the great outward sweep of the circle of Memory, recorded there by the lives of those of far distant times. Then will these records live again for us and through the gates of our soul will pour, from the living source of Idea, their ordered recollections. Not by our own power, but through the unseen Gate of the subconscious mind, will these memories link themselves with ours—not through the evocation of the "spirit" of Johannes, but by the power of the Universal Spirit, whose life permeates all the regions of Time, and in Whom we and Johannes, and all who are in mental kinship with his thought, are as one.
The Gargoyle.
In mid-June, 1908, whilst the work of excavation was still in its preliminary stage, J.A. and F.B.B. were both at Glastonbury. At the western end of the little town, at a fork in the road, stands the lesser of the two surviving mediæval churches, that which is locally known as St. Benedict's, but which is in reality dedicated to Benignus, a companion of St. Patrick when he came to Glastonbury in the fifth century. This church was erected on the site of a much older chapel, by Abbot Richard Bere, whose arms and initials appear over the north porch. It has a fine western tower of the regular Somerset type, and on the cornice of the belfry are several carved gargoyles, the most prominent position, in the centre of the west side, being occupied by a piece of carving which, when seen from the west, as one approaches the town, has the appearance of a well-executed head of an Abbot, with a tall jewelled mitre and lappets. The face is bold, and full of character, rather long, with level brows and austere expression.
From the narrowness of the road, on nearer approach, a side view of the carving can only be obtained by turning the head up at a somewhat uncomfortable angle; and probably for this reason the extraordinary fact had apparently quite escaped attention that this was in reality no human head at all, but a peculiar grotesque animal, with extended neck, crouching against the wall in a manner peculiar to gargoyles, and with a high arched back like a fighting cat, garnished with knobbly vertebræ. It was J.A. who first noticed this, and called F.B.B.'s attention to it. Both were naturally much interested, though, of course, it was the excavation work at the Abbey which was the chief object of attention at the time, and this was quite a side-issue. Shortly afterwards a sitting was held, and the following is the record:
SITTING XXXII. 16th June, 1908.
Q. by F.B.B. "With reference to the sculptured boss on Saint Benedict's tower, which from different points of view appears as an Abbot's head and as a grotesque animal: was this intended for a joke?"
A. "Wee know not the quips of they who worked for us and did sometimes bee rude to them in powers. We builded Benedicts. Wee know not what they wrought soe only the church was faire and sound for ye people. The greate workmen and ye masons of repute played noe such pranks in our Abbey church, we wot.
