In the Convent Chapel
One evening about this time, on coming indoors for tea, I found the old man seated at the open door that looked on to the lawn, with a book on his knees, and his finger between the pages. He held the book towards me as I came near him, and showed me the title, “The Interior Castle.”
“I have just been reading,” he said, “Saint Teresa’s description of the difference between the intellectual and the imaginative vision. It is curious how she fails really to express it, except to any one who happens to have had a glimpse already for himself of what she means. I suppose it is one of the signs of reality in the spiritual world that no one can ever describe so much as he knows.”
I sat down.
“I am afraid I don’t understand a word you are saying,” I answered smiling.
For answer he opened the book and read Saint Teresa’s curious gasping incoherent sentences––at least so I thought them.
“Still,” I said, “I am afraid––––”
“Oh,” he said almost impatiently, “surely you know now; indeed you know it, but do not recognise it.”
“Can you give me any sort of instance?” I asked.
He thought for a moment or two in silence; and then––––