And star-like mingles with the stars.
We have seen hitherto the sparkling merriment of his life; but this was the surging of the surface of a character that rolled on its mysterious, unfathomable way.
To him the spiritual world was intensely real: he had in him the makings of a mystic. The outward world, the carnal flesh, he looked upon with contempt, with almost the disgust of a Manichæan. The spiritual life was the real life: the earthly career was a passing, troubled dream, that teased the soul, and broke its contemplations. The true aim of man was to disentangle his soul from the sordid cares of earth, and to raise it on the wings of meditation and prayer to union with God. Consequently the true self is the spiritual man: this none but the spiritual man can understand. The vicar accommodated himself to ordinary society, but he did not belong to it. His spirit hovered high above in the thin, clear air, whilst his body and earthly mind laughed, and joked, and laboured, and sorrowed below. Trouble was the anguish of the soul recalling its prerogative. The fits of depression which came on him were the moments when the soul was asserting its true power, pining as the captive for its home and proper freedom.
It will be seen that nothing but his intense grasp of the doctrine of the Incarnation saved him from drifting into the wildest vagaries of mysticism.
He would never open out to any one who he thought was not spiritually minded.
A commonplace neighbouring parson, visiting him once, asked him what were his views and opinions.
Mr. Hawker drew him to the window. “There,” said he, “is Hennacliff, there the Atlantic stretching to Labrador, there Morwenstow crag, here the church and graves: these are my views. As to my opinions, I keep them to myself.”
The flame, after long flickering in the breast of his dearly loved wife, went out at length on 2nd Feb., 1863. She died at the age of eighty-one.
He had a grave—a double grave—made outside the chancel, beside the stone that marks where an ancient priest of Morwenstow lies, and placed over her a stone with this inscription:—
HERE RESTS THE BODY OF