Mysticism in English Literature
by
Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
Part 3 out of 3
_Europe_;
_Everlasting Gospel_;
Illustrations to _Job_;
imagination of;
in-debtedness to Boehme;
greatness of;
_Marriage of Heaven and Hell_;
_Milton_;
_Of Natural Religion_;
_Songs of Innocence_;
study of;
view of Nature;
_Vision of Last Judgment_
Boehme, Jacob;
Coleridge on;
influence of;
Law's use of;
study of;
view of evil
Bourignon, Madame
Bradley, A. C., _Shakespearian Tragedy_
Brontë, Charlotte
----- Emily; _Last Lines_;
_Philosopher_;
_Prisoner_;
study of;
_Visionary_
Browne, Sir Thomas
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett;
_Aurora Leigh_
Browning, Robert;
_Asolando_;
_Bean-stripe_;
his central teaching;
_Death in the Desert_;
his intellectuality;
his love-mysticism;
_Paracelsus_;
on pre-existence;
_Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_ ;
_Rabbi ben Ezra_;
on religion and science;
resemblance to Eckhart;
_Ring and the Book_;
_Statue and Bust_;
study of;
his view of evil
Bruno, Giordano
Bunyan, John
Burke, Edmund;
_Present Discontents_;
study of
Byron
Cambridge Platonists
Carlyle, Thomas
influence of Emerson on;
_Heroes_;
nature of his mysticism;
_Sartor Resartus_;
study of
Catherine of Genoa
Chaucer
Christ, use of symbolism
Christianity and mysticism
_Cloud of Unknowing_
Coleridge, S. T.
Crashaw's influence on;
_Dejection_;
_Destiny of Nations_;
_Frost at Midnight_;
Kant's influence;
_Lay Sermon_;
_Letter to Tulk_;
Neo-platonic influence;
_Religious Musings_;
study of;
Swedenborg's influence
Crashaw, Richard
influence of;
_St Teresa_
Descartes
_Deonise Hid Divinite_
Dionysius the Areopagite, _Mystical Theology_
Donne, John
_Ecstasy_;
_Letter to Woodward_;
_Letters to Countess of Huntingdon_;
_Negative Love_;
_Of our Sense of Sinne_;
_Poem on Eliz. Drury_;
_Progress of the Soul_;
_Soul's Joy_;
study of;
_Undertaking_
Dryden
E., A.
Eckhart
Emerson, R. W.
English national character and mysticism
_Entbehrung_
_Epistle of Discretion_
_Epistle of Privy Counsel_
Erskine, Thos., of Linlathen
Evil, _see_ under _Good and Evil_
Familists
Farquhar, J. W.
Fénelon
Fichte
Fire, views of, held by Law and Boehme
Flaxman
Fox, George
Godwin, Mary, _see_ Shelley, Mrs----William
Goethe
doctrine of _Entbehrung_;
influence on Carlyle
Good and Evil, problem of
Gosse, Edmund, on Patmore's _Sponsa Dei_
Greek delight in beauty
Grierson, H. J. C., _Donne's Poems_
Grosseteste
Guyon, Madame
Hartley, David
Harvey, Christopher, _School of the Heart_
Hegel
Herbert, George
Hindu mysticism
Hinton, James, _Mystery of Pain_
Hugh of St Victor
Hylton, Walter
_Scale or Perfection_
Imagination
a creative force;
attainment of truth through;
love and;
reality of;
the "saviour of the world,"
Inge, W. R., _Selections from the German Mystics_
Intuition
James, William
Jefferies, Richard
_Story of My Heart_;
study of
Julian, Lady
_Revelations of Divine Love_
Kant
Keats, George
Keats
_Endymion_;
_Letter to Taylor_;
_Ode on Nightingale_;
_Ode on Grecian Urn_;
Plato's influence on;
_Revision of Hyperion_;
study of
Knowledge, mental and spiritual
supremacy of intuition over intellectual, (_see_ also under _Truth_)
Krishna
Lamb, Charles
Lâo-Tsze
Law, William
_Appeal to all that doubt_;
Boehme's influence on;
early studies;
_Serious Call_;
_Spirit of Prayer_;
study of;
_Way to Divine Knowledge_
Lawrence, Sir Thomas
Love, human and divine
in _Ancren Riwle_;
Blake on;
Boehme on;
Browning on;
Coleridge on;
Crashaw on;
Donne on;
Herbert on;
Keats on;
Lady Julian on;
Patmore on;
Richard Rolle on;
Shelley on;
Thomas de Hales on;
Francis Thompson on;
Traherne on
Macaulay
Macleod, Fiona
Man, divinity and greatness of;
unity with God
Maurice, F. D.
Meredith, George
Metaphysical Society
Moonlight, Keat's sensitiveness to
More, Henry
Mysticism, ascetic;
basic fact of;
beginnings in East;
Bergson's contributions to;
English character and;
erotic;
experiences of melody in;
happiness and
Hindu
meaning of the word
methods of, (_see_ also under _Love_, _Vision_, and _Imagination_, etc.)
of beauty
pathways to, (_see_ also under _Vision_, etc.)
philosophical
religious thinkers and, (_see_ also under names of authors)
Nature, views and interpretation of
Neo-platonists
Nettleship, R. L., _Philosophical Remains_
Newton, debt to Boehme
Norris, John, of Bemerton
Pain, problem of
Pascal, Blaise
Patmore, Coventry
_Angel in the House_
_Bow set in the Cloud_
_Child's Purchase_ and _The Toys_
_Conjugial Love_
Crashaw's influence on
_Dieu et ma Dame_
_Memoirs_
_Precursor_
_Religio Poetæ_
_Sod, Boot, and Flower_
_Sponsa Dei_
study of
_Piers Plowman_
Plato
influence on Donne
Plotinus
Shelley
Spenser
Vaughan
on beauty
on love
_Phædrus_,
_Republic_
_Symposium_
system of
Platonists, Cambridge
Plotinus
_Enneads_
_Letter to Flaccus_
Plato's influence on
system of
Pope
Porphyry
Pratt, J. B., _Religious Philosophy of William James_
Pre-existence, belief in
Pythagoras
Quakers.
_Quia amore langueo_
Religion and Science
Rhythm, Beigson's theory of
Richard of St Victor
_Benjamin Minor_
Robinson, Henry Crabb
Rolle, Richard
_Fire of Lone_
_Pricke of Conscience_
study of
Rossetti, Christina
Rossetti, D. G.
_Hand and Soul_
_House of Life_
sensuousness of
study of
Ruysbroeck
St Augustine
_City of God_
influence of Plotinus on
St Bernard of Clairvaux
St Bonaventura
St Catherine of Siena
St Francis of Assisi
_Fioretti_
St John of the Cross
St Martin
St Paul
St Teresa
Schelling
Scotus Eriugena, John
Seekers
Separatists
Shakespeare
Shelley, Mrs (Mary Godwin)
Shelley;
_Adonais_;
_Epipsychidion_;
_Hymn to Intellectual Beauty_;
imagination of;
influence of Plato;
_Julian and Maddalo_;
love mysticism of;
_Prometheus_;
_Revolt of Islam_;
_Rosalind and Helen_;
study of
Smith, John, the Platonist
Society, unity in
Socrates
_Song of Solomon_
Spenser, Edmund, _Hymns_;
Plato's influence on
Spinoza
Stewart, J., _Myths of Plato_
Sunlight, Jefferies' sensitiveness to
Suso
Swedenborg
_Heaven and Hell_,;
influence of;
thought of;
_Wisdom of Angels_
Swinburne, A. C., _Essay on Blake_
Symbolism
Tauler
Taylor, Keats's letter to
Tennyson
_Ancient Sage_;
_Higher Pantheism_;
_Holy Grail_;
_In Memoriam_;
study of
Thelwall
_Theologia Germanica_
Thomas de Hales, _Luve Ron_
Thompson, Francis;
Crashaw's influence on;
_Daisy_;
_Health and Holiness_;
_Hound of Heaven_;
_Ode to Setting Sun_;
_Poppy_;
study of
Thought, reality of
Time
Traherne, T.
_Approach_;
_Centuries of Meditations_;
_Eden_;
_Innocence_;
_Rapture_;
_Salutation_;
study of;
_Wonder_
Transcendentalists
_Treatise of Discerning Spirits_
Truth, beauty and;
imagination and;
intellect and;
steps towards. _See_ also under _Knowledge_
Tulk, C. A.
Underhill, Evelyn, _Mysticism_
_Upanishads_
Vaughan, Henry
_Affliction_;
_Hidden Flower_;
_Quickness_;
_Retreate_;
_Resurrection and Immortality_;
_World_;
study of
Vision, faculty and ecstasy of
pain and
physical condition and
renunciation and
Watts-Dunton, Theodore, article on Rossetti
Whichcote, Benjamin
Will, power of
Wordsworth, William
attainment of vision
debt to Vaughan
Duddon Sonnets
_Excursion_
fallacy of usual conception of
mediation of
_Ode on Intimations of Immortality_
_Prelude_
_Recluse_
_Solitary Reaper_
_Stepping Westward_
study of
_Tintern Abbey_
value of common things
view of Nature
Yeats, W. B.
Footnotes
[1] "The Religious Philosophy of William James," by J. B. Pratt, _Hibbert
Journal_, Oct. 1911, p. 232.
[2] On "Spirit," in _Philosophical Remains of R. L. Nettleship_, ed. A. C.
Bradley, 1901, pp. 23-32.
[3] _Republic_, ii. 376.
[4] _Symposium_, 211, 212.
[5] This distinction between East and West holds good on the whole,
although on the one side we find the heretical Brahmin followers of
_Bhakti_, and Ramananda and his great disciple, Kabir, who taught that
man was the supreme manifestation of God; and on the other, occasional
lapses into Quietism and repudiation of the body. See _The Mystic, Way_,
by E. Underhill, pp 22-28.
[6] For an account of Boehme's philosophy, see pp. 91-93 below.
[7] See his essay on him in _Representative Men._
[8] _Memoirs and Correspondence of C. Palmore_, by B. Champneys, 1901,
vol. ii. pp. 84, 85.
[9] _Selections from the German Mystics_, ed. Inge (Methuen, 1904), p.
4.
[10] See his article on Rossetti in the _Nineteenth Century_ for March
1883.
[11] _House of Life_, Sonnet xvii.
[12] _House of Life_, Sonnets i., xxvii., lxxvii.
[13] See _Religio Poetæ_, p. 1.
[14] _Memoirs_, ed. Champneys, i. 146.
[15] _The Angel in the House._ Bk. ii. prelude ii.
[16] _The Angel in the House_, canto viii. prelude iv.
[17] See pp. 113, 114 below.
[18] _The Child's Purchase_ and _The Toys_, poems, I vol., 1906, pp.
287, 354.
[19] _Seligio Poetæ_, 1893, p. 163.
[20] _Religio Poetæ_, 1893, p. 44.
[21] The "Ring" of Eternity is a familiar mystical symbol which Vaughan
doubtless knew in other writers; for instance as used by Suso or
Ruysbroeck. See _Mysticism_, by E. Underhill, p. 489 and note.
[22] See the illuminating description of this essentially mystic feeling
given by J. Stewart in _The Myths of Pinto_, Introduction, pp. 39 _et
seq._
[23] _The Story of my Heart_, pp. 87, 88.
[24] _Ibid._, p. 76.
[25] _The Story of my Heart_, p. 199.
[26] _Ibid._, p. 71.
[27] _Ibid._, p. 74.
[28] See _Compendium of Philosophy_, a mediæval digest of the
Abhidhamma, translated by S. Z. Aung and Mrs Rhys Davids, 1910, 152 f.
[29] We cannot agree with Prof Grierson, who, in his fine recent edition
of the poet (_Donne's Poems_, Oxford, 1912, vol ii., pp. cxxxv.-vi.),
holds that the style and tone of this song point to Donne not being the
author. For these very qualities it would seem indubitably to be his.
[30] Surely also by Donne, but see Grierson, vol. ii., pp. cxxxviii-ix.
[31] _Centuries of Meditations_, ed. Dobell, 1908, pp. 20, 21.
[32] _Centuries of Meditations_, pp. 156-58.
[33] _Life of Tennyson_, by his son, 1905, p. 268; see also pp 818, 880.
[34] This is the idea, essentially mystical, and originating with
Boehme, which is worked out in the suggestive little book, _The Mystery
of Pain_, by James Hinton.
[35] _An Appeal, Work's_, vol. vi. pp. 27, 28.
[36] _The Spirit of Prayer_, _Works_, vol. vii. pp. 23, 24.
[37] _Cf._ St Augustine, "To will God entirely is to have Him" (_City of
God_, Book xi. chap, iv.), or Ruysbroek's answer to the priests from
Paris who came to consult him on the state of their souls: "You are as
you desire to be."
[38] See _The Spirit of Prayer_, _Works_, vol. vii. pp. 150, 151.
[39] _An Appeal, Works_, vol. vi. p. 169.
[40] _Ibid._, pp. 19, 20.
[41] _Ibid._, pp. 69, 80.
[42] _The Spirit of Prayer_, _Works_, vol. vii. pp. 23, 27.
[43] _The Way to Divine Knowledge, Works_, vol. vii. p. 60.
[44] _The Spirit of Prayer_, _Works_, vol. vii. p. 68. See also _ibid._,
pp. 91, 92
[45] _An Appeal, Works_, vol. vi. pp. 132, 133.
[47] _An Appeal, Works_, vol. vi. p. 115.
[48] _The Destiny of Nations_, II. 16-18.
[49] _Frost at Midnight_, 11. 60-62.
[50] _Sartor Resartus_, Book i. chap. xi.
[51] See _Sartor_, Book iii. chap. iv.
[52] The mystical desire for close contact with God is expressed in
English as early as before 1170, in Godric's song to the Virgin.
[53] See _Mysticism_, by E. Underhill, pp. 162-166.
[54] _The Ancren Riwle_, ed. J. Morton, Camden Society, 1853, pp.
397-403.
[55] _Fire of Love_, Bk. 1. cap xvi. p. 36.
[56] _Ibid._, Bk. i. cap. xv. p. 33.
[57] See _Mysticism_, by E. Underhill, pp. 228, 229.
[58] _Fire of Love_, Bk. i. cap. xvi. p. 36.
[59] _Ibid._, Bk. ii. cap. iii. and xii.
[60] _Fire of Love_, Bk. i. cap. xv.
[61] _Ibid._, Bk. ii. cap. vii.
[62] _Enneads_, vi. §§ 8, 9.
[63] See _The Authorship of the Prick of Conscience_, by H. E. Allen,
Radcliffe College Monographs, No. 15, Ginn and Co., 1910.
[64] _Revelations_, ed. Warrack, pp. 21, 178. All the quotations which
follow are taken from this edition of the _Revelations_.
[65] _Revelations_, p. 135. It Is interesting to compare the words of
other mystics upon this point; as for instance Richard of St Victor in
_Benjamin Minor_, cap. 75, or Walter Hylton in _The Scale of
Perfection_. Note the emphasis laid upon it by Wordsworth, who indicates
self-knowledge as the mark of those who have attained the "unitive"
stage; see p. 66 above.
[66] Dr. Inge gives an excellent detailed account of it in _Studies of
English Mystics_, 1906, pp. 80-123.
[67] See _Piers Plowman_, by J. J. Jusserand, 1894
[68] B., Passus v., 614-616.
[69] _Poems_, ed. Waller, 1904, p. 283.
[70] _Poems_, ed. Grosart, 1874, p. 134.
[71] See _Additional Table Talk of S. T. O._, ed. T. Ashe, 1884, p. 322.
[72] _Poems_, ed. Sampson, p. 305.
[73] See _Mysticism_, by E. Underhill, pp. 282-286, and specially the
passage from the _Fioreth_ of St Francis of Assisi, chap, xlviii.,
quoted on p. 285.
[74] Notes to Lavater.
[75] From version γ2 in _Poetical Works_, ed. John Sampson, 1905,
p. 253.
[76] _Poems_, ed. Sampson, p. 173.
[77] _Poems_, ed Sampson, pp. 305-6, 309-10. Blake is here praying that
we may be preserved from the condition of mind which sees no farther
than the concrete facts before it; a condition he unfairly associated
with the scientific mind in the abstract, and more especially with
Newton.
[78] This is the principle called occasionally by Blake, and always by
Boehme, the "Mirror," or "Looking Glass." Blake's names for these four
principles, as seen in the world, in contracted form, are Urizen, Luvah,
Urthona, and Tharmas.
[79] Possibly in some such way as Mozart, when composing, heard the
whole of a symphony. "Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts
_successively_, but I hear them as it were all at once" (Holmes's _Life
and Correspondence of Mozart_ 1845, pp 317-18)
[80] _Cf._, for instance, "To be an error, and to be cast out, is a part
of God's design" (_A Vision of the Last Judgment_, Gilchrist's Life, ii.
p. 195); and Illustrations 2 and 16 to the Book of Job, see the
commentary on them in _Blake's Vision of the Book of Job_, by J. H.
Wicksteed, 1910, p. 21 and note 4. It is interesting to note that, as Mr
Bradley points out (_Shakesperian Tragedy_, pp. 37, 39, 324, 325), it is
a cognate idea which seems to underlie Shakesperian tragedy, and to make
it bearable.
[81] See the whole exposition of the Job illustrations by Wicksteed, and
specially p. 37.
[82] _In no Strange Land._ Selected Poems, 1908, p. 130.
[83] For other examples of the expression of this idea of the "Following
Love," the quest of the soul by God, especially in the anonymous Middle
English poem of _Quia amore langueo_, see _Mysticism_, by Evelyn
Underhill, pp. 158-162.
[84] The following remarks are much indebted to a valuable article on
_Bergson and the Mystics_, by Evelyn Underhill, in the _English Review_,
Feb. 1912, which should be consulted for a fuller exposition of the
light shed by Bergson's theories on the mystic experience.
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