Book Description

Excerpt from The Mount of Vision: A Book of English Mystic Verse I have used the word religious rather than mystical, not because the terms are precisely equivalent, but because the first is the safer. It is ominous to hear the name of mysticism so easily used, given and taken, without a thought of its cost. It is not long since an interesting novel appeared of which the motive and the whole subject was Mysticism. Visions were easy to come by; and revelations, and such extreme things as the unitive life - things for which the Saints thought fifty years of self-conquest and self-abandonment a paltry price - were discussed as incidents of well-read aspiration. There was no mention of the first step, there was much chatter of the last. No one in the band of confident people engaged in this story in artistic work for a celestial end seemed to have entered upon the indispensable begin nings, to have overcome anything within, to have shut his mouth upon a hasty word, to have dismissed a worldly thought, to have compelled his heart to a diflicult act of pardon, to have forgone beloved sleep, cherished food, conversation, sharp thoughts, or darling pride. The Saints, on the other hand, gave themselves to that spade work before permitting themselves so much as one credible dream. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.