it to dust and has scattered it through her works, her dogmas, her
poems. If some impalpable grain shines like a diamond in a human work,
men cry: 'How grand! how true! how glorious!' That fragment vibrates
in their souls and wakes a presentiment of heaven: to some, a melody
that weans from earth; to others, the solitude that draws to God. To
all, whatsoever sends us back upon ourselves, whatsoever strikes us
down and crushes us, lifts or abases us,--_that_ is but a syllable of
the Divine Word.

"When a human soul draws its first furrow straight, the rest will
follow surely. One thought borne inward, one prayer uplifted, one
suffering endured, one echo of the Word within us, and our souls are
forever changed. All ends in God; and many are the ways to find Him by
walking straight before us. When the happy day arrives in which you
set your feet upon the Path and begin your pilgrimage, the world will
know nothing of it; earth no longer understands you; you no longer
understand each other. Men who attain a knowledge of these things, who
lisp a few syllables of the Word, often have not where to lay their
head; hunted like beasts they perish on the scaffold, to the joy of
assembled peoples, while Angels open to them the gates of heaven.
Therefore, your destiny is a secret between yourself and God, just as
love is a secret between two hearts. You may be the buried treasure,
trodden under the feet of men thirsting for gold yet all-unknowing
that you are there beneath them.

"Henceforth your existence becomes a thing of ceaseless activity; each
act has a meaning which connects you with God, just as in love your
actions and your thoughts are filled with the loved one. But love and
its joys, love and its pleasures limited by the senses, are but the
imperfect image of the love which unites you to your celestial Spouse.