Ah, that image!... I said, "As she stood there!" Yet it could not have
been so; for surely even simple Bernadette would not have fallen on her
knees. It is too white, it is too blue; it is, like the three churches,
placed magnificently, yet not impressive; fine and slender, yet not
graceful.

But we knelt there without unreality, with the river running swift
behind us; for we knelt where a holy child had once knelt before a
radiant vision, and with even more reason; for even if the one, as some
say, had been an hallucination, were those sick folk an hallucination?
Was Pierre de Rudder's mended leg an hallucination, or the healed wounds
of Marie Borel? Or were those hundreds upon hundreds of disused crutches
an illusion? Did subjectivity create all these? If so, what greater
miracle can be demanded?

And there was more than that. For when later, at Argelès, I looked over
the day, I was able to formulate for the first time the extraordinary
impressions that Lourdes had given me. There was everything hostile to
my peace--an incalculable crowd, an oppressive heat, dust, noise,
weariness; there was the disappointment of the churches and the image;
there was the sour unfamiliarity of the place and the experience; and
yet I was neither troubled nor depressed nor irritated nor disappointed.
It appeared to me as if some great benign influence were abroad,
soothing and satisfying; lying like a great summer air over all, to
quiet and to stimulate. I cannot describe this further; I can only say
that it never really left me during those three days, I saw sights that
would have saddened me elsewhere--apparent injustices, certain
disappointments, dashed hopes that would almost have broken my heart;
and yet that great Power was over all, to reconcile, to quiet and to