found in the short slippery grass of the Rigi, gazing up at the sky
whose blue could not hope to excel it. It was my first; and what
need of another, for finding one I had gazed into the mystery of
all. This side the Pass, snow and the blue of heaven; later I
entered Italy through fields of many-hued lilies, her past glories
blazoned in the flowers of the field.

Now it is a strangely uneventful road that leads to my White Gate.
Each day questions me as it passes; each day makes answer for me
"not yet." There is no material preparation to be made for this
journey of mine into a far country--a simple fact which adds to the
'unknowableness' of the other side. Do I travel alone, or am I one
of a great company, swift yet unhurried in their passage? The
voices of Penelope's suitors shrilled on the ears of Ulysses, as
they journeyed to the nether-world, like nocturnal birds and bats
in the inarticulateness of their speech. They had abused the gift,
and fled self-condemned. Maybe silence commends itself as most
suitable for the wayfarers towards the sunrise--silence because
they seek the Word--but for those hastening towards the confusion
they have wrought there falls already the sharp oncoming of the
curse.

While we are still here the language of worship seems far, and yet
lies very nigh; for what better note can our frail tongues lisp
than the voice of wind and sea, river and stream, those grateful
servants giving all and asking nothing, the soft whisper of snow
and rain eager to replenish, or the thunder proclaiming a majesty
too great for utterance? Here, too, stands the angel with the
censer gathering up the fragrance of teeming earth and forest-tree,
of flower and fruit, and sweetly pungent herb distilled by sun and