asleep, when I recommended myself to God, that I might sleep in
peace, I used always to think a little of this mystery of the
prayer in the Garden--yea, even before I was a nun, because I had
been told that many indulgences were to be gained thereby.
For my part, I believe that my soul gained very much in this way,
because I began to practise prayer without knowing what it was;
and now that it had become my constant habit, I was saved from
omitting it, as I was from omitting to bless myself with the sign
of the cross before I slept.

6. And now to go back to what I was saying of the torture which
my thoughts inflicted upon me. This method of praying, in which
the understanding makes no reflections, hath this property: the
soul must gain much, or lose. I mean, that those who advance
without meditation, make great progress, because it is done by
love. But to attain to this involves great labour, except to
those persons whom it is our Lord's good pleasure to lead quickly
to the prayer of quiet. I know of some. For those who walk in
this way, a book is profitable, that by the help thereof they may
the more quickly recollect themselves. It was a help to me also
to look on fields, water, and flowers. [3] In them I saw traces
of the Creator--I mean, that the sight of these things was as a
book unto me; it roused me, made me recollected, and reminded me
of my ingratitude and of my sins. My understanding was so dull,
that I could never represent in the imagination either heavenly
or high things in any form whatever until our Lord placed them
before me in another way. [4]

7. I was so little able to put things before me by the help of my
understanding, that, unless I saw a thing with my eyes, my