The Forgotten Threshold

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2010

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Edward J. (Edward Joseph Harrington) O'Brien

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urnio

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2010

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Forgotten Threshold, by Arthur MiddletonThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.netTitle: The Forgotten ThresholdAuthor: Arthur MiddletonRelease Date: August 8, 2004 [eBook #13138]Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLD***E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading TeamTHE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLDA Journal of Arthur MiddletonTO W.S.B.FOR SUBSTANTIAL EMBODIMENTPREFATORY NOTEBefore Arthur Middleton died he gave me this record among others in the belief that it would help to tell me what he hadalways known in the silences, yet could never in life transmute into the friendly counters of speech. During the last years ofhis all too brief experience of his friends, more than once he shyly sought to tell what he knew, yet always silence claimedhim, and nothing but the wonder of his eyes revealed the dream that consumed his heart. Because beauty claims thesewords in a deeper knowledge than we had before, I have transcribed this fragment of them here, confident that in thesewhite intuitions of his youth there is a revelation of the Light behind beauty beyond our poor knowledge and ...

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Publié par

urnio

Publié le

08 décembre 2010

Nombre de lectures

Langue

English

TThhree sPhroojled,c t byG uAtretnhbure rMg idedBloetook,n The ForgottenThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere atno cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under theterms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.netTitle: The Forgotten ThresholdAuthor: Arthur MiddletonRelease Date: August 8, 2004 [eBook #13138]Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)*E*B*SOTOAKR TT HOEF FTOHRE GPORTOTJEENC TT HGRUETSEHNOBLEDR**G*E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M.Eckrich, and the Project Gutenberg OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team

THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLDA Journal of Arthur MiddletonTO W.S.B.FOR SUBSTANTIAL EMBODIMENTPREFATORY NOTEBefore Arthur Middleton died he gave me thisrecord among others in the belief that it would helpto tell me what he had always known in thesilences, yet could never in life transmute into thefriendly counters of speech. During the last yearsof his all too brief experience of his friends, morethan once he shyly sought to tell what he knew, yetalways silence claimed him, and nothing but thewonder of his eyes revealed the dream thatconsumed his heart. Because beauty claims these

words in a deeper knowledge than we had before, Ihave transcribed this fragment of them here,confident that in these white intuitions of his youththere is a revelation of the Light behind beautybeyond our poor knowledge and still poorer faith. Ihave omitted only what was most sacred to theprivacies of his heart and our affection. He was ofthe old faith and would have wished had hepublished these pages to have expressed his entireand passionate loyalty to the Roman CatholicChurch in faith and deed, and to have disclaimedany word therein which conflicted with theintimacies of its truth. I can do no more than toecho his wish, and mourn the unhappy chancewhich took him from us on an April tide, though itbefell on the Easter that he loved and at that hourwhen the flaming symbol of the Divine Sacrificewas setting in the west. So the passion of the sunand tide which reflected his belief witnessed theconsummation of his great desire.—THE EDITOR.THE FORGOTTEN THRESHOLDTHE JOURNAL(wNh.icB.h —thOisn j tohuer noapl eisn icnogn tpaaigneesd tohf etrhee ibsl aa nskh borotok infragment which bears no relation that I candiscover to the entries that follow, and I am inclinedto believe that it is the beginning of anamuyt oubniocgerrtaapinhtyy ,w hhiocwh evMeidr,d Il eptroinn t nite, vaenr dc oanctcinorudeidn.g lIynit is transcribed below.—THE EDITOR.)

Fragment.—I was not more than three years oldwhen the sunlight first made me happy as it stolethrough the curtains and over the coverlet till itkissed my lips and wrapped me in its warmembrace. Then I would fall asleep again and mydreams, if I dreamed at all, were white and faintlystirred me to a smile. I never tried to catch thesunbeams, for I felt their gold in my heart, norcould they have been nearer than they were, beingassociated with my mother's watchfulness as shestole in to smile upon my slumbers and claim thesecond silent unconscious kiss. On Sundaymorning they would be freighted with a quiet whiterlight, more peaceful and hushed to the feeling ofthe day, and somehow the peace was guardedwith finger on lip throughout the house, so that itwas implicit in my nest of images long beforereason took note of it or sought to explain it to myconsciousness. Once again as a boy of fifteen Iknew it with a catch of delighted and almost tearfulsurprise when I stroked the breast of a woundedpigeon who found shelter in my room. The world isnot as quiet in these days, nor is the hum of trafficin the mart attuned so kindly to the flow of light aswhen it ran so gently by the bedside of thedreaming boy. …(The journal now follows, written in a smallcramped hand, without paragraphing or division. Iomit the first few entries as purely personal.Middleton had gone to a group of remote westernislands, and these notes are the fruit of his sojournthere.)—THE EDITOR.

July 5.Yesterday found me on the island with its silences,and last night the host was red and sacrificial androde on a thunder cloud. This afternoon the planetsgo singing through my flesh and my song of praisehas widened to the arches of the sun. The sea ismoaning slowly on the sand. I stripped to the coolsalt air for the first time. … Walking I found my wayout on the long gray dunes.July 6.On the dunes today with my mother. My handswept idly over the soft white sand, shifting theorder of many thousands of starry worlds. What achord of music if one could but hear it in itsentirety! As it was, I caught wonderful echoes thatwould light the beauties of many a sunrise. Thesilent man reminds me of Synge in his drifting lifeand the fires glowing in his eyes. Today I saw the-beauty of a flower. … Some day I shall write a playabout the stars. The action will burn in theirseedtime and blow on the winds of Fate with all itsironies. … Tonight in the sitting room I heard in myheart the singing of the sands. It is on the shiftingdesert, I feel, that we shall discover the secretorigin of language. How the infinitely aspiring musicmust sound tonight along the dunes!July 7.The night before last after I retired I felt that lifted

feeling physically which represents the beating ofthe tides. Last night it coalesced with the singing ofthe sands. At Mass this morning the voices at theCredo thundered out Et Homo factus est in atorrent of living sound. At the elevation I saw a thinwhite flame rise from the uplifted chalice anddisappear. It takes a beam of light one hundredand eight years to travel from Arcturus to theearth. Are we similar traveling beams, and is deathmerely our arrival on another planet which weillumine? Today I read aloud on the cliffs from theglories of Plato's Phaedrus.July 8.In the morning I wandered onto the dunes leadingout toward Wonder Island, but was driven off bythe terns who were nesting. … The billows of thewind today mingled in me with the sands and thetide, so that I experienced from a new angleLandor's "We are what suns and winds and watersmake us." …July 9.My life will see much traveling.July 10.Morning on the dunes. A cold clear bath whilemists drove over the sands. Returning home, as Icame to the deep sand on the road, I perceived

the mystery of the resurrection of the body. Indeath there is no physical decay. The singingplanets of the human body merely part to combinein other songs, recurring again in the end to theirold disposal and song, exchanging other worlds fortheir own once more, and recurring to the firstmotif of the symphony. I was sad this afternoon forthe will failed me in my work. Sitting on the sandthis morning the singing dunes had attained to theharmony of silence. All at once a little wisp ofseaweed—hardly more than a thread—started tobeat time upon the sands. And then I knew andsaw it to be in its happy beating the pulse thatgoverned the music of the stars. Can the heartconduct the symphony of the body? Tonight thesun set, borne away—a Grail—by angels from thequesting Galahad. There was a great silence in myheart as I sat in the crowded room.July 11.A day of northeast wind and upward thunder. Thejoy of the wind was in me, and I lost the sense ofspace. The air was so buoyant that it was closelykin to the sea. … Today I succeeded a little betterwith my will. I had a strange sensation thisafternoon, which told me that bare lonely placesare the only places to write drama, since there onlycan we find the pure dynamic forces of lifedisentangled from the subtle and complicated webof human ambitions and interests. The air was verythin and clear at twilight, but the sun was hidden inthe clouds. …

July 12.… There was a great silence this evening in thecrowded room. Closing my eyes, I raised the upperlids as far as possible without seeing materialthings, and so saw myself in fearful wonderelevating the host and chalice on high. I know nowthe inner meaning of "Domine, non sum dignus utintres sub tecta mea." Under these two archedroofs of the eyes hidden from all light save Light,there is a secret dwelling. … A day of close-shrouded palling fog—a chrism confirming thestrength of beauty.July 13.This morning the wind blew through the fields ofgrass like countless angels in the courts of heaven.Shadow and color and light and movement dancingbefore the first syllable of the Name. A gull flewdown almost to my hand, and the sunlightthundered in my ears. Last night the sea was sadlypurifying the earth. I now understand the Washerof the Ford. Majesty lies in darkness, and grief isonly the privilege of seeing Majesty. Today on theporch with closed eyes buried in my hands thewinds swept over me in a torrent of living light. Asymphony is a wonderful symbol. In the first place,it is music. In the second place, it is a name ofpraise with four syllables. Then it completes acycle, and returns on a higher plane to the motifwith which it began. It is the history of a soul, and

in its last movement typifies the resurrection of thebody, by means of this very return,—a return tothe order and disposal in which it was created andwhich it now reassumes to praise its Creator for alleternity by the harmony of the original Thought. Ilooked at twilight into the tiny white heart of aflower that grew among the grasses, and out of theheart pulsed the Sacred Body in wounds allglorified, with Hands outstretched conducting themusic of the worlds. I know now that the flowerwas a chalice. The sadness of it cannot die as theMan can, and I know that it is with me ready to beshared. As I write this, there is a mist within myroom. I always sleep now like one ready to soar. Inthe crowded room tonight I felt myself making themovements of swimming, as if the air were waterand I an expert swimmer.July 14.Views of the unveiled heavens alone forthbring Prophets who cannot sing.A day of tempestuous wind and rain with all thekeen dynamic life of time poised 'mid eternities.The happiest of my days battling with the elementsin wonderful silences. At Mass with wonder theshining of the Host. My eyes were veiled from thechalice, but I felt two angels —guarding theacolytes. Again at the Credo the thunder of EtHomo factus est. With Shelley in the afternoon anda perilous walk on the cliffs. … I am gaining indetachment. The desire and passion for solitude

grows and I meditate a winter on the islands. Howunworthy I am to partake of mysteries! They fill mewith fear, for it is hard for the body to live ineternity. In the evening with Gordon Craig. Is heright about masks? A mask is a symbol, but a facemay be a sacrament. The Mass, after all, is thesupreme dream and drama of the world. Sadnessis majesty, as I found the other night, and majestyis always impenetrable, for it is a secret full of aweand mysterious silence. Tonight I see that greatdrama, whether it be a tragedy or no, must revealtime poised in infinity. Beauty, I think, containseverything save the human will, and it is the idealof the will to be thus contained and of beauty to bethe container. … In the supreme drama ofGethsemane and Calvary, Christ used the humanbody as the supreme visible instrument of drama.July 15.… Tonight the fog broke through the sunset andtshcea tctleifrfes.d g…o lI d paracryoesds t thhreo usgeha .t hCel osuudnss ehtu, nagn do vwerona victory for the will.July 16.Last night in the darkness I learned many things.The human will is the unit, the core of flame whichbinds all elements together. It is sad because it isthe force of impact tearing things from theirdetached and comfortable places and placing themin new relations. It is the magnet, the summoning

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