from those that
truly proceed from the fire of love in the affection and the light
of knowing in the reason, and are a very anticipation of that
ineffable "onehead" in heaven.

The three remaining treatises--the Epistle of Prayer, the Epistle of
Discretion in Stirrings of the Soul, and the Treatise of Discerning
of Spirits[19]--are associated in the manuscripts with four other
works: the Divine Cloud of Unknowing, the Epistle of Privy Counsel,
a paraphrase of the Mystical Theology of Dionysius entitled Dionise
Hid Divinity, and the similar translation or paraphrase of the
Benjamin Minor of Richard of St. Victor already considered.[20]
These seven treatises are all apparently by the same hand. The
Divine Cloud of Unknowing has been credited to Walter Hilton, as
likewise to William Exmew, or to Maurice Chauncy, Carthusians of the
sixteenth century, whereas the manuscripts are at least a hundred
years earlier than their time; but it seems safer to attribute the
whole series to an unknown writer of the second part of the
fourteenth century, who "marks a middle point between Rolle and
Hilton."[21] The spiritual beauty of the three here reprinted--and,
more particularly, of the Epistle of Prayer, with its glowing
exposition of the doctrine of Pure Love--speaks for itself. They
show us mysticism brought down, if I may say so, from the clouds for
the practical guidance of the beginner along this difficult way.
And, in the Epistle of Discretion, we find even a rare touch of
humour; where the counsellor "conceives suspiciously" of his
correspondent's spiritual stirrings, lest "they should be conceived
on the ape's manner." Like St. Catherine of Siena, though in a less
degree, he has the gift of vision and the faculty of intuition
combined with a homely common sense, and can illustrate his "simple
meaning" with a smile.

I have borrowed a phrase from St. Catherine, "The Cell of
Self-Knowledge," la cella del cognoscimento di noi, as the title of
this little volume. Knowledge of self and purity of heart, the
mystics teach, are the indispensable conditions for the highest
mystical elevation. Knowledge of self, for Richard of St. Victor, is
the high mountain apart upon which Christ is transfigured; for
Catherine of Siena, it is the stable in which the pilgrim through
time to eternity must be born again. "Wouldest thou behold Christ
transfigured?" asks Richard; "ascend this mountain; learn to know
thyself."[22] "Thou dost see," wr