men and women, or at least women, had more leisure and
inclination to try to get below the surface of things. Heroes had been
glorified till they had almost become deified, and something more
personal, more individual, was wanted. By the side of modern romance,
where the most sacred and secret intricacies of human nature are, as
it were, displayed under the microscope, Marie's narrations may seem
somewhat artless. But in putting into words the dawning desires of her
time she gave form and impetus to feeling and thought struggling for
expression, and gained for her work a definite place in the
development of human utterance. Evolution, whether of the spirit or of
matter, is the supreme law of things. Marie struck a spark from the
ideal which poets and writers down the ages have fanned into a flame.

A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY MYSTIC AND BEGUINE, MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

The triumphant ecclesiasticism of the thirteenth century, manifested
in the forms of political power, material wealth, splendid
architecture, and worldly positions sufficiently commanding to satisfy
even the most ambitious, was, perhaps naturally, accompanied by a
gross materialism. Against this the truly pious-minded revolted,
thereby causing a reaction towards mysticism. Whilst before the eyes
of some there floated, as the ideal, the material ladder leading to
fame and power, before those of others there arose, as in a vision,
the "Ladder of Perfection," each rung of which gained brought them
nearer to the object of their quest--Divine Reality. These latter,
whether of great, or lesser, or even of no renown, and amongst whom
women played a great and very notable part, were scattered far and
wide; but each one cultivated some little corner of the mystic garden.
One such garden was the Cistercian convent of Helfta, near Eisleben,
in Saxony, in the thirteenth century a centre of mystic tendencies.
It was here that, harassed and ill, Mechthild of Magdeburg took
refuge, and entered as a nun in 1270. But we are anticipating.

Mechthild, at first a beguine, and afterwards a nun, but a visionary
from the days of her childhood, was born, most probably of noble
parents, in the diocese of Magdeburg, in 1212. That she is perhaps
better known to the general reader than are other contemplatives of
her day is probably due to the suggestion that she may be the Matilda
immortalised by Dante in the "Earthly Paradise" (_Purg._ xxviii. 22
_seq._), rather than to her ow