n, and not upon
spiritual _similarity_: in spiritual similarity alone is _identity_ of
feeling and personality and perfect union to be found, and in this
identity _deceit is impossible._

XV

The more we investigate the question of satisfactions the more we
find that these, in order to be permanent, must take place upon a
very high level, upon a plane above materialism. However much we
may with our sense of taste enjoy a dinner to-day, it will be no joy
whatever even a week hence. The natural everyday facts should (and
are intended to) prove to us the futility of giving so much time and
thought to the pleasures of the flesh: these pleasures lead nowhere,
they end abruptly, they are very limited, being confined to five
senses, and consequently, owing to a necessity of continual
repetition, satiety supervenes, and there remains nothing else to turn
to. Yet when this happens we are really very fortunate, because it
may be a cause of our searching amongst our higher faculties for our
gratifications.

XVI

The soul finds it bitterly hard to rid herself of selfishness and
self-will: she gets rid of one form, only to find herself falling to
another. When first my soul reknew the Joy of God I said to myself, "I
will hide it in my own bosom, I will keep it all to myself. I am become
independent of all creatures, I want none of them, I cannot bear the
sight or the sound of them, how joyfully I leave them all behind!--I
want only my God--I want--But what is all this?--I want, I will, I, I,
I, I!" Later the days come when God hides Himself from me: I can
go and wait at His threshold (because when she knows the way He
never denies the soul the threshold, though He denies her Himself). I
may pour out all the sweetness of my love, but he makes no
response; I may sing to Him all day: He will not hear; I may give
Him all that I am or have, and He will not communicate Himself to
me. Then I remember all the years of my striving, I remember the
stress, the sweat of all that climb to His footstool--the sweat that at
times was like drops of blood wrung out of the soul, out of the heart,
out of the mind; and yet all forgotten in the instant of the rapture of
Finding. Did He then beckon and draw and delight the soul only to
madden with the anguish of more hiding and more striving: was He
to be found only that He might again be lost? My soul sickened with
fear, and I said, Love is a calamity; who can release me from the
anguish of it? O