she seems, at any rate in some of her phrases, most akin is Walter Hilton, her contemporary.[1] Hilton, however, is very rich in quotations from the Bible, while Julian's only direct quotations from any book—beyond her reference to the legend of St Dionysius—are one that belongs to Christ: "I thirst" (xvii.), and two that belong to the soul: "Lord, save me: I perish!" "Nothing shal depart me from the charite of Criste" (xv.). (And indeed these three are a fit embodiment of the Christian Faith as seen in her "Revelations.") But Julian, while perhaps more speculative than either of these typical English Mystics, is thoroughly a woman. Lacking their literary method of procedure, she has a high and tender beauty of thought and a delicate bloom of expression that are her own rare gifts—the beauty of the hills against skies in summer evenings, of an orchard in mornings of April. Again and again she stirs in the reader a kind of surprised gladness of the simple perfection wherewith she utters, by few and adequate words, a thought that in its quietness convinces of truth, or an emotion deep in life. Of a little child it has been said: "He thought great thoughts simply," and Julian's deepness of insight and simplicity of speech are like the Child's.[2] "For ere that He made
- ↑ See the extract from Hilton given as a note to chapter lvii.
- ↑ Little Flowers of a Childhood (in Mem. J. D. W., Oct. 1894—March 1899). Some of the thoughts of children,—some of the rising thoughts of a very little child who, like Julian, faced the darkness of time (steadfast as Dürer's pilgrim Knight, gentle as Chaucer's,) and
