SOURCE: "Margery Kempe and Dame Julian" in The English Mystics, Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1927, pp. 128-49.

In the following excerpt, Knowles examines Julian's work in order to characterize her qualities as a writer and as a mystic. In both capacities, he contends, her sincerity of feeling and natural style set her apart from her contemporaries.

We have already in an earlier chapter considered a spiritual writing which had for its end the direction of ancresses. We havenow to examine the writings of two holy women who followed this life of solitude, Margery Kempe of Lynn and Dame Julian of Norwich; and though we have only a few pages to tell us of the first, whereas the second has left us a book of considerable length, there is a very striking agreement of spirit between them.

Of Margery Kempe little need be said. All that survives of her "Book...