“Before interrupting the quiet monotony of my life at Chartres by this journey, shall I not do well to look into myself, if only for a minute, and take stock of what I have gained before and since settling in this town?

“The gain to my soul?  Alas! it consists less in acquisitions than in exchanges; I have merely found aridity in the place of indolence; and the results of the exchange I know only too well; of what use is it to go through them once more?  The gains to my mind seem to me less distressing and more genuine, and I can make a brief catalogue of them under three heads:  Past, Present, and Future.

“In the Past.—­When I least expected it, in Paris, God suddenly seized me and drew me back to the Church, taking advantage of my love of Art, of mysticism, of the Liturgy, and of plain-song.

“Still, during the travail of this conversion, I could not study mysticism anywhere but in books; I knew it only in theory and not in practice.  On the other hand, in Paris, I never heard any but dull, lifeless music, watered down, as it were, in women’s throats, or utterly disfigured by the choir schools.  In most of the churches I found only a colourless ceremonial, a meagre form of service.

“This was the situation when I set out for La Trappe:  under that strict rule I found mysticism not only in its simplest expression, written out and set forth in a body of doctrine, but mysticism as a personal experience, in action, simply an element of life to those monks.  I could convince myself that the science of the soul’s perfection was no delusion, that the assertions of Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross were strictly true, and in that cloister it was also vouchsafed to me to be familiar with the enjoyment of an authentic ritual and genuine plain-song.

“In the Present.—­At Chartres I have entered on new exercises, I have followed other traces.  Haunted by the matchless grandeur of this cathedral, under the guidance of a very intelligent and cultivated priest I have studied religious symbolism, worked up that great science of the Middle Ages which is in fact a language peculiar to the Church, expressing by images and signs what the Liturgy expresses in words.

“Or, to be more exact, it would be better to say that part of the Liturgy which is more particularly concerned with prayer; for that part of it which relates to forms, and injunctions as to worship, is itself symbolism, symbolism is the soul of it.  In fact, the limit-line of the two branches is not always easy to trace, so often are they grafted together; they inspire each other, intertwine, and at last are almost one.

“In the Future.—­By going to Solesmes I shall complete my education; I shall see and hear the most perfect expression of that Liturgy and that Gregorian chant of which the little convent of Notre Dame de l’Atre, by reason of the limited number of the Brethren, could only afford a reduced copy—­very faithful, it is true, but yet reduced.