The Holy Sinner

Very well can love come out of evil, and out of disorder something ordered for the best.

The ringing of bells, the surging and swelling of bells supra urbem, above the whole city, in its airs overfilled with sound. Bells, bells, they swing and sway, they wag and weave through their whole arc on their beams, in their seats, hundred-voiced, in Babylonish confusion. Slow and swift, blaring and booming - there is neither measure nor harmony, they talk all at once and all together, they break in even on themselves; on clang and clappers and leave no times for the excited metal to din itself out, for like a pendulum they are already back at the other edge, droning into its own droning; so that when echo sill resounds: 'In te Domine speravi,' it is uttering already 'Beati quorum tecta sunt peccata into its own midst; not only so, but lesser bells tinkle clear from smaller shrines, as though the mass-boy might be touching the little bell of the Host.

They pledged each other in their spiced beer, a very good drink, with cloves, which I have never tasted but let glide with pleasure down their gullets. Very oft is the telling only a substitute for enjoyment which we, or the heavens, deny ourselves.

In all of us is the wish to return to the has-been and repeat it, that if it were once unblest it may now be blessed.

Children of sin are we all. But to me it often seems as though a contradiction were in the world between sinfulness and high courage, between the wretchedness of the flesh and its pride. If it be corrupt, how then can it gaze free and bold and brace itself to such a noble gait that it fills with pride even the beholder? The spirit is ware of our unworth, yet unconcerned with its knowledge Nature considers herself worthy.

God is spirit, and above languages is language.