Bibliography
NOTE.—The literature on mysticism is growing very large, and the following is only a small selection from the general works on it. In the case of individual writers, references are given only where there might be difficulty about editions. Thus no references are given to the works of Burke, Carlyle, Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson, Browning, etc.
General
Underhill, Evelyn. Mysticism, Methuen, 1911. (See the valuable Bibliography of mystical works, pp. 563-585.) The Mystic Way, Dent, 1913.
Jones, Rufus M. Studies in Mystical Religion, Macmillan, 1909.
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience, Longmans Green, 1905.
Inge, W. R. Christian Mysticism, Methuen, 1899. Studies of English Mystics, Murray, 1905. Light, Life and Love. Selections from the German mystics. With Introduction. Methuen, 1904.
Hügel, Baron F. von. The Mystical Element in Religion, 2 vols.. Dent, 1909.
Delacroix, H. Études d’Histoiré et de Psychologie du Mysticisme, Paris, 1908.
Récéjac, E. Essai sur les fondements de la Connaissance Mystique, Paris, 1897 (translated by S. C. Upton, London, 1899).
Gregory, Eleanor C. A Little Book of Heavenly Wisdom. Selections from some English prose mystics, with Introduction. Methuen, 1902.
Foreign Influences
Plato (c. 427-347 B.C.). Opera, ed. J. Burnet, 5 vols. (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Classicorum Oxoniensis), 1899-1907.
Plato (Eng. trans.) The Dialogues, translated by B. Jowett, 5 vols., Oxford, 3rd ed., 1892.
Plotinus (A.D. 204-270). Plotini Ennéades, præsmisso Porphyrii de vita Plotini deque ordine librorum ejus libello, edidit R. Volkmann, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1883-84. (Eng. trans.) There is no complete English translation of the Enneads, only Select Works, translated by T. Taylor, 1817; re-issued, George Bell, 1895. (French trans.) Les Ennéades de Plotin, translated by M.-N. Bouillet, 3 vols., Paris, 1857-61. (This is complete and very good, but out of print.) The best critical account of Plotinus is in The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, by Edward Caird, 2 vols., Maclehose, 1904.
Dionysius the Areopagite. Works, translated Parker, 1897.
Jacob Boehme (1575-1624). Works (incomplete), 4 vols., 1764-81. Reprint of complete works in progress, ed. C. J. Barker, published J. Watkins. (See Bibliography to chap. xii. of Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. ix.)
Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Works, published by the Swedenborg Society, London. Selections, A Compendium of the Theological Writings, ed. Warren, 1901.
English Writers
Thomas de Hales (fl. 1250). A Luve Ron, (printed in) Morris’s Old English Miscellany (E.E.T.S.), 1872.
Richard Rolle (1290?-1349). Richard Rolle and his Followers, ed. Horstmann, 2 vols., Sonnenschein, 1895-6. The Fire of Love, and the Mending of Life, ed. R. Harvey (E.E.T.S.), 1896.
Anonymous (c. 1350-1400). The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. Evelyn Underhill, J. Watkins, 1912.
All printed, with other early English mystical treatises, in The Cell of Self-Knowledge, ed. E. G. Gardner, Chatto & Windus, 1910. The Epistle of Prayer, The Epistle of Discretion, The Treatise of Discerning Spirits
Anonymous. The Epistle of Privy Counsel, in MS., British Museum, Harleian, 674 and 2473.
(William Langland, or other authors.? c. 1362-1399). The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, ed. Skeat, 2 vols., Oxford, 1886. Jusserand, J. J. Piers Plowman: a Contribution to the History of English Mysticism. Translated from the French by M. E. R., 1894.
Walter Hylton (d. 1396). The Scale of Perfection, ed. Guy, 1869; ed. Dalgairns, 1870. The Song of Angels, printed by Gardner, in The Cell of Self-Knowledge, 1910.
Julian of Norwich (1342-1413?). Revelations of Divine Love, ed. Warrack, Methuen, 1912.
Richard Crashaw (1613? 1649). Poems, ed. A. R. Waller, Cambridge 1904.
John Donne (1573-1631). Poetical Works, ed. Grierson, 2 vols., Oxford, 1912.
George Herbert (1593-1633). Poems, ed. Grosart, 1891; Oxford edition, 1907.
Christopher Harvey (1597-1663). Poems, ed. Grosart, 1874.
Henry More (1614-1687). Complete Poems, ed. Grosart, 1878. Life, by R. Ward, 1710, reprinted Theosophical Society, ed. Howard, 1911.
Henry Vaughan (1622-1695). Poems, ed. Chambers, 2 vols., 1896.
Thomas Traherne (c. 1636-1674). Poetical Works, ed. Dobell, 1903. Centuries of Meditations, ed. Dobell, 1908. Poems of Felicity, ed. Bell, Oxford, 1910.
William Law (1686-1761). Works, 9 vols., 1753-76, reprinted privately by G. Moreton, 1892-3. The Liberal and Mystical Writings of William Law, ed. W Scott Palmer, 1908. (See Bibliography to chap xii. of Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. ix., 1912.)
William Blake (1757-1827). Works, ed. Ellis and Yeats, 3 vols., Quaritch, 1893.
William Blake. Poetical Works (including Prophetic Books), ed, Ellis, 2 vols., Chatto and Windus, 1906. Poetical Works (exclusive of Prophetic Books), ed. Sampson, Oxford, 1905. (The best text of the poems.) Life, Gilchrist, 2 vols., Macmillan, 1880. William Blake, by A. C. Swinburne, Chatto and Windus (new ed.), 1906. William Blake, Mysticisme et Poésie, par P. Berger, Paris, 1907.
S. T. Coleridge (1772-1834). Complete Poetical Works, ed. E. H. Coleridge, 2 vols., Oxford, 1912. Biographia Literaria, ed. J. Shawcross, 2 vols., Oxford, 1907.
Emily Brontë (1818-1848). Complete Poems, ed. Shorter, Hodder and Stoughton, 1910. The Three Brontës, by May Sinclair, Hutchinson, 1912.
Coventry Patmore (1823-1896). Poems, G. Bell, 1906. The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, 1895. Memoirs and Correspondence of C. Patmore, by B. Champneys, 1900.
Richard Jefferies (1848-1887). The Story of my Heart, 1883, (reprinted) Longmans, 1907.
Francis Thompson (1859-1907). New Poems, Burns and Oates, 1897. Selected Poems, 1908. Sister Songs, 1908.
Footnotes
1 “The Religious Philosophy of William James,” by J. B. Pratt, Hibbert Journal, Oct. 1911, p. 232.
2. On “Spirit,” in Philosophical Remains of R. L. Nettleship, ed. A. C. Bradley, 1901, pp. 23-32.
3 Republic, ii. 376.
4 Symposium, 211, 212.
5 This distinction between East and West holds good on the whole, although on the one side we find the heretical Brahmin followers of Bhakti, and Ramananda and his great disciple, Kabir, who taught that man was the supreme manifestation of God; and on the other, occasional lapses into Quietism and repudiation of the body. See The Mystic, Way, by E. Underhill, pp 22-28.
6 For an account of Boehme’s philosophy, see pp. 91-93 below.
7 See his essay on him in Representative Men.
8 Memoirs and Correspondence of C. Palmore, by B. Champneys, 1901, vol. ii. pp. 84, 85.
9 Selections from the German Mystics, ed. Inge (Methuen, 1904), p. 4.
10 See his article on Rossetti in the Nineteenth Century for March 1883.
11 House of Life, Sonnet xvii.
12 House of Life, Sonnets i., xxvii., lxxvii.
13 See Religio Poetæ, p. 1.
14 Memoirs, ed. Champneys, i. 146.
15 The Angel in the House. Bk. ii. prelude ii.
16 The Angel in the House, canto viii. prelude iv.
17 See pp. 113, 114 below.
18 The Child’s Purchase and The Toys, poems, I vol., 1906, pp. 287, 354.
19 Seligio Poetæ, 1893, p. 163.
20 Religio Poetæ, 1893, p. 44.
21 The “Ring” of Eternity is a familiar mystical symbol which Vaughan doubtless knew in other writers; for instance as used by Suso or Ruysbroeck. See Mysticism, by E. Underhill, p. 489 and note.
22 See the illuminating description of this essentially mystic feeling given by J. Stewart in The Myths of Pinto, Introduction, pp. 39 et seq.
23 The Story of my Heart, pp. 87, 88.
24 Ibid., p. 76.
25 The Story of my Heart, p. 199.
26 Ibid., p. 71.
27 Ibid., p. 74.
28 See Compendium of Philosophy, a mediæval digest of the Abhidhamma, translated by S. Z. Aung and Mrs Rhys Davids, 1910, 152 f.
29 We cannot agree with Prof Grierson, who, in his fine recent edition of the poet (Donne’s Poems, Oxford, 1912, vol ii., pp. cxxxv.-vi.), holds that the style and tone of this song point to Donne not being the author. For these very qualities it would seem indubitably to be his.
30 Surely also by Donne, but see Grierson, vol. ii., pp. cxxxviii-ix.
31 Centuries of Meditations, ed. Dobell, 1908, pp. 20, 21.
32 Centuries of Meditations, pp. 156-58.
33 Life of Tennyson, by his son, 1905, p. 268; see also pp 818, 880.
34 This is the idea, essentially mystical, and originating with Boehme, which is worked out in the suggestive little book, The Mystery of Pain, by James Hinton.
35 An Appeal, Work’s, vol. vi. pp. 27, 28.
36 The Spirit of Prayer, Works, vol. vii. pp. 23, 24.
37 Cf. St Augustine, “To will God entirely is to have Him” (City of God, Book xi. chap, iv.), or Ruysbroek’s answer to the priests from Paris who came to consult him on the state of their souls: “You are as you desire to be.”
38 See The Spirit of Prayer, Works, vol. vii. pp. 150, 151.
39 An Appeal, Works, vol. vi. p. 169.
40 Ibid., pp. 19, 20.
41 Ibid., pp. 69, 80.
42 The Spirit of Prayer, Works, vol. vii. pp. 23, 27.
43 The Way to Divine Knowledge, Works, vol. vii. p. 60.
44 The Spirit of Prayer, Works, vol. vii. p. 68. See also ibid., pp. 91, 92
45 An Appeal, Works, vol. vi. pp. 132, 133.
46. Ibid., p. 82.
47 An Appeal, Works, vol. vi. p. 115.
48 The Destiny of Nations, II. 16-18.
49 Frost at Midnight, 11. 60-62.
50 Sartor Resartus, Book i. chap. xi.
51 See Sartor, Book iii. chap. iv.
52 The mystical desire for close contact with God is expressed in English as early as before 1170, in Godric’s song to the Virgin.
53 See Mysticism, by E. Underhill, pp. 162-166.
54 The Ancren Riwle, ed. J. Morton, Camden Society, 1853, pp. 397-403.
55 Fire of Love, Bk. 1. cap xvi. p. 36.
56 Ibid., Bk. i. cap. xv. p. 33.
57 See Mysticism, by E. Underhill, pp. 228, 229.
58 Fire of Love, Bk. i. cap. xvi. p. 36.
59 Ibid., Bk. ii. cap. iii. and xii.
60 Fire of Love, Bk. i. cap. xv.
61 Ibid., Bk. ii. cap. vii.
62 Enneads, vi. §§ 8, 9.
63 See The Authorship of the Prick of Conscience, by H. E. Allen, Radcliffe College Monographs, No. 15, Ginn and Co., 1910.
64 Revelations, ed. Warrack, pp. 21, 178. All the quotations which follow are taken from this edition of the Revelations.
65 Revelations, p. 135. It Is interesting to compare the words of other mystics upon this point; as for instance Richard of St Victor in Benjamin Minor, cap. 75, or Walter Hylton in The Scale of Perfection. Note the emphasis laid upon it by Wordsworth, who indicates self-knowledge as the mark of those who have attained the “unitive” stage; see p. 66 above.
66 Dr. Inge gives an excellent detailed account of it in Studies of English Mystics, 1906, pp. 80-123.
67 See Piers Plowman, by J. J. Jusserand, 1894
68 B., Passus v., 614-616.
69 Poems, ed. Waller, 1904, p. 283.
70 Poems, ed. Grosart, 1874, p. 134.
71 See Additional Table Talk of S. T. O., ed. T. Ashe, 1884, p. 322.
72 Poems, ed. Sampson, p. 305.
73 See Mysticism, by E. Underhill, pp. 282-286, and specially the passage from the Fioreth of St Francis of Assisi, chap, xlviii., quoted on p. 285.
74 Notes to Lavater.
75 From version γ2 in Poetical Works, ed. John Sampson, 1905, p. 253.
76 Poems, ed. Sampson, p. 173.
77 Poems, ed Sampson, pp. 305-6, 309-10. Blake is here praying that we may be preserved from the condition of mind which sees no farther than the concrete facts before it; a condition he unfairly associated with the scientific mind in the abstract, and more especially with Newton.
78 This is the principle called occasionally by Blake, and always by Boehme, the “Mirror,” or “Looking Glass.” Blake’s names for these four principles, as seen in the world, in contracted form, are Urizen, Luvah, Urthona, and Tharmas.
79 Possibly in some such way as Mozart, when composing, heard the whole of a symphony. “Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them as it were all at once” (Holmes’s Life and Correspondence of Mozart 1845, pp 317-18)
80 Cf., for instance, “To be an error, and to be cast out, is a part of God’s design” (A Vision of the Last Judgment, Gilchrist’s Life, ii. p. 195); and Illustrations 2 and 16 to the Book of Job, see the commentary on them in Blake’s Vision of the Book of Job, by J. H. Wicksteed, 1910, p. 21 and note 4. It is interesting to note that, as Mr Bradley points out (Shakesperian Tragedy, pp. 37, 39, 324, 325), it is a cognate idea which seems to underlie Shakesperian tragedy, and to make it bearable.
81 See the whole exposition of the Job illustrations by Wicksteed, and specially p. 37.
82 In no Strange Land. Selected Poems, 1908, p. 130.
83 For other examples of the expression of this idea of the “Following Love,” the quest of the soul by God, especially in the anonymous Middle English poem of Quia amore langueo, see Mysticism, by Evelyn Underhill, pp. 158-162.
84 The following remarks are much indebted to a valuable article on Bergson and the Mystics, by Evelyn Underhill, in the English Review, Feb. 1912, which should be consulted for a fuller exposition of the light shed by Bergson’s theories on the mystic experience.