WILLOUGHBY. Certainly not; away with formalities; let us be Thelemites, and do as we like. We can take up this topic as a bye-work, to furnish us with some consecutive pursuit in those intervals of time we are so apt to waste. We can meet—never mind at what intervals, from a week to three months—and throw into the common stock of conversation our several reading on the questions in hand. ATHERTON. Or one of us may take up some individual or period; write down his thoughts: and we will assemble then to hear and talk the matter over. GOWER. Very good. And if Mrs. Atherton and Miss Merivale will sometimes deign to honour our evenings with their society, our happiness will be complete. This mention of the ladies reminds our friends of the time, and they are breaking up to join them. The essays and dialogues which follow have their origin in the conversation to which we have just listened. Footnote 3: The writer, who goes by the name of Dionysius Areopagita, teaches that the highest spiritual truth is revealed only to those ‘who have transcended every ascent of every holy height, and have left behind all divine lights and sounds and heavenly discoursings, and have passed into that Darkness where He really is (as saith the Scripture) who is above all things.’—_De Mysticâ Theologiâ_, cap. i. § 3. CHAPTER III. If we entertain the inward man in the purgative and illuminative way, that is, in actions of repentance, virtue, and precise duty, that is the surest way of uniting us to God, whilst it is done by faith and obedience; and that also is love; and in these peace and safety dwell. And after we have done our work, it is not discretion in a servant to hasten to his meal, and snatch at the refreshment of visions, unions, and abstractions; but first we must gird ourselves, and wait upon the master, and not sit down ourselves, till we all be called at the great supper of the Lamb.—JEREMY TAYLOR. ‘So, we are to be etymological to-night,’ exclaimed Gower, as he stepped forward to join Willoughby in his inspection of a great folio which Atherton had laid open on a reading desk, ready to entertain his friends. ‘What says Suidas about our word mysticism?’ WILLOUGHBY. I see the old lexicographer derives the original word from the root _mu_, to close: the secret rites and lessons of the Greek mysteries were things about which the mouth was to be closed.[4] GOWER. We have the very same syllable in our language for the same thing—only improved in expressiveness by the addition of another letter,—we say, ‘to be _mum_.’