not an intermediary between the soul and this unlimited splendour, but our spiritual condition, our earthly state, and our inconstancy disturb us, and so we have to gain merits, which those who dwell in glory have no need to gain. “This sublime splendour is the simple contemplation of the Father, and of all those who behold and rejoice, and look fixedly in one direction by means of an incomprehensible light, each one according as the light is bestowed upon him. For that measureless light shines ceaselessly into all our thoughts; but the man who lives here, in this earthly state, is often overwhelmed with images, so that he does not always actively and steadily behold the super-essence of God by means of this light. But in receiving this gift he virtually possesses it, and he can contemplate whenever he wills. Since the light by which we contemplate is unlimited, and that which we contemplate of an unfathomed depth, the one can never reach the other; but this fixed gaze of our contemplation remains eternally turned towards the infinite, in the joyful presence of the sublime Majesty, where the Father, by His eternal wisdom, gazes fixedly into the depths of His own infinite being.” A great part of this book on _The Kingdom of Lovers_ is written in singular verses. The three-lined and breathlessly monotonous rhythm is rather like that of the _Stabat Mater_, only that the third line of every strophe reproduces the same rhyme throughout the entire work, and rests on an abstract idea from which the two preceding lines rise, like twin flowers of obscurity and restlessness. We can imagine this hollow music floating through the spiritual dreams of the maids of Memlinck, while their secret senses, their faces, and their little hands all unite in ecstasy; but unhappily a translation cannot reproduce its taste of darkness and of bread soaked in the night, nor catch the image of the tear-brightened gloom, of ice mingled with fire, of oppression without hope, which we feel throughout the work. I shall therefore translate only one of these dark poems, the subject of which is the “Gift of Intelligence.” “He who seeks that gift to light him Must rise beyond his nature, To the highest height of being. Brightness without measure There shall he perceive it In primal purity. Through his soul will flow The light of heavenly truth, And he in it shall vanish. That universal radiance Enlightens the pure-hearted According to their merits. Then can they behold With gaze that knows no limit The very face of joy. For ever shall we gaze on That which we there enjoy And lose ourselves in vision. Far off has gone the Lover; We turn our eyes for ever Towards the blessed vision. Yet has he reached the goal And the lover has the loved one In the lonely realm of union. So shall we thus remain And ever strive to follow To that wondrous depth divine.”