We would walk together on the _Morne d'Orange_ in the evening. His church was on the rise of the _morne_ at the foot of _Rue Victor Hugo_. He loved to hear about my explorations in books, especially about my studies among the religious enthusiasts. I would tell him of the almost incredible austerities of certain mystics to refine the body, and it was really a sensation to hear him exclaim in his French way: "Can it be possible? I am very ignorant. All that I know is to worship the good God who is always with me, and to love my dear children who have so much to bear. I do not know why I should be so happy--unless it is because I know so very little. Tell me why I live in a state of continual transport...." I can hear his gentle Latin tones even now at night when I shut my eyes--see the lights of the shipping from that cliff road, hear the creoles' moaning songs from the cabins, and recall the old volcano, _La Montagne Peleé_, outlined like a huge couchant beast against the low, northern stars. Father Fontanel has meant very much to me. In all my thinking upon the ultimate happiness of the race, he stands out as the bright achievement. At the time I knew him, there was not a single moment of his life in which the physical of the man was supreme. What his earlier years were I do not know, of course, but I confess now I should like to know.... The presence of God was so real to him, that Father Fontanel did not understand at all his own great spiritual strength. Nor do his people quite appreciate how great he is among the priests of men. He has been in their midst so long that they seem accustomed to his power. Only a stranger can realize what a pure, shining garment his actual _flesh_ has become. To me there was healing in the very approach of this man. Dear Father Fontanel! All I had to do was to substitute "Higher Self" for "God" and I had my religion--the Practice of the Presence of the Higher Self. Does it not seem very clear to you?... To me, God is always an abstraction--something of vaster glory than the central sun, but one's Spiritual Body, the real being, integrated through interminable lives, from the finest materials of thought and action--this Higher Self is the Presence I must keep always with me, and do I not deserve that It should stand scornfully aloof, when, against my better knowledge, I fall short in the performance?... I think it is his Higher Self which is so lustrous in Father Fontanel, and the enveloping purity which comes from you is the same. About such purity there is nothing icy nor fibrous nor sterile.... You are singing in my heart, Skylark.