I give one more, particularly interesting to English students because of its parallels with our own great mystical work, _The Cloud of Unknowing_: “There was a time when my soul was exalted to behold God with so much clearness that never before had I beheld Him so distinctly. But I did not here see Love so fully; rather I lost that which I had before, and was left without love. Afterwards I saw Him darkly, and this darkness was the greatest blessing that could be imagined, and thought can conceive nothing equal to this.... Here likewise I see all Good.... The soul delights unspeakably therein, yet it beholds nothing that can be spoken by the tongue or conceived by the heart. It sees nothing yet sees all, because it beholds the Good darkly; and the more darkly and secretly the Good is seen, the more certain it is, and excellent above all things. Wherefore all other good that can be seen or imagined is doubtless less than this, and even when the soul sees the Divine wisdom, power and will of God (which I have seen marvellously at other times), it is all less than this most certain Good. Because this is the whole, and those other things are but part of the whole.... But seen thus darkly, the Good brings no smile to the lips, no fervour of love to the heart; for the body does not tremble or become moved and distressed as at other times; because the soul sees, and not the body, which rests and sleeps, and the tongue is dumb and speechless. All the many ineffable kindnesses which God has shown me, all the sweet words and divine sayings and doings, are so much less than this that I saw in the darkness, that I put no hope in them.... But to this most high power of beholding God ineffably through great darkness, my spirit was uplifted three times only and no more.” “This cloud,” says _The Cloud of Unknowing_, of that same Divine Dark, “is evermore between thee and thy God ... therefore shape thyself to abide in this darkness so long as thou mayest, evermore crying after Him whom thou lovest, for if ever thou shalt feel Him or see Him (in such sort as He may be seen or felt in this life) it behoveth always to be in this cloud or darkness.” So Angela: “When I behold and am in that Good, although I seem to see nothing yet I see all things.” In this achievement she reaches the goal of the mystic experience, the ecstatic communion with the Absolute One.