We see at once the complete and practical character of her reaction to the divine; the promptitude with which she makes the vital connection between intuition and act. St. Teresa said that the object of the spiritual marriage was “the incessant production of work.” So for Lucie-Christine that sure consciousness of the Presence of God which now became frequent, “clothing and inundating” her as she sat alone at her sewing or took part in some social activity, called her above all to “faire les petites choses du dévouement journalier avec amour”; conquering her natural irritability and dislike for the boredoms and unrealities of a prosperous existence. “N’avoir jamais l’air ennuyé des autres. Que de fois je manque à ceci avec les pauvres enfants. Vous êtes ennuyeux! C’est bien vite dit! Est-ce une amabilité divine?” More and more, as her mystical consciousness grew, the life of contemplation became her delight; and it was plainly a real trial to be distracted from it for trivial purposes. In company, or busied with household duties, she went for hours with “her soul absorbed, its better part rapt in God.” She “tried to appear ordinary,” and made excuses if her abstraction was observed; but there are a few entries in her journal which will give pleasure to those who condemn mysticism as an “anti-social type of religion.” “Nous avons été nous promener, quatorze. Je remarque que d’aller ainsi avec plusieurs ‘Marthes’ hommes ou femmes, cela ne fait rien. On laisse discourir, on met un mot de temps en temps, mais, en définitive, on demeure bien libre et l’oraison va toute seule. Mais avec une seule Marthe, que c’est terrible! La tête-à-tête oblige à causer presque tout le temps.” When Lucie wrote this, ten years after her first illuminative experience, she was far advanced in contemplation. She had known that direct and ineffable vision of God “Himself the True, the Good, the Beautiful; all things being nothing save by Him” which is characteristic—though she knew it not—of the unitive way: known too the corresponding experience of dereliction, when the door which had opened on Eternity seemed tightly closed. It would be tedious to analyze in detail the rich profusion of mystic states which she had already exhibited: the degrees of contemplation, ecstasies, visions and voices, all the forms taken by her growing intuition of the Transcendent. Many of these can be matched in the writings of the great mystics. Again and again as we read her, we are reminded of Angela of Foligno, Ruysbroeck, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Genoa, even of Plotinus: yet Lucie-Christine was at this time ignorant of mystical literature, and only in later life found with amazement descriptions of her own experiences in the works of the great contemplatives.