Read Hello and Elia. I am learning how to see in crowds. These past few days I have succeeded in withdrawing into life for long periods in the midst of a general conversation, yet my absence was not noted in the least. Out of it I hope will develop the ability to be with life always in the tangle and confusion of city circumstance. This afternoon I read _Phaedrus_ aloud on a sunny cliff, and in the evening read aloud Keats' "I stood tiptoe" on the green heights in the wind and the rain. Rossetti's lines do not forbid a life of contemplation, but rather encourage it as distinguished from quietism. ... Through the summer I am to see the Crucifixion. How I envy St. Francis the Stigmata! Even as a little boy I desired them--but I shall never be able perhaps to love passionately enough. The nights that I cried as a little fellow without knowing why, just because I loved, were nearer than I shall ever be again. July 21. At Benediction after Mass today I saw the Wonder in all Humanity with Light surrounding It, and I shook with an awful thunder of sound. ... Today I have been happy to tears, and in the blue afternoon on the cliffs with my mother, I shared "Endymion" and "Epipsychidion." ... I do not understand why silence is spoken of as a precept. To me it is the living attribute of God. ... How nobly scornful is Sir Aubrey De Vere's phrase, "witless ecstasies"! July 22. Simply a day of hard work. But I was happy in it. In an odd way I felt as I wrote all day on the smooth white paper that I was stroking the sleek breasts of doves. Tonight the steady patter of the rain upon the eaves. July 23. A day of hard routine work. ... Tonight in the inky darkness I walked to the postoffice in the thundering wind and rain and surf, and learned how the deeps can praise the Lord. I have always felt the wonder of that psalm. July 24. Rose at 4:30 and saw the sun rise a pure and shimmering symbol of the Host above the silver outline of Wonder Island. The day was dumb. A little boy has come whose face is his sacrament. What a song he must sing! I look forward to the morrow as a day of special grace and wonder. ... July 25.