I enquired whether, supposing that a single point were taken, it would not be better to dwell likewise upon only one affection and resolution rather than upon several. He answered that when Spring is richest in flowers, bees make the least honey, because they are so delighted to flutter from flower to flower that they do not give themselves time to extract the essence and spirit of which they form their combs. Drones make a great deal of noise and produce a very small result. And to the question whether it was not better often to repeat and dwell upon the same affection and resolution, rather than to develop and expand it by thinking it out, he replied that we ought to imitate painters and sculptors, who work by repeating again and again the strokes of their brush and chisel, and that in order to make a deep impression on the heart it is often necessary to go over the same thing many times. He added that as those sink, who in swimming move their legs and arms too rapidly, it being necessary to stretch them leisurely and easily, so also those who are too eager in mental prayer, faint away in their thoughts, their distracted meditations causing them only pain and dissatisfaction. I am asked to explain that saying attributed by our Blessed Father to the great St. Anthony, that he who prays ought to have his mind so fixed upon God, as even to forget that he is praying. Here is the explanation in our Saint's own words. He says in one of his Conferences: "The soul must be kept steadfastly in this path (that, namely, of love and confidence in God) without allowing it to waste its powers in continually trying to ascertain what precisely it is doing and whether its work is satisfactory. Alas! our satisfactions and consolations do not always satisfy God: they only feed that miserable love and care of ourselves which has to do neither with God nor with the thought of God. Certainly, children whom our Lord has set before us as models of the perfection to be aimed at by us are, generally speaking, especially in the presence of their parents, quite untroubled about what is to happen. They cling to them without a thought of providing for themselves. The pleasures their parents procure them they accept in good faith and enjoy in simplicity, without any curiosity whatever as to their causes or effects. The love they feel for their parents and their reliance upon them is all they need. Those whose one desire is to please the Divine Lover have neither inclination nor leisure to turn back upon themselves, for their minds tend continually in the direction whither love carries them."[1]