SOURCE: "English Medieval Mystics" in The Mystics of the Church, James Clarke & Co., 1925, 11. 110-32.

In the excerpt that follows, Underhill emphasizes Julian's skill as a writer, noting especially her ability to fuse 'feeling and expression" and "soaring philosophy with homely simplicity."

[Julian of Norwich] stands out with peculiar distinctness. As the first real English woman of letters, she has special interest for us: the more so when we consider the beauty of character, depth of thought, and poetic feeling which her one book displays. In her mingled homeliness and philosophic instinct, her passion for Nature, her profound devotion to the Holy Name, she represents all the best elements of English mysticism. We feel in her the literary culmination of the Gothic spirit: the sense of mystery, delicate beauty, and robust contact with the common life, which meet us in the cathedrals; the vivid human sympathy with the mysteries...