I wish I could raise a singing altar of planets by some great sacrifice.  My fingers drummed upon the sands this morning a crude and simple rhythm.  I thought of its influence in displacing planets, and of the almost infinite musical variations that were set in motion, and then I compared my crude thrumming with the majestic thunders of the sea, and realized the insupportable beauty of absolute music.  A dog talks by smell.  There are vibrations of smell, as well as of sound or of heat or of light.  And the blind reveal vibration of touch, the holiest of the senses.  We talk now by sound, but are learning to talk by heat and light.  When shall we learn to talk by smell and touch?  Flowers, too, talk by smell.  There is nothing but vibration in the image of God, for life is nothing more than the trembling of his beauty.  The awful speed of Truth hardens into fact.  Words must not say more.

A dog taught me this,—­Prince, the companion of the silent man.  One should be a priest when he marries two ideas.  In any one of the planets within the singing tissue of my flesh are Dantes and St. Francises.  Creation requires of us infinite crucifixions which we shall never be able to consummate alone.  When I lie on my breasts on the sand and bury my face in my hands, all Nature receives me as a human bridegroom, and I sink through time to eternity creating space around me, that widens and narrows to the reaches of immortality.  It is always on the sands that I find the friendliest depths, or in the snow drift of cold planets upon a winter day or else within in the terrible energy of my body, as my heart beats time to the universal spheral rhythm.  Think of the literal meaning of “universal!” Tonight in the silence I read Prometheus Bound.  I love the grace of the boy’s eyes.  I pray to be guarded from the pride of humility.

July 27.

[Illustration:  Circle with a cross through it.]

...  It was a day of silences.  I traced this figure idly on the sand today, and suddenly understood the symbolism of the scarab.  But did the Egyptians anticipate the Redemption?  As men are impressed by the face of the world, so is the world impressed by their faces.  The face, as mirror of the soul, shines forth with electricity and makes an impression on life, altering the song of those it acts upon as the violin sound alters the formation of sands resting on a tightened drum.  By what ancient intuition does the Latin word “malum” mean both “apple” and “evil”?  Music creates substance through the speed of gaiety, and God in His Creation is a cosmic humorist. (Cosmic means beautiful.) To distinguish between fascination and sympathy is a counsel of perfection for critics which has its spiritual analogies. ...  Angels ran in hosts through the grasses.

July 28.

     “His soul’s most secret thought,
     Eternal Light declares.”