Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/129

Rh the mind by music, by a certain sort of impressionism in writing and painting. We have knowledge of the labyrinth of the world because our body and soul and being is a labyrinth, and part answers to part. We understand such music with our whole bodies, not only with our ears; we see such pictures with the soul itself, which is all eye, rather than with the mere physical eye. It is truth—heavenly harmony.

A paragraph of good writing is a labyrinth: it is comprised in one breath, and mirrors in its construction the natural stops and alleys of the body. Every fruit is a labyrinth.

All disorder is a diviner order not understood: the order of the labyrinth, the disorder of the starry sky, the disorder of the forest, the disorder of the world, of a nation, of the web of intricacies on the palm of a hand.

All astronomy, astrology, geography, cosmography, botany, natural history, palmistry are more or less the tracing of the lines of the labyrinth, our playful attempts to follow out the mystical maze of natural phenomena.

The lines which men trace in their goings to and fro upon the world are part of the mystical tracery, so also are the tracks of the clouds, the outlines of coasts, the ramifications of the lines of rocks.

Reflections of the labyrinth are caught in many curious pictures and patterns: in the design on butterfly's wings, the markings on plumage, the