THE MYSTIC'S LIFE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 41, Issue 1052, 23 October 1959, Page 14

THE MYSTIC'S LIFE

EVELYN UNDERHILL, by Margaret Cropper; Longmans, Green & Co., English price 25/-. DULATION can pervert understanding. Miss Cropper’s book contains too much of the mechanism of her subject’s prayer life, too much of the. spiritual groping of one who was so far ahead of her feilow-climbers. Evelyn Underhill was one of ‘this century’s greatest mystics. Her leadership of retreats and her writings have been the inspiration of thousands of people in their devotional life. She does not come to full stature in this book. Many people will no doubt be glad to learn of Evelyn Underhill’s domestic life, her period of "spiritual deprivation" during the war years, the help she gained from that other great mystic, Baron von Hugel, in her search for mental peace, her exuberant vitality issuing in voluminous writing, lecturing and personal counselling, and the part she played in many important Church conferences. But somehow the structural mechanism stands out too much in the telling. The giant stature of the mystic whose faith moved multitudes does not emerge. It may be that one should not attempt to write a biography of such a person, but rather an appreciation, an admiration, or even only a carefully designed and edited selection of the mystic’s own words. One values Evelyn Underhill’s contribution to religious mysticism too highly to be satisfied with Miss Cropper’s warm-hearted telling of her story and her unintentional reduction of her subject to merely human size.

G.

D.