We Had The Experience But

Every Experience Is A Paradox In That It Means To Be Absolute, And Yet Is Relative; In That It Somehow Always Goes Beyond Itself And Yet Never Escapes Itself.

With Cats, Some Say, One Rule Is True: Don’t Speak Till You Are Spoken To. Myself, I Do Not Hold With That — I Say, You Should Ad-dress A Cat. But Always Keep In Mind That He Resents Familiarity. I Bow, And Taking Off My Hat, Ad-dress Him In This Form: O Cat! But If He Is The Cat Next Door, Whom I Have Often Met Before (he Comes To See Me In My Flat) I Greet Him With An Oopsa Cat! I Think I've Heard Them Call Him James — But We've Not Got So Far As Names.

We Have Lingered In The Chambers Of The Sea By Sea-girls Wreathed With Seaweed Red And Brown Till Human Voices Wake Us... And We Drown.

The Hint Half Guessed, The Gift Half Understood, Is Incarnation.

But The Church Cannot Be, In Any Political Sense, Either Conservative Or Liberal, Or Revolutionary. Conservatism Is Too Often Conservation Of The Wrong Things: Liberalism A Relaxation Of Discipline; Revolution A Denial Of The Permanent Things.