The Book, Cat, & Cat Book Lovers Almanac

of historical trivia regarding books, cats, and other animals. Actually this blog has evolved so that it is described better as a blog about cats in history and culture. And we take as a theme the advice of Aldous Huxley: If you want to be a writer, get some cats. Don't forget to see the archived articles linked at the bottom of the page.

June 15, 2020

June 15, 1941


In the decades during which the implications of 19th century positivism sank into the general culture, many things were lost. The gentle pieties of anglo-Catholicism is an example. After the wrenchings of the second World War, some people, awarenesses, slipped behind the cushions of academic sofas .

Evelyn Underhill (December 6, 1875 to June 15, 1941) fits this category. The author of numerous volumes on mysticism, including the very popular (at one time) Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness,(1911) Underhill exemplified that about which she wrote, even if we cannot say she appreciated certain boundaries.

Here are other of her titles in the public domain, some of which use a fictional format:

The Grey World (1904)
The miracles of Our Lady Saint Mary: brought out of divers tongues (1906)
The Lost Word
(1907)
The Column of Dust (1909)
Immanence: A Book of Verses (1913)
Practical mysticism: a little book for normal people (1914)
Ruysbroeck (1915)
Theophanies: A Book of Verses (1916)
Jacopone Da Todi, Poet and Mystic--1228-1306: A
  Spiritual Biography (1919)
The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today (1922)

Her letters (The letters of Evelyn Underhill‎, edited by Charles Williams (1943)), mention the names of several of her cats; Jacob, a Persian tabby is one. And there were cats without names (or proper citations):

Look with the eye of contemplation on the most dissipated tabby of the streets, and you shall discern the celestial quality of life set like an aureole about his tattered ears...



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