"I find my soul a little more to my liking than usual, because I see
nothing in it which keeps it attached to this world, and because it is more
alive to the things of the next, to its eternal joys. Ah! if I were but as
closely and consciously united to God as I am dissevered and alienated from
the world, how happy I should be! And you, too, my daughter, how rejoiced
you would be! But I am speaking of my feelings, and my inward self; as
regards the exterior, and, worst of all, as regards my deportment and
behaviour, they are full of all sorts of contradictory imperfections. The
good which I wish to do, I do not do; but nevertheless I know well that
truly and with no pretence, I do wish to do it, and with a most unchanging
will. But, my Daughter, how can it be that out of such a will so many
imperfections show themselves as are continually springing up within me?
Certainly, they are not of my will, though they be _in_ my will, and _on_
my will. They are like the mistletoe which grows and appears on a tree and
in a tree, although it is not of the tree, nor out of the tree."
[Footnote 1: Philipp. iii. 13.]