Her _Dialogue between Love and the Soul_ abounds in passages like the
following: "Tell my beloved that his chamber is prepared, and that I am
sick with love of him." "The closer the embrace, the sweeter the
kisses." "Then He took the soul into His divine arms, and placing His
fatherly hand on her bosom, He gazed into her face and kissed her right
well." Mechthild, too, was ready to die with love.
Everyone of the most celebrated Brides of Christ belonged to the Latin
race; they were hysterics, and as such have long been claimed by the
psychopathist.
The love of Jesus professed by Catherine of Siena (1347-1388), a clever
politician, who was in correspondence with the leading statesmen of her
time, found vent in passages like the following:
"I desire, then, that you withdraw into the open side of the Son of God,
who is a bottle so full of perfume that even the things which are sinful
become fragrant. There the bride reclines on a bed of fire and blood.
There the secret of the heart of the Son of God is revealed and made
manifest.
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