midnight in winter
Until I came across it in this MS. I had always thought that the Spanish mystic was the first to use it . -RSB- This only can I say of the state itself : that Master Richard said that it was in a manner what our Lord suffered upon the rood when he cried to His Father _ Eloi , Eloi , etc. _ But I can tell you something of the signs of that affliction , as they shewed themselves to Master Richard . Of the interior state of his soul I can not even think without terror and confusion . Compared with the darkness of it , the other _ nights _ , he said , are but as clouds across the sun on a summer 's day compared with a moonless midnight in winter . He had suffered a shadow of it before , when he was entering the contemplative state , or the prefect Way of Union . Now it fell upon him . Before I tell you how it came , I must tell you that this _ night _ , as he explained it , takes its occasion from some particular thought , and the thought from which it sprang you shall hear presently .