Jesse Sharpe PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

‘Looke Downe to Heaven’ 211
“I am a great saint,” Shrike cried, “I can walk on my own water. Haven’t you ever
heard of Shrike’s Passion in the Luncheonette, or the Agony in the Soda Fountain?
Then I compared the wounds in Christ’s body to the mouths of a miraculous purse
in which we deposit the small change of our sins. It is indeed an excellent
conceit.” 13
It is an excellent conceit indeed, and in Crashaw’s case, he is quite happy to focus his
readers’ attentions on the wounds of Christ’s body, but rather than the wounds being
‘mouths of a miraculous purse’, they are bloody mouths for kissing. The absurdity
presented by Shrike is not far removed from Crashaw’s earnest devotional emphasis.
Likewise, Miss Lonelyhearts later seeks to pray, but can only think of the mocking prayer
taught to him by Shrike, and so he quits trying to pray so as not to repeat the words of
Shrike. The prayer that he has learned is:
“Oh, Lord, we are not of those who wash in wine, water, urine, vinegar, fire, oil,
bay rum, milk, brandy, or boric acid. Oh, Lord, we are of those who wash solely in
the Blood of the Lamb.” 14
This prayer of jest could easily be offered by Crashaw as a prayer of earnest devotion.
West perfectly captures these two strains of modern anxiety in Miss Lonelyhearts. There
is the devout believer who does not want to think of Christ in such human and grotesque
ways, and there is the scoffer who believes that an attack on Christianity is to emphasise
the humanity of Jesus. But neither of these anxieties is the anxiety of Richard Crashaw.
13 Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust (New York, 2009), p. 7.
14 Miss Lonelyhearts, p. 9.