Then there opens up a very deserted road, which is wholly somber and solitary. On this road God takes back all that He has given. Man is then so completely abandoned to himself that he no longer knows whether he is on the right road… and this becomes so painful to him that this vast world seems to narrow to him. He has no longer any feeling of his God, he no longer knows anything about Him, and everything else displeases him.
–Johannes Tauler (1300–1361)
