[A] certain German-speaking Trappist abbey in the last century was smothered with frescoes of the most alarming kind. Symbols of death and dissolution confronted the eye at every turn, and in the refectory the beckoning torso of a painted skeleton, equipped with an hour glass and a scythe, leant, with the terrifying archness of a forgotten guest, across the coping of a wall on which were inscribed the words: Tonight, maybe?
–Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time to Keep Silence
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said: ‘Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.’ And he was afraid, and said: ‘How full of awe is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’
— Genesis 28:16-17
WILLIAM BLAKE, c. 1805
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