Colours in the Gospel

There is but a faint shade which turns grey into purple. There is but one nameless tint that is between the poorest of colours and the richest of colours. That grey turning purple is the nearest simile we can find for the poverty and pleasure of the Franciscans. But the thing is very fresh and delicate, like the dawning observation of infancy. The Franciscan monk is only conscious of his unworthiness. He is not conscious of his hilarity. This paradox of a humiliation which is named creating an exultation which is not named is the whole poetry of this grey and silver daybreak of the medieval civilization; and it is the root of all the irony and fantasy which a modern feels in reading these tales. For example, there is one tale of how Brother Juniper "played see-saw to abase himself". The reader has a kind of subconscious conviction that he really played see-saw to amuse himself. But the real truth is somewhere between the two, and is a matter of more subtle psychology. The man did sincerely feel that in joining a grotesque game of children he was in some way breaking the back of his own natural pride. But there also entered into the operation involuntarily and invisibly a breath from the paradise of children. And, indeed, see-saw (besides being an excellent game) is a very good symbol of the principle that he that abaseth himself shall be exalted. [See Matthew 23:12]

--GKC, "The Paradox of Humility" in Lunacy and Letters