I wept for Dido's death, who
made herselfe away with the sword," he declares, "and even so, the saying
that two and two makes foure was an ungrateful song in mine ears; whereas
the wooden horse full of armed men, the burning of Troy, and the very
Ghost of Creusa, was a most delightful spectacle of vanity."
In short, the Saint was a regular Boy--a high-spirited, clever, sportive,
and wilful creature. He was as fond as most boys of the mythical tales,
"and for that I was accounted to be a towardly boy." Meanwhile he does
not record that Monica disliked his learning the foolish dear old heathen
fables--"that flood of hell!"
Boyhood gave place to youth, and, allowing for the vanity of
self-accusation, there can be little doubt that the youth of Saint
Augustine was _une jeunesse orageuse_. "And what was that wherein I took
delight but to love and to be beloved." There was ever much sentiment
and affection in his amours, but his soul "could not distinguish the
beauty of chast love from the muddy darkness of lust. Streams of them
did confusedly boyl in me"--in his African veins. "With a restless kind
of weariness" he pursued that Other Self of the Platonic dream,
neglecting the Love of God:
"Oh, how late art thou come, O my Joy!"
The course of his education--for the Bar, as we should say--carried him
from home to Carthage, where he rapidly forgot the pure counsels of his
mother "as old wife's consailes.
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