But he could remember how "she related with
great dearness of affection, how she never heard any harsh or unkind word
to be darted out of my mouth against her." And to this consolation was
added who knows what of confidence and tenderness of certain hope, or a
kind of deadness, perhaps, that may lighten the pain of a heart very
often tried and inured to every pain. For it is certain that "this green
wound" was green and grievous for a briefer time than the agony of his
earlier sorrows. He himself, so earnest in analysing his own emotions,
is perplexed by the short date of his tears, and his sharpest grief: "Let
him read it who will, and interpret it as it pleaseth him."
So, with the death of Monica, we may leave Saint Augustine. The most
human of books, the "Confessions," now strays into theology. Of all
books that which it most oddly resembles, to my fancy at least, is the
poems of Catullus. The passion and the tender heart they have in common,
and in common the war of flesh and spirit; the shameful inappeasable love
of Lesbia, or of the worldly life; so delightful and dear to the poet and
to the saint, so despised in other moods conquered and victorious again,
among the battles of the war in our members. The very words in which the
Veronese and the Bishop of Hippo described the pleasure and gaiety of an
early friendship are almost the same, and we feel that, born four hundred
years later, the lover of Lesbia, the singer of Sirmio might actually
have found peace in religion, and exchanged the earthly for the heavenly
love.
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