I wish now to review in memory my past wickedness and the
carnal corruptions of my soul -- not because I still love them,
but that I may love thee, O my God. For love of thy love I do
this, recalling in the bitterness of self-examination my wicked
ways, that thou mayest grow sweet to me, thou sweetness without
deception! Thou sweetness happy and assured! Thus thou mayest
gather me up out of those fragments in which I was torn to pieces,
while I turned away from thee, O Unity, and lost myself among "the
many."[40] For as I became a youth, I longed to be satisfied with
worldly things, and I dared to grow wild in a succession of
various and shadowy loves. My form wasted away, and I became
corrupt in thy eyes, yet I was still pleasing to my own eyes --
and eager to please the eyes of men.
CHAPTER II
2. But what was it that delighted me save to love and to be
loved? Still I did not keep the moderate way of the love of mind
to mind -- the bright path of friendship. Instead, the mists of
passion steamed up out of the puddly concupiscence of the flesh,
and the hot imagination of puberty, and they so obscured and
overcast my heart that I was unable to distinguish pure affection
from unholy desire.
Pages:
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74