My pleasure in it was not what I stole but, rather, the act of
stealing. Nor would I have enjoyed doing it alone -- indeed I
would not have done it! O friendship all unfriendly! You strange
seducer of the soul, who hungers for mischief from impulses of
mirth and wantonness, who craves another's loss without any desire
for one's own profit or revenge -- so that, when they say, "Let's
go, let's do it," we are ashamed not to be shameless.
CHAPTER X
18. Who can unravel such a twisted and tangled knottiness?
It is unclean. I hate to reflect upon it. I hate to look on it.
But I do long for thee, O Righteousness and Innocence, so
beautiful and comely to all virtuous eyes -- I long for thee with
an insatiable satiety. With thee is perfect rest, and life
unchanging. He who enters into thee enters into the joy of his
Lord,[57] and shall have no fear and shall achieve excellence in
the Excellent. I fell away from thee, O my God, and in my youth I
wandered too far from thee, my true support. And I became to
myself a wasteland.
BOOK THREE
The story of his student days in Carthage, his discovery of
Cicero's Hortensius, the enkindling of his philosophical
interest, his infatuation with the Manichean heresy, and his
mother's dream which foretold his eventual return to the true
faith and to God.
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