So by those who did not
well, Thou didst well for me; and by my own sin Thou didst justly
punish me. For Thou hast commanded, and so it is, that every
inordinate affection should be its own punishment.
But why did I so much hate the Greek, which I studied as a boy? I do
not yet fully know. For the Latin I loved; not what my first
masters, but what the so-called grammarians taught me. For those first
lessons, reading, writing and arithmetic, I thought as great a
burden and penalty as any Greek. And yet whence was this too, but from
the sin and vanity of this life, because I was flesh, and a breath
that passeth away and cometh not again? For those first lessons were
better certainly, because more certain; by them I obtained, and
still retain, the power of reading what I find written, and myself
writing what I will; whereas in the others, I was forced to learn
the wanderings of one Aeneas, forgetful of my own, and to weep for
dead Dido, because she killed herself for love; the while, with dry
eyes, I endured my miserable self dying among these things, far from
Thee, O God my life.
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