" And to what
end? that, through that practice of guilt, he might, having taken
the city, attain to honours, empire, riches, and be freed from fear of
the laws, and his embarrassments from domestic needs, and
consciousness of villainies. So then, not even Catiline himself
loved his own villainies, but something else, for whose sake he did
them.
What then did wretched I so love in thee, thou theft of mine, thou
deed of darkness, in that sixteenth year of my age? Lovely thou wert
not, because thou wert theft. But art thou any thing, that thus I
speak to thee? Fair were the pears we stole, because they were Thy
creation, Thou fairest of all, Creator of all, Thou good God; God, the
sovereign good and my true good. Fair were those pears, but not them
did my wretched soul desire; for I had store of better, and those I
gathered, only that I might steal. For, when gathered, I flung them
away, my only feast therein being my own sin, which I was pleased to
enjoy. For if aught of those pears came within my mouth, what
sweetened it was the sin.
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