And thus from Thagaste, I came to Carthage.
Times lose no time; nor do they roll idly by; through our senses
they work strange operations on the mind. Behold, they went and came
day by day, and by coming and going, introduced into my mind other
imaginations and other remembrances; and little by little patched me
up again with my old kind of delights, unto which that my sorrow
gave way. And yet there succeeded, not indeed other griefs, yet the
causes of other griefs. For whence had that former grief so easily
reached my very inmost soul, but that I had poured out my soul upon
the dust, in loving one that must die, as if he would never die? For
what restored and refreshed me chiefly was the solaces of other
friends, with whom I did love, what instead of Thee I loved; and
this was a great fable, and protracted lie, by whose adulterous
stimulus, our soul, which lay itching in our ears, was being
defiled. But that fable would not die to me, so oft as any of my
friends died. There were other things which in them did more take my
mind; to talk and jest together, to do kind offices by turns; to
read together honied books; to play the fool or be earnest together;
to dissent at times without discontent, as a man might with his own
self; and even with the seldomness of these dissentings, to season our
more frequent consentings; sometimes to teach, and sometimes learn;
long for the absent with impatience; and welcome the coming with
joy.
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