Letter XVI. To the Same (The Abbess of Poet Royal)

She is not to be discouraged by the inconstancy or rebellions of nature, or even by frequent venial failings if the will remain good: on avoiding affectation, and indiscreet austerities.

About the end of 1619.

I SEE clearly this ant's nest of inclinations which self-love nourishes and pours forth over your heart, my dear daughter, and I am well aware that the nature of your mind, subtle, delicate, and fertile, contributes towards this; but still, my dear daughter, they are only inclinations, and since you feel their importunateness, and your heart complains of them, there is no appearance that they are accepted with any deliberate consent. No, my daughter; your dear soul having conceived the great desire with which God has in spired it of being his alone, do not easily yield to the thought that it gives consent to these contrary movements. Your heart may be shaken with the movement of these passions, but I think that it rarely sins by consenting.

Miserable man that I am, snid the great Apostle,* who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He felt within him an army composed of his natural humours, aversions, customs, and inclinations, which had conspired his spiritual death; and b'ecause he fears them he bears witness that he hates them, and because he hates them he cannot endure them without sorrow, and his sorrow makes him thus exclaim; to which * Rom. vii. 24.

LET. xvii.] Further Letters Outside Visitation. 3 1 1 he himself answers that the grace of God by Jesus Christ will defend him, not from the fear, not from the terror, not from the alarm, not from the fight, but from defeat, and will prevent him from being conquered.

My daughter, to be in the world and not feel these movements of the passions are incompatible things. Our glorious St. Bernard says that it is heresy to say we can persevere in one same state here below, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit has said by Job,* speaking of man, that he never continueth in the same state. This is in reply to what you say of the levity and inconstancy of your soul; for I believe firmly that that soul is continually agitated by the winds of its passions, and that consequently it is always shaking; but I firmly believe also that the grace of God and the resolution which it has given you remain continually at the pinnacle of your spirit, where the standard of the cross is ever upraised, and where faith, hope, and charity ever loudly proclaim — Vive Jesus!

You see, my daughter, these inclinations to pride, vanity, self-love, mingle themselves with everything, and sensibly or insensibly breathe their spirit into almost all our actions; but at the same time they are not the motives of our actions. St. Bernard feeling them tease him one day while he w.as preaching said: " Depart from me, Satan; I did not begin for thee and I will not end for thee."

One thing only have I to say to you, my dear daughter, on your writing to me that you nourish your pride by little arts in conversations and in letters. In conversation, indeed, affectation sometimes enters so insensibly that one scarcely perceives it at all; but * t xiv. 2.

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still if one does perceive it the style should immediately be altered; but in letters this is certainly a little less, yea much less, to be tolerated; for we see better what we are doing, and if we perceive a notable affectation we must punish the hand that wrote it, making it write another letter in other fashion.

For the rest, my dear daughter, I do not doubt but that amid so great a multitude of turnings and wind ings of the heart there glide in here and there some venial faults; but still, as they merely pass through, they do not deprive us of the fruit of our resolutions, but only of the sweetness which there would be in not making these failures, did the state of this life permit.

Well now, be just: do not excuse, no, nor accuse your poor soul save after mature consideration, for fear lest if you excuse it without foundation you make it presumptuous, and if you lightly accuse it you dull its spirit and make it low-hearted. Walk simply and you will walk confidently.*

I must yet add on the remaining space of my paper this important word. Do not burden your weak body with any other austerity than that which the rule im poses on you; preserve your bodily strength to serve God with in spiritual exercises, which we are often obliged to give up, when we have indiscreetly overdone that with which the soul has to go through them.

Write to me when you please, without ceremony or fear; do not let respect oppose the love which God wills there should be between us, according to which I am for ever unchangeably your very humble brother and servant, &c.

• Prov. x. 9.

LKH. XVIIL] Further Letters Outside Visitation. 3 1 3