Letter 26. To Madame De Chantau

Feb, 5, 1608.

Why do you get up so very early in the morning? Indeed it is not well to enfeeble the mind by overworking the body. S. Francis used to tell his disciples this. I do it sometimes, it is true, but only out of sheer necessity, and I would have you make the same rule. My last letter was written at midnight, but I had not been up so late for long. One must not do that sort of thing without good cause, women especially; one is good for very httle aU the next day.

It seems to me, my daughter, that your mind has been quite in an entanglement these first two or three days of Lent I am not at all surprised, for your mind is so sensitive and so jealous over any resolution you have made, that whatever crosses the thread touches you deeply. I have told you a thousand times that it will not do to be so fastidious in our work.... I wish that the skin of your heart was rather tougher, and less accessible to flea-bites. Faith, hope, and charity, which are very parts of ourself, are subject to gusts of wind, though they cannot be blown over; and why should we expect our resolution to be exempt from all ro8 such trials? I marvel, my daughter, whether you expect not only that your tree should be well and firmly planted, but that not a leaf should ever rustle in the breeze? Meet all such misgivings by definite acts of love of God and confidence in His Grace. And after all do not be afiaid that these trifles will shake your resolution. These are vain fears. If Satan^s minister, buffeting S. Paul with all manner of temptations, could not soil his purity, why should our good resolutions suffer from passing emotions? • • • •

.... I will tell you what you do. When some trifle disturbs your mind, you are vexed because of it, and afraid. This fear weakens your mind, and makes it limp, sad and unsteady; it displeases you, and so begets another fear lest the first be wrong, and thus you get more and more confused. You fear being afiraid, and then you are afiraid of fearing; you are vexed at the vexation, and then you are vexed at having been vexed. I have seen people in the same way get into a passion, and then be angry because they had lost their temper 1 just like the circles on water when one throws in a stone, one spreading beyond the other without end. The remedy, my daughter, is not to be so susceptible. Put aside all these entanglements, do not dwell upon them, laugh at them, distract your attention by active employment

Et45.] XXVIII.