Letter III.
(a.d. 387.)
To Nebridius Augustin Sends Greeting.
1. Whether I am to regard it as the effect of
what I may call your flattering language, or whether the thing be
really so, is a point which I am unable to decide. For the
impression was sudden, and I am not yet resolved how far it
deserves to be believed. You wonder what this can be. What do you
think? You have almost made me believe, not indeed that I am
happy—for that is the heritage of the wise alone—but that I am
at least in a sense happy: as we apply the designation man
to beings who deserve the name only in a sense if compared with
Plato’s ideal man, or speak of things which we see as
round or square, although they differ widely from the
perfect figure which is discerned by the mind of a few. I read your
letter beside my lamp after supper: immediately after which I lay
down, but not at once to sleep; for on my bed I meditated long, and
talked thus with myself—Augustin addressing and answering
Augustin: “Is it not true, as Nebridius affirms, that I am
happy?” “Absolutely true it cannot be, for that I am still far
from wise he himself would not deny.” “But may not a happy life
be the lot even of those who are not wise?” “That is scarcely
possible; because, in that case, lack of wisdom would be a small
misfortune, and not, as it actually is, the one and only source of
unhappiness.” “How, then, did Nebridius come to esteem me
happy? Was it that, after reading these little books of mine, he
ventured to pronounce me wise? Surely the vehemence of joy could
not make him so rash, especially seeing that he is a man to whose
judgment I well know so much weight is to be attached. I have it
now: he wrote what he thought would be most gratifying to me, because he had been gratified by what I had written in those treatises; and he wrote in a joyful mood, without accurately weighing the sentiments entrusted to his joyous pen. What, then, would he have said if he had read my Soliloquies? He would have rejoiced with much more exultation, and yet could find no loftier name to bestow on me than this which he has already given in calling me happy. All at once, then, he has lavished on me the highest possible name, and has not reserved a single word to add to my praises, if at any time he were made by me more joyful than he is now. See what joy does.”
