good God as they speak either of my evil or good, and they are meant to excite men's minds and affections toward him. At least as far as I am concerned, this is what they did for me when they were being written and they still do this when read. What some people think of them is their own affair \[ipse viderint]; but I do know that they have given pleasure to many of my brethren and still do so. The first through the tenth books were written about myself; the other three about Holy Scripture, from what is written there, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,\[2] even as far as the reference to the Sabbath rest.\[3] 2. In Book IV, when I confessed my soul's misery over the death of a friend and said that our soul had somehow been made one out of two souls, "But it may have been that I was afraid to die, lest he should then die wholly whom I had so greatly loved" (Ch. VI, 11) -- this now seems to be more a trivial declamation than a serious confession, although this inept expression may be tempered somewhat by the "may have been" \[forte] which I added. And in Book XIII what I said -- "The firmament was made between the higher waters (and superior) and the lower (and inferior) waters" -- was said without sufficient thought. In any case, the matter is very obscure. This work begins thus: "Great art thou, O Lord." II. De Dono Perseverantiae, XX, 53 (A.D. 428)