to the ears of
statues in order to be the better heard, but to come into the inner self
believing that, God is near, present and within, more fully than man
himself,[G] being soul of souls, life of lives, essence of essences: for
that which you see above or below, or round about, or however you please
to say it, of the stars, are bodies, are created things, similar to this
globe on which we are, and in which the divinity is present neither more
nor less than he is in this globe of ours or in ourselves. This is how,
then, one must begin to withdraw oneself from the multitude into
oneself. One ought to arrive at such a point to despise and not to
overestimate every labour, so that, the more the desires and the vices
contend with each other inwardly and the vicious enemies dispute
outwardly, so much the more should one breathe and rise, and with
spirit, if possible, surmount this steep hill. Here there is no need for
other arms and shield than the majesty of an unconquered soul and a
tolerant spirit, which maintains the quality and meaning of that life
which proceeds from science and is regulated by the art of considering
attentively things low and high, divine and human, in the which consists
that highest good, and in reference to this, a moral philosopher wrote
to Lucillus that one must not linger between Scylla and Charybdis,
penetrate the wilds of Candavia and the Apennines or lose oneself in the
sandy plains, because the road is as sure and as blythe as Nature
herself could make it. "It is not," says he, "gold and silver that makes
one like God, because these are not treasure to Him; nor vestments, for
God is naked; nor ostentation and fame, for He shows Himself to few, and
perhaps not one knows Him, and certainly many, and more than many, have
a bad opinion of Him. Not all the various conditions of things which we
usually admire, for not those things of which we desire to have copies,
make one rich, but the contempt for those things."

[G] For, in this (degree), God cannot be tasted, felt, seen, because
he is more ourselves than ourselves, is not distinct from
us.--("Spiritual Torrents.")

CES. Well. But tell me in what manner will this fellow tranquillize the
senses, assuage the woes of the spirit, compensate the heart and give
its just debts to the mind, so that with this aspiration of his he come
not to say: "Nitimur incassum"?

MAR. He will be present in the body in such wise that the best part of