- cid
- bafkreicre7wja4ckltxxl55aq3llivpwgaj6gel4rojoyqd6amoqteo3ca
- content_type
- image/jpeg
- filename
- confessionsofsaugu00augu_page_0046.jpg
- height
- 2325
- key
- pdf-page-1769747276335-el0qhvugbn
- ocr_model
- mistral-ocr-latest
- page_number
- 46
- pdf_type
- scanned
- size
- 701453
- text
- 20 The Confessions of S. Augustine.
judge, surrounded by a human crowd, inveighing against his enemy with fiercest hatred, will take heed most watchfully, lest, by a slip of the tongue, he should say “amun’ men;” * but will take no heed, lest, through the fury of his spirit, he should take away his life from among men.
## CHAPTER XIX.
*He proves that infants are not without faults; and details the guile and faults of boyhood.*
SUCH were the moral surroundings among which I lay, unhappy, in boyhood; such the school of my contest, in which I had feared more to commit a barbarism, than, having committed one, to envy those who had not. These things I speak and confess to Thee, my God; for which I had praise from them, in whose pleasure I then thought honourable life to consist. For I saw not the abyss of vileness, wherein “I was cast away from Thine eyes” (Ps. xxxi. 22). For in them what could be more foul than I already was, since I was offensive even to such as myself? with innumerable lies deceiving my tutor, my masters, my parents, from love of play, eagerness to see vain shows and restlessness to imitate stage plays? Thefts also I committed from my parents’ cellar and table, either because tempted by gluttony, or that I might have to give to boys, who *sold me their play*, which all the while they delighted in as much as I did. In this play, too, I often sought to win by cheating; won over myself meanwhile by coveting to excel. And what could I so ill put up with, or, when I found it out, did I denounce so fiercely, as that very thing which I was doing to others, and for which, found out, I was denounced, but yet chose rather to quarrel than to yield. And is this the innocence of boyhood? Not so, Lord, not so; I cry Thy mercy, O my God. For these very sins, as riper years succeed, these very sins are transferred from tutors and masters, from nuts and balls and sparrows, to
* There is a constant word play throughout this chapter, most difficult to reproduce. In this sentence the fault, which S. Augustine says a man would eagerly avoid, is that of saying “inter hominibus” instead of “inter homines.” I have tried to save the sense.—EDITOR.
- text_extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T04:35:08.308Z
- text_extracted_by
- ocr-service
- text_has_content
- true
- text_images_count
- 0
- text_source
- ocr
- uploaded
- true
- width
- 1438