“I was pleased but not surprised to hear that you had taken the final step.  The uneasiness by which you were beset must always make itself felt in the mind of one who realizes the serious import of assuming the order of priesthood.  The trial is a painful but an honourable one, and I should not think much of one who reached the priestly calling without having experienced it....  I have told you how a power independent of my will shook within me the beliefs which have hitherto been the main foundations of my life and of my happiness.  These temptations are cruel indeed, and I should be full of pity for any one who was ever tortured by them.  How wanting in tact towards those who have suffered these temptations are the persons who have never been assailed by them.  It is no wonder that such should be the case, for one must have had experience of a thing thoroughly to understand it, and the subject is such a delicate one, that I question whether there are any two human beings more incapable of understanding one another than a believer and a doubter, however complete may be their good faith and even their intelligence.  They speak two unintelligible languages, unless the grace of God intervenes as an interpreter.  I have felt how completely maladies of this kind are beyond all human remedy, and that God has reserved the treatment of them to himself, inanu mitissima et suavissima pertractans vulnera mea, to quote St. Augustin, who evidently speaks from experience.  At times the Angelus Satanae qui me colaphizet wakes up.  Such, my dear friend, is our fate, and we must abide by it. Converte te sufra, converte te infra, life, especially for the clergy, is a battle, and perhaps in the long run, these storms are better for man than a dead calm, which would send him to sleep....  I can hardly bring myself to fancy that within a twelvemonth you will be a priest, you who were my schoolfellow and friend as a boy.  And now we are halfway through life, according to the ordinary mode of reckoning, and the second half will probably not be the pleasanter of the two.  This surely should make us look upon passing ills as of no account, and endure with patience the troubles of a few days, at which we shall smile in a few years’ time, and not think of in eternity.  Vanity of vanities!”

A year later the malady, which I thought was only a fleeting one, had spread to my whole conscience.  Upon the 22nd of March, 1845, I wrote a letter to my friend which he could not read, as he was on his deathbed when it reached him.

“My position in the seminary has not varied much since our last conversation.  I am allowed to attend all the lectures on Syriac of M. Quatremere, at the College de France, and I find them extremely interesting.  They are useful to me in many ways; in the first place by enabling me to learn much that is useful and attractive, and by distracting my mind from certain subjects....  I should be quite happy if it were not that the painful thoughts of which you