XV

Vincent:  Verily, good uncle, you have in my mind well declared these kinds of the night’s fear.

Anthony:  Surely, cousin, but yet are there many more than I can either remember or find.  Howbeit, one yet cometh now to my mind, of which I thought not before, and which is yet in mine opinion.  That is, cousin, where the devil tempteth a man to kill and destroy himself.

Vincent:  Undoubtedly this kind of tribulation is marvellous and strange.  And the temptation is of such a sort that some men have the opinion that those who once fall into that fantasy can never fully cast it off.

Anthony:  Yes, yes, cousin, many a hundred, and else God forbid.  But the thing that maketh men so to say is that, of those who finally do destroy themselves, there is much speech and much wondering, as it is well worthy.  But many a good man and woman hath sometime—­yea, for some years, once after another—­continually been tempted to do it, and yet hath, by grace and good counsel, well and virtuously withstood that temptation, and been in conclusion clearly delivered of it.  And their tribulation is not known abroad and therefore not talked of.

But surely, cousin, a horrible sore trouble it is to any man or woman whom the devil tempteth with that temptation.  Many have I heard of, and with some have I talked myself, who have been sore cumbered with it, and I have marked not a little the manner of them.

Vincent:  I pray you, good uncle, show me somewhat of such things as you perceive therein.  For first, whereas you call the kind of temptation the daughter of pusillanimity and thereby so near of kin to the night’s fear, methinketh on the other hand that it is rather a thing that cometh of a great courage and boldness.  For they dare with their own hands to put themselves to death, from which we see almost every man shrink and flee, and many of them we know by good proof and plain experience for men of great heart and excellent bold courage.

Anthony:  I said, Cousin Vincent, that of pusillanimity cometh this temptation, and very truth it is that indeed so it doth.  But yet I meant not that only of faint heart and fear it cometh and growth always.  For the devil tempteth sundry folk by sundry ways.

But I spoke of no other kind of that temptation save only that one which is the daughter that the devil begetteth upon pusillanimity, because those other kinds of temptation fall not under the nature of tribulation and fear, and therefore fall they far out of our matter here.  They are such temptations as need only counsel, and not comfort or consolation, because the persons tempted with them are not troubled in their mind with that kind of temptation. but are very well content both in the tempting and in the following.  For some have there been, cousin, such that they have been tempted to do it by means of a foolish pride, and some by means of anger, without any fear at all—­and very glad to go thereto, I deny not.  But if you think that none fall into it by fear, but that they have all a mighty strong stomach, that shall you well see to be the contrary.  And that peradventure in those of whom you would think the stomach more strong and their heart and courage most bold.