22. TO HIS UNCLES LAMBERT: And Folcerald
The Letters of St. Anselm
22. TO HIS UNCLES LAMBERT
AND FOLCERALD
Anselm thanks his uncles Lambert and Folcerald for the education he received from them and informs them about his situation.
TO HIS REVEREND LORDS, MOST SWEET SPIRITUAL GUIDES, DEARLY
BELOVED UNCLES, LAMBERT AND FOLCERALD1: BROTHER ANSELM
WISHES THAT THEY MAY SO PASS THROUGH THIS WORLD,
DESPISING WORLDLY GOODS, THAT THEY MAY ABIDE WITH THINGS
ETERNAL AND ENJOY THEM.
IF ONLY, IN READING MY LETTER my uncles might feel the love my eyes bore witness to as I was putting it into writing. For at the beginning my heart was quicker to shed tears than my pen to share words. Just as neither length of time nor distance of place could deprive my body of what was begun by your family at my birth, or of what it received by your care while growing up, so no solicitude, no occu pation of my mind can diminish my love for you which was inspired by both nature and kindness.
This is why my heart burns incessantly with love for those for whose happiness it always fervently thirsts. I beg you, therefore, to deign to inform your son about the state of your health through the bearer of this letter of mine, from whom, if you wish, you can learn everything about me. For although this very lord who deigns to be our messenger is very rich and comes from one of the noblest Norman fa milies,2 yet he and his mother, his brothers, and his sister have bound themselves to me by so much familiarity of af fection that the mother3 never calls me anything but son, the children anything but brother, and they even agreed to grant me the honor of being the eldest.
Before 1078.