75. To The Monk Lanfranc.
The Letters of St. Anselm 203
75. TO THE MONK LANFRANC.
Anselm hopes that young Lanfranc will regain his health but is sad about his long absence. He assures him of his fraternal love and implores him to return despite his blood relationship with Archbishop Lanfranc. Anselm greets Wido and encourages him to persevere on the path of virtue.
TO LANFRANC1, HIS MOST BELOVED FRIEND AND SOMEONE WHO
LOVES HIM VERY FAITHFULLY: BROTHER ANSELM, WISHING HIM
PERFECT HEALTH OF BODY AND SOUL.
AS OFTEN AS I RECALL your love, dear to me, I am in deed wearied by the long delay in your return. Although until now the hope of your return to health has greatly con soled the distress of my heart over your absence, I cannot now but be sad, however, that your full health is being so long withheld from you and your amiable presence from me. And what is commonly said, 'out of sight, out of mind', is not true. Not, I assure you, that the longer your kind gen tleness is absent from me in time or place the more my love for you cools down; rather, the less I can enjoy your presence as I wish the more this longing for you increases in the mind of your true friend. Wherefore, although you are with someone of whom I neither dare say that I love you as much as he does, nor should demand that you love me as much as you love him, nevertheless I presume to beg that as soon as you can, with his kind permission and without any inconvenience to yourself, you rejoice me, your friend, by your return.
I greet my dearest fellow-monk and brother, Dom Wido,2 who is with you. In truth—if I may frankly disclose the sen timent of my heart—in love I incessantly desire him with me and in obedience I patiently bear his absence. As a lov ing friend to a dear friend I admonish and entreat that, in the midst of his other activities,he earnestly examine his life and daily progress in the good things which I hear about him from all who come from there; and if any traces of the