84. To The Monk Gilbert.
The Letters of St. Anselm 219
84. TO THE MONK GILBERT.
Anselm expresses to his friend Gilbert Crispin his profound grief at their sepa ration.
TO HIS FELLOW-MONK, BROTHER, FRIEND, AS ONE BELOVED TO HIS
BELOVED GILBERT1: BROTHER ANSELM, WISHING WHAT HE CANNOT
EXPRESS IN WRITING.
THE GIFTS of your affection, dearest friend, are dear to me.
But they can never console my heart, deprived of you in my longing for your beloved person. In fact, if you sent me every aromatic perfume, every gleaming metal, every gem of great value, every variety of fabric, my soul would reject them. Indeed it will never be consoled2 for its separation except by recovering its other half, my sundered soul. The anguish of my heart whenever I think about it is my wit ness; the tears shrouding my eyes and pouring down my face and over my fingers as I write are my witness. And surely you knew of my love for you as well as I did, but, in fact, I myself was not aware of it. He who cut us off one from another taught me how much I loved you. Truly, a person does not have knowledge of good and evil if he has not experienced both. For never having experienced your absence, I did not know how delectable it was for me to be with you, how bitter without you.
But, through this very separation of ours, you have the presence of another whom you certainly love not less but more.3 But you, you, I affirm, have been snatched away from me, and nobody has been set in your place. While you rejoice in your consolation, for me there remains only the wound in my soul. Perhaps those who rejoice over you will feel offended at my speaking to you this way. But if those who hold what they longed for rejoice, why should they forbid someone to grieve who has lost what he will always love? If they see themselves in my place, they will excuse me for this. In any event, you at least should understand how they could do this more compassionately and more