CHAPTER XII
SAINT BERNARD
the two highest degrees of humility, and see if the last one of these latter does not repress curiosity, and the one before it levity. You will find the same contrast if the other degrees are similarly compared.
But now let us go on to the study of the third degree without, however, falling into it.
CHAPTER XII
The third degree Unseasonable merriment.
(The opposite of the tenth degree of humility refraining from frequent and light laughter.) It is characteristic of the proud that they always look out for pleasure and shun sadness, in accordance with the saying
: The heart of fools is -whewe
So it is that the monk who has there is mirth. already descended two degrees of pride and through inquisitiveness has arrived at levity, when he sees the joy for which he is always on the look out constantly interrupted by the distress which he feels at the sight of good in others, chafes under the sense of humiliation and takes refuge in a suggestion of unreal comfort.
Henceforth he restrains his inquisitiveness on that side on which his own worthlessness and his neighbour's excellence are shown to him, and turns his whole attention to the other side.
He may thus mark 1 Eccles. vii.
5 (4 A. V.)-
DEGREES OF PRIDE
only too carefully those things in which he seems to be the better man, and may hide those in which others surpass him, and so may put away all thought of sorrow and remain always merry.
It thus happens that silly merriment soon gains sole possession of the man whom joy and sorrow alternately claim.
I set this before you as the third degree of pride ; now note the marks by which you may detect it, either in yourself or in anyone else.
You seldom or riever hear a man of this kind groan, or see him shed tears.
You will think, i you consider, that his faults are either forgotten or forgiven.
His gestures are those of a buffoon, his look that of a coxcomb, his step that of a dandy.
He is always making jokes, and never loses a chance of laughing.
He cuts out of his mind all discreditable and therefore distressing recollections, and concentrates his mental vision on his real or pretended merits.
As he thinks of nothing but what is pleasant without considering whether it is lawful, he can neither restrain laughter nor hide his unseasonable merriment.
A bladder swells when it is full of wind, but if a small hole is pricked in it and it is squeezed, it creaks as it collapses, and the air does not rush out at once, but is gradually expelled and gives out frequent intermittent sounds.
In like manner when a monk has filled his mind with vapid and vulgar thoughts, the flood of folly which cannot, owing to the rule