"What Jerome is ignorant of, no man has ever known..."
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Wisdom from the Pen
of Jerome "What Jerome is ignorant of, no man has ever known..."
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"What troubles matrimony involves you have learned
in
the marriage
state itself; you have been surfeited
with quails' flesh even to loathing; your mouth
has been
filled with the gall of bitterness; you
have
expelled the indigestible and unwholesome food; you have relieved a
heaving stomach. Why will you again swallow what has disagreed with
you? "The dog is turned to his own vomit again and the sow that
was washed to her wallowing in the mire." Even brute beasts and
flying birds do not fall into the same snares twice. Do you fear
extinction for the line of Camillus if you do not present your father
with some little fellow to crawl upon his breast and slobber his
neck? As if all who marry have children! and as if when they do come,
they always resemble their forefathers! Did Cicero's son exhibit his
father's eloquence? Had your own Cornelia, pattern at once of
chastity and of fruitfulness, cause to rejoice that she was mother of
her Gracchi? It is ridiculous to expect as certain the offspring
which many, as you can see, have not got, while others who have had
it have lost it again. To whom then are you to leave your great
riches? To Christ who cannot die. Whom shall you make your heir? The
same who is already your Lord. Your father will be sorry but Christ
will be glad; your family will grieve but the angels will rejoice
with you. Let your father do what he likes with what is his own. You
are not his to whom you have been born, but His to whom you have been
born again, and who has purchased you at a great price with His own
blood. "