In talking with the brethren at the convent, while Suso was their guest, I heard many things related concerning him altogether new to me. I was aware that he had been greatly sought after as a preacher in German throughout the Rhineland, and stood high in the esteem of holy men as a wise and tender-hearted guide of souls. That he was an especial friend of the Friends of God wherever he found them, I knew. When at Cologne I heard Tauler praise a book of his which he had in his possession, called the _Horologe of Wisdom_.[161] Something of the fame of his austerities, conflicts, and revelations, had come to my ears, but the half had not been told me. It seems that his life, from his eighteenth to his fortieth year, was one long self-torture. The Everlasting Wisdom (who is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, more precious than rubies, and with whom are durable riches and righteousness) manifested herself to him. This was his call to the spiritual life. He seemed to behold her—a maiden, bright as the sun,—her crown, eternity;—her raiment, blessedness;—her words, sweetness; unknown, and yet well known; near, and yet afar off; smiling on him, and saying, ‘My son, give me thine heart!’ From that time forth he dedicated his life to her service. He called himself the servant of the Eternal Wisdom, armed his soul as her knight, wooed her as his heart’s queen, bore without a murmur the lover’s pangs of coyness, doubt, and distance, with all the hidden martyrdom of spiritual passion.[162] But the rose of his love, as he is wont to term it, had fearful thorns. I heard with a shudder of what he underwent that he might crush to death his naturally active, buoyant, impulsive temperament. Day and night he wore a close-fitting shirt in which were a hundred and fifty sharp nails, the points turned inward on the flesh. In this he lay writhing, like a mangled worm; and lest in his sleep he should find some easier posture, or relieve with his hands in any way the smart and sting that, like a nest of vipers, gnawed him everywhere, he had leather gloves made, covered with sharp blades, so that every touch might make a wound. Time after time were the old scars opened into new gashes. His body appeared like that of one who has escaped, half dead, from the furious clutches of a bear. This lasted sixteen years, till a vision bade him cease.