_A._ Alas! what a hard thing thou dost enjoin upon me! _Didst thou not formerly admit that I loved nothing above wisdom, and moreover I too admitted it, albeit thou saidst then that_ whoever loveth one thing for the sake of another, he doth not of a truth love that former thing for which he professeth love, _but really that for which he loved the former thing and thought to obtain it_. Therefore I assert that I love wisdom for no other thing than for its own sake. I love all the world--each thing as I consider it profitable, and especially that thing most which helpeth me to wisdom; and moreover those things which I fear most to lose. Howbeit I do not love any thing else in such wise as I love wisdom. Every thing which I love most I grant, while I love it most, to no man but to myself, _except wisdom alone_. It I love above all other things, and yet of my free will I would grant it to every man, so that all who are on this earth might love it and search after it, yea, find it, and then use it; for I know that each of us would love the other by so much more as our will and our love were more in unison. [Sidenote: 43.13--44.24] _R._ _Said I not formerly that he who would feel the bare body must feel it with bare hands? And I say also, if thou wilt behold wisdom itself thus bare, that thou must not allow any cloth between thine eyes and it, nor even any mist; albeit to that thou canst not come in this present life, though I enjoin it upon thee, and though thou wish it._ Wherefore no man ought to despair, though he have not so sound eyes as he who can look the sharpest; even he who can look the sharpest of all can not himself see the sun just as it is while he is in this present life. Yet no man hath such weak eyes that he can not live by the sun and use it, if he can see at all, unless he be purblind. _Moreover, I can teach unto thee other parables about wisdom. Consider now whether any man seeketh there the king's home where he is in town, or his court, or his army, or whether it seemeth to thee that they all must come thither by the same road; on the contrary, I suppose they would come by very many roads: some would come from afar, and would have a road very long and very bad and very difficult; some would have a very long and very direct and very good road; some would have a very short and yet hard and strait and foul one; some would have a short and smooth and good one; and yet they all would come to one and the same lord, some more easily, some with more difficulty; neither do they come thither with like ease, nor are they there alike at ease. Some are in more honor and in more ease than others; some in less, some almost without, except the one that he loveth. So is it likewise with wisdom. Each one who wisheth it and who anxiously prayeth for it, he can come to it and abide in its household and live near it; yet some are nearer it, others farther from it; just so is every king's court: some dwell in cottages, some in halls, some on