they, and the more so as he incurs greater necessities than they, which may sully his purity, unless by constant watchfulness and strenuous effort he makes his soul inaccessible to their influence. Thus, there are fair faces, and luxurious movements, and a studied walk, and a mincing tone of voice, and painted eyes, and rouged cheeks, beautiful plaits, dyed hair, rich clothes, variegated golden ornaments, fine precious stones, the perfume of scents, and all other things of the kind, dear to the female sex, which are calculated to upset a soul that is not armed in the austerity of wisdom. It is no wonder if a man be troubled by _these_ things; but that the devil should be able by the contrary things to wage war against the souls of men and to wound them,—_this_ is most surprising and embarrassing. Already some who have escaped the former snares have allowed themselves to be taken by that which was so different. For an unstudied address, neglected hair, a dirty garment, a disordered appearance, a careless demeanour, a natural manner, frank language, an unartificial gait, an artless voice, a life of poverty, the being despised, and unprotected, and in solitude, have inspired a man at first with pity, and from that have led him to utter destruction. And many who have escaped the former snares, the snares of gold, and perfume, and clothes, and the rest which go with them, as I said, have fallen into these so far removed from those, and have been lost. Now, when the battle strikes on the spectator’s soul, and weapons of war surround him on all sides, whether by poverty or by riches, by adornment or by simplicity, by a studied manner or by unaffectedness, or in any other of the ways which I have enumerated, whence is refreshment to come to him who is thus hemmed in? How are we to meet the case, not of being taken by force, for this is not so very difficult, but of keeping our mind in tranquillity from impure thoughts? I pass over honours, which are the causes of a thousand evils. Those which come from women lower the tone of the tempered mind, and often work ruin whenever a man is not wholly on his guard against such plottings. And as to honours coming from men; if they be not received with much high-mindedness, they involve a man in two opposite sufferings—the slavishness of flattery and the foolishness of boasting. On the one hand, he is forced to stoop to those who serve him; on the other, he is puffed up against his inferiors through these honours of theirs, and thrust into an abyss of folly. _We_ say this, but the harm of it can only be properly ascertained by experience. And, necessarily, things much worse and more dangerous than these would happen to those who are in the midst of the fight. The lover of the desert is exempted from all this, for if a foolish thought _did_ suggest something of the kind to him, this imagination is weak and easily overcome, because the flame of the eyes is not fed by outward things. Now the monk fears for himself