The former died full of virtue in the year 1072. We have elsewhere observed his character and followed his career.[247] He was, to his great anxiety, a classical scholar, who had earned large sums as a teacher of rhetoric before natural inclination and fears for his soul drove him to an ascetic life. He was a master of the Latin which he used. His style is intense, eloquent, personal to himself as well as suited to his matter, and reflects his ardent character and keen perceptions. The following is a rhetorical yet beautiful description of a “last leaf,” taken from one of his compositions in praise of the hermit way of salvation. “Videamus in arbore folium sub ipsis pruinis hiemalibus lapsabundum, et consumpto autumnalis clementiae virore, jamjam pene casurum, ita ut vix ramusculo, cui dependet, inhaereat, sed apertissima levis ruinae signa praetendat: inhorrescunt flabra, venti furentes hic inde concutiunt, brumalis horror crassi aeris rigore densatur: atque, ut magis stupeas, defluentibus reliquis undique foliis terra sternitur, et depositis comis arbor suo decore nudatur; cum illud solum nullo manente permaneat, et velut cohaeredum superstes in fraternae possessionis jura succedat. Quid autem intelligendum in hujus rei consideratione relinquitur, nisi quia nec arboris folium potest cadere, nisi divinum praesumat imperium?”[248] Anselm’s diction, in spite of its frequent cloister rhetoric, has a simple and modern word-order. An account has already been given of his life and of his thoughts, so beautifully sky-blue, unpurpled with the crimson of human passion, which made the words of Augustine more veritably incandescent.[249] The great African was the strongest individual influence upon Anselm’s thought and language. But the latter’s style has departed further from the classical sentence, and of itself indicates that the writer belongs neither to the patristic period nor to the Carolingian time, busied with its rearrangement of patristic thought. The following is from his _Proslogion_ upon the existence of God. Through this discourse, Deity and the Soul are addressed in the second person after the manner of Augustine’s _Confessions_.