Chapter IX.

How dejection and accidie generally arise without any external provocation, as in the case of other faults.^13281328    Such is the heading which Gazet gives. Petschenig edits “De ira atque tristitia, quod inter accedentia vitia plerumque [non] inveniantur;” where “non” is his own insertion, and as he frankly tells us, the heading does not suit the chapter.

Dejection and accidie generally arise without any external provocation, like those others of which we have been speaking: for we are well aware that they often harass solitaries, and those who have settled themselves in the desert without any intercourse with 343other men, and this in the most distressing way. And the truth of this any one who has lived in the desert and made trial of the conflicts of the inner man, can easily prove by experience.