hat it is therefore evil in itself; nay, so say I not, God forbid
that thou take it so; but I say that it is full good in itself, and
a full great ableness to full great perfection, yea, and to the
greatest perfection that may be in this life; I mean, if that a soul
that is so disposed will busily, night and day, meek it[244] to God
and to good counsel, and strongly rise and martyr itself, with
casting down of the own wit and the own will in all such sudden and
singular stirrings, and say sharply that it will not follow such
stirrings, seem they never so liking,[245] so high nor so holy, but
if it have thereto the witness[246] and the consents of some ghostly
teachers--I mean such as have been of long time expert in singular
living. Such a soul, for ghostly continuance thus in this meekness,
may deserve, through grace and the experience of this ghostly battle
thus with itself, for to take the crown of life touched before. And
as great an ableness to good as is this manner of disposition in a
soul that is thus meeked as I say, as perilous it is in another
soul, such one that will suddenly, without advisement of counsel,
follow the stirrings of the greedy heart, by the own wit and the own
will; and therefore, for God's love, beware with this ableness and
with this manner of disposition (that I speak of), if it be in thee
as I say. And meek thee continually to prayer and to counsel. Break
down thine own wit and thy will in all such sudden and singular
stirrings, and follow them not over lightly, till thou wete whence
they come, and whether they be according for thee or not.

And as touching these stirrings of the which thou askest my conceit
and my counsel, I say to thee that I conceive of them suspiciously,
that is, that[247] they should be conceived on the ape's manner. Men
say commonly that the ape doth as he seeth others do; forgive me if
I err in my suspicion, I pray thee. Nevertheless, the love that I
have to thy soul stirreth me by evidence that I have of a ghostly
brother of thine and of mine, touched with those same stirrings of
full great[248] silence, of full singular fasting, and of full only
woning, on ape's manner, as he granted unto me after long communing
with me, and when he had proved himself and his stirrings. For, as
he said, he had seen a man in your country, the which man, as it is
well known, is evermore in great silence, in singular fasting, and
in only dwelling; and certes, as I suppose fully, they