in much the same strain as to Frate Antonio. The danger of spiritual self-
will forms indeed one of those recurring themes which pervade her letters
like the motifs of Wagnerian music--ever the same, yet woven into ever-
new harmonies.

But the general subject of this letter is the "Santissima Pazienza," which
is still frequently invoked by the common folk of Siena: and Catherine's
analysis searches deep. Patience could hardly have been one of the virtues
most native to the woman's valiant spirit, and one feels in her keen and
solemn meditations that she had herself known the bitter and corroding
power of the sin "that burns and does not consume," and that "makes the
soul unendurable to itself." It is with convincing fervour and fulness
that she presents impatience as the permanent condition of the lost. The
little discussion of impatience in human relations, and of the "proud
humility" resorted to by a soul ravaged by a sense of neglect, has also a
very personal note. But it is still more clear in the letter that
Catherine's had become the disciplined nature which can "endure a restless
mind with more reverence than a tranquil one," if such be the will of God,
and which has entered deeply into the joy that awaits the meek.

Monna Agnese must have stood in special need of these touching
exhortations: she was a woman sorrowfully tried. Her son had been beheaded
in 1372, in punishment for heinous sin; and now her only daughter had
died. "For the which thing," writes Catherine, with one of her own
inimitable phrases, "I am deeply content, with a holy compassion."


In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary:

Dearest daughter in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, servant and slave of