of impatience, felt by ordinary men in the world, which befalls them on
account of the inordinate love they have for themselves and for temporal
things, which they love apart from God; so that to have them they do not
mind losing their soul, and putting it into the hands of the devils. This
is beyond help, unless a man recognizes himself, how he has wronged God,
and cuts down that tree of Pride with the sword of true humility, which
produces charity in the soul. For there is a tree of Love, whose pith is
patience and goodwill toward one's neighbour. For, just as impatience
shows more clearly than any other sin that the soul is deprived of God--
because it is at once evident that since the pith is there, the tree of
Pride must be there--so patience shows better and more perfectly than any
other virtue, that God is in the soul by grace. Patience, I say, deep
within the tree of Love, that for love of its Creator disdains the world,
and loves insults whencesoever they come.

I was saying that anger and impatience were of two kinds, one general and
one special. We have spoken of the common kind. Now I talk of the more
particular, of the impatience of those who have already despised the
world, and who wish to be servants of Christ crucified in their own way;
that is, in so far as they shall find joy and consolation in Him. This is
because spiritual self-will is not dead in them: therefore they
imperiously demand from God that He should give them consolations and
tribulations in their own way, and not in His; and so they become
impatient, when they get the contrary of what their spiritual self-will
wants. This is a little offshoot from Pride, sprouting from real Pride, as
a tree sends out a little tree by its side, which looks separated from it,
but nevertheless it gets the substance from which it springs from the same
tree. So is self-will in the soul which chooses to serve God in its own
way; and when that way fails it suffers, and its suffering makes it
impatient, and it is unendurable to itself, and takes no pleasure in