gift of tears, and I found pleasure in reading, I began to spend
a certain time in solitude, to go frequently to confession, and
make a beginning of that way of prayer, with this book for my
guide; for I had no master--I mean, no confessor--who understood
me, though I sought for such a one for twenty years afterwards:
which did me much harm, in that I frequently went backwards, and
might have been even utterly lost; for, anyhow, a director would
have helped me to escape the risks I ran of sinning against God.

9. From the very beginning, God was most gracious unto me.
Though I was not so free from sin as the book required, I passed
that by; such watchfulness seemed to me almost impossible. I was
on my guard against mortal sin--and would to God I had always
been so!--but I was careless about venial sins, and that was my
ruin. Yet, for all this, at the end of my stay there--I spent
nearly nine months in the practice of solitude--our Lord began to
comfort me so much in this way of prayer, as in His mercy to
raise me to the prayer of quiet, and now and then to that of
union, though I understood not what either the one or the other
was, nor the great esteem I ought to have had of them. I believe
it would have been a great blessing to me if I had understood the
matter. It is true that the prayer of union lasted but a short
time: I know not if it continued for the space of an Ave Maria;
but the fruits of it remained; and they were such that, though I
was then not twenty years of age, I seemed to despise the world
utterly; and so I remember how sorry I was for those who followed
its ways, though only in things lawful.

10. I used to labour with all my might to imagine Jesus Christ,
our Good and our Lord, present within me. And this was the way I