On the morrow was I born--a votive offering, an oblate, ere yet I had drawn
the breath of life.
It has oft diverted me to conjecture what would have chanced had I been
born a girl--since that could have afforded her no proper parallel. In the
circumstance that I was a boy, I have no faintest doubt but that she saw a
Sign, for she was given to seeing signs in the slightest and most natural
happenings. It was as it should be; it was as it had been with the Sainted
Monica in whose ways she strove, poor thing, to walk. Monica had borne a
son, and he had been named Augustine. It was very well. My name, too,
should be Augustine, that I might walk in the ways of that other Augustine,
that great theologian whose mother's name was Monica.
And even as the influence of her name had been my mother's guide, so was
the influence of my name to exert its sway upon me. It was made to do so.
Ere I could read for myself, the life of that great saint--with such
castrations as my tender years demanded--was told me and repeated until I
knew by heart its every incident and act. Anon his writings were my
school-books. His De Civitate Dei and De Vita Beata were the paps at which
I suckled my earliest mental nourishment.
And even to-day, after all the tragedy and sin and turbulence of my life,
that was intended to have been so different, it is from his Confessions
that I have gathered inspiration to set down my own--although betwixt the
two you may discern little indeed that is comparable.
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