The Good Of Misfortune

Nam cum tanta, quantam semper admiror, indole tua, ab ineunte adolescentia adhuc infirmo rationis atque lapsante vestigio humanam vitam errorum omnium plenissimam ingredereris; excepit te circumfluentia divitiarum, quae illam aetatem atque animum, quae pulchra et honesta videbantur avide sequentem, illecebrosis coeperat absorbere gurgitibus, nisi inde te fortunae illi flatus, qui putantur adversi, eripuissent pene mergentem. Si res secundae studio sapientiae obsint. An vero si edentem te munera ursorum et nunquam ibi antea visa spectacula civibus nostris, theatricus plausus semper prosperrimus accepisset; si stultorum hominum, quorum immensa turba est, conflatis et consentientibus vocibus ferreris ad coelum; si nemo tibi auderet esse inimicus; si municipales tabulae te non solum civium, sed etiam vicinorum patronum aere signarent; collocarentur statuae, influerent honores, adderentur etiam potestates, quae municipalem habitum supercrescerent; conviviis quotidianis mensae opimae struerentur; quod cuique esset necesse, quod cuiusque etiam deliciae sitirent, indubitanter peteret, indubitanter hauriret, multa etiam non petentibus funderentur; resque ipsa familiaris diligenter a tuis fideliterque administrata, idoneam se tantis sumptibus paratamque praeberet: tu interea viveres in aedificiorum exquisitissimis molibus, in nitore balnearum, in tesseris quas honestas non respuit, in venatibus, in conviviis, in ore clientium, in ore civium, in ore denique populorum humanissimus, liberalissimus, mundissimus, fortunatissimus, ut fuisti, iactareris: quisquam tibi, Romaniane, beatae alterius vitae, quae sola beata est, quisquam, quaeso, mentionem facere auderet? Quisquam tibi persuadere posset, non solum te felicem non esse; sed eo maxime miserum, quo tibi minime videreris? Nunc vero quam te breviter admonendum tot et tanta, quae pertulisti adversa fecerunt? Non enim tibi alienis exemplis persuadendum est quam fluxa et fragilia, et plena calamitatum sint omnia, quae bona mortales putant; cum ita ex aliqua parte bene expertus sis, ut ex te caeteris persuadere possimus.  Illud ergo, illud tuum, quo semper decora et honesta desiderasti; quo te liberalem magis quam divitem esse maluisti; quo nunquam concupisti esse potentior quam iustior, nunquam adversitatibus improbitatibusque cessisti: illud ipsum, inquam, quod in te divinum nescio quo vitae huius somno veternoque sopitum est, variis illis durisque iactationibus secreta providentia excitare decrevit. Evigila, evigila, oro te; multum, mihi crede, gratulaberis quod pene nullis prosperitatibus quibus tenentur incauti, mundi huius tibi dona blandita sunt: quae meipsum capere moliebantur quotidie ista cantantem, nisi me pectoris dolor ventosam professionem abicere et in philosophiae gremium confugere coegisset. Ipsa me nunc in otio, quod vehementer optavimus, nutrit ac fovet: ipsa me penitus ab illa superstitione, in quam te mecum praecipitem dederam, liberavit. Ipsa enim docet, et vere docet nihil omnino colendum esse, totumque contemni oportere, quidquid mortalibus oculis cernitur, quidquid ullus sensus attingit. Ipsa verissimum et secretissimum Deum perspicue se demonstraturam promittit, et iam iamque quasi per lucidas nubes ostentare dignatur. Sanctus Augustinus Hipponensis, Contra Academicos, Liber I Source: Migne PL 32.906-097

With such great innate talent, as ever makes me wonder, from your earliest youth, when reason's progress is but weak and faltering, you entered into this human life abundant with every error.  An excess of riches flowed around you, which at that age of the soul which avidly follows what seems beautiful and good would have begun to overwhelm it by the floods of pleasure, unless it was then that the winds of fortune, which are thought adverse, snatched you away, just when you were on the point of sinking. But truly if in giving bear fights and spectacles never seen before by our cities, you were always received with the most abundant applause of the spectators, if you were borne off to the skies by the unanimous and united voices of foolish men, the crowd of which is very great, if no one ever dared to be your foe, if municipal tablets were to proclaim in bronze that you are a benefactor not only of your fellow citizens but also of the neighbouring peoples, if they raised up statues of you, poured out honours on you, and even added to the powers greater than is customary in municipal appointments, if every day your tables were sumptuously strewn with feasts, if any man might without worry ask of you whatever he needed, or his delicacy desired, and be assured of receiving it, and if many things were lavished even on those who did not seek them, if your estate itself, carefully and faithfully administered by your own people, were sufficiently capable and organized to meet such great expenses, and if meanwhile you yourself were to live in exquisite buildings in luxury, in shinning baths, amid dice-games honour does not forbid, and with hunting, and with feasting, if in the mouths of your dependents and your fellow citizens and all the people you were proclaimed as a most kind man, most generous, most elegant, and most fortunate, would anyone, Romanianus, I ask you, dare to make mention to you of another happiness which alone is happiness? Who would be able to persuade you, since it did not appear to you that it was so, that not only were you not happy but that you were especially wretched? Now, however, have you not been swiftly admonished concerning all such things by the many reverses that you have suffered? Indeed one need not persuade you with examples of others concerning how fleeting, unreliable, and full of calamities are all things which mortals think good, when by you we will able to persuade others. That part of you, then, by which you have ever desired the honourable and the good, by which you have preferred to be generous rather than wealthy, by which you have never desired to be more powerful but more just, by which you have never given yourself up to adversity or dishonesty, that which in you, I say, is Divine, which has somehow been lulled to sleep by the long dream of this life, Providence, by various hard blows, working in secret, has decided to rouse up in you. Wake up, wake up, I beg you. Believe me, you will be most joyful that this world had scarcely charmed you with its gifts, by which it lays hold of the unwary, which things strove to seize me, I who sang of them every  day, had not chest pains compelled me to give up my profession of windy rhetoric and flee to the lap of philosophy. She now nourishes and cherishes me in that leisure which we have so much desired. She has freed me entirely from that heresy into which I had cast you along with myself. For she teaches, and teaches truly, that nothing should be worshipped and that all such things should be spurned which are discerned by mortal eyes, or are the object of any sense-perception. She promises to make known clearly the true and hidden God and is indeed now on the very point of condescending to present Him as through shining clouds. Saint Augustine of Hippo, Against the Academics, from Book 1