'Nothing is so beautiful as a pure soul. If we
understood this, we could not lose our purity. The pure soul is
disengaged from matter, from earthly things, and from itself. . . That
is why the saints ill-treated their body, that is why they did not grant
it what it required, not even to rise five minutes later, to warm
themselves, to eat anything that gave them pleasure. . . For what the
body loses the soul gains, and what the body gains the soul loses.'
