OF HOW HE CAME TO LAON TO SEEK ANSELM AS TEACHER Sought out, therefore, this same venerable man, whose fame, in truth, was more the result of long-established custom than of the potency of his own talent or intellect.

If any one came to him impelled by doubt on any subject, he went away more doubtful still.
He was wonderful, indeed, in the eyes of these who only listened to him, but those who asked him questions perforce held him as nought.
He had a miraculous flock of words, but they were contemptible in meaning and quite void of reason.

When he kindled a fire, he filled his house with smoke and illumined it not at all.

He was a tree which seemed noble to those who gazed upon its leaves from afar, but to those who came nearer and examined it more closely was revealed its barrenness.

When, therefore, I had come to this tree that I might pluck the fruit thereof, I discovered that it was indeed the fig tree which Our Lord cursed (Matthew xxi, 19; Mark xi, 13), or that ancient oak to which Lucan likened Pompey, saying: "...