Nor could
I send special messengers to you for the needed sum, because I had no
means. And I preferred to spend whatever I could procure in advancing
the business rather than in despatching a messenger to you. And also, on
account of the reverence due to you, I determined to make no report of
expenses before sending to you something which might please you, and by
ocular proof should give witness to its cost. On account, then, of all
these things, so great a delay has occurred in this matter."[15]
There is a touching simplicity in this account of the trials by which he
was beset, and it rises to dignity in connection with a sentence which
immediately follows, in which he says, the thought of "the advantage of
the world excited me, and the revival of knowledge, which now for many
ages has lain dead, vehemently urged me forward." Motives such as these
were truly needed to enable him to make head against such difficulties.
The work which he accomplished, remarkable as it is from its intrinsic
qualities, is also surprising from the rapidity with which it was
performed, in spite of the distractions and obstacles that attended it.
It would seem that in less than two years from the date of Clement's
letter, the three works composed in compliance with its demand were
despatched to the Pope.
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