In the other subjects, however, I was compelled to learn about the wanderings of a certain Aeneas, oblivious of my own wanderings, and to weep for Dido dead, who slew herself for love. And all this while I bore with dry eyes my own wretched self dying to thee, O God, my life, in the midst of these things.

For what can be more wretched than the wretch who has no pity upon himself, who sheds tears over Dido, dead for the love of Aeneas, but who sheds no tears for his own death in not loving thee, O God, light of my heart, and bread of the inner mouth of my soul, O power that links together my mind with my inmost thoughts? I did not love thee, and thus committed fornication against thee.²⁶(Cf. Ps. 72:27). Those around me, also sinning, thus cried out: “Well done! Well done!” The friendship of this world is fornication against thee; and “Well done! Well done!” is cried until one feels ashamed not to show himself a man in this way. For my own condition I shed no tears, though I wept for Dido, who “sought death at the sword’s point,”²⁷(Aeneid, VI, 457) while I myself was seeking the lowest rung of thy creation, having forsaken thee; earth sinking back to earth again. And, if I had been forbidden to read these poems, I would have grieved that I was not allowed to read what grieved me. This sort of madness is considered more honorable and more fruitful learning than the beginner’s course in which I learned to read and write.

So very clear. His words about the death of self in the face of education, and truly, the misdirected love-turned-addiction. I love John Eldredge’s idea that “ecstasy is not optional.” I think Augustine would agree, that our desire to love deeply and be caught up in something is right and proper, just needing a bit of direction out of the object of affection being self-defined..

Elsewhere in Book I, Chapters XII-XIV he has much to say about discipline and freedom in the educational process. Extending the ideas further would be a worthy enterprise..