Chapter XVI.
How useless is the retirement of those who do not give
up their bad manners.
Sometimes
when we have been
overcome by pride or impatience, and we want to improve our rough and
bearish manners, we complain that we require solitude, as if we should
find the virtue of patience there where nobody provokes us: and we
apologize for our carelessness, and say that the reason of our
disturbance does not spring from our own impatience, but from the fault
of our brethren. And while we lay the blame of our fault on others, we
shall never be able to reach the goal of patience and
perfection.