Chapter VI.
How injurious are the effects of accidie.
And
whenever it begins in any
degree to overcome any one, it either makes him stay in his cell idle
and lazy, without making any spiritual progress, or it drives him out
from thence and makes him restless and a wanderer, and indolent in the
matter of all kinds of work, and it makes him continually go round, the
cells of the brethren and the monasteries, with an eye to nothing but
this; viz., where or with what excuse he can presently procure some
refreshment. For the mind of an idler cannot think of anything but food
and the belly, until the society of some man or woman, equally cold and
indifferent, is secured, and it loses itself in their affairs and
business, and is thus little by little ensnared by dangerous
occupations, so that, just as if it were bound up in the coils of a
serpent, it can never disentangle itself again and return to the
perfection of its former profession.