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  CONFESSIONS - BOOK IV - CHAPTER VI
  by St. Augustine
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11. But why do I speak of these things? Now is not the time to ask such
questions, but rather to confess to thee. I was wretched; and every soul
is wretched that is fettered in the friendship of mortal things--it is
torn to pieces when it loses them, and then realizes the misery which it
had even before it lost them. Thus it was at that time with me. I wept
most bitterly, and found a rest in bitterness. I was wretched, and yet
that wretched life I still held dearer than my friend. For though I
would willingly have changed it, I was still more unwilling to lose it
than to have lost him. Indeed, I doubt whether I was willing to lose it,
even for him--as they tell (unless it be fiction) of the friendship of
Orestes and Pylades[97]; they would have gladly died for one another, or
both together, because not to love together was worse than death to
them. But a strange kind of feeling had come over me, quite different
from this, for now it was wearisome to live and a fearful thing to die.
I suppose that the more I loved him the more I hated and feared, as the
most cruel enemy, that death which had robbed me of him. I even imagined
that it would suddenly annihilate all men, since it had had such a power
over him. This is the way I remember it was with me.

Look into my heart, O God! Behold and look deep within me, for I
remember it well, O my Hope who cleansest me from the uncleanness of
such affections, directing my eyes toward thee and plucking my feet out
of the snare. And I marveled that other mortals went on living since he
whom I had loved as if he would never die was now dead. And I marveled
all the more that I, who had been a second self to him, could go on
living when he was dead. Someone spoke rightly of his friend as being
\"his soul\\

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/st-augustine/confessions-book-iv-chapter-vi/
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