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Richard Rolle - Incendium Amoris - Prologue

I have wondered more than I can tell  when first I felt my heart grow warm, and glow with no imaginary, but with a real, and as it were, sensible flame. So I marvelled, when that flame first burst forth in my soul, and was in unwonted peace, through the unexpectedness of this abundance..... For I had not reckoned that such a warmth could happen to any man in this exile, ... . for even as a finger, placed in the fire, is clothed with heat which it feels, so the soul, kindled in this manner, as I have told, is sensible of the most real heat; but now fiercer and greater, now less, even as the frailty of the flesh allows... .

Therefore I offer this book to the sight,-not of philosophers and wise men of the world, nor of great theologians wrapped in endless questionings, but of the simple and untaught, those who seek to love God rather than to know many things. For not by disputing, but by doing is He known, and by loving..... Wherefore, because here I incite all to love, and I shall seek to explain the burning and supernatural feeling of love, let this book be allotted the title of Fire of Love.