Ep. 189. May, 802.
“To Arno. My devotedness is greatly grieved by the unfaithfulness of those whom I have trusted with letters to you. Last year I sent to you on your return from Italy two letters, and I also sent to you other two to meet you on your arrival at the palace [Aachen]. I do not know that any of them reached your presence.”
Ep. 193.
Alcuin wrote to the Emperor Charles in 802, or possibly in 803, begging that he might be allowed to stay quietly at St. Martin’s, Tours. “I am so very weak in body that I am unequal to any more travelling or labour. To speak truth, all the fitness and strength of my body has left me; it has gone, and day by day will be further away; I fear it will never come back to me in this world.”
Ep. 194.
Again, writing to Arno in 802 or 803, he tells him how he longs to see him at St. Martin’s, “not for the sake of your black hair, but for your most sweet eyes and lovable talk.” Though bidden to the palace, where he would have met him, his poor little body was too weak for the journey: he could not go.
Ep. 196. A.D. 802-3.
Ep. 198. A.D. 802-3.
In another letter to Arno he writes: “I have been summoned to my lord David [Charlemagne], but my bodily weakness prevented my going: the will of God detained me.” We have his letter of excuse to the emperor. He begins with the simile of the aged soldier, unable not only to bear the weight of armour, but even to support his own body. Then he proceeds: “To speak simply, let not the mind of my lord be inflamed against me for my delay; I am not strong enough to come. A more favourable opportunity may occur.”
Ep. 230.