{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_49450/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_49450","id":"gutenberg_49450","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49450","summary":null,"tags":["Augustine, of Hippo, Saint, 354-430 -- Fiction","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Christian fiction","Christian saints -- Fiction","Dialogues","Dialogues, Latin (Medieval and modern) -- Translations into English","Hippo (Extinct city) -- Fiction","Imaginary conversations"],"text":"PETRARCH'S SECRET\n\nOR\n\nTHE SOUL'S CONFLICT WITH\n\nPASSION\n\nTHREE DIALOGUES BETWEEN HIMSELF\n\nAND S. AUGUSTINE\n\nTRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN BY\n\nWILLIAM H. DRAPER\n\nWITH TWO ILLUSTRATIONS\n\nLONDON\n\nCHATTO & WINDUS\n\nMDCCCCXI\n\n\n\n               FRANCIS PETRARCH\n\n               EMILIAE AUGUSTAE\n\n                PER ANNUS XXII\n\n COLLABORANTI MECUM, COMPATIENTI, COLLAETANTI\n\n           PETRARCAE HOC COLLOQUIUM\n\n                  MEMORABILE\n\n     AMORIS DULCEDINE LACRIMISQUE TINCTUM\n\n          IAM DEMUM ANGLICE REDDITUM\n\n                 GRATUS DEDICO\n\n                A. S. MDCCCCXI\n\n\n\n    CONTENTS\n\n    INTRODUCTION\n    AUTHOR'S PREFACE\n    DIALOGUE THE FIRST\n    DIALOGUE THE SECOND\n    DIALOGUE THE THIRD\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nMost modern writers on Petrarch agree in stating that of all his works\nthe Dialogues which he calls _Secretum meum_ are the one which throws\nmost light upon the man himself.\n\nYet no English translation has hitherto been published. A French\nversion by M. Victor Develay was issued a few years ago, and received\nthe recognition of the French Academy; and, considering the great\nimportance of Petrarch in the history of the Renaissance, not merely in\nItaly but in Europe, it is time that a similar opportunity of knowing\nhim more fully was offered to English readers; for there are signs on\nboth sides of the Atlantic that the number of those interested in him\nis steadily growing. The reason for this is undoubtedly the fact that,\nas the whole work of Petrarch comes to be better known, interest in him\nas a man increases. Mr. Sidney Lee has lately reminded us of his wide\nrange and predominating influence in the matter of the sonnet in France\nand in Elizabethan England, as well as in his own country; and yet that\ninfluence was very far indeed from revealing all that Petrarch was.\nIt was largely an influence of style, a triumph of the perfection of\nform, and his imitators did not trouble much about the precise nature\nof the sentiment and spirit informing the style. When this came to\nbe weighed in the balances of a later day, the tendency of English\nfeeling was to regard his sentiment as a trifle too serious and weak.\nThe love-making of the Cavaliers brought in a robuster tone. When once\nthe question was raised, \"Why so pale and wan, fond lover?\" there was\nreally no good answer to it on Petrarchan lines, and the consequence\nwas that his name and fame suffered something of eclipse among us. But\neclipses are transient events, and when literary England felt once more\nthe attraction of Italy in the end of the eighteenth century it was not\nonly Dante who began to resume his sway and to provoke translation, but\nPetrarch also. Then attention was turned chiefly to his Italian poetry,\nbut also in some degree to the general body of his Latin works and to\nhis Letters, of which it is reported that Fox was among the first to\nperceive the high value. In England the pioneers in this direction were\nMrs. Susannah Dobson, who published first a Life of Petrarch in two\nvolumes in 1775, which had by 1805 reached a sixth edition, and, soon\nafter, another volume called _Petrarch's View of Life_, purporting to\nbe a translation, but in fact a very loose and attenuated abstract\nof the treatise _De remediis utriusque Fortun\u00e6,_ which nevertheless\nreached a new edition in 1797. Then came a volume of Essays on Petrarch\n(Murray 1823) by the Italian exile Ugo Foscolo, and a little later a\nsecond Life of the Poet by no less a person than Thomas Campbell, also\nin two volumes.\n\nTestifying to the re-awakened interest in Petrarch, numerous\ntranslations also of his poetry were published by Lady Dacre, Hugh\nBoyd, Leigh Hunt, Capel Lofft, and many others, who took up after a\nlong interval the tradition begun by Chaucer and handed on by Surrey,\nWyatt, Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Drummond of Hawthornden, and George\nChapman.\n\nThen for a while there was a pause, and the main drift of such\nattention in England as could be spared for things Italian in\nmid-Victorian days was concentrated on the greater luminary of the\n_Divine Comedy_ and the exciting political events of the sixties;\nthough some attention was drawn to things connected with Petrarch by\nLytton's novel of _Rienzi_, which was first published in 1835 and had a\nconsiderable vogue.\n\nMeanwhile in Italy itself his fame was well served by the excellent\ncollection and reprint of his Latin letters by Fracasetti in three\nvols. (1859-63), and since that time there have appeared several\nimportant works dealing with the larger aspects of his life and\nwork, most notable among them being Koerting's _Petrarka's Leben und\nWerke_ (Leipsig 1878), and in France M. P. de Nolhac's _P\u00e9trarque et\nl'Humanisme_ (two vols., 1907, new edition), with other subsidiary\nworks, and four small volumes by M. Henri Cochin, elucidating what is\nknown of Petrarch's brother Gherardo and some of his many friends.\nAmongst ourselves in late years, following the labours of J. A. Symonds\nin his history of the Renaissance, we have Henry Reeve's small but\nwell-planned volume in the \"Foreign Classics for English Readers,\" and,\nmore recently still, Mr. Hollway Calthrop's _Petrarch: his Life, Work\nand Times_ (1907), and Mrs. Maud Jerrold's _Francesco Petrarca: Poet\nand Humanist_ (1909).\n\nIt is significant that both the last writers single out the _Secretum_\nfor its psychological interest, the former stating that \"to those who\nfeel the charm of Petrarch's nature and the intense humanity of his\ncharacter, these three Dialogues are the most fascinating of all his\nwritings\"; and the latter \"that this conflict of the dual self is of\nquite peculiar interest.\"\n\nMrs. Jerrold indeed goes so far as to say that Petrarch \"plunges into\nthe most scathing self-examination that any man ever made. Whether\nthe book was intended for the public we may well doubt, both from the\nwords of the preface and from the fact that it does not appear to have\nbeen published till after the author's death. But however this may\nbe, it remains one of the world's great monuments of self-revelation\nand ranks with the _Confessions of S. Augustine_\"--a verdict which to\nsome critics will seem to have a touch of overstatement, though hardly\nbeyond the opinion of Petrarch's French students, and not altogether\nunpardonable in so enthusiastic an admirer of her subject, and a\nverdict which at least would not have been displeasing to Petrarch\nhimself.\n\nAmong the many points of human interest to be found in the Dialogues\nnot the least is the one connected with Accidie, a theme which has\nof itself attracted special study in the present day, particularly\nsince attention was called to it by the late Bishop of Oxford in his\nwell-known introduction to the _Spirit of Discipline._ Observers of\nmental life incline to the view that the form of depression denoted\nby the medi\u00e6val word was not confined to those times or met with only\nin monasteries, and it is curious that he who is sometimes called\nthe \"first of the moderns\" should take us into his confidence as to\nhis sufferings from this trouble, and exemplify the truth of the\nobservation to which reference has been made. M. P. de Nolhac, in his\ninteresting work entitled _Le Fr\u00e8re de P\u00e9trarque,_ calls particular\nattention to this trait in Petrarch's character, and in an appendix on\nthe subject writes, \"Mais il faut surtout lire l'\u00e9mouvante discussion\nque P\u00e9trarque, dans le second dialogue du _Secretum_, suppose entre\nSaint Augustin et lui-meme, les aveux entrecoup\u00e9s de sanglots qu'il\nlaisse \u00e9chapper. Cette torture, dit-il, o\u00f9 il passe des jours et des\nnuits, a pourtant en elle je ne sais quelle atroce volupt\u00e9 tellement\nque parfois il en conte de s'y arracher\" (p. 220). It is the remarking\non this note of self-will, this _voluptas dolendi,_ that M. de Nolhac\nconsiders is Petrarch's special contribution to the subject and\nfurnishes a new point beyond what is in previous definitions.\n\nThe fundamental question raised by these Dialogues is the question\nof what was the real nature and character of Petrarch, and wherein\nlay the secret of his extraordinary charm and influence among his\ncontemporaries, and especially among contemporary men? It is difficult\nto convey in few words how great an impression the study of his\nLatin works makes in regard to this influence in his own lifetime.\nOf course, a reader is soon aware of the trait of personal vanity in\nPetrarch and of certain unconscious littlenesses, as in the matter of\nhis appreciation of Dante; but the strange thing is how little this\ninterfered with the regard and admiration extended to him by many\nsorts and conditions of men. In the ordinary intercourse of life one\nis apt to think such a trait fatal to anything like respect, and it\nmust always detract somewhat from the full stature of any mind, but in\nthe case of Petrarch it seems evident that he was one to whom much\nwas forgiven, and that the reason is to be found in the presence in\nhim of so rich an assemblage of other and better qualities that this\none hardly counted at all, or was looked on with kindly amusement by\nfriends large-hearted enough to think it nothing compared with what was\ngood and admirable in his mind. We may take it for granted that, as he\nhints in his \"Letter to Posterity,\" he started with the advantage of a\ngood presence and a sufficient care of his own person and appearance\nin younger days; and it is evident that he had by nature a certain\nengaging frankness and impulsiveness, which nevertheless were not\ninconsistent with the contrasted qualities of gravity and dignity,\nlearned at first from his father and mother and their friends, and\ncultivated by his study of the Law and afterwards by his attendance on\nthe Papal court at Avignon. One can discern this in his Letters and\nsee it reflected in those that were written to him or about him. But\nbeyond these introductory qualities, as they may be called, there were\nother deeper traits, of rarer kind, that must be noted before one can\nunderstand the position he attained and has held so long. Studying\nhis work from the cool distance of six centuries, one is inclined to\njudge that the most fundamental quality of his nature was his love of\nliterature, and that every other trait took a subordinate place to\nthis.\n\nIt is perhaps doubtful whether this or the life of personal affection,\nor even of devotion in a monastery, would have gained the upper hand if\nthe circumstances of his life had been different in the matter of his\nlove for Laura; but taking into consideration that she was separated\nfrom him apparently by temperament and circumstance, the one course\nthat remained open to him without let or hindrance was the life of\nliterature in the sense of devotion to the great writers of the Past\nand the practice of the art of writing for himself. He loved this for\nits own sake, and at the same time he was quickened by the sense of a\nnew learning, which, since his time and largely by the impetus he gave\nit, has taken form and outline in a wonderful way, but was then only\nlike the first streak of dawn upon the sky.\n\nPetrarch was not the first man to find a certain contradiction between\nhis desires and the possibilities of life around him, and to pass\nmany years under the pain of contrary attractions that could not all\nbe followed to fulfilment This conflict is what gives interest to the\n_Secretum._ Some have thought, and the idea was expressed by one of his\ncorrespondents, that his love for Laura was very much of a literary\npose. Yet that such a view is an insufficient account of it seems\npretty clearly established by the work here translated. It is, indeed,\nplain that his feelings ran a course, and not a smooth one, and did\nnot continue in one stay; he came to see the whole matter in a changed\nlight, and yet not wholly changed; his relation was transfigured, not\nabandoned, and after the death of Laura, which took place when he was\nforty-four, it continued as a memory from which the pain had faded away\nand only what was uplifting remained.\n\nThat which persisted unchanged all through his life and seems most to\nhave had the colour and substance of a passion was the love of Letters.\nTo this his friendship, his very real patriotism, and (must we not\nadd?) his religion also were in a sense second. But the mention of this\nlast factor in the life of Petrarch leads one to express the opinion\nthat this has not yet been quite sufficiently reckoned with. That it\nshould not have been thought worthy of such reckoning has probably\narisen from the one ugly fact in his life which he himself does not\nconceal, and indeed expressly refers to in his \"Letter to Posterity,\"\nin the following words:--\n\n\"As for the looser indulgences of appetite, would indeed I could\nsay I was a stranger to them altogether; but if I should so say, I\nshould lie. This I can safely affirm that, although I was hurried away\nto them by the fervour of my age and temperament, their vileness I\nhave always inwardly execrated. As soon as I approached my fortieth\nyear I repelled these weaknesses entirely from _my_ thoughts and my\nremembrance, as if I had never known them. And this I count among my\nearliest happy recollections, thanking God, who has freed me, while\nyet my powers were unimpaired and strong, from this so vile and always\nhateful servitude.\"[1]\n\nNow, although Petrarch did not, as some other men have done, including\nhis own brother, express his repentance by retiring to a monastery, yet\nthere is evidence enough that the change of will here referred to, and\nprofessed in the _Secretum_, was real, and that the older he grew the\nmore he lifted up his heart. Among other signs of this there is the\ncurious little group of what he calls _Penitential Psalms,_ which were\ntranslated into English by George Chapman, into whose translation of\nHomer Keats looked and was inspired\n\nIn his Will also there are not a few passages through which one hears\na note of genuine penitence. Among other curious points in it is the\nmention of the exact spot in which he would wish to be laid to rest\nin some one of seven different places where he might happen to die,\nthe last being the city of Parma, of which he says, \"At si Parm\u00e6, in\necclesi\u00e2 majori, ubi per multos annos archidiaconus fui inutilis et\nsemper fere absens.\"\n\nPetrarch must have fully weighed in his own case the pros and cons\nfor such retirement. His treatise _De Otio Religiosorum_ shows that\nhe understood what good side that kind of life has, and his whole\nattitude towards his brother--generous, and attached, almost to the\npoint of romance--reveals how he could admire it. But in his own case\nhe felt that it would cramp his faculties too much to be endurable, and\nhinder more than it would help the kind of work to which he had put\nhis hand. There was also another influence that told strongly on this\nfather of Humanism. He whose nature was so full of unsatisfied natural\naffection had begun in his latter years to find some rest and blessing\nin the love and tendance of a daughter, the light of whose care and\ncompanionship for him shines through his declining days like the rays\nof the sun in the evening after a dark and troubled day.\n\nBut if we are right in judging that the love of Letters was the\ndominant factor in the life of Petrarch, it was but the main thread in\na singularly complex nature. Not much less in substance and strength\nwas his genius for friendship. Indeed, his study of the writers of\npast ages partook of the nature of friendship, just as his friendship\nwith living men had a deep literary tinge. He loved books and he loved\nmen, and he loved them in the same way. This is by no means a frequent\ncombination in the degree in which it was shown in Petrarch. More\noften the book-lover becomes a recluse, and the lover of his fellow-men\nloses his ardour for study.\n\nBut not even the love of books and of men took up all the activities\nof this rich nature. He was also a keen traveller and among the first\nto write of natural scenery in the modern spirit. He had that in him\nwhich, in spite of his love for reading and writing, sent him forth\ninto other lands and made him eager to see men and cities. Yet the\nlove of the country in him prevailed over the love of cities. His many\nreferences to his life at Vaucluse, though to readers of to-day they\nmay seem sometimes affected, yet show only a superficial affectation, a\nmere mode, which does not seriously lessen the impression of his simple\ntaste and his genuine delight in his garden and his fishing, and his\ntalk with the charming old farmer-man and that sun-burnt wife for whom\nhe had such an unbounded respect.\n\nIn the two recent lives of Petrarch in English a reader may make closer\nacquaintance with this side of his character, and will find much that\nfalls in with modern feeling as to simplicity of living and the joys of\nescaping from \"the man-stifled town.\" But what is still a desideratum\nis a good English translation of his Letters to his friends, which will\nadd many glimpses of his daily interests and thoughts, and fill up the\npicture of his interior life as it is disclosed to us in the Dialogues\nhere presented.\n\nWhat the _Secretum gives_ us is the picture of Petrarch as he was\nin the crisis of his middle years. It was written in or about the\nyear 1342 when he was thirty-eight, and in these Dialogues we find\nhim looking back over his youth and early life--the sap and vigour\nof his mind as strong as ever, the recollection of many sensations\ngreen and still powerful--but finding that the sheer march of time\nand experience of manhood are forcing him now to see things with more\nmature vision. Five years later he will be seen suddenly kindled into\nsurprising excitement in that strange Rienzi episode, but in one of\nhis letters to that unhappy politician there is a sentence which might\nhave been penned by Bishop Butler, and has in it the accent of grave\nexperience:[2] _\"Ibunt res qu\u00e2 sempiterna lex statuit: mutare ista non\npossum, fugere possum\"_ (Things will go as the law eternal has decided:\nto alter their course is out of our power; what we can do is to get out\nof their way).\n\nThe interest of the _Secretum_ is heightened by remembering the time\nof life in which it was composed.[3] Some will find most pleasure in\nreading what men have written _De Senectute_, and others prefer the\ncharm that belongs to youth; but is there not much to be said for the\ninterest of what men write from that high tableland that lies between\nthe two, in the full strength of their mind when they have lived long\nenough to know what is hidden from the eyes of youth and not long\nenough to be wearied and broken with the greatness of the way? Such is\nthe tone that seems to pervade the Dialogues between S. Augustine and\nPetrarch. In the preface he looks forward to cherishing the little book\nhimself in future years, like some flower that keeps alive remembrance\nof past days and yet is not cherished for memory only, but to guard the\nresolution which has been taken to go forward and not back, and, as his\nFrench translator suggests, \"Is it to be wondered at that these pages,\nwritten with such _abandon_, in which he has laid bare his whole soul,\nshould have been his own favourite work? It was the book he kept at his\nbedside, his faithful counsellor and friend, and to which he turned\never and again with pleasure in the hours of remembering the time past.\"\n\nIt is not necessary to tell over again the story of Petrarch's lifelong\ndevotion to the study of S. Augustine's _Confessions,_ or to dwell on\nthe obvious reasons for that devotion. Every man loves the book which\ntells the history of conflicts like his own, and which has helped to\ngive him courage in his warfare and its sorrows and joys.\n\n    \"That loss is common would not make\n    My own less bitter, rather more;\"\n\nsings the poet, but if one reads the experience of those who have\nsuffered and contended and conquered, and is sure that their load was\nas heavy as his own, then there is a spirit which is breathed over\nfrom one life to another, and which even though it tells us how great\nis the burden of sorrow in the world, yet also tells us that a man\nis not alone, but that there are companions in patience who a little\nstrengthen each other and give the sense of fellowship from age to age,\n_donec aspiret dies et inclinentur umbrae._\n\nMany of the letters of Petrarch's later years show how wistfully he\nwaited for that day. But they also show how gallant a heart he kept,\nand how faithful to those friends that remained, including the one so\nlovable and generous and true, Giovanni Boccaccio, who survived him\nlittle more than a year.\n\nPetrarch passed the end of his life in a modest house which he built in\none of the loveliest parts of Italy, that to English readers will be\nfor ever dear because of the haunting music that Shelley wove around\nits name.\n\nIt was in the Eugan\u00e6an Hills at Arqua where Petrarch chose to wait for\nthe dawn, and, till it came, to go on working among the books he loved\nas his own soul.\n\n    \"Many a green isle needs must be\n    In the deep wide sea of misery,\"\n\nand to read the story of his last years there is to think of one of\nthose green isles. These were days of calm, and the book of the Secret\nends with the expression of hope for a deeper calm still. In due time\nit came, but, as the English Poet sang, after more than six centuries--\n\n    The love from Petrarch's urn\n    Yet amid yon hills doth burn,\n\n\n[1] Translation by H. Reeve.\n\n[2] _De rebus fam.,_ vii. 7.\n\n[3] The profile portrait, reproduced by kind permission of Mr. T.\nFisher Unwin, publisher of Mr. E. J. Mills' book on Petrarch, is from\nLombardo's copy of the _De viris illustribus,_ finished about five\nyears after the death of Petrarch, and is believed to be an authentic\npicture of him in later life.\n\n\nA QUENCHLESS LAMP.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration: S. AUGUSTINE GREETING A FRIEND _From a picture by\nBenozzo Gozzoli at San Gimignano_]\n\n\n\nPETRARCH'S SECRET\n\n\nAUTHOR'S PREFACE\n\n\nOften have I wondered with much curiosity as to our coming into this\nworld and what will follow our departure. When I was ruminating lately\non this matter, not in any dream as one in sickness and slumber, but\nwide awake and with all my wits about me, I was greatly astonished to\nbehold a very beautiful Lady, shining with an indescribable light about\nher. She seemed as one whose beauty is not known, as it might be, to\nmankind. I could not tell how she came there, but from her raiment and\nappearance I judged her a fair Virgin, and her eyes, like the sun,\nseemed to send forth rays of such light that they made me lower my own\nbefore her, so that I was afraid to look up. When she saw this she\nsaid, Fear not; and let not the strangeness of my presence affright you\nin any wise. I saw your steps had gone astray; and I had compassion on\nyou and have come down from above to bring you timely succour. Hitherto\nyour eyes have been darkened and you have looked too much, yes, far\ntoo much, upon the things of earth. If these so much delight you, what\nshall be your rapture when you lift your gaze to things eternal!\n\nWhen I heard her thus speak, though my fear still clung about me with\ntrembling voice I made reply in Virgil's words--\n\n    \"What name to call thee by, O Virgin fair,\n    I know not, for thy looks are not of earth\n    And more than mortal seems thy countenance.\"[1]\n\nI am that Lady, she answered, whom you have depicted in your poem\n_Africa_ with rare art and skill, and for whom, like another Amphion of\nThebes, you have with poetic hands built a fair and glorious Palace in\nthe far West on Atlas's lofty peak.\n\nBe not afraid, then, to listen and to look upon the face of her who, as\nyour finely-wrought allegory proves, has been well-known to you from of\nold.\n\nScarcely had she uttered these words when, as I pondered all these\nthings in my mind, it occurred to me this could be none other than\nTruth herself who thus spoke. I remembered how I had described her\nabode on the heights of Atlas; yet was I ignorant from what region\nshe had come, save only that I felt assured she could have come from\nnone other place than Heaven. Therefore I turned my gaze towards her,\neagerly desiring to look upon her face; but lo, the eye of man is\nunable to gaze on that ethereal Form, wherefore again was I forced\nto turn them towards the ground. When she took note of this, after a\nshort silence, she spoke once more; and, questioning me many times, she\nled me to engage with her in long discourse. From this converse I was\nsensible of gaining a twofold benefit for I won knowledge, and the very\nact of talking with her gave me confidence. I found myself by degrees\nbecoming able to look upon the face which at first dismayed me by its\nsplendour, and as soon as I was able to bear it without dread, and gaze\nfixedly on her wondrous beauty, I looked to see if she were accompanied\nwith any other, or had come upon the retirement of my solitude alone;\nand as I did so I discerned at her side the figure of an aged man, of\naspect venerable and full of majesty. There was no need to inquire his\nname. His religious bearing, modest brow, his eyes full of dignity, his\nmeasured step, his African look, but Roman speech, plainly declared\nhim to be that most illustrious Father, Augustine. Moreover, he had\nso gracious a mien, and withal so noble, that one could not possibly\nimagine it to belong to any other than to him. Even so I was on the\npoint of opening my lips to ask, when at that moment I heard the name\nso dear to me uttered from the lips of Truth herself. Turning herself\nto him, as if to intervene upon his deep meditation, she addressed\nhim in these words: \"Augustine, dear to me above a thousand others,\nyou know how devoted to yourself this man is, and you are aware also\nwith how dangerous and long a malady he is stricken, and that he is so\nmuch nearer to Death as he knows not the gravity of his disease. It is\nneedful, then, that one take thought for this man's life forthwith,\nand who so fit to undertake the pious work as yourself? He has ever\nbeen deeply attached to your name and person; and all good doctrine\nis wont more easily to enter the mind of the disciple when he already\nstarts with loving the Master from whom he is to learn. Unless your\npresent happiness has made you quite forget your former sorrow, you\nwill remember that when you were shut in the prison of the mortal body\nyou also were subject to like temptation as his. And if that were so,\nmost excellent Physician of those passions yourself experienced, even\nthough your silent meditation be full of sweetness to your mind, I beg\nthat your sacred voice, which to me is ever a delight, shall break its\nsilence, and try whether you are able by some means to bring calm to\none so deeply distressed.\"\n\nAugustine answered her: \"You are my guide, my Counsellor, my Sovereign,\nmy Ruler; what is it, then, you would have me say in your presence?\"\n\n\"I would,\" she replied, \"that some human voice speak to the ears of\nthis mortal man. He will better bear to hear truth so. But seeing that\nwhatever you shall say to him he will take as said by me, I also will\nbe present in person during your discourse.\"\n\nAugustine answered her, \"The love I bear to this sick man, as well\nas the authority of her who speaks, make it my duty to obey.\" Then,\nlooking kindly at me and pressing me to his heart in fatherly embrace,\nhe led me away to the most retired corner he could find, and Truth\nherself went on a few steps in front. There we all three sat down.\nThen while Truth listened as the silent Judge, none other beside her\nbeing present, we held long converse on one side and the other; and\nbecause of the greatness of the theme, the discourse between us lasted\nover three days. Though we talked of many things much against the\nmanners of this age, and on faults and failings common to mankind, in\nsuch wise that the reproaches of the Master seemed in a sense more\ndirected against men in general than against myself, yet those which\nto me came closest home I have graven with more especial vividness on\nthe tablet of my memory. That this discourse, so intimate and deep,\nmight not be lost, I have sot it down in writing and made this book;\nnot that I wish to class it with my other works, or desire from it any\ncredit. My thoughts aim higher. What I desire is that I may be able\nby reading to renew as often as I wish the pleasure I felt from the\ndiscourse itself. So, little Book, I bid you flee the haunts of men and\nbe content to stay with me, true to the title I have given you of \"My\nSecret\": and when I would think upon deep matters, all that you keep\nin remembrance that was spoken in secret you in secret will tell to me\nover again.\n\nTo avoid the too frequent iteration of the words \"said I,\" \"said he,\"\nand to bring the personages of the Dialogue, as it were, before one's\nvery eyes, I have acted on Cicero's method and merely placed the name\nof each interlocutor before each paragraph.[2] My dear Master learned\nthis mode himself from Plato. But to cut short all further digression,\nthis is how Augustine opened the discourse.\n\n\n[1] _\u00c6neid,_ i. 327-28.\n\n[2] _De Amiciti\u00e2_, i.\n\n\n\n\nDIALOGUE THE FIRST\n\nS. AUGUSTINE--PETRARCH\n\n\n_S. Augustine._ What have you to say, O man of little strength? Of what\nare you dreaming? For what are you looking? Remember you not you are\nmortal?\n\n_Petrarch._ Yes, I remember it right well, and a shudder comes upon me\nevery time that remembrance rises in my breast.\n\n_S. Augustine._ May you, indeed, remember as you say, and take heed for\nyourself. You will spare me much trouble by so doing. For there con\nbe no doubt that to recollect one's misery and to practise frequent\nmeditation on death is the surest aid in scorning the seductions of\nthis world, and in ordering the soul amid its storms and tempests, if\nonly such meditation be not superficial, but sink into the bones and\nmarrow of the heart. Yet am I greatly afraid lest that happen in your\ncase which I have seen in so many others, and you be found deceiving\nyour own self.\n\n_Petrarch_. In what way do you mean? For I do not clearly understand\nthe drift of your remarks.\n\n_S. Augustine._ O race of mortal men, this it is that above all makes\nme astonished and fearful for you, when I behold you, of your own will\nclinging to your miseries; pretending that you do not know the peril\nhanging over your heads and if one bring it under your very eyes, you\ntry to thrust it from your sight and put it afar off.\n\n_Petrarch._ In what way are we so mad?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Do you suppose there is any living man so unreasonable\nthat if he found himself stricken with a dangerous ailment he would not\nanxiously desire to regain the blessing of health?\n\n_Petrarch._ I do not suppose such a case has ever been heard of.\n\n_S. Augustine._ And do you think if one wished for a thing with all\none's soul one would be so idle and careless as not to use all possible\nmeans to obtain what one desired?\n\n_Petrarch._ No one, I think, would be so foolish.\n\n_S. Augustine._ If we are agreed on these two points, so we ought also\nto agree on a third.\n\n_Petrarch._ What is this third point?\n\n_S. Augustine._ It is this: that just as he who by deep meditation has\ndiscovered he is miserable will ardently wish to be so no more; and as\nhe who has formed this wish will seek to have it realised, so he who\nseeks will be able to reach what he wishes. It is clear that the third\nstep depends on the second as the second on the first. And therefore\nthe first should be, as it were, a root of salvation in man's heart.\nNow you mortal men, and you yourself with all your power of mind, keep\ndoing your best by all the pleasures of the world to pull up this\nsaving root out of your hearts, which, as I said, fills me with horror\nand wonder. With justice, therefore, you are punished by the loss of\nthis root of salvation and the consequent loss of all the rest.\n\n_Petrarch_. I foresee this complaint you bring is likely to be\nlengthy, and take many words to develop it. Would you mind, therefore,\npostponing it to another occasion? And that I may travel more surely to\nyour conclusion, may we send a little more time over the premisses?\n\n_S. Augustine_. I must concede something to, your slowness of mind; so\nplease stop me at any point where you wish.\n\n_Petrarch_. Well, if I must speak for myself, I do not follow your\nchain of reasoning.\n\n_S. Augustine_. What possible obscurity is there in it? What are you in\ndoubt about now?\n\n_Petrarch_. I believe there is a multitude of things for which we\nardently long, which we seek for with all our energy, but which\nnevertheless, however diligent we are, we never have obtained and never\nshall.\n\n_S. Augustine_. That may be true of other desires, but in regard to\nthat we have now under discussion the case is wholly different.\n\n_Petrarch._ What makes you say that?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Because every man who desires to be delivered from his\nmisery, provided only he desires sincerely and with all his heart,\ncannot fail to obtain that which he desires.\n\n_Petrarch_. O father, what is this I hear? There are few men indeed who\ndo not feel they lack many things and who would not confess they were\nso far unhappy. Every one who questions his own heart will acknowledge\nit is so. By natural consequence if the fulness of blessing makes man\nhappy, all things he lacks will so far make him unhappy. This burden\nof unhappiness all men would fain lay down, as every one is aware; but\nevery one is aware also that very few have been able. How many there\nare who have felt the crushing weight of grief, through bodily disease,\nor the loss of those they loved, or imprisonment, or exile, or hard\npoverty, or other misfortunes it would take too long to tell over; and\nyet they who suffer these things have only too often to lament that it\nis not permitted them, as you suggest, to be set free. To me, then,\nit seems quite beyond dispute that a multitude of men are unhappy by\ncompulsion and in spite of themselves.\n\n_S. Augustine_. I must take you a long way back, and as one does with\nthe very young whose wits are slight and slow, I must ask you to\nfollow out the thread of my discourse from its very simplest elements.\nI thought your mind was more advanced, and I had no idea you still\nneeded lessons so childish. Ah, if only you had kept in mind those true\nand saving maxims of the wise which you have so often read and re-read\nwith me; if, I must take leave to say, you had but wrought for yourself\ninstead of others; if you had but applied your study of so many volumes\nto the ruling of your own conduct, instead of to vanity and gaining the\nempty praise of men, you would not want to retail such low and absurd\nfollies.\n\n_Petrarch._ I know not where you want to take me, but already I am\naware of the blush mounting to my brow, and I feel like schoolboys in\npresence of an angry master. Before they know what they are accused of\nthey think of many offences of which they are guilty, and at the very\nfirst word from the master's lips they are filled with confusion. In\nlike case I too am conscious of my ignorance and of many other faults,\nand though I perceive not the drift of your admonition, yet as I know\nalmost everything bad may be brought against me, I blush even before\nyou have done speaking. So pray state more clearly what is this biting\naccusation that you have made.\n\n_S. Augustine_. I shall have many things to lay to your charge\npresently. Just now what makes me so indignant is to hear you suppose\nthat any one can become or can be unhappy against his will.\n\n_Petrarch_. I might as well spare my blushes. For what more obvious\ntruth than this can possibly be imagined? What man exists so ignorant\nor so far removed from all contact with the world as not to know that\npenury, grief, disgrace, illness, death, and other evils too that are\nreckoned among the greatest, often befall us in spite of ourselves,\nand never with our own consent? From which it follows that it is easy\nenough to know and to detest one's own misery, but not to remove it;\nso that if the two first steps depend on ourselves, the third is\nnevertheless in Fortune's hand.\n\n_S. Augustine._ When I saw you ashamed I was ready to give you pardon,\nbut brazen impudence angers me more than error itself. How is it you\nhave forgotten all those wise precepts of Philosophy, which declare\nthat no man can be made unhappy by those things you rattle off by name?\nNow if it is Virtue only that makes the happiness of man, which is\ndemonstrated by Cicero and a whole multitude of weighty reasons, it\nfollows of necessity that nothing is opposed to true happiness except\nwhat is also opposed to Virtue. This truth you can yourself call to\nmind even without a word from me, at least unless your wits are very\ndull.\n\n_Petrarch._ I remember it quite well. You would have me bear in mind\nthe precepts of the Stoics, which contradict the opinions of the crowd\nand are nearer truth than common custom is.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You would indeed be of all men the most miserable were\nyou to try to arrive at the truth through the absurdities of the crowd,\nor to suppose that under the leadership of blind guides you would\nreach the light. You must avoid the common beaten track and set your\naspirations higher; take the way marked by the steps of very few who\nhave gone before, if you would be counted worthy to hear the Poet's\nword--\n\n    \"On, brave lad, on! your courage leading you,\n    So only Heaven is scaled.\"[1]\n\n_Petrarch._ Heaven grant I may hear it ere I die! But I pray you to\nproceed. For I assure you I have by no means become shameless. I do not\ndoubt the Stoics' rules are wiser far than the blunders of the crowd. I\nawait therefore your further counsel.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Since we are agreed on this, that no one can become or\nbe unhappy except through his own fault, what need of more words is\nthere?\n\n_Petrarch._ Just this need, that I think I have seen very many people,\nand I am one of them, to whom nothing is more distressful than the\ninability to break the yoke of their faults, though all their life long\nthey make the greatest efforts so to do. Wherefore, even allowing that\nthe maxim of the Stoics holds good, one may yet admit that many people\nare very unhappy in spite of themselves, yes, and although they lament\nit and wish they were not, with their whole heart.\n\n_S. Augustine_. We have wandered somewhat from our course, but we are\nslowly working back to our starting-point. Or have you quite forgotten\nwhence we set out?\n\n_Petrarch._ I had begun to lose sight of it, but it is coming back to\nme now.\n\n_S. Augustine._ What I had set out to do with you was to make clear\nthat the first step in avoiding the distresses of this mortal life and\nraising the soul to higher things is to practise meditation on death\nand on man's misery; and that the second is to have a vehement desire\nand purpose to rise. When these two things were present, I promised a\ncomparatively easy ascent to the goal of our desire. Unless haply to\nyou it seems otherwise?\n\n_Petrarch_. I should certainly never venture to affirm this, for from\nmy youth upwards I have had the increasing conviction that if in any\nmatter I was inclined to think differently from yourself I was certain\nto be wrong.\n\n_S. Augustine._ We will please waive all compliments. And as I observe\nyou are inclined to admit the truth of my words more out of deference\nthan conviction, pray feel at liberty to say whatever your real\njudgment suggests.\n\n_Petrarch._ I am still afraid to be found differing, but nevertheless\nI will make use of the liberty you grant. Not to speak of other men, I\ncall to witness Her who has ever been the ruling spirit of my life; you\nyourself also I call to witness how many times I have pondered over my\nown misery and over the subject of Death; with what floods of tears I\nhave sought to wash away my stains, so that I can scarce speak of it\nwithout weeping; yet hitherto, as you see, all is in vain. This alone\nleads me to doubt the truth of that proposition you seek to establish,\nthat no man has ever fallen into misery but of his own free will, or\nremained, miserable except of his own accord; the exact opposite of\nwhich I have proved in my own sad experience.\n\n_S. Augustine_. That complaint is an old one and seems likely to prove\nunending. Though I have already several times stated the truth in\nvain, I shall not cease to maintain it yet. No man can become or can\nbe unhappy unless he so chooses; but as I said at the beginning, there\nis in men a certain perverse and dangerous inclination to deceive\nthemselves, which is the most deadly thing in life. For if it is true\nthat we rightly fear being taken in by those with whom we live, because\nour natural habit of trusting them tends to make us unsuspicious, and\nthe pleasantly familiar sound of their voice is apt to put us off our\nguard,--how much rather ought you to fear the deceptions you practise\non yourself, where love, influence, familiarity play so large a part,\na case wherein every one esteems himself more than he deserves, loves\nhimself more than he ought, and where Deceiver and Deceived are one and\nthe same person?\n\n_Petrarch._ You have said this kind of thing pretty often to-day\nalready. But I do not recollect ever practising such deception on\nmyself; and I hope other people have not deceived me either.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Now at this very moment you are notably deceiving\nyourself when you boast never to have done such a thing at all; and I\nhave a good enough hope of your own wit and talent to make me think\nthat if you pay close attention you will see for yourself that no man\ncan fall into misery of his own will. For on this point our whole\ndiscussion rests. I pray you to think well before answering, and\ngive your closest attention, and be jealous for truth more than for\ndisputation, but then tell me what man in the world was ever forced to\nsin? For the Seers and Wise Men require that sin must be a voluntary\naction, and so rigid is their definition that if this voluntariness is\nabsent then the sin also is not there. But without sin no man is made\nunhappy, as you agreed to admit a few minutes ago.\n\n_Petrarch._ I perceive that by degrees I am getting away from my\nproposition and am being compelled to acknowledge that the beginning\nof my misery did arise from my own will. I feel it is true in myself,\nand I conjecture the same to be true of others. Now I beg you on your\npart to acknowledge a certain truth also.\n\n_S. Augustine._ What is it you wish me to acknowledge?\n\n_Petrarch_. That as it is true no man ever fell involuntarily, so this\nalso is true that countless numbers of those who thus are voluntarily\nfallen, nevertheless do not voluntarily remain so. I affirm this\nconfidently of my own self. And I believe that I have received this for\nmy punishment, as I would not stand when I might, so now I cannot rise\nwhen I would.\n\n_S. Augustine._ That is indeed a wise and true view to take. Still as\nyou now confess you were wrong in your first proposition, so I think\nyou should own you are wrong in your second.\n\n_Petrarch._ Then you would say there is no distinction between falling\nand remaining fallen?\n\n_S. Augustine._ No, they are indeed different things; that is to say,\ndifferent in time, but in the nature of the action and in the mind of\nthe person concerned they are one and the same.\n\n_Petrarch._ I see in what knots you entangle me. But the wrestler who\nwins his victory by a trick is not necessarily the stronger man, though\nhe may be the more practised.\n\n_S. Augustine._ It is Truth herself in whose presence we are\ndiscoursing. To her, plain simplicity is ever dear, and cunning is\nhateful. That you may see this beyond all doubt I will go forward from\nthis point with all the plainness you can desire.\n\n_Petrarch._ You could give me no more welcome news. Tell me, then, as\nit is a question concerning myself, by what line of reasoning you mean\nto prove I am unhappy. I do not deny that I am; but I deny that it is\nwith my own consent I remain so. For, on the contrary, I feel this to\nbe most hateful and the very opposite of what I wish. But yet I can do\nnothing except wish.\n\n_S. Augustine._ If only the conditions laid down are observed, I will\nprove to you that you are misusing words.\n\n_Petrarch._ What conditions do you mean, and how would you have me use\nwords differently?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Our conditions were to lay aside all juggling with\nterms and to seek truth in all plain simplicity, and the words I would\nhave you use are these: instead of saying you _can_not, you ought to\nsay you _will_ not.\n\n_Petrarch._ There will be no end then to our discussion, for that is\nwhat I never shall confess. I tell you I know, and you yourself are\nwitness, how often I have wished to and yet could not rise. What floods\nof tears have I shed, and all to no purpose?\n\n_S. Augustine._ O yes, I have witnessed many tears, but very little\nwill.\n\n_Petrarch._ Heaven is witness (for indeed I think no man on this earth\nknows) what I have suffered, and how I have longed earnestly to rise,\nif only I might.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Hush, hush. Heaven and earth will crash in ruin, the\nstars themselves will fall to hell, and all harmonious Nature be\ndivided against itself, sooner than Truth, who is our Judge, can be\ndeceived.\n\n_Petrarch._ And what do you mean by that?\n\n_S. Augustine_. I mean that your tears have often stung your conscience\nbut not changed your will.\n\n_Petrarch._ I wonder how many times I must tell you that it is just\nthis impossibility of change which I bewail.\n\n_S. Augustine._ And I wonder how many times I must reply that it is\nwant of will, not want of power, which is the trouble.\n\nAnd yet I wonder not that now you find yourself involved in these\nperplexities; in which in time past I too was tossed about, when I was\nbeginning to contemplate entering upon a new way of life.[2] I tore my\nhair; I beat my brow; my fingers I twisted nervously; I bent double and\nheld my knees; I filled the air of heaven with most bitter sighs; I\npoured out tears like water on every side: yet nevertheless I remained\nwhat I was and no other, until a deep meditation at last showed me the\nroot of all my misery and made it plain before my eyes. And then my\nwill after that became fully changed, and my weakness also was changed\nin that same moment to power, and by a marvellous and most blessed\nalteration I was transformed instantly and made another man, another\nAugustine altogether. The full history of that transformation is known,\nif I mistake not, to you already in my _Confessions._\n\n_Petrarch._ Yes, in truth I know it well, and never can I forget the\nstory of that health-bringing fig-tree, beneath whose shade the miracle\ntook place.[3]\n\n_S. Augustine._ Well indeed may you remember it. And no tree to you\nshould be more dear: no, not the myrtle, nor the ivy, nor the laurel\nbeloved of Apollo and ever afterwards favoured by all the band of\nPoets, favoured too by you, above all, who alone in your age have been\ncounted worthy to be crowned with its leaves; yet dearer than these\nshould be to you the memory of that fig-tree, for it greets you like\nsome mariner coming into haven after many storms; it holds out to you\nthe path of righteousness, and a sure hope which fadeth not away, that\npresently the divine Forgiveness shall be yours.\n\n_Petrarch_. I would not say one word in contradiction. Go on, I beseech\nyou, with what you have begun.\n\n_S. Augustine._ This is what I undertook and will go on with, to prove\nto you that so far you are like those many others of whom it may be\nsaid in the words of Virgil--\n\n    \"Unchanged their mind while vainly flow their tears.\"[4]\n\nThough I might multiply examples, yet I will rather content myself with\nthis alone, that we might almost reckon as belonging to ourselves, and\nso all the more likely to come home.\n\n_Petrarch_. How wisely you have made choice; for indeed it were\nuseless to add more, and no other could be so deeply graven in my\nheart. Great as the gulf which parts us may be--I mean between you in\nyour safe haven and me in peril of shipwreck, you in felicity, me in\ndistress--still amid my winds and tempests I can recognise from time to\ntime the traces of, your own storm-tossed passions. So that as often\nas I read the book of your _Confessions_, and am made partaker of your\nconflict between two contrary emotions, between hope and fear, (and\nweep as I read), I seem to be hearing the story of my own self, the\nstory not of another's wandering, but of my own. Therefore, since now I\nhave put away every inclination to mere dispute, go on, I beg, as you\ndesire. For all my heart wishes now is not to hinder but only to follow\nwhere you lead.\n\n_S. Augustine_. I make no such demand on you as that. For though a\ncertain very wise man[5] has laid it down that \"Through overmuch\ncontention truth is lost,\" yet often it happens that a well-ordered\ndiscussion leads to truth. It is not then expedient to accept\neverything advanced, which is the token of a slack and sleepy mind, any\nmore than it is expedient to set oneself to oppose a plain and open\ntruth, which indicates only the mind of one who likes fighting for\nfighting's sake.\n\n_Petrarch_. I understand and agree with you and will act on your\nadvice. Now, pray go on.\n\n_S. Augustine_. You admit, therefore, that the argument is just and the\nchain of reasoning valid, when we say that a perfect knowledge of one's\nmisery will beget a perfect desire to be rid of it, if only the power\nto be rid may follow the desire.\n\n_Petrarch_. I have professed that I will believe you in everything.\n\n_S. Augustine._ I feel there is still something you would like to urge,\neven now. Do, please, confess it, no matter what it may be.\n\n_Petrarch._ Nothing, only that I am much amazed I to think I should\nnever yet have wished what I have believed I always wished.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You still stick at that point. O well, to put an end to\nthis kind of talk I will agree that you have wished sometimes.\n\n_Petrarch._ What then?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Do you not remember the phrase of Ovid--\n\n    \"To wish for what you want is not enough;\n    With ardent longing you must strive for it.\"[6]\n\n_Petrarch._ I understand, but thought that was just what I had been\ndoing.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You were mistaken.\n\n_Petrarch._ Well, I will believe so.\n\n_S. Augustine._ To make your belief certain, examine your own\nconscience. Conscience is the best judge of virtue. It is a guide, true\nand unerring, that weighs every thought and deed. It will tell you that\nyou have never longed for spiritual health as you ought, but that,\nconsidering what great dangers beset you, your wishes were but feeble\nand ineffective.\n\n_Petrarch._ I have been examining my conscience, as you suggested.\n\n_S. Augustine._ What do you find?\n\n_Petrarch._ That what you say is true.\n\n_S. Augustine._ We have made a little progress, if you are beginning to\nbe awake. It will soon be better with you now you acknowledge it was\nnot well hitherto.\n\n_Petrarch._ If it is enough to acknowledge, I hope to be able to be\nnot only well but quite well, for never have I understood more clearly\nthat my wishes for liberty and for an end to my misery have been too\nlukewarm. But can it be enough to desire only?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Why do you ask?\n\n_Petrarch._ I mean, to desire without doing anything.\n\n_S. Augustine._ What you propose is an impossibility. No one desires\nardently and goes to sleep.\n\n_Petrarch._ Of what use is desire, then?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Doubtless the path leads through many difficulties, but\nthe desire of virtue is itself a great part of virtue.\n\n_Petrarch._ There you give me ground for good hope.\n\n_S. Augustine._ All my discourse is just to teach you how to hope and\nto fear.\n\n_Petrarch._ Why to fear?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Then tell me why to hope?\n\n_Petrarch._ Because whereas so far I have striven, and with much\ntribulation, merely not to become worse, you now open a way to me\nwhereby I may become better and better, even to perfection.\n\n_S. Augustine._ But maybe you do not think how toilsome that way is.\n\n_Petrarch._ Have you some now terror in store for me?\n\n_S. Augustine._ To desire is but one word, but how many things go to\nmake it up!\n\n_Petrarch._ Your words make me tremble.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Not to mention the positive elements in desire, it\ninvolves the destruction of many other objects.\n\n_Petrarch._ I do not quite take in your meaning.\n\n_S. Augustine._ The desire of all good cannot exist without thrusting\nout every lower wish. You know how many different objects one longs for\nin life. All these you must first learn to count as nothing before you\ncan rise to the desire for the chief good; which a man loves less when\nalong with it he loves something else that does not minister to it.\n\n_Petrarch_. I recognise the thought.\n\n_S. Augustine_. How many men are there who have extinguished all their\npassions, or, not to speak of extinguishing, tell me how many are there\nwho have subdued their spirit to the control of Reason, and will dare\nto say, \"I have no more in common with my body; all that once seemed\nso pleasing to me is become poor in my sight. I aspire now to joys of\nnobler nature\"?\n\n_Petrarch_. Such men are rare indeed. And now I understand what those\ndifficulties are with which you threatened me.\n\n_S. Augustine_. When all these passions are extinguished, then, and not\ntill then, will desire be full and free. For when the soul is uplifted\non one side to heaven by its own nobility, and on the other dragged\ndown to earth by the weight of the flesh and the seductions of the\nworld, so that it both desires to rise and also to sink at one and the\nsame time, then, drawn contrary ways, you find you arrive nowhither.\n\n_Petrarch._ What, then, would you say a man must do for his soul to\nbreak the fetters of the world, and mount up perfect and entire to the\nrealms above?\n\n_S. Augustine._ What leads to this goal is, as I said in the first\ninstance, the practice of meditation on death and the perpetual\nrecollection of our mortal nature.\n\n_Petrarch._ Unless I am deceived, there is no man alive who is more\noften revolving this thought in his heart than I.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Ah, here is another delusion, a fresh obstacle in your\nway!\n\n_Petrarch._ What! Do you mean to say I am once more lying?\n\n_Augustine._ I would sooner hear you use more civil language.\n\n_Petrarch._ But to say the same thing?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yes, to say nothing else.\n\n_Petrarch._ So then you mean I care nothing at all about death?\n\n_S. Augustine._ To tell the truth you think very seldom of it, and\nin so feeble a way that your thought never touches the root of your\ntrouble.\n\n_Petrarch._ I supposed just the opposite.\n\n_S. Augustine._ I am not concerned with what you suppose, but with what\nyou ought to suppose.\n\n_Petrarch._ Well, I may tell you that in spite of that I will suppose\nit no more, if you prove to me that my supposition was a false one.\n\n_S. Augustine._ That I will do easily enough, provided you are willing\nto admit the truth in good faith. For this end I will call in a\nwitness who is not far away.\n\n_Petrarch_. And who may that be, pray?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Your conscience.\n\n_Petrarch_. She testifies just the contrary.\n\n_S. Augustine._ When you make an obscure, confused demand no witness\ncan give precise or clear answers.\n\n_Petrarch._ What has that to do with the subject, I would like to know?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Much, every way. To see dearly, listen well. No man is\nso senseless (unless he be altogether out of his mind) as never once\nto remember his own weak nature, or who, if asked the question whether\nhe were mortal and dwelt in a frail body, would not answer that he\nwas. The pains of the body, the onsets of fever, attest the fact; and\nwhom has the favour of Heaven made exempt? Moreover, your friends are\ncarried out to their burial before your eyes; and this fills the soul\nwith dread. When one goes to the graveside of some friend of one's own\nage one is forced to tremble at another's fall and to begin feeling\nuneasy for oneself; just as when you see your neighbour's roof on fire,\nyou cannot fool quite happy for your own, because, as Horace puts it--\n\n    \"On your own head you see the stroke will fall.\"[7]\n\nThe impression will be more strong in case you see some sudden death\ncarry off one younger, more vigorous, finer looking than yourself. In\nsuch an event a man will say, \"This one seemed to live secure, and yet\nhe is snatched off. His youth, his beauty, his strength have brought\nhim no help. What God or what magician has promised me any surer\nwarrant of security? Verily, I too am mortal.\"\n\nWhen the like fate befalls kings and rulers of the earth, people of\ngreat might and such as are regarded with awe, those who see it are\nstruck with more dread, are more shaken with alarm; they are amazed\nwhen they behold a sudden terror, or perchance hours of intense agony\nseize on one who was wont to strike terror into others. From what\nother cause proceed the doings of people who seem beside themselves\nupon the death of men in highest place, such as, to take an instance\nfrom history, the many things of this kind that, as you have related,\nwere done at the funeral of Julius C\u00e6sar? A public spectacle like this\nstrikes the attention and touches the heart of mortal men; and what\nthen they see in the case of another is brought home as pertaining\nalso to themselves. Beside all these, are there not the rage of savage\nboasts, and of men, and the furious madness of war? Are there not\nthe falls of those great buildings which, as some one neatly says,\nare first the safeguards, then the sepulchres of men? Are there not\nmalignant motions of the air beneath some evil star and pestilential\nsky? And so many perils on sea and land that, look wheresoever you\nwill, you cannot turn your gaze anywhither but you will meet the\nvisible image and memento of your own mortality.\n\n_Petrarch_. I beg your pardon, but I cannot wait any longer, for, as\nfor having my reason fortified, I do not think any more powerful aid\ncan be brought than the many arguments you have adduced. As I listened\nI wondered what end you were aiming at, and when your discourse would\nfinish.\n\n_S. Augustine._ As a matter of fact, you have interrupted me, and it\nhas not yet reached its end. However, here is the conclusion--although\na host of little pin-pricks play upon the surface of your mind, nothing\nyet has penetrated the centre. The miserable heart is hardened by long\nhabit, and becomes like some indurated stone; impervious to warnings,\nhowever salutary, you will find few people considering with any\nseriousness the fact that they will die.\n\n_Petrarch_. Then few people are aware of the very definition of man,\nwhich nevertheless is so hackneyed in the schools, that it ought not\nmerely to weary the ears of those who hear it, but is now long since\nscrawled upon the walls and pillars of every room. This prattling of\nthe Dialecticians will never come to an end; it throws up summaries and\ndefinitions like bubbles, matter indeed for endless controversies, but\nfor the most part they know nothing of the real truth of the things\nthey talk about. So, if you ask one of this set of men for a definition\nof a man or of anything else, they have their answer quite pat, as the\nsaying goes; if you press him further, he will lie low, or if by sheer\npractice in arguing he has acquired a certain boldness and power of\nspeech, the very tone of the man will tell you he possesses no real\nknowledge of the thing he sets out to define. The best way of dealing\nwith this brood, with their studied air of carelessness and empty\ncuriosity, is to launch at their head some such invective as this,\n\"You wretched creatures, why this everlasting labour for nothing; this\nexpense of wit on silly subtleties? Why in total oblivion of the real\nbasis of things will you grow old simply conversant with words, and\nwith whitening hair and wrinkled brow, spend all your time in babyish\nbabble? Heaven grant that your foolishness hurt no one but yourselves,\nand do as little harm as possible to the excellent minds and capacities\nof the young.\"\n\n_S. Augustine._ I agree that nothing half severe enough can be said of\nthis monstrous perversion of learning. But let me remind you that your\nzeal of denunciation has so carried you away that you have omitted to\nfinish your definition of man.\n\n_Petrarch_. I thought I had explained sufficiently, but I will be more\nexplicit still. Man is an animal, or rather the chief of all animals.\nThe veriest rustic knows that much. Every schoolboy could tell you\nalso, if you asked him, that man is, moreover, a rational animal\nand that he is mortal. This definition, then, is a matter of common\nknowledge.\n\n_S. Augustine._ No, it is not. Those who are acquainted with it are\nvery few in number.\n\n_Petrarch._ How so?\n\n_S. Augustine._ When you can find a man so governed by Reason that\nall his conduct is regulated by her, all his appetites subject to\nher alone, a man who has so mastered every motion of his spirit by\nReason's curb that he knows it is she alone who distinguishes him from\nthe savagery of the brute, and that it is only by submission to her\nguidance that he deserves the name of man at all; when you have found\none so convinced of his own mortality as to have that always before his\neyes, always to be ruling himself by it, and holding perishable things\nin such light esteem that he ever sighs after that life, which Reason\nalways foresaw, wherein mortality shall be cast away; when you have\nfound such a man, then you may say that he has some true and fruitful\nidea of what the definition of man is. This definition, of which we\nwere speaking, I said it was given to few men to know, and to reflect\nupon as the nature of the truth requires.\n\n_Petrarch._ Hitherto I had believed I was of that number.\n\n_S. Augustine_. I have no doubt that when you turn over in your mind\nthe many things you have learned, whether in the school of experience\nor in your reading of books, the thought of death has several times\nentered your head. But still it has not sunk down into your heart as\ndeeply as it ought, nor is it lodged there as firmly as it should be.\n\n_Petrarch_. What do you call sinking down into my heart? Though I think\nI understand, I would like you to explain more clearly.\n\n_S. Augustine._ This is what I mean. Every one knows, and the greatest\nphilosophers are of the same opinion, that of all tremendous realities\nDeath is the most tremendous. So true is this, that from ever of old\nits very name is terrible and dreadful to hear. Yet though so it\nis, it will not do that we hear that name but lightly, or allow the\nremembrance of it to slip quickly from our mind. No, we must take time\nto realise it. We must meditate with attention thereon. We must picture\nto ourselves the effect of death on each several part of our bodily\nframe, the cold extremities, the breast in the sweat of fever, the side\nthrobbing with pain, the vital spirits running slower and slower as\ndeath draws near, the eyes sunken and weeping, every look filled with\ntears, the forehead pale and drawn, the cheeks hanging and hollow,\nthe teeth staring and discoloured, the nostrils shrunk and sharpened,\nthe lips foaming, the tongue foul and motionless, the palate parched\nand dry, the languid head and panting breast, the hoarse murmur and\nsorrowful sigh, the evil smell of the whole body, the horror of seeing\nthe face utterly unlike itself--all these things will come to mind and,\nso to speak, be ready to one's hand, if one recalls what one has seen\nin any close observation of some deathbed where it has fallen to our\nlot to attend. For things seen cling closer to our remembrance than\nthings heard.\n\nAnd, moreover, it is not without a profound instinct of wisdom that\nin certain Religious Orders, of the stricter kind, the custom has\nsurvived, even down to our own time (though I do not think it makes\nfor good character altogether), of allowing the members to watch the\nbodies of the dead being washed and put in shrouds for their burial;\nwhile the stern professors of the Rule stand by, in order that this sad\nand pitiful spectacle, thrust forsooth beneath their very eyes, may\nadmonish their remembrance continually, and affright the minds of those\nwho survive from every hope of this transitory world.\n\nThis, then, is what I meant by sinking down deeply into the soul.\nPerchance you never name the name of Death, that so you may fall in\nwith the custom of the time, although nothing is more certain than the\nfact or more uncertain than the hour. Yet in daily converse you must\noften speak of things connected with it, only they soon fly out of mind\nand leave no trace.\n\n_Petrarch._ I follow your counsel the more readily because now I\nrecognise much in your words that I have myself revolved in my own\nbreast. But please, if you think it well, will you impress some mark\non my memory which will act as a warning to me and prevent me from\nthis time henceforth from telling lies to myself and fondling my own\nmistakes. For this, it seems to me, is what turns men from the right\nway, that they dream they have already reached the goal, and make\ntherefore no effort any more.\n\n_S. Augustine._ I like to hear you speak so. Your words are those of\na man alert and watchful, who will not bear to be idle and trust to\nchance. So here is a test which will never play you false: every time\nyou meditate on death without the least sign of motion, know that you\nhave meditated in vain, as about any ordinary topic. But if in the act\nof meditation you find yourself suddenly grow stiff, if you tremble,\nturn pale, and feel as if already you endured its pains; if at the same\ntime you seem to yourself as if you were leaving your body behind,\nand were forced to render up your account before the bar of eternal\njudgment, of all the words and deeds of your past life, nothing omitted\nor passed over; that nothing any more is to be hoped for from good\nlooks or worldly position, nothing from eloquence, or riches, or power:\nif you realise that this Judge takes no bribe and that all things are\nnaked and open in His sight; that death itself will not turn aside for\nany plea; that it is not the end of sufferings, but only a passage: if\nyou picture to yourself a thousand forms of punishment and pain, the\nnoise and wailing of Hell, the sulphurous rivers, the thick darkness,\nand avenging Furies,--in a word, the fierce malignity everywhere of\nthat dark abode; and, what is the climax of its horror, that the misery\nknows no end, and despair thereof itself is everlasting, since the\ntime of God's mercy is passed by; if, I say, all these things rise up\nbefore your eyes at once, not as fictions but as truth, not as being\npossible, but inevitable, and of a surety bound to come, yes, and even\nnow at the door; and if you think on these things, not lightly, nor\nwith desperation, but full of hope in God, and that His strong right\nhand is able and ready to pluck you out of so great calamities; if you\nbut show yourself willing to be healed and wishful to be raised up; if\nyou cleave to your purpose and persist in your endeavour, then you may\nbe assured you have not meditated in vain.\n\n_Petrarch_. I will not deny you have terrified me greatly by putting\nso huge a mass of suffering before my eyes. But may God give me such\nplenteous mercy as that I may steep my thought in meditations like\nthese; not only day by day, but more especially at night, when the\nmind, with all its daily interests laid aside, relaxes and is wont to\nreturn upon itself. When I lay my body down, as those who die, and\nmy shrinking mind imagines the hour itself with all its horrors is\nat hand: so intently do I conceive it all, as though I were in the\nvery agony of dying, that I shall seem to be already in the place of\ntorment, beholding what you speak of and every kind of anguish. And\nso stricken shall I be at that sight, so terrified and affrighted,\nthat I shall rise up (I know it) before my horrified household and cry\naloud, \"What am I doing? What suffering is this? For what miserable\ndestruction is Fate keeping me alive? Jesu, by Thy mercy,\n\n    \"Thou whom none yet hath conquered, succour me,\"[8]\n\n    \"Give Thy right hand to me in misery\n    Through the dark waves, O bear me up with Thee,\n    That dying I may rest and be in peace.\"[9]\n\nMany other things shall I say to myself, as one in a fever whose mind\nevery chance impression carries hither and thither in his fear; and\nthen I go talking strangely to my friends, weeping and making them\nweep, and then presently after this we shall return to what we were\nbefore. And since these things are so, what is it, I ask, which holds\nme back? What little hidden obstacle is there which makes it come to\npass that hitherto all these meditations avail nothing but to bring\nme troubles and terrors: and I continue the same man that I have ever\nbeen; the same, it may be, as men to whom no reflections like these\nhave ever come? Yet am I more miserable than they, for they, whatever\nmay be their latter end, enjoy at least the pleasures of the present\ntime; but as for me, I know not either what my end will be, and I taste\nno pleasure that is not poisoned with these embittering thoughts.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Vex not yourself, I pray you, when you ought rather\nto rejoice. The more the sinner feels pleasure in his sin, the more\nunhappy should we think him and the more in need of pity.\n\n_Petrarch._ I suppose you mean that a man whose pleasures are\nuninterrupted comes to forget himself, and is never led back into\nvirtue's path; but that he who amid his carnal delights is sometime\nvisited with adversity will come to the recollection of his true\ncondition just in proportion as he finds fickle and wayward Pleasure\ndesert him.\n\nIf both kind of life had one and the same end, I do not see why he\nshould not be counted the happier who enjoys the present time and puts\noff affliction to another day, rather than the man who neither enjoys\nthe present nor looks for any joy hereafter; unless you are perhaps\nmoved by this consideration that in the end the laughter of the former\nwill be changed to more bitter tears?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yes, much more bitter. For I have often noticed that\nif a man throws away the rein of reason altogether (and in the most\nexcessive pleasure of all this is commonly the case), his fall is more\ndangerous than that of the man who may come rushing down from the same\nheight, but keeps still some hold, though feebly, on the reins. But\nbefore all else I attach importance to what you said before, that in\nthe case of the one there is some hope of his conversion, but in that\nof the other nothing remains but despair.\n\n_Petrarch._ Yes, that is my view also; in the meanwhile, however, have\nyou not forgotten my first question?\n\n_S. Augustine._ What was it?\n\n_Petrarch_. Concerning what keeps me back. I asked you why I am the\nonly one to whom the profound meditation on Death, that you said was so\nfull of benefit, brings no good whatever.\n\n_S. Augustine._ In the first place it is perhaps because you look on\ndeath as something remote, whereas when one thinks how very short life\nis and how many divers kinds of accidents befall it, you ought not to\nthink death is far away. \"What deludes almost all of us,\" as Cicero\nsays, \"is that we regard death from afar off.\" Some correctors--I would\nprefer to call them corruptors--of the text have wished to change the\nreading by inserting a negative before the verb, and have maintained\nthat he ought to have said, \"We do NOT regard death from afar off.\" For\nthe rest, there is no one in his senses who does not see death one way\nor another, and in reality Cicero's word _prospicere_ means to see from\nafar. The one thing that makes so many people suffer illusion in their\nideas on death is that they are wont to forecast for their own life\nsome limit, which is indeed possible according to nature, but at which,\nnevertheless, very few arrive. Hardly any one, in fact, dies of whom\nthe poet's line might not be quoted--\n\n    \"Grey hairs and length of years he for himself\n    Expected.\"[10]\n\nThe fault may touch you nearly, for your age, your vigorous\nconstitution and temperate way of life perchance have fostered a like\nhope in your heart.\n\n_Petrarch._ Please do not suspect that of me. God keep me from such\nmadness--\n\n    \"As in that monster false to put my trust!\"[11]\n\nIf I may borrow the words Virgil puts in the mouth of his famous pilot\nPalinurus. For I too am cast upon a wide ocean, cruel and full of\nstorms. I sail across its angry waves and struggle with the wind; and\nthe little boat I steer shivers and seems to be letting in the water\nin every part. I know well she cannot hold out for long, and I see I\nhave no hope at all of safety unless the Almighty Pity put forth His\nstrong right hand and guide my vessel rightly ere it be too late, and\nbring me to shore--\n\n    \"So that I who have lived upon the waters may die\n    in port.\"[12]\n\nOf this I think I should have a good hope, because it has never been\nmy lot to put any confidence in those riches and power on which I see\nso many of my contemporaries, yes, and older men as well, relying. For\nwhat folly would it be to pass all one's life in toil and poverty and\ncare, heaping up riches, just to die at last and have no time to enjoy\nthem? So, then, in truth, I regard this dark shadow of death, not as\nsomething afar off, but very nigh and ever at the doors. And I have not\nforgotten a certain little verse I wrote in my youth at the end of a\nletter to a friend--\n\n    \"E'en while we speak, along a thousand ways\n    With stealthy steps up to our very door\n    Death creeps.\"\n\nIf I could say words like these at that time of life, what shall I\nsay now that I am more advanced in age and more experienced in what\nlife is? For everything I see or hear or feel or think seems, unless I\ndeceive myself, connected in my mind with that last end. And yet the\nquestion still remains, what is it that holds me back?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Give humble thanks to God who so regards you and guides\nyou with his merciful rein, and so pricks you with his spur. It is not\nsurely possible, that he who thus has the thought of death before him\nday by day should ever be doomed to death eternal.\n\nBut since you feel, and rightly so, that something still is wanting, I\nwill try and unfold to you what it is, and, if God so please, remove it\nalso; to the end that you may arise and with free, uplifted mind shake\noff that old bondage that so long has kept you down.\n\n_Petrarch_. O would that indeed you may prove able so to help me, and I\non my part be capable of receiving such a boon!\n\n_S. Augustine._ It shall be yours if you wish. The thing is not\nimpossible. But in the nature of man's actions two things are required,\nand if either be wanting, the action will come to nought. There must be\nwill, and that will must be so strong and earnest that it can deserve\nthe name of purpose.\n\n_Petrarch._ So let it be.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Do you know what stands in the way of your purpose of\nheart?\n\n_Petrarch._ That is what I want to know; what for so long I have\nearnestly desired to understand.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Then listen. It was from Heaven your soul came forth:\nnever will I assert a lower origin than that. But in its contact with\nthe flesh, wherein it is imprisoned, it has lost much of its first\nsplendour. Have no doubt of this in your mind. And not only is it so,\nbut by reason of the length of time it has in a manner fallen asleep;\nand, if one may so express it, forgotten its own beginning and its\nheavenly Creator.\n\nAnd these passions that are born in the soul through its connection\nwith the body, and that forgetfulness of its nobler nature, seem to me\nto have been touched by Virgil with pen almost inspired when he writes--\n\n    \"The souls of men still shine with heavenly fire,\n    That tells from whence they come, save that the flesh\n    And limbs of earth breed dullness, hence spring fears,\n    Desire, and grief and pleasures of the world,\n    And so, in darkness prisoned, they no more\n    Look upward to heaven's face.\"[13]\n\nDo you not in the poet's words discern that monster with four heads so\ndeadly to the nature of man?\n\n_Petrarch_. I discern very clearly the fourfold passion of our nature,\nwhich, first of all, we divide in two as it has respect to past and\nfuture, and then subdivide again in respect of good and evil. And so,\nby these four winds distraught, the rest and quietness of man's soul is\nperished and gone.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You discern rightly, and the words of the Apostle are\nfulfilled in us, which say, \"The corruptible body presseth down the\nsoul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth\nupon many things.\"[14] Of a truth the countless forms and images of\nthings visible, that one by one are brought into the soul by the senses\nof the body, gather there in the inner centre in a mass, and the soul,\nnot being akin to these or capable of learning them, they weigh it\ndown and overwhelm it with their contrariety. Hence that plague of too\nmany impressions tears apart and wounds the thinking faculty of the\nsoul, and with its fatal, distracting complexity bars the way of clear\nmeditation, whereby it would mount up to the threshold of the One Chief\nGood.\n\n_Petrarch_. You have spoken admirably of that plague in many places,\nand especially in your book on _True Religion_ (with which it is,\nindeed, quite incompatible). It was but the other day that I lighted\non that work of yours in one of my digressions from the study of\nphilosophy and poetry, and it was with very great eagerness that I\nbegan to peruse it. Indeed, I was like a man setting out from his own\ncountry to see the world, and coming to the gate of some famous city\nquite new to him, where, charmed by the novelty of all around, he stops\nnow here, now there, and looks intently on all that meets his gaze.\n\n_S. Augustine._ And yet in that book, allowing for a difference of\nphraseology such as becomes a teacher of catholic truth, you will\nfind a large part of its doctrine is drawn from philosophers, more\nespecially from those of the Platonist and Socratic school. And, to\nkeep nothing from you, I may say that what especially moved me to\nundertake that work was a word of your favourite Cicero. God blessed\nthat work of mine so that from a few seeds there came an abundant\nharvest. But let us come back to the matter in hand.\n\n_Petrarch._ As you wish; but, O best of Fathers, do not hide from me\nwhat that word was which gave you the starting-point of so excellent a\nwork.\n\n_S. Augustine._ It was the passage where in a certain book Cicero\nsays, by way of expressing his detestation of the errors of his time:\n\"They could look at nothing with their mind, but judged everything by\nthe sight of their eyes; yet a man of any greatness of understanding\nis known by his detaching his thought from objects of sense, and his\nmeditations from the ordinary track in which others move.\"[15] This,\nthen, I took as my foundation, and built upon it the work which you say\nhas given you pleasure.\n\n_Petrarch._ I remember the place; it is in the _Tusculan Orations._\nI have been delighted to notice what a habit it is of yours to quote\nthose words here and elsewhere in your works; and they deserve it, for\nthey are words that seem to blend in one phrase truth and dignity and\ngrace. Now, since it seems good to you, pray return to our subject.\n\n_S. Augustine._ This, then, is that plague that has hurt you, this\nis what will quickly drive you to destruction, unless you take\ncare. Overwhelmed with too many divers impressions made on it, and\neverlastingly fighting with its own cares, your weak spirit is crushed\nso that it has not strength to judge what it should first attack\nor to discern what to cherish, what to destroy, what to repel; all\nits strength and what time the niggard hand of Fate allows are not\nsufficient for so many demands. So it suffers that same evil which\nbefalls those who sow too many seeds in one small space of ground.\n\nAs they spring up they choke each other. So in your overcrowded\nmind what there is sown can make no root and bear no fruit. With\nno considered plan, you are tossed now here now there in strange\nfluctuation, and can never put your whole strength to anything. Hence\nit happens that whenever the generous mind approaches (if it is\nallowed) the contemplation of death, or some other meditation that\nmight help it in the path of life, and penetrates by its own acumen to\nthe depths of its own nature, it is unable to stand there, and, driven\nby hosts of various cares, it starts back. And then the work, that\npromised so well and seemed so good, flags and grows unsteady; and\nthere comes to pass that inward discord of which we have said so much,\nand that worrying torment of a mind angry with itself; when it loathes\nits own defilements, yet cleanses them not away; sees the crooked\npaths, yet does not forsake them; dreads the impending danger, yet\nstirs not a step to avoid it.\n\n_Petrarch._ Ah, woe is me! Now you have probed my wound to the quick.\nThere is the seat of my pain, from there I fear my death will come.\n\n_S. Augustine._ It is well. You are awakening to life. But as we have\nnow prolonged our discussion enough for to-day, let us, if you will,\ndefer the rest until to-morrow, and let us take a breathing space in\nsilence.\n\n_Petrarch._ Yes, I am tired somewhat, and most gladly shall I welcome\nquiet and rest.\n\n\n[1] _\u00c6neid,_ ix. 641.\n\n[2] _S. Augustine Confessions_, viii. 8.\n\n[3] _S. Augustine Confessions,_ viii. 12.\n\n[4] _\u00c6neid_, iv. 449.\n\n[5] Publius Cyrus.\n\n[6] Ovid, _Pontic._, III i. 35.\n\n[7] Horace, _Epist.,_ I. 18, 83.\n\n[8] _\u00c6neid,_ vi 365.\n\n[9] _Ibid.,_ vi 370.\n\n[10] _\u00c6neid,_ x. 649.\n\n[11] _Ibid.,_ v. 849.\n\n[12] Seneca, _Letters,_ xix.\n\n[13] _\u00c6neid,_ vi. 730-34.\n\n[14] Book of wisdom, ix. 15\n\n[15] _Tusculan Orations,_ i. 16.\n\n\n\n\nDIALOGUE THE SECOND\n\n\nS. AUGUSTINE--PETRARCH\n\n\n_S. Augustine_. Well, have we rested long enough?\n\n_Petrarch._ Certainly, if it so please you.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Let me hear if you feel now in good heart and\nconfidence. For when a man has been ill, a hopeful spirit in him is no\nsmall sign of returning health.\n\n_Petrarch._ What hope I have is no whit in myself: God is my hope.\n\n_S. Augustine._ It is wisely spoken. And now I return to our theme.\nMany things are against you, many temptations assail, but you yourself\nstill seem ignorant both of their numbers and their strength. And what\nin warfare generally happens to one who, from a distance, sees some\nclosely marshalled battalion, has happened to you. Such a man is often\ndeceived into thinking his foes fewer in number than they are. But when\nthey draw nearer, when they have deployed their serried ranks before\nhis eyes in all their martial pomp, then his fears soon increase, and\nhe repents him of his boldness. So likewise will it be with you when I\nshall display before your eyes, on this side and on that, all the evils\nthat are pressing upon you and hemming you in from every quarter. You\nwill be ashamed of your own boldness, you will be sorry you were so\nlight-hearted, and begin to bewail that in its sore straits your soul\nhas been unable to break through the wedged phalanx of your foes. You\nwill discover presently how many foolish fancies of too easy victory\nyou have let come into your mind, excluding that wholesome dread to\nwhich I am endeavouring to bring you.\n\n_Petrarch_. Indeed, you make me horribly afraid. That my danger was\ngreat I have always been aware; and now, in spite of this, you tell me\nI have very much under-estimated it, and indeed that, compared with\nwhat they should be, my fears have been nothing at all. What hope have\nI then left?\n\n_S. Augustine_. It is never time to despair. Be sure of that. Despair\nis the very last and worst of evils, and therefore I would have you\nmake it a first principle to put it away wholly.\n\n_Petrarch_. I knew the truth of the maxim, but in my dread forgot it at\nthe moment.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Now give me all your attention, look and listen while I\nrecall words of your favourite seer.\n\n    \"Behold what foemen gather round your walls\n    And at your gates make sharp their gleaming sword\n    To murder you and yours.\"[1]\n\nLook what snares the world spreads for you; what vanities it dangles\nbefore your eyes; what vain cares it has to weigh you down. To begin\nat the beginning, consider what made those most noble spirits among\nall creatures fall into the abyss of ruin; and take heed lest in like\nmanner you also fall after them. All your forethought, all your care\nwill be needed to save you from this danger. Think how many temptations\nurge your mind to perilous and soaring flights. They make you dream\nof nobleness and forget your frailty; they choke your faculties with\nfumes of self-esteem, until you think of nothing else; they lead you\nto wax so proud and confident in your own strength that at length you\nhate your Creator. So you live for self-pleasing and imagine that great\nthings are what you deserve. Whereas if you had a truer remembrance,\ngreat blessings ought to make you not proud but humble, when you\nrealise that they came to you for no merit of your own. What need for\nme to speak of the Eternal Lord God when even to earthly lords men\nfeel their minds more humbly bound if they experience any bounty of\ntheirs which they are conscious of being undeserved. Do we not see them\nstriving to merit afterwards what they feel they should have earned\nbefore?\n\nNow let your mind realise, as it easily can, on what paltry grounds\nyour pride is set up. You trust in your intellect; you boast of what\neloquence much reading has given you; you take pleasure in the beauty\nof your mortal body. Yet do you not feel that in many things your\nintellect fails you? Are there not many things in which you cannot\nrival the skill of the humblest of mankind? Nay, might I not go further\nand, without mentioning mankind, may I not say that with all your\nlabour and study you will find yourself no match in skill for some of\nthe meanest and smallest of God's creatures? Will you boast, then, of\nintellect after that? And as for reading, what has it profited you? Of\nthe multitude of things you have perused how many have remained in your\nmind? How many have struck root and borne fruit in due season? Search\nwell your heart and you will find that the whole of what you know is\nbut like a little shrunken stream dried by the summer heat compared to\nthe mighty ocean.\n\nAnd of what relevance is it to know a multitude of things? Suppose\nyou shall have learned all the circuits of the heavens and the earth,\nthe spaces of the sea, the courses of the stars, the virtues of herbs\nand stones, the secrets of nature, and then be ignorant of yourself?\nOf what profit is it? If by the help of Scripture you shall have\ndiscovered the right and upward path, what use is it if wrath and\npassion make you swerve aside into the crooked, downward way? Supposing\nyou shall have learned by heart the deeds of illustrious men of all the\nages, of what profit will it be if you yourself day by day care not\nwhat you do?\n\nWhat need for me to speak of eloquence? Will not you yourself readily\nconfess how often the putting any confidence in this has proved vain?\nAnd, moreover, what boots it that others shall approve what you have\nsaid if in the court of your own conscience it stands condemned? For\nthough the applause of those who hear you may seem to yield a certain\nfruit which is not to be despised, yet of what worth is it after all\nif in his heart the speaker himself is not able to applaud? How petty\nis the pleasure that comes from the plaudits of the multitude! And\nhow can a man soothe and flatter others unless he first soothe and\nflatter himself? Therefore you will easily understand how often you\nare deluded by that glory you hope for from your eloquence, and how\nyour pride therein rests but upon a foundation of wind. For what can\nbe more childish, nay, might I not say more insane, than to waste time\nand trouble over matters where all the things themselves are worthless\nand the words about them vain? What worse folly than to go on blind\nto one's real defects, and be infatuated with words and the pleasure\nof hearing one's own voice, like those little birds they tell of\nwho are so ravished with the sweetness of their own song that they\nsing themselves to death? And furthermore, in the common affairs of\nevery-day life does it not often happen to you to find yourself put to\nthe blush to discover that in the use of words you are no match even\nfor some whom you think are very inferior men? Consider also how in\nNature there are many things for which names are altogether wanting,\nand many more to which names have indeed been given, but to express\nthe beauty of them--as you know by experience--words are altogether\ninadequate. How often have I heard you lament, how often seen you\ndumb and dissatisfied, because neither your tongue nor your pen could\nsufficiently utter ideas, which nevertheless to your reflecting mind\nwere very clear and intelligible?\n\nWhat, then, is this Eloquence, so limited and so weak, which is neither\nable to compass and bring within its scope all the things that it\nwould, nor yet to hold fast even those things that it has compassed?\n\nThe Greeks reproach you, and you in turn the Greeks, with having\na paucity of words. Seneca, it is true, accounts their vocabulary\nthe richer, but Cicero at the beginning of his treatise _On the\nDistinctions of Good and Evil_ makes the following declaration, \"I\ncannot enough marvel whence should arise that insolent scorn of our\nnational literature. Though this is not the place to discuss it, yet\nI will express my conviction, which I have often maintained, not only\nthat the Latin tongue is not poor, as it is the fashion to assert, but\nthat it is, in fact, richer than the Greek;\"[2] and as he frequently\nrepeats elsewhere the same opinion, so, especially in the _Tusculan\nOrations_, he exclaims, \"Thou Greek that countest thyself rich in\nwords, how poor art thou in phrases.\"[3]\n\nThis is the saying, mark you, of one who know quite well that he was\nthe prince of Latin oratory, and had already shown that he was not\nafraid to challenge Greece for the palm of literary glory. Let me add\nthat Seneca, so notable an admirer of the Greek tongue, says in his\n_Declamations_, \"All that Roman eloquence can bring forward to rival or\nexcel the pride of Greece is connected with the name of Cicero.\"[4] A\nmagnificent tribute, but unquestionably true!\n\nThere is, then, as you see, on the subject of the primacy in Eloquence\na very great controversy, not only between you and the Greeks, but\namong our own most learned writers themselves. There are in our camp\nthose who hold for the Greeks, and it may be among them there are some\nwho hold for us, if at least we may judge from what is reported of the\nillustrious philosopher Plutarch. In a word, Seneca, who is ours,\nwhile doing all justice to Cicero, gives his final verdict for the\nGreeks, notwithstanding that Cicero is of the contrary opinion.\n\nAs to my own opinion on the question in debate, I consider that both\nparties to the controversy have some truth on their side when they\naccuse both Latin and Greek of poverty of words: and if this judgment\nbe correct in regard to two such famous languages, what hope is there\nfor any other?\n\nBethink you therefore what sort of confidence you can have in your own\nsimple powers when the whole resources of that people of which you are\nbut a little part are adjudged poor, and how ashamed you should be to\nhave spent so much time in pursuing something which cannot be attained,\nand which, if it could be, would prove after all but vanity itself.\n\nI will pass on to other points. Are you perhaps inclined to plume\nyourself on your physical advantages? But think what a thread they hang\nupon! What is it you are most pleased with in this way? Is it your good\nhealth and strength? But truly nothing is more frail. It is proved by\nthe fatigue you suffer from even little things. The various maladies to\nwhich the body is liable; the stings of insects; a slight draught of\nair, and a thousand other such small vexations all tell the same tale.\nWill you perchance be taken in by your own good-looking face, and when\nyou behold in the glass your smooth complexion and comely features are\nyou minded to be smitten, entranced, charmed? The story of Narcissus\nhas no warning for you, and, content with gazing only at the outward\nenvelope of the body, you consider not that the eyes of the mind tell\nyou how vile and plain it is within. Moreover, if you had no other\nwarning, the stormy course of life itself, which every day robs you of\nsomething, ought to show you how transient and perishing that flower\nof beauty is. And if, perhaps, which you will hardly dare affirm, you\nfancy yourself invincible by age, by illness, and whatever else may\nchange the grace of bodily form, you have at least not forgotten that\nLast Enemy which destroys all, and you will do well to engrave in your\ninmost heart and mind this word of the satirist--\n\n    \"'Tis death alone compels us all to see\n    What little things we are.\"[5]\n\nHere, unless I am mistaken, are the causes that inflate your mind with\npride, forbid you to recognise your low estate, and keep you from the\nrecollection of death. But others there still are that I now propose to\npass in review.\n\n_Petrarch._ Stop a little, I beg you, lest, overwhelmed by the weight\nof so many reproaches, I have no strength or spirit to reply.\n\n_S. Augustine._ By all means say on. Gladly will I hold my peace.\n\n_Petrarch._ You have astonished me not a little by casting in my\nteeth a multitude of things of which I am perfectly sure they have\nnever entered my head at all. You allege that I trusted in my own\nintelligence. But surely the one sign I have given of possessing some\nlittle intelligence is that never have I counted on that faculty\nat all. Shall I pride myself on much reading of books, which with\na little wisdom has brought me a thousand anxieties? How can you\nsay I have sought the glory of eloquence, I, who, as you yourself\nacknowledged a moment ago, am wont above all things to complain that\nspeech is inadequate to my thoughts? Unless you wish to try and prove\nthe contrary, I may say that you know I am always conscious of my own\nlittleness, and that if by chance I have ever thought myself to be\nanything, such a thought has come but rarely and then only from seeing\nthe ignorance of other men; for, as I often remark, we are reduced to\nacknowledge, according to Cicero's celebrated phrase, that \"what powers\nwe may possess come rather from the feebleness of others than from any\nmerit in ourselves.\"\n\nBut even were I endowed as richly as you imagine with those advantages\nof which you speak, what is there so magnificent about them that\nI should be vain? I am surely not so forgetful of myself nor so\nfeather-brained as to let myself trouble about cares of that sort. For\nwhat use in the world are intellect, knowledge, eloquence, if they can\nbring no healing to a soul diseased? I remember having given expression\nalready in one of my letters to my sad sense of this truth.\n\nAs to what you remarked with an air of quasi gravity about my physical\nadvantages, I must confess it makes me smile. That I of all men should\nbe thought to have plumed myself on my mortal and perishing body, when\nevery day of my life I feel in it the ravages of time at work! Heaven\nsave me from such folly!\n\nI will not deny that in the days of my youth I took some care to trim\nmy head and to adorn my face; but the taste for that kind of thing has\ngone with my early years, and I recognise now the truth of that saying\nof the Emperor Domitian who, writing of himself in a letter to a lady\nfriend, and complaining of the too swift decay of the goodliness of\nman, said, \"Know you that nothing is so sweet, but nothing also is so\nfleeting, as the beauty of the body.\"[6]\n\n_S. Augustine._ It would be an easy task to refute all you have\nadvanced, but I prefer that your own conscience should send the shaft\nof shame to your heart rather than words of mine. I will not labour\nthe point or draw the truth from you by torture; but as those who take\nrevenge magnanimously, I will merely prefer a simple request that you\nwill continue to avoid what you profess you have hitherto avoided.\n\nIf by any chance the fashion of your countenance should at any time\nhave stirred the least motion of conceit, then I beg you to reflect\nwhat soon those bodily members must become, though now they please\nyour eye: think how their destiny is to be foul and hideous, and what\nrepulsion they would cause even in yourself were you able to see them\nthen. Then call often to mind this maxim of the Philosopher: \"I was\nborn for some higher destiny than to be the slave of my body.\"[7]\nAssuredly it is the very climax of folly to see men neglect their real\nselves in order to cosset the body and limbs in which they dwell. If a\nman is imprisoned for a little while in some dungeon, dark, damp, and\ndirty, would he not seem to have lost his senses if he did not shield\nhimself as far as he was able from any contact with the walls and soil?\nAnd with the expectation of freedom would he not eagerly listen for the\nfootsteps of his deliverer? But if giving up that expectation, covered\nwith filth and plunged in darkness, he dreads to leave his prison; if\nhe turns all his attention to painting and adorning the walls which\nshut him in, in a vain endeavour to counteract the nature of his\ndripping prison-house, will he not rightly be counted a wretched fool?\n\nWell, you yourself know and love your prison-house, wretched that you\nare! And on the very eve of your issuing or being dragged therefrom you\nchain yourself more firmly in it, labouring to adorn what you ought to\ndespise, if you would follow the advice you yourself had tendered to\nthe father of the great Scipio in your poem called _Africa._\n\n    \"The bonds and fetters known and suffered long,\n    The clogs on liberty are hateful to us,\n    And the new freedom now attained we love.\"[8]\n\nWonderful is it if you made others give the counsel which you yourself\nrefuse! But I cannot disguise from you one word in your discourse\nwhich to you may seem very humble, but to me seems full of pride and\narrogance.\n\n_Petrarch._ I am sorry if I have in any way expressed myself\narrogantly, but if the spirit is the true rule of one's deeds and\nwords, then my own bears me witness that I intended nothing in that\nsense.\n\n_S. Augustine._ To depreciate others is a kind of pride more\nintolerable than to exalt oneself above one's due measure; I would\nmuch rather see you exalt others and then put yourself above them than\ndegrade all the world in a heap at your feet, and by a refinement of\npride fashion for yourself a shield of humanity out of scorn for your\nneighbour.\n\n_Petrarch._ Take it how you will, I profess but small esteem either for\nothers or myself. I am ashamed to tell you what experience has made me\nthink of the majority of mankind.\n\n_S. Augustine_. It is very prudent to despise oneself; but it is very\ndangerous and very useless to despise others. However, let us proceed.\nAre you aware of what still makes you turn from the right way?\n\n_Petrarch._ Pray say anything you like, only do not accuse me of envy.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Please God may pride have done you as little hurt as\nenvy! So far as I judge, you have escaped this sin, but I have others\nwhereof to accuse you.\n\n_Petrarch_. Still you will not vex me whatever reproaches you may\nbring. Tell me freely everything that leads me astray.\n\n_S. Augustine._ The desire of things temporal.\n\n_Petrarch._ Come, come! I truly have never heard anything so absurd.\n\n_S. Augustine._ There! you see everything vexes you. You have forgotten\nyour promise. This is not, however, any question of envy.\n\n_Petrarch._ No, but of cupidity, and I do not believe there is a man in\nthe world more free of this fault than myself.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You are great at self-justification, but, believe me,\nyou are not so clear of this fault as you think you are.\n\n_Petrarch._ What? do you mean to say that I, I am not free from the\nreproach of cupidity?\n\n_S. Augustine._ I do, and that you are likewise guilty of ambition.\n\n_Petrarch._ Go on, ill-treat me more still, double your reproaches,\nmake full proof of your work of an accuser. I wonder what fresh blow\nyou have in store for me.\n\n_S. Augustine._ What is mere truth and right testimony you call\naccusation and ill-treatment. The satirist was quite right who wrote--\n\n    \"To speak the truth to men is to accuse.\"[9]\n\nAnd the saying of the comic poet is equally true--\n\n    \"'Tis flattery makes friends and candour foes.\"[10]\n\nBut tell me, pray, what is the use of this irritation and anger that\nmakes you so on edge? Was it necessary in a life so short to weave such\nlong hopes?\n\n    \"Have no long hopes! life's shortness cries to man.\"[11]\n\nYou read that often enough but take no count of it. You will reply, I\nsuppose, that you do this from a tender solicitude for your friends,\nand so find a fair pretext for your error; but what madness it is,\nunder pretext of friendship to others, to declare war on yourself and\ntreat yourself as an enemy.\n\n_Petrarch._ I am neither covetous nor inhuman enough to be without\nsolicitude for my friends, especially for those whose virtue or deserts\nattach me to them, for it is those whom I admire, revere, love, and\ncompassionate; but, on the other hand, I do not pretend to be generous\nenough to court my own ruin for the sake of my friends. What I desire\nis so to manage my affairs as to have a decent subsistence while I\nlive; and as you have delivered a shot at me from Horace, let me also\nfrom the same poet put up a shield in self-defence and profess my\ndesire is the same as his,--\n\n\"Let me have books and stores for one year hence, Nor make my life one\nflutter of suspense!\"[12]\n\nAnd further how I shape my course so that I may in the same poet's\nwords--\n\n\"Pass my old age and not my honour lose, And, if I may, still serve the\nlyric Muse.\"[13]\n\nLet me own also that I dread very much the rocks ahead if life should\nbe prolonged, and so would provide beforehand for this double wish of\nmine to blend with my work for the Muses some simpler occupation in\nhousehold affairs. But this I do with such indifference that it is\nplain enough I only descend to such necessities because I am so obliged.\n\n_Augustine._ I see clearly how these pretexts texts which serve as an\nexcuse for your folly have penetrated deeply into your very spirit. How\nis it, then, you have not engraved equally deeply in your heart the\nwords of the satirist--\n\n    \"Why keep such hoarded gold to vex the mind?\n    Why should such madness still delude mankind?\n    To scrape through life on water and dry bread\n    That you may have a fortune when you're dead?\"[14]\n\nUndoubtedly it is more because you think that it is a fine thing to\ndie in a winding-sheet of purple, and rest in a marble tomb, and leave\nto your heirs the business of disputing over a great succession, than\nthat you yourself care for the money which wins such advantages. It is\na futile trouble, believe me, and quite devoid of good sense. If you\nwill steadily observe human nature, you will discover that in a general\nway it is content with very little, and, in your case particularly,\nthere is hardly a man who needs less for his satisfaction, unless you\nhad been blinded by prejudices. Doubtless the poet was thinking of the\naverage run of men, or possibly his own actual self, when he said--\n\n    \"My sorry fare is dogwood fruit; I pluck\n    Wild herbs and roots that in the fields do grow,\n    And a few berries.\"[15]\n\nBut, unlike him, you will acknowledge yourself that such a mode of life\nis far from sorry, and that in fact nothing would be pleasanter if you\nwere to consult only your own taste and not the customs of a deluded\nworld. Why, then, continue to torment yourself? If you order your life\nas your nature dictates, you were rich long ago, but you never will\nbe able to be rich if you follow the standard of the world; you will\nalways think something wanting, and in 'rushing after it you will find\nyourself swept away by your passion.\n\nDo you remember with what delight you used to wander in the depth of\nthe country? Sometimes, laying yourself down on a bed of turf, you\nwould listen to the water of a brook murmuring over the stones; at\nanother time, seated on some open hill, you would let your eye wander\nfreely over the plain stretched at your feet; at others, again, you\nenjoyed a sweet slumber beneath the shady trees of some valley in the\nnoontide heat, and revelled in the delicious silence. Never idle, in\nyour soul you would ponder over some high meditation, with only the\nMuses for your friends--you were never less alone than when in their\ncompany, and then, like the old man in Virgil who reckoned himself\n\n    \"As rich askings, when, at the close of day,\n    Home to his cot he took his happy way,\n    And on his table spread his simple fare,\n    Fresh from the meadow without cost or care,\"[16]\n\nyou would come at sunset back to your humble roof; and, contented with\nyour good things, did you not find yourself the richest and happiest\nof mortal men?\n\n_Petrarch._ Ah, well-a-day! I recall it all now, and the remembrance of\nthat time makes me sigh with regret.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Why--why do you speak of sighing? And who, pray, is\nthe author of your woes? It is, indeed, your own spirit and none other\nwhich too long has not dared to follow the true law of its nature,\nand has thought itself a prisoner only because it would not break its\nchain. Even now it is dragging you along like a runaway horse, and\nunless you tighten the rein it will rush you to destruction. Ever since\nyou grew tired of your leafy trees, of your simple way of life, and\nsociety of country people, egged on by cupidity, you have plunged once\nmore into the midst of the tumultuous life of cities. I read in your\nface and speech what a happy and peaceful life you lived; for what\nmiseries have you not endured since then? Too rebellious against the\nteachings of experience, you still hesitate!\n\nIt is without a doubt the bonds of your own sins that keep you back,\nand God allows that, as you passed your childhood under a harsh muster,\nso, though you once became free, you have again fallen into bondage,\nand there will end your miserable old age. Verily, I was at your side\nonce, when, quite young, unstained by avarice or ambition, you gave\npromise of becoming a great man; now, alas, having quite changed your\ncharacter, the nearer you get to the end of your journey the more you\ntrouble yourself about provisions for the way. What remains then but\nthat you will be found, when the day comes for you to die--and it may\nbe even now at hand, and certainly cannot be any great way off--you\nwill be found, I say, still hungering after gold, poring half-dead over\nthe calendar?\n\nFor those anxious cares, which increase day after day, must by\nnecessity at last have grown to a huge figure and a prodigious amount.\n\n_Petrarch_. Well, after all, if I foresee the poverty of old age, and\ngather some provision against that time of weariness, what is there so\nmuch to find fault with?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Ah! ludicrous anxiety and tragic neglect, to worry and\ntrouble yourself about a time at which you may never arrive and in\nwhich you assuredly will not have long to stay, and yet to be quite\noblivious of that end at which you cannot help arriving, and of which\nthere is no remedy when you once have reached it. But such is your\nexecrable habit--to care for what's temporal, and be careless for all\nthat's eternal. As for this delusion of providing a shield against old\nage, no doubt what put it into your head was the verse in Virgil which\nspeaks of\n\n    \"The ant who dreads a destitute old age.\"[17]\n\nAnd so you have made an ant your mentor and you are as excusable as the\nsatiric poet who wrote--\n\n    \"Some people, like the ant, fear hunger and cold,\"[18]\n\nbut if you are going to put no limit to the following of ants, you will\ndiscover that there is nothing more melancholy and nothing more absurd\nthan to ward off poverty one day by loading yourself with it all your\ndays.\n\n_Petrarch._ What will you say next! Do you counsel me to court Poverty?\nI have no longing for it, but I will bear it with courage if Fortune,\nwho delights to overturn human affairs, reduces me to it.\n\n_S. Augustine._ My opinion is that in every condition man should aim at\nthe golden mean. I would not then restrict you to the rules of those\nwho say, \"All that is needed for man's life is bread and water; with\nthese none is poor; whosoever desires no more than these will rival\nin felicity the Father of the Gods.\"[19] No, I do not tie man's life\ndown to dry bread and water; such maxims are as extreme as they are\ntroublesome and odious to listen to. Also, in regard to your infirmity,\nwhat I enjoin is not to over-indulge natural appetite, but to control\nit. What you already have would be sufficient for your wants if you had\nknown how to be sufficient to yourself. But as it is you are yourself\nthe cause of your own poverty. To heap up riches is to heap up cares\nand anxieties. This truth has been proved so continually that there\nis no need to bring more arguments. What a strange delusion, what a\nmelancholy blindness of the soul of man, whose nature is so noble,\nwhose birth is from above, that it will neglect all that is lofty and\ndebase itself to care for the metals of the earth. Every time you have\nbeen drawn by these hooks of cupidity you come down from your high\nmeditations to these grovelling thoughts, and do you not feel each time\nas if hurled from heaven to earth, from the bosom of the stars to a\nbottomless pit of blackness?\n\n_Petrarch_. Yes; in truth, I feel it, and one knows not how to express\nwhat I have suffered in my fall.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Why, then, are you not afraid of a danger you have so\noften experienced? And when you were raised up to the higher life, why\ndid you not attach yourself to it more firmly?\n\n_Petrarch_. I make all the efforts I can to do so; but inasmuch as the\nvarious exigencies of our human lot shake and unsettle me, I am torn\naway in spite of myself. It is not without reason, I imagine, that\nthe poets of antiquity dedicated the double peaks of Parnassus to two\ndifferent divinities. They desired to beg from Apollo, whom they called\nthe god of Genius, the interior resources of the mind, and from Bacchus\na plentiful supply of external goods, way of regarding it is suggested\nto me not only by the teaching of experience, but by the frequent\ntestimony of wise men whom I need not quote to you. Moreover, although\nthe plurality of deities may be ridiculous, this opinion of the\nPoets is not devoid of common sense. And in referring a like twofold\nsupplication to the one God from whom all good comes down, I do not\nthink I can be called unreasonable, unless indeed you hold otherwise.\n\n_S. Augustine_. I deny not you are right in your view, but the poor\nway you divide your time stirs my indignation. You had already devoted\nyour whole life to honourable work; if anything compelled you to spend\nany of your time on other occupations, you regarded it as lost. But I\nnow you only concede to what is Good and Beautiful the moments you can\nspare from avarice.\n\nAny man in the world would desire to reach old age on such terms as\nthat; but what limit or check would be to such a state of mind? Choose\nfor yourself some defined goal, and when you have attained it, then\nstay there and breathe awhile. Doubtless you know that the saying I am\nabout to quote is from lips of man, but has all the force of a divine\noracle--\n\n    \"The miser's voice for ever cries, Give, give;\n    Then curb your lusts if you would wisely live.\"[20]\n\n_Petrarch._ Neither to want nor to abound, neither to command others or\nobey them--there you have my heart's wish.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Then you must drop your humanity and become God, if you\nwould want nothing. Can you be ignorant that of all the creatures Man\nis the one that has most wants?\n\n_Petrarch_. Many a time have I heard that said, but I would still like\nto hear it afresh from your lips and lodge it in my remembrance.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Behold him naked and unformed, born in wailings and\ntears, comforted with a few drops of milk, trembling and crawling,\nneeding the hand of another, fed and clothed from the beasts of the\nfield, his body feeble, his spirit restless, subject to all kinds of\nsickness, the prey of passions innumerable, devoid of reason, joyful\nto-day, to-morrow sorrowful, in both full of agitation, incapable of\nmastering himself, unable to restrain his appetite, ignorant of what\nthings are useful to him and in what proportion, knowing not how to\ncontrol himself in meat or drink, forced with great labour to gain\nthe food that other creatures find ready at their need, made dull\nwith sleep, swollen with food, stupefied with drink, emaciated with\nwatching, famished with hunger, parched with thirst, at once greedy\nand timid, disgusted with what he has, longing after what he has lost,\ndiscontented alike with past, present and future, full of pride in his\nmisery, and aware of his frailty, baser than the vilest worms, his life\nis short, his days uncertain, his fate inevitable, since Death in a\nthousand forms is waiting for him at last.\n\n_Petrarch._ You have so piled up his miseries and beggary that I feel\nit were good if I had never been born.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yet, in the midst of such wretchedness and such deep\ndestitution of good in man's estate, you go on dreaming of riches and\npower such as neither emperors nor kings have ever fully enjoyed.\n\n_Petrarch_. Kindly tell me who ever made use of those words? Who spoke\neither of riches or of power?\n\n_S. Augustine._ You imply both, for what greater riches can there be\nthan to lack nothing? What greater power than to be independent of\nevery one else in the world? Certainly those kings and masters of the\nearth whom you think so rich have wanted a multitude of things. The\ngenerals of great armies depend on those whom they seem to command,\nand, kept in check by their armed legions, they find the very soldiers\nwho render them invincible also render them in turn helpless. Give up,\ntherefore, your dreams of the impossible, and be content to accept the\nlot of humanity; learn to live in want and in abundance, to command\nand to obey, without desiring, with those ideas of yours, to shake off\nthe yoke of fortune that presses even on kings. You will only be free\nfrom this yoke when, caring not a straw for human passions, you bend\nyour neck wholly to the rule of Virtue. Then you will be free, wanting\nnothing, then. you will be independent; in a word, then you will be a\nking, truly powerful and perfectly happy.\n\n_Petrarch_. Now I do indeed repent for all that is past, and I desire\nnothing. But I am still in bondage to one evil habit and am conscious\nalways of a certain need at the bottom of my heart.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Well, to come back to our subject, there is the very\nthing which keeps you back from the contemplation of death. It is that\nwhich makes you harassed with earthly anxieties; you do not lift up\nyour heart at all to higher things. If you will take my counsel you\nwill utterly cast away these anxieties, which are as so many dead\nweights upon the spirit, and you will find that it is not so hard after\nall to order your life by your nature, and let that rule and govern you\nmore than the foolish opinions of the crowd.\n\n_Petrarch_. I will do so very willingly, but may I ask you to finish\nwhat you were beginning to say about ambition, which I have long\ndesired to hear?\n\n_S. Augustine_. Why ask me to do what you can quite well do for\nyourself? Examine your own heart; you will see that among its other\nfaults it is not ambition which holds the least place there.\n\n_Petrarch._ It has profited me nothing then to have fled from towns\nwhenever I could, to have thought scorn of the world and public\naffairs, to have gone into the recesses of the woods and silence of the\nfields, to have proved my aversion from empty honours, if still I am to\nbe accused of ambition.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You renounce many things well,--all you mortal men; but\nnot so much; because you despise them as because you despair of getting\nthem. Hope and desire inflame each other by the mutual stings of those\npassions, so that when the one grows cold the other dies away, and when\none gets warm the other boils over.\n\n_Petrarch._ Why, then, should I not hope? Was I quite destitute of any\naccomplishment?\n\n_S. Augustine._ I am not now speaking of your accomplishments, but\ncertainly you had not those by help of which, especially in the present\nday, men mount to high places; I mean the art of ingratiating yourself\nin the palaces of the great, the trick of flattery, deceit, promising,\nlying, pretending, dissembling, and putting up with all kinds of\nslights and indignities. Devoid of these accomplishments and others of\nthe kind, and seeing clearly that you could not overcome nature, you\nturned your steps elsewhere. And you acted wisely and with prudence,\nfor, as Cicero expresses it, \"to contend against the gods as did the\ngiants, what is it but to make war with nature itself.\"[21]\n\n_Petrarch_. Farewell such honours as these, if they have to be sought\nby such means!\n\n_S. Augustine._ Your words are golden, but you have not convinced me\nof your innocence, for you do not assert your indifference to honours\nso much as to the vexations their pursuit involves, like the man who\npretended he did not want to see Rome because he really would not\nendure the trouble of the journey thither. Observe, you have not yet\ndesisted from the pursuit of honour, as you seem to believe and as you\ntry to persuade me. But leave off trying to hide behind your finger, as\nthe saying goes; all your thoughts, all your actions are plain before\nmy eyes: and when you boast of having fled from cities and become\nenamoured of the woods, I see no real excuse, but only a shifting of\nyour culpability.\n\nWe travel many ways to the same end, and, believe me, though you have\nleft the road worn by feet of the crowd, you still direct your feet by\na side-path towards this same ambition that you say you have thought\nscorn of; it is repose, solitude, a total disregard of human affairs,\nyes, and your own activities also, which just at present take you along\nthat chosen path, but the end and object is glory.\n\n_Petrarch_. You drive me into a corner whence I think, however,\nI could manage to escape; but, as the time is short and we must\ndiscriminate between many things, let us proceed, if you have no\nobjection.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Follow me, then, as I go forward. We will say nothing\nof gourmandising, for which you have no more inclination than a\nharmless pleasure in an occasional meeting with a few friends at the\nhospitable board. But I have no fear for you on this score, for when\nthe country has regained its denizen, now snatched away to the towns,\nthese temptations will disappear in a moment; and I have noticed,\nand have pleasure in acknowledging, that when you are alone you live\nin such a simple way as to surpass your friends and neighbours in\nfrugality and temperance. I leave on one side anger also, though you\noften get carried away by it more than is reasonable, yet at the same\ntime, thanks to your sweet natural temperament, you commonly control\nthe motions of your spirit, and recall the advice of Horace--\n\n    \"Anger's a kind of madness, though not long;\n    Master the passion, since it's very strong;\n    And, if you rule it not, it will rule you,\n    So put the curb on quickly.\"[22]\n\n_Petrarch._ That saying of the poet, and other words of philosophy\nlike it, have helped me a little, I own; but what has helped me above\nall is the thought of the shortness of life. What insensate folly\nto spend in hating and hurting our fellow-men the few days we pass\namong them! Soon enough the last day of all will arrive, which will\nquite extinguish this flame in human breasts and put an end to all\nour hatred, and if we have desired for any of them nothing worse than\ndeath, our evil wish will soon be fulfilled. Why, then, seek to take\none's life or that of others? Why let pass unused the better part of\na time so short? When the days are hardly long enough for honest joys\nof this life, and for meditating on that which is to come, no matter\nwhat economy of time we practise, what good is there in robbing any of\nthem of their right and needful use, and turning them to instruments\nof sorrow and death for ourselves and others? This reflection has\nhelped me, when I found myself under any temptation to anger, not to\nfall utterly under its dominion, or if I fell has helped me quickly to\nrecover; but hitherto I have not been able quite to arm myself at all\npoints from some little gusts of irritation.\n\n_S. Augustine._ As I am not afraid that this wind of anger will cause\nyou to make shipwreck of yourself or others, I agree willingly that\nwithout paying attention to the promises of the Stoics, who set out to\nextirpate root and branch all the maladies of the soul, you content\nyourself with the milder treatment of the Peripatetics. Leaving, then,\non one side for the moment these particular failings, I hasten to treat\nof others more dangerous than these and against which you will need to\nbe on guard with more care.\n\n_Petrarch_. Gracious Heaven, what is yet to come that is more dangerous\nstill?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Well, has the sin of lust never touched you with its\nflames?\n\n_Petrarch_. Yes, indeed, at times so fiercely us to make me mourn\nsorely that I was not born without feelings. I would sooner have been a\nsenseless stone than be tormented by so many stings of the flesh.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Ah, there is that which turns you most aside from the\nthought of things divine. For what does the doctrine of the heavenly\nPlato show but that the soul must separate itself far from the passion\nof the flesh and tread down its imaginings before it can rise pure and\nfree to the contemplation of the mystery of the Divine; for otherwise\nthe thought of its mortality will make it cling to those seducing\ncharms. You know what I mean, and you have learned this truth in\nPlato's writings, to the study of which you said not long ago you had\ngiven yourself up with ardour.\n\n_Petrarch_. Yes, I own I had given myself to studying him with great\nhopefulness and desire, but the novelty of a strange language and the\nsudden departure of my teacher cut short my purpose.[23] For the rest\nthis doctrine of which you speak is very well known to me from your own\nwritings and those of the Platonists.\n\n_S. Augustine._ It matters little from whom you learned the truth,\nthough it is a fact that the authority of a great master will often\nhave a profound influence.\n\n_Petrarch._ Yes, in my own case I must confess I feel profoundly the\ninfluence of a man of whom Cicero in his _Tusculan Orations_ made this\nremark, which has remained graven in the bottom of my heart: \"When\nPlato vouchsafes not to bring forward any proof (you see what deference\nI pay him), his mere authority would make me yield consent.\"[24]\nOften in reflecting on this heavenly genius it has appeared to me an\ninjustice when the disciples of Pythagoras dispense their chief from\nsubmitting proofs, that Plato should be supposed to have less liberty\nthan he. But, not to be carried away from our subject, authority,\nreason and experience alike have for a long time so much commended this\naxiom of Plato to me that I do not believe anything more true or more\ntruly holy could be said by any man. Every time I have raised myself\nup, thanks to the hand of God stretched out to me, I have recognised\nwith infinite joy, beyond belief, who it was that then preserved me\nand who had cast me down in times of old. Now that I am once more\nfallen into my old misery, I feel with a keen sense of bitterness that\nfailing which again has undone me. And this I tell you, that you may\nsee nothing strange in my saying I had put Plato's maxim to the proof.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Indeed, I think it not strange, for I have been witness\nof your conflicts; I have seen you fall and then once again rise up,\nand now that you are down once more I determined from pity to bring you\nmy succour.\n\n_Petrarch._ I am grateful for your compassionate feeling, but of what\navail is any human succour?\n\n_S. Augustine._ It avails nothing, but the succour of God is much every\nway. None can be chaste except God give him the grace of chastity.[25]\nYou must therefore implore this grace from Him above all, with\nhumbleness, and often it may be with tears. He is wont never to deny\nhim who asks as he should.\n\n_Petrarch_. So often have I done it that I fear I am as one too\nimportunate.\n\n_S. Augustine_. But you have not asked with due humbleness or\nsingleness of heart. You have ever kept a corner for your passions\nto creep in; you have always asked that your prayers may be granted\npresently. I speak from experience, for I did likewise in my old life.\nI said, \"Give me chastity, but not now. Put it off a little while; the\ntime will soon come. My life is still in all its vigour; let it follow\nits own course, obey its natural laws; it will feel it more of a shame\nlater, to return to its youthful folly. I will give up this failing\nwhen the course of time itself shall have rendered me less inclined\nthat way, and when satiety will have delivered me from the fear of\ngoing back.\"[26] In talking thus do you not perceive that you prayed\nfor one thing but wished another in your heart?\n\n_Petrarch_. How so?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Because to ask for a thing to-morrow is to put it aside\nfor to-day.\n\n_Petrarch._ With tears have I often asked for it to-day. My hope was\nthat after breaking the chain of my passions and casting away the\nmisery of life, I should escape safe and sound, and after so many\nstorms of vain anxieties, I might swim ashore in some haven of safety;\nbut you see, alas, how many shipwrecks I have suffered among the same\nrocks and shoals, and how I shall still suffer more if I am left to\nmyself.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Trust me, there has always been something wanting in\nyour prayer; otherwise the Supreme Giver would have granted it or, as\nin the case of the Apostle, would have only denied you to make you more\nperfect in virtue and convince you entirely of your own frailty.[27]\n\n_Petrarch._ That is my conviction also; and I will go on praying\nconstantly, unwearied, unashamed, undespairing. The Almighty, taking\npity on my sorrows, will perchance lend an ear to my prayer, sent up\ndaily to His throne, and even as He would not have denied His grace if\nmy prayers had been pure, so He will also purify them.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You are quite right, but redouble your efforts; and, as\nmen wounded and fallen in battle raise themselves on their elbow, so do\nyou keep a look out on all sides for the dangers that beset you, for\nfear that some foe; unseen come near and do you hurt yet more, where\nyou lie on the ground. In the mean time, pray instantly for the aid of\nHim who is able to raise you up again. He will perchance be nearer to\nyou just then when you think Him furthest off. Keep ever in mind that\nsaying of Plato we were speaking of just now, \"Nothing so much hinders\nthe knowledge of the Divine as lust and the burning desire of carnal\npassion.\" Ponder well, therefore, this doctrine; it is the very basis\nof our purpose that we have in hand.\n\n_Petrarch._ To let you see how much I welcome this teaching, I have\ntreasured it with earnest care, not only when it dwells in the court of\nPlato's royal demesne, but also where it lurks hidden in the forests\nof other writers, and I have kept note in my memory of the very place\nwhere it was first perceived by my mind.\n\n_S. Augustine._ I wonder what is your meaning. Do you mind being more\nexplicit?\n\n_Petrarch._ You know Virgil: you remember through what dangers he makes\nhis hero pass in that last awful night of the sack of Troy?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yes, it is a topic repeated over and over again in all\nthe schools. He makes him recount his adventures thus--\n\n    \"What tongue could tell the horrors of that night,\n    Paint all the forms of death, or who have tears\n    Enough to weep so many wretched wights?\n    Hath the great city that so long was queen\n    Fallen at last? Behold in all the streets\n    The bodies of the dead by thousands strewn,\n    And in their homes and on the temple's steps!\n    Yet is there other blood than that of Troy,\n    What time her vanquished heroes gathering up\n    Their quenchless courage smite anon their foes,\n    They, though triumphant, fall. Everywhere grief,\n    Dread everywhere, and in all places Death!\"[28]\n\n_Petrarch._ Now wherever he wandered accompanied by the goddess of\nLove, through crowding foes, through burning fire, he could not\ndiscern, though his eyes were open, the wrath of the angered gods,\nand so long as Venus was speaking to him he only had understanding\nfor things of earth. But as soon as she left him you remember what\nhappened; he immediately beheld the frowning faces of the deities, and\nrecognised what dangers beset him round about.\n\n    \"Then I beheld the awe-inspiring form\n    Of gods in anger for the fall of Troy.\"[29]\n\nFrom which my conclusion is that commerce with Venus takes away the\nvision of the Divine.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Among the clouds themselves you have clearly discerned\nthe light of truth. It is in this way that truth abides in the fictions\nof the poets, and one perceives it shining out through the crevices of\ntheir thought. But, as we shall have to return to this question later\non, let us reserve what we have to say for the end of our discourse.\n\n_Petrarch._ That I may not get lost in tracks unknown to me, may I ask\nwhen you propose to return to this point?\n\n_S. Augustine._ I have not yet probed the deepest wounds of your soul,\nand I have purposely deferred to do so, in order that, coming at the\nend, my counsels may be more deeply graven in your remembrance. In\nanother dialogue we will treat more fully of the subject of the desires\nof the flesh, on which we have just now lightly touched.\n\n_Petrarch._ Go on, then, now as you proposed.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yes, there need be nothing to hinder me, unless you are\nobstinately bent on stopping me.\n\n_Petrarch._ Indeed, nothing will please me better than to banish for\never every cause of dispute from the earth. I have never engaged in\ndisputation, even on things perfectly familiar, without regretting it;\nfor the contentions that arise, even between friends, have a certain\ncharacter of sharpness and hostility contrary to the laws of friendship.\n\nBut pass on to those matters in which you think I shall welcome your\ngood counsel.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You are the victim of a terrible plague of the\nsoul--melancholy; which the moderns call _accidie_, but which in old\ndays used to be called _\u00e6gritudo._\n\n_Petrarch._ The very name of this complaint makes me shudder.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Nor do I wonder, for you have endured its burden long\nenough.\n\n_Petrarch._ Yes, and though in almost all other diseases which torment\nme there is mingled a certain false delight, in this wretched state\neverything is harsh, gloomy, frightful. The way to despair is for ever\nopen, and everything goads one's miserable soul to self-destruction.\nMoreover, while other passions attack me only in bouts, which, though\nfrequent, are but short and for a moment, this one usually has invested\nme so closely that it clings to and tortures me for whole days and\nnights together. In such times I take no pleasure in the light of day,\nI see nothing, I am as one plunged in the darkness of hell itself, and\nseem to endure death in its most cruel form. But what one may call the\nclimax of the misery is, that I so feed upon my tears and sufferings\nwith a morbid attraction that I can only be rescued from it by main\nforce and in despite of myself.\n\n_S. Augustine._ So well do you know your symptoms, so familiar are you\nbecome with their cause, that I beg you will tell me what is it that\ndepresses you most at the present hour? Is it the general course of\nhuman affairs? Is it some physical trouble, or some disgrace of fortune\nin men's eyes?\n\n_Petrarch._ It is no one of these separately. Had I only been\nchallenged to single combat, I would certainly have come off\nvictorious; but now, as it is, I am besieged by a whole host of enemies.\n\n_S. Augustine_. I pray you will tell me fully all that torments you.\n\n_Petrarch._ Every time that fortune pushes me back one step, I stand\nfirm and courageous, recalling to myself that often before I have been\nstruck in the same way and yet have come off conqueror; if, after that,\nshe presently deals me a sterner blow, I begin to stagger somewhat;\nif then she returns to the charge a third and fourth time, driven by\nforce, I retreat, not hurriedly but step by step, to the citadel of\nReason.\n\nIf fortune still lays siege to me there with all her troops, and if,\nto reduce me to surrender, she piles up the sorrows of our human lot,\nthe remembrance of my old miseries and the dread of evils yet to come,\nthen, at lost, hemmed in on all sides, seized with terror at these\nheaped-up calamities, I bemoan my wretched fate, and feel rising in my\nvery soul this bitter disdain of life. Picture to yourself some one\nbeset with countless enemies, with no hope of escape or of pity, with\nno comfort anywhere, with every one and everything against him; his\nfoes bring up their batteries, they mine the very ground beneath his\nfeet, the towers are already falling, the ladders are at the gates, the\ngrappling-hooks are fastened to the walls, the fire is seen crackling\nthrough the roofs, and, at sight of those gleaming swords on every\nside, those fierce faces of his foes, and that utter ruin that is upon\nhim, how should he not be utterly dismayed and overwhelmed, since, even\nif life itself should be left, yet to men not quite bereft of every\nfeeling the loss of liberty alone is a mortal stroke?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Although your confession is a little confused, I\nmake out that your misfortunes all proceed from a single false\nconception which has in the past claimed and in futuro will still claim\ninnumerable victims. You have a bad conceit of yourself.\n\n_Petrarch._ Yes, truly, a very bad one.\n\n_S. Augustine._ And why?\n\n_Petrarch._ Not for one, but a thousand reasons.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You are like people who on the slightest offence rake\nup all the old grounds of quarrel they ever had.\n\n_Petrarch._ In my case there is no wound old enough for it to have\nbeen effaced and forgotten: my sufferings are all quite fresh, and if\nanything by chance were made better through time, Fortune has so soon\nredoubled her strokes that the open wound has never been perfectly\nhealed over. I cannot, moreover, rid myself of that hate and disdain of\nour life which I spoke of. Oppressed with that, I cannot but be grieved\nand sorrowful exceedingly. That you call this grief _accidie_ or\n_\u00e6gritudo_ makes no difference; in substance we mean one and the same\nthing.\n\n_S. Augustine._ As from what I can understand the evil is so\ndeep-seated, it will do no good to heal it slightly, for it will soon\nthrow out more shoots. It must be entirely rooted up. Yet I know not\nwhere to begin, so many complications alarm me. But to make the task of\ndividing the matter easier, I will examine each point in detail. Tell\nme, then, what is it that has hurt you most?\n\n_Petrarch_. Whatever I see, or hear, or feel.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Come, come, does nothing please you?\n\n_Petrarch_. Nothing, or almost nothing.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Would to God that at least the better things in your\nlife might be dear, to you. But tell me what is it that is to you the\nmost displeasing of all? I beg you give me an answer.\n\n_Petrarch._ I have already answered.\n\n_S. Augustine._ It is this melancholy I spoke of which is the true\ncause of all your displeasure with yourself.\n\n_Petrarch._ I am just as displeased with what I see in others as with\nwhat I see in myself.\n\n_S. Augustine._ That too comes from the same source. But to get a\nlittle order into our discourse, does what you see in yourself truly\ndisplease you as much as you say?\n\n_Petrarch._ Stop worrying me with your petty questions, that are more\nthan I know how to reply to.\n\n_S. Augustine._ I see, then, that those things which make many other\npeople envy you are nevertheless in your own eyes of no account at all?\n\n_Petrarch._ Any one who envies a wretch like me must indeed himself be\nwretched.\n\n_S. Augustine._ But now please tell me what is it that most displeases\nyou?\n\n_Petrarch._ I am sure I do not know.\n\n_S. Augustine._ If I guess right will you acknowledge it?\n\n_Petrarch._ Yes, I will, quite freely.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You are vexed with Fortune.\n\n_Petrarch._ And am I not right to hate her? Proud, violent, blind, she\nmakes a mock of mankind.\n\n_S. Augustine._ It is an idle complaint. Let us look now at your own\ntroubles. If I prove you have complained unjustly, will you consent to\nretract?\n\n_Petrarch._ You will find it very hard to convince me. If, however, you\nprove me in the wrong, I will give in.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You find that Fortune is to you too unkind.\n\n_Petrarch_. Not too unkind; too unjust, too proud, too cruel.\n\n_S. Augustine_. The comic poets have more than one comedy called \"The\nGrumbler.\" There are scores of them. And now you are making yourself\none of the crowd. I should rather find you in more select company. But\nas this subject is so very threadbare that no one can add anything\nnew on it, will you allow me to offer you an old remedy for an old\ncomplaint?\n\n_Petrarch_. As you wish.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Well then, has poverty yet made you endure hunger and\nthirst and cold?\n\n_Petrarch_. No, Fortune has not yet brought me to this pass.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yet such is the hard lot of a great many people every\nday of their lives. Is it not?\n\n_Petrarch_. Use some other remedy than this if you can, for this brings\nme no relief. I am not one of those who in their own misfortunes\nrejoice to behold the crowd of other wretched ones who sob around them;\nand not seldom I mourn as much for the griefs of others as for my own.\n\n_S. Augustine_. I wish no man to rejoice in witnessing the misfortunes\nof others, but they ought at any rate to give him some consolation,\nand teach him not to complain of his own lot. All the world cannot\npossibly occupy the first and best place. How could there be any first\nunless there was also a second following after? Only be thankful, you\nmortal men, if you are not reduced to the last of all; and that of so\nmany blows of outrageous Fortune you only bear her milder strokes. For\nthe rest, to those who are doomed to endure the extremes of misery,\none must offer more potent remedies than you have need of whom Fortune\nhas wounded but a little. That which casts men down into these doleful\nmoods is that each one, forgetting his own condition, dreams of the\nhighest place, and, like every one else, as I just now pointed out,\ncannot possibly attain it; then when he fails he is discontented. If\nthey only knew the sorrows that attend on greatness they would recoil\nfrom that which they now pursue. Let me call as witnesses those who by\ndint of toil have reached the pinnacle, and who no sooner have arrived\nthan they forthwith bewail the too easy accomplishment of their wish.\nThis truth should be familiar to every one, and especially to you, to\nwhom long experience has shown that the summit of rank, surrounded as\nit is with trouble and anxieties, is only deserving of pity. It follows\nthat no earthly lot of man is free from complaint, since those who have\nattained what they desire and those who have missed it alike show some\nreason for discontent. The first allege they have been cheated, and the\nsecond that they have suffered neglect.\n\nTake Seneca's advice then, \"When you see how many people are in front\nof you, think also how many are behind. If you would be reconciled\nwith Providence and your own lot in life, think of all those you have\nsurpassed;\" and as the same wise man says in the same place, \"Set a\ngoal to your desires such as you cannot overleap, even if you wish.\"\n\n_Petrarch._ I have long ago set such a goal to my desires, and, unless\nI am mistaken, a very modest one; but in the pushing and shameless\nmanners of my time, what place is left for modesty, which men now call\nslackness or sloth?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Can your peace of mind be disturbed by the opinion of\nthe crowd, whose judgment is never true, who never call anything by its\nright name? But unless my recollection is at fault, you used to look\ndown on their opinion.\n\n_Petrarch._ Never, believe me, did I despise it more than I do now.\nI care as much for what the crowd thinks of me as I care what I am\nthought of by the beasts of the field.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Well, then?\n\n_Petrarch._ What raises my spleen is that having, of all my\ncontemporaries whom I know, the least exalted ambitions, not one\nof them has encountered so many difficulties as I have in the\naccomplishment of my desires. Most assuredly I never aspired to the\nhighest place; I call the spirit of Truth as witness who judges us,\nwho sees all, and who has always read my most secret thoughts. She\nknows very well that whenever after the manner of men I have gone over\nin my mind all the degrees and conditions of our human lot. I have\nnever found in the highest place that tranquillity and serenity of soul\nwhich I place above all other goods; and for that matter, having a\nhorror of a life full of disquiet and care, I have ever chosen, in my\nmodest judgment, some middle position, and given, not lip-service, but\nthe homage of my heart to that truth expressed by Horace--\n\n    \"Whoso with little wealth will live content,\n    Easy and free his days shall all be spent;\n    His well-built house keeps out the winter wind,\n    Too modest to excite an envious mind.\"[30]\n\nAnd I admire the reasons he gives in the same Ode not less than the\nsentiment itself.\n\n    \"The tallest trees most fear the tempest's might,\n    The highest towers come down with most affright,\n    The loftiest hills feel first the thunder smite.\"\n\nAlas! it is just the middle place that it has never been my lot to\nenjoy.\n\n_S. Augustine._ And what if that which you think is a middle position\nis in truth below you? What if as a matter of fact you have for a long\nwhile enjoyed a really middle place, enjoyed it abundantly? Nay, what\nif you have in truth left the middle far behind, and are become to a\ngreat many people a man more to be envied than despised?\n\n_Petrarch._ Well, if they think my lot one to be envied, I think the\ncontrary.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yes, your false opinion is precisely the cause of all\nyour miseries, and especially of this last. As Cicero puts it, \"You\nmust flee Charybdis, with all hands to the oars, and sails as well!\"[31]\n\n_Petrarch._ Whither can I flee? where direct my ship? In a word, what\nam I to think except what I see before my eyes?\n\n_S. Augustine._ You only see from side to side where your view is\nlimited. If you look behind you will discover a countless throng coming\nafter, and that you are somewhat nearer to the front rank than to that\nin the rear, but pride and stubbornness suffer you not to turn your\ngaze behind you.\n\n_Petrarch._ Nevertheless from time to time I have done so, and have\nnoticed many people coming along behind. I have no cause to blush at my\ncondition, but I complain of having so many cares. I deplore, if I may\nyet again make use of a phrase of Horace, that I must live \"only from\nday to day.\"[32] As to this restlessness of which I have suffered more\nthan enough, I gladly subscribe to what the same poet says in the same\nplace.\n\n    \"What prayers are mine? O may I yet possess\n    The goods I have, or, if heaven pleases, less!\n    Let the few years that Fate may grant me still\n    Be all my own, not held at others' will.\"[33]\n\nAlways in a state of suspense, always uncertain of the future,\nFortune's favours have no attraction for me. Up to now, as you see, I\nhave lived always in dependence on others; it is the bitterest cup of\nall. May heaven grant me some peace in what is left of my old age, and\nthat the mariner who has lived so long amid the stormy waves may die in\nport!\n\n_S. Augustine._ So then in this great whirlpool of human affairs, amid\nso many vicissitudes, with the future all dark before you; in a word,\nplaced as you are at the caprice of Fortune, you will be the only one\nof so many millions of mankind who shall live a life exempt from care!\nLook what you are asking for, O mortal man! look what you demand! As\nfor that complaint you have brought forward of never having lived a\nlife of your own, what it really amounts to is not that you have lived\nin poverty, but more or less in subservience. I admit, as you say, that\nit is a thing very troublesome. However, if you look around you will\nfind very few men who have lived a life of their own. Those whom one\ncounts most happy, and for whom numbers of others live their lives,\nbear witness by the constancy of their vigils and their toils that they\nthemselves are living for others. To quote you a striking instance,\nJulius C\u00e6sar, of whom some one has reported this true but arrogant\nsaying, \"The human race only lives for a small number,\"[34] Julius\nC\u00e6sar, after he had subdued the human race to live for himself alone,\ndid himself live for other people. Perhaps you will ask me for whom did\nhe live? and I reply, for those who slew him--for Brutus, Cimber, and\nother traitorous heads of that conspiracy, for whom his inexhaustible\nmunificence proved too small to satisfy their rapacity.\n\n_Petrarch_. I must admit you have brought me to my senses, and I will\nnever any more complain either of my obligations to others or of my\npoverty.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Complain rather of your want of wisdom, for it is this\nalone that can obtain for you liberty and true riches. For the rest,\nthe man who quietly endures to go without the cause of those good\neffects, and then makes complaint of not having them, cannot truly be\nsaid to have any intelligent understanding of either the cause or the\neffects. But now tell me what is it that makes you suffer, apart from\nwhat we have been speaking of? Is it any weakness of health or any\nsecret trouble?\n\n_Petrarch_. I confess that my body has always been a burden every time\nI think of myself; but when I cast my eyes on the unwieldiness of other\npeople's bodies, I acknowledge that I have a fairly obedient slave. I\nwould to Heaven I could say as much of my soul, but I am afraid that in\nit there is what is more than a match for me.\n\n_S. Augustine_. May it please God to bring that also under the rule of\nreason. But to come back to your body, of what do you complain?\n\n_Petrarch._ Of that of which most other people also complain. I charge\nit with being mortal, with implicating me in its sufferings, loading\nme with its burdens, asking me to sleep when my soul is awake, and\nsubjecting me to other human necessities which it would be tedious to\ngo through.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Calm yourself, I entreat you, and remember you are a\nman. Presently your agitation will cease. If any other thing troubles\nyou, tell me.\n\n_Petrarch._ Have you never heard how cruelly Fortune used me? This\nstepdame, who in a single day with her ruthless hand laid low all my\nhopes, all my resources, my family and home?[35]\n\n_S. Augustine._ I see your tears are running down, and I pass on. The\npresent is not the time for instruction, but only for giving warning;\nlet, then, this simple one suffice. If you consider, in truth, not the\ndisasters of private families only, but the ruins also of empires from\nthe beginning of history, with which; you are so well acquainted; and\nif you call to mind the tragedies you have read, you will not perhaps\nbe so sorely offended when you see your own humble roof brought to\nnought along with so many palaces of kings. Now pray go on, for these\nfew warning words will open to you a field for long meditation.\n\n_Petrarch._ Who shall find words to utter my daily disgust for this\nplace where I live, in the most melancholy and disorderly of towns,[36]\nthe narrow and obscure sink of the earth, where all the filth of the\nworld is collected? What brush could depict the nauseating spectacle\n--streets full of disease and infection, dirty pigs and snarling\ndogs, the noise of cart-wheels grinding against the walls, four-horse\nchariots coming dashing down at every cross-road, the motley crew\nof people, swarms of vile beggars side by side with the flaunting\nluxury of the wealthy, the one crushed down in sordid misery, the\nothers debauched with pleasure and riot; and then the medley of\ncharacters--such diverse r\u00f4les in life--the endless clamour of their\nconfused voices, as the passers-by jostle one another in the streets?\n\nAll this destroys the soul accustomed to any better kind of life,\nbanishes all serenity from a generous heart, and quite upsets the\nstudent's habit of mind. So my prayers to God are earnest as well as\nfrequent that he would save my barque from imminent wreck, for whenever\nI look around I seem to myself to be going down alive into the pit.\n\n\"Now,\" I say in mockery, \"now betake yourself to noble thoughts \"--\n\n    \"Now go and meditate the tuneful lyre.\"[37]\n\nS. _Augustine._ That line of Horace makes me realise what most afflicts\nyou. You lament having lighted on a place so unfavourable for study,\nfor as the same poet says--\n\n    \"Bards fly from town, and haunt the wood and glade.\"[38]\n\nAnd you yourself have expressed the same truth in other words--\n\n    \"The leafy forests charm the sacred Muse,\n    And bards the noisy life of towns refuse.\"[39]\n\nIf, however, the tumult of your mind within should once learn to calm\nitself down, believe me this din and bustle around you, though it will\nstrike upon your senses, will not touch your soul. Not to repeat what\nyou have been long well aware of, you have Seneca's letter[40] on this\nsubject, and it is very much to the point. You have your own work also\non \"Tranquillity of Soul\"; you have beside, for combating this mental\nmalady, an excellent book of Cicero's which sums up the discussions\nof the third day in his _Tusculan Orations_, and is dedicated to\nBrutus.[41]\n\n_Petrarch._ You know I have read all that work and with great attention.\n\n_S. Augustine_. And have you got no help from it?\n\n_Petrarch._ Well, yes, at the time of reading, much help; but no sooner\nis the book from my hands than all my feeling for it vanishes.\n\n_S. Augustine._ This way of reading is become common now; there is such\na mob of lettered men, a detestable herd, who have spread themselves\neverywhere and make long discussions in the schools on the art of life,\nwhich they put in practice little enough. But if you would only make\nnotes of the chief points in what you read you would then gather the\nfruit of your reading.\n\n_Petrarch._ What kind of notes?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Whenever you read a book and meet with any wholesome\nmaxims by which you feel your spirit stirred or enthralled, do not\ntrust merely to the resources of your wits, but make a point of\nlearning them by heart and making them quite familiar by meditating\non them, as the doctors do with their experiments, so that no matter\nwhen or where some urgent case of illness arises, you have the remedy\nwritten, so to speak, in your head. For in the maladies of the soul, as\nin those of the body, there are some in which delay is fatal, so that\nif you defer the remedy you take away all hope of a cure. Who is not\naware, for instance, that certain impulses of the soul are so swift and\nstrong that, unless reason checks the passion from which they arise,\nthey whelm in destruction the soul and body and the whole man, so that\na tardy remedy is a useless one? Anger, in my judgment, is a case in\npoint. It is not for nothing that, by those who have divided the soul\ninto three parts, anger has been placed below the seat of reason, and\nreason set in the head of man as in a citadel, anger in the heart, and\ndesire lower still in the loins. They wished to show that reason was\never ready to repress instantly the violent outbreaks of the passions\nbeneath her, and was empowered in some way from her lofty estate to\nsound the retreat. As this check was more necessary in the case of\nanger, it has been placed directly under reason's control.\n\n_Petrarch._ Yes, and rightly; and to show you I have found this truth\nnot only in the works of Philosophers but also in the Poets, by that\nfury of winds that Virgil describes hidden in deep caves, by his\nmountains piled up, and by his King \u00c6olus sitting above, who rules them\nwith his power, I have often thought he may have meant to denote anger\nand the other passions of the soul which seethe at the bottom of our\nheart, and which, unless controlled by the curb of reason, would in\ntheir furious haste, as he says, drag us in their train and sweep us\nover sea and land and the very sky itself.[42] In effect, he has given\nus to understand he means by the earth our bodily frame; by the sea,\nthe water through which it lives; and by the depths of the sky, the\nsoul that has its dwelling in a place remote, and of which elsewhere\nhe says that its essence is formed out of a divine fire.[43] It is\nas though he said that these passions will hurl body, soul, and man\nhimself into the abyss. On the other side, these mountains and this\nKing sitting on high--what can they mean but the head placed on high\nwhere reason is enthroned? These are Virgil's words--\n\n    \"There, in a cave profound, King \u00c6olus\n    Holds in the tempests and the noisy wind,\n    Which there he prisons fast. Those angry thralls\n    Rage at their barrier, and the mountain side\n    Roars with their dreadful noise, but he on top\n    Sits high enthroned, his sceptre in his hand.\"[44]\n\nSo writes the Poet. As I carefully study every word, I have heard with\nmy ears the fury, the rage, the roar of the winds; I have heard the\ntrembling of the mountain and the din. Notice how well it all applies\nto the tempest of anger. And, on the other hand, I have heard the\nKing, sitting on his high place, his sceptre grasped in his hand,\nsubduing, binding in chains, and imprisoning those rebel blasts,--who\ncan doubt that with equal appropriateness this applies to the Reason?\nHowever, lest any one should miss the truth that all this refers to the\nsoul and the wrath that vexes it, you see he adds the line--\n\n\"And calms their passion and allays their wrath.\"[45]\n\n_S. Augustine_. I cannot but applaud that meaning which I understand\nyou find hidden in the poet's story, familiar as it is to you; for\nwhether Virgil had this in mind when writing, or whether without any\nsuch idea he only meant to depict a storm at sea and nothing else, what\nyou have said about the rush of anger and the authority of reason seems\nto me expressed with equal wit and truth.\n\nBut to resume the thread of our discourse, take notice in your reading\nif you find anything dealing with anger or other passions of the soul,\nand especially with this plague of melancholy, of which we have been\nspeaking at some length. When you come to any passages that seem to you\nuseful, put marks against them, which may serve as hooks to hold them\nfast in your remembrance, lest otherwise they might be taking wings to\nflee away.\n\nBy this contrivance you will be able to stand firm against all the\npassions, and not least against sorrow of heart, which, like some\npestilential cloud utterly destroys the seeds of virtue and all the\nfruits of understanding, and is, in the elegant phrase of Cicero--\n\n    \"The fount and head of all miseries.\"[46]\n\nAssuredly if you look carefully at the lives of others as well as your\nown, and reflect that there is hardly a man without many causes of\ngrief in his life, and if you except that one just and salutary ground,\nthe recollection of your own sins--always supposing it is not suffered\nto drive you to despair--then you will come to acknowledge that Heaven\nhas assigned to you many gifts that are for you a ground of consolation\nand joy, side by side with that multitude of things of which you murmur\nand complain.\n\nAs for your complaint that you have not had any life of your own and\nthe vexation you feel in the tumultuous life of cities, you will find\nno small consolation in reflecting that the same complaint has been\nmade by greater men than yourself, and that if you have of your own\nfree will fallen into this labyrinth, so you can of your own free will\nmake your escape. If not, yet in time your ears will grow so used to\nthe noise of the crowd that it will seem to you as pleasant as the\nmurmur of a falling stream. Or, as I have already hinted, you will\nfind the same result easily if you will but first calm down the tumult\nof your imagination, for a soul serene and tranquil in itself fears not\nthe coming of any shadow from without and is deaf to all the thunder of\nthe world.\n\nAnd so, like a man on dry land and out of danger, you will look upon\nthe shipwreck of others, and from your quiet haven hear the cries of\nthose wrestling, with the waves, and though you will be moved with\ntender compassion by that sight, yet even that will be the measure\nalso of your own thankfulness and joy at being in safety. And ere long\nI am sure you will banish and drive away all the melancholy that has\noppressed your soul.\n\n_Petrarch_. Although not a few things rather give me a twinge, and\nespecially your notion that it is quite easy and depends only on\nmyself to get away from towns, yet, as you have on many points got the\nbetter of me in reasoning, I will here lay down my arms ere I am quite\noverthrown.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Do you feel able, then, now to cast off your sorrow and\nbe more reconciled to your fortune?\n\n_Petrarch_. Yes, I am able, supposing always that there is any such\nthing as fortune at all. For I notice the two Greek and Latin Poets\nare so little of one mind on this point that the one has not deigned\nto mention the word even once in all his works, whereas the other\nmentions the name of fortune often and even reckons her Almighty.[47]\nAnd this opinion is shared by a celebrated historian and famous\norator. Sallust has said of fortune that \"all things are under her\ndominion.\"[48] And Cicero has not scrupled to affirm that \"she is the\nmistress; of human affairs.\"[49] For myself, perhaps I will declare\nwhat I think on the subject at some other time and place. But so far as\nconcerns the matter of our discussion, your admonitions have been of\nsuch service to me, that when I compare my lot with that of most other\nmen it no longer seems so unhappy to me as once it did.\n\n_S. Augustine_. I am glad indeed to have been of any service to you,\nand my desire is to do everything I can. But as our converse to-day has\nlasted a long while, are you willing that we should defer the rest for\na third day, when we will bring it to a conclusion?\n\n_Petrarch._ With my whole heart I adore the very number three\nitself, not so much because the three Graces are contained in it,\nas because it is held to be nearest of kin to the Deity; which is\nnot only the persuasion of yourself and other professors of the true\nfaith, who place all your faith in the Trinity, but also that of\nGentile philosophers who have a traditional use of the same number in\nworshipping their own deities. And my beloved Virgil seems to have\nbeen conversant with this when he wrote--\n\n    \"Uneven number to the gods is dear.\"[50]\n\nFor what goes before makes it clear that three is the number to which\nhe alludes. I will therefore presently await from your hands the third\npart of this your threefold gift.\n\n\n[1] _\u00c6neid_, viii. 385-86.\n\n[2] _De bonis et malis_, i. 3.\n\n[3] _Tusculan Orations_, ii. 15. But Cicero's words are more guarded,\n\"_inops interdum._\"\n\n[4] _Declamations_, i.\n\n[5] Juvenal, _Sat._ x. 172-73.\n\n[6] Suetonius Domitian, xviii.\n\n[7] Seneca, _Epist.,_ 65.\n\n[8] Scipio is speaking of the souls admitted to heaven, freed from the\nbody. _Africa,_ i. 329.\n\n[9] Juvenal, i. 161 (not correctly quoted).\n\n[10] Terence L'Audrienne, 68.\n\n[11] Horace, _Odes_, i. 4, 15.\n\n[12] Horace, _Epist._ i. 18, 109. Conington's translation.\n\n[13] Horace, _Odes_, I. xxxi. 19, 20.\n\n[14] Juvenal, _Sat.,_ xiv. 135.\n\n[15] _\u00c6neid,_ iii. 629.\n\n[16] _Georgics,_ iv. 132.\n\n[17] _Georgics_, i. 106.\n\n[18] Juvenal, vi. 361.\n\n[19] Seneca, _Epist.,_ xxv.\n\n[20] Horace, _Epist.,_ i. 2, 56.\n\n[21] _De Senectute,_ xi.\n\n[22] Horace, _Epist._ i. 2, 62-3.\n\n[23] Petrarch refers to a Calabrian monk who had begun giving him\nlessons in Greek, but left him on being appointed to a bishopric.\n\n[24] _Tusculan Orations,_ i. 21.\n\n[25] Wisdom, viii. 21.\n\n[26] _Cor_. xii. 9.\n\n[27] _Confessions_, viii. 7.\n\n[28] _\u00c6neid_, ii. 361-9.\n\n[29] _\u00c6neid_, ii. 622.\n\n[30] Horace, _Odes,_ xi. 10, 6-8.\n\n[31] _Tusculan Orations,_ iii. 11.\n\n[32] Horace, _Epist.,_ i. 18, 110.\n\n[33] Horace, _Epist.,_ i. 18, 106-8.\n\n[34] Lucian, 343.\n\n[35] He refers to the fact that his father was banished from Florence,\nand he himself was born in exile at Arezzo.\n\n[36] Avignon.\n\n[37] Horace, _Epist._, ii. 2, 76.\n\n[38] _Epist.,_ ii. 2, 77 (Conington).\n\n[39] Petrarch's _Epist.,_ ii. 2, 77.\n\n[40] Seneca's _Letters,_ lvi.\n\n[41] _Tusculan Orations,_ cxi.\n\n[42] _\u00c6neid,_ i. 58.\n\n[43] _Ibid.,_ vi. 730.\n\n[44] _Ibid.,_ i. 52-57.\n\n[45] _\u00c6neid_ i. 57.\n\n[46] _Tusculan Orations_, iv. 38.\n\n[47] _\u00c6neid,_ viii. 334.\n\n[48] _Pro Marcello,_ ii.\n\n[49] _Catilina_, viii.\n\n[50] _Eclogue_, vii. 75.\n\n\n\n\nDIALOGUE THE THIRD\n\n\nPETRARCH--S. AUGUSTINE\n\n\n_S. Augustine_. Supposing that hitherto you have found some good from\nmy words, I beg and implore you in what I have still to say to lend\nme a ready ear, and to put aside altogether the spirit of dispute and\ncontradiction.\n\n_Petrarch._ You may be sure I will so do, for I feel that, owing to\nyour good counsels, I have been set free from a large part of my\ndistress, and am therefore the better disposed to listen to what you\nmay still have to say.\n\n_S. Augustine._ I have not at all as yet touched upon the deep-seated\nwounds which are within, and I rather dread the task when I remember\nwhat debate and murmuring were caused by even the lightest allusion\nto them. But, on the other hand, I am not without hope that when you\nhave rallied your strength, your spirit will more firmly bear without\nflinching a severer handling of the trouble.\n\n_Petrarch._ Have no fear on that score. By this time I am used to\nhearing the name of my maladies and to bearing the touch of the\nsurgeon's hand.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Well, you are still held in bondage, on your right\nhand and on your left, by two strong chains which will not suffer\nyou to turn your thoughts to meditate on life or on death. I have\nalways dreaded these might bring you to destruction; and I am not yet\nat all reassured, and I shall only be so when I have seen you break\nand cast away your bonds and come forth perfectly free. And this I\nthink possible but difficult enough to achieve, and that until it is\naccomplished I shall only be moving in a futile round. They say that\nto break a diamond one must use the blood of a goat, and in the same\nway to soften the hardness of these kinds of passions, this blood is\nof strange efficacy. No sooner has it touched even the hardest heart\nbut it breaks and penetrates it. But I will tell you what my fear is.\nIn this matter I must have your own full assent as we proceed, and I\nam haunted by the fear you will not be able, or perhaps I should say\nwill prove unwilling, to give it. I greatly dread lest the glittering\nbrilliance of your chains may dazzle your eyes and hinder you, and make\nyou like the miser bound in prison with fetters of gold, who wished\ngreatly to be set free but was not willing to break his chains.\n\nNow such are the conditions of your own bondage that you can only gain\nyour freedom by breaking your chains.\n\n_Petrarch_. Alas, alas, I am more wretched than I thought. Do you\nmean to tell me my soul is still bound by two chains of which I am\nunconscious?\n\n_S. Augustine_. All the same they are plain enough to see; but, dazzled\nby their beauty, you think they are not fetters but treasures; and, to\nkeep to the same figure, you are like some one who, with hands and feet\nfast bound in shackles of gold, should look at them with delight and\nnot see at all that they are shackles. Yes, you yourself with blinded\neyes keep looking at your bonds; but, oh strange delusion! you are\ncharmed with the very chains that are dragging you to your death, and,\nwhat is most sad of all, you glory in them!\n\n_Petrarch._ What may these chains be of which you speak?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Love and glory.\n\n_Petrarch._ Great Heavens! what is this I hear? You call these things\nchains? And you would break them from me, if I would let you?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yes, I mean to try, but I doubt if I shall succeed.\nAll the other things that held you back were less strong and also\nless pleasant to you, so you helped me to break them. These, on the\ncontrary, are pleasant though they injure, and they deceive you by a\nfalse show of beauty; so they will demand greater efforts, for you will\nmake resistance as if I were wishing to rob you of some great good.\nNevertheless I mean to try.\n\n_Petrarch._ Pray what have I done that you should desire to relieve\nme of the finest passions of my nature, and condemn to everlasting\ndarkness the clearest faculties of my soul?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Ah, unhappy man, have you forgotten quite this axiom of\nphilosophy, that the climax of all evils is when a man, rooted in some\nfalse opinion, by degrees grows fatally persuaded that such and such a\ncourse is right?\n\n_Petrarch._ I have by no means forgotten that axiom, but it has nothing\nto do with the subject, for why in the world should I not think that\nthe course which I indicated is right? No, I never have thought and\nI never shall think any truth more indisputable than that these two\npassions, which you cast at me as a reproach, are the very noblest of\nall.\n\n_Augustine._ Let us take them separately for the present, while I\nendeavour to find the remedies, so that I may not blunt the edge of my\nweapon by striking first at one and then the other indiscriminately.\nTell me then, since we have first mentioned love, do you or do you not\nhold it to be the height of all madness?\n\n_Petrarch._ To tell you the whole truth as I conceive it, I judge that\nlove may be either described as the vilest passion or the noblest\naction of the soul.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Do you mind giving me some example to confirm the view\nyou have put forward?\n\n_Petrarch._ If my passion is for some low woman of ill fame, my love\nis the height of folly. But if, fascinated by one who is the image of\nvirtue, I devote myself to love and honour her, what have you to say\nto that? Do you put no difference between things so entirely opposed?\nDo you wish to banish all remains of honour from the case? To tell you\nmy real feeling, just as I regard the first kind of love as a heavy\nand ill-starred burden on the soul, so of the second I think there is\nhardly any greater blessing to it; if it so happen that you hold an\nopposite view, let each one follow his own feeling, for, as you are\nwell aware, truth is a large field and every man should have freedom to\njudge for himself.\n\n_S. Augustine_. In matters directly contradictory opinions also may be\ndiverse. But truth itself is one and always the same.\n\n_Petrarch_. I admit that is so. But what makes us go wrong is that we\nbind ourselves obstinately to old opinions, and will not easily part\nfrom them.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Heaven grant you may think as wisely on the whole\nmatter of love as you do on this point.\n\n_Petrarch_. To speak briefly, I think I am so certainly right that\nthose who think the opposite I believe to be quite out of their senses.\n\n_S. Augustine_. I should certainly maintain that to take for truth\nsome ancient falsehood, and to take as falsehood some newly-discovered\ntruth, as though all authority for truth were a matter of time, is the\nvery climax of madness.\n\n_Petrarch._ You are wasting your labour. Whoever asserts that view of\nlove I shall never believe him. And I will rest on Cicero's saying, \"If\nI err here I err willingly, and I shall never consent to part with this\nerror as long as I live.\"[1]\n\n_S. Augustine._ When Cicero uses those words he is speaking of the\nimmortality of the soul, and referring to it as the noblest of\nconceptions, and declaring his own belief in it to be so firm that he\nwould not endure to listen to any one who maintained the contrary. You,\nhowever, to urge the ignoblest and most false of all opinions, make\nuse of those same terms. Unquestionably, even if the soul were mortal,\nit would be better to think it immortal. For error though it were, yet\nwould it inspire the love of virtue, and that is a thing to be desired\nfor its own sake alone, even if all hope of future reward were taken\naway from us; and as to which the desire for it will certainly become\nweaker, as men come to think the soul a mortal thing; and, on the\nother hand, the promise of a life to come, even if it were to turn out\na delusion, is none the less a powerful incentive to the soul, human\nnature being what it is.\n\nBut you see what will be the consequences of that error in which you\nstand; it will precipitate your soul into all manner of folly, when\nshame, and fear, even reason, that now acts as some check on passion,\nand the knowledge of truth itself shall all have disappeared.\n\n_Petrarch._ I have already told you you were wasting your time. My own\nremembrance tells mo that I have never loved anything to be ashamed of,\nand, on the contrary, have ever loved what is most noble.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Even noble things may be loved in a shameful way; it is\nbeyond doubt.\n\n_Petrarch._ Neither in the object of love nor in the manner of loving\nam I guilty. So you may as well give up tormenting me.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Well, well! Do you wish, like those with fever on the\nbrain, to die laughing and joking? Or will you rather take some remedy\nfor your mind so pitiable and so far from its true health?\n\n_Petrarch._ I will not refuse a remedy if you will prove to me that\nI am ill, but, when a man is quite well, to begin taking remedies is\noften fatal.\n\n_S. Augustine._ As soon as you have reached the stage of convalescence\nyou will perceive quickly enough, as men generally do, that you have\nbeen seriously ill.\n\n_Petrarch._ After all, I cannot but show deference to one who often in\nthe past, and especially in these last two days, has given me proof how\ngood were his counsels. So please go on.\n\n_S. Augustine._ In the first place I ask you to forgive me if,\ncompelled by the subject, I have to deal severely with what has been\nso delightful to you. For I cannot but foresee that the truth will\nsound bitterly in your ears.\n\n_Petrarch_. Just one word before you begin. Do you thoroughly know the\nmatter you are to touch upon?\n\n_S. Augustine._ I have gone into it all carefully beforehand. It is\nabout a mortal woman, in admiring and celebrating whom you have, alas!\nspent a large part of your life. That a mind like yours should have\nfelt such an insensate passion and for so long a time does greatly\nastonish me.\n\n_Petrarch_. Spare your reproaches, I pray. Thais and Livia were both\nmortal women; but you should be aware that she of whom you have set\nout to speak is a mind that has no care for things of earth, and burns\nonly with the love of what is heavenly. In whose face, unless truth is\nan empty word, a certain divine loveliness shines out; whose character\nis the image and picture of perfect honour; whose voice and the living\nexpression of whose eyes has nothing mortal in it; whose very form\nand motion is not as that of others. Consider this again and again, I\nentreat you, and I trust you may have understanding in what words to\nspeak.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Ah! out of all reason have you grown! Have you then\nfor sixteen long years been feeding: with false joys this flame of\nyour heart? Of a truth not longer did Italy once suffer the assaults\nof her most famous enemy, the great Hannibal; nor did she then endure\nmore frequent onsets of her would-be lover, nor was consumed with more\nfurious fires. You to-day carry within you as hot a flame of passion,\nyou endure as fierce stings. Yet was there found one who forced him to\nretreat and, though late, to take his leave! But who shall expel this\ninvader from your soul if you yourself forbid him to depart; if you of\nyour own will invite him to stay long with you; if you, unhappy as you\nare, delight in your own calamity? Far other will be your thoughts when\nthe fatal day shall come that will close for ever those eyes that are\nnow so pleasing to you to look upon; when you shall see that face and\nthose pale limbs changed by death; then you will be filled with shame\nto have so knit your mortal affections to a perishing body such as\nthis, and what now you so obstinately maintain you will then blush to\nremember.\n\n_Petrarch_. Heaven forbid any such misery. I shall not see your threats\nfulfilled.\n\n_S. Augustine_. They will inevitably come to pass.\n\n_Petrarch_. I know it. But the stars in their courses will not so fight\nagainst me as to prevent the order of Nature by hastening her death\nlike that. First came I into this world and I shall be first to depart.\n\n_S. Augustine._ I think you will not have forgotten that time when you\nfeared the contrary event, and made a song of your beloved as if she\nwere presently to die, a song full of moving sorrow.\n\n_Petrarch._ Certainly I remember very well, but the thought that filled\nme then with grief, and the memory of which makes me shiver, was a\njealous indignation at the bare possibility of my outliving her who is\nthe best part of my life and whose presence makes all its sweetness.\nFor that is the motive of that song; I remember it well, and how I was\novercome with tears. Its spirit is still with me, if with you perchance\nare the words.\n\n_S. Augustine._ I was not complaining how many tears the fear of\nher death made you shed, nor of how much grief you felt. I was only\nconcerned that you should realise how this fear of yours in the past\nmay certainly return; and more easily, in that every day is a step\nnearer to death, and that that fair form, worn by sicknesses and the\nbearing of many children, has already lost much of its first strength.\n\n_Petrarch._ I also am borne down with cares and am worn with age, and\nin that onward path towards death I have outrun her whom I love.\n\n_S. Augustine._ What folly it is to calculate the order of death by\nthat of birth! For what are those sad lamentations of the old but\nbecause of the early deaths of their young children? What is it that\nyonder aged nurse is grieving over but that she sees the loss of her\nlittle nursling--\n\n                                 \"Whom some dark day\n    Has stripped of his sweet life; and cruel fate\n    Snatched from his mother's breast and covered him\n    In a too early grave.\"[2]\n\nIn your own case the small number of years by which you have preceded\nher gives you a very uncertain hope that you will be gone before the\nfire of your passion shall be extinguished; and yet you indulge the\nfiction that this order of Nature is unchangeable.\n\n_Petrarch_. Not exactly unchangeable, but I pray without ceasing that\nit may not be changed, and whenever I think of death I remember Ovid's\nline--\n\n    \"Late may her time arrive, and after mine.\"[3]\n\n_S. Augustine._ I can listen to these trifles no more; but since you\nnow admit that she may possibly die before you, I ask what should you\nsay if she really were dead?\n\n_Petrarch_. What should I say but that such a calamity would be the\nclimax of all my miseries? Yet I should try and comfort myself with\nwhat was past. But may the winds bear away the words from our lips and\nthe hurricane scatter such an omen to the ends of the earth!\n\n_S. Augustine._ Ah, blindfold one! you see not yet what foolishness\nit is so to subject your soul to things of earth, that kindle in it\nthe flames of desire, that have no power to give it rest, that cannot\nendure; and, while promising to charm you with their sweetness, torment\nyou with perpetual agitations.\n\n_Petrarch_. If you have any more effectual remedy, I beg you will point\nit out. You will never frighten me with talk like this; for I am not,\nas you suppose, infatuated with any creature that is mortal. You might\nhave known that I have loved her physical charm loss than her soul,\nthat what has captivated me has been a life above that of ordinary\nlives, the witnessing of which has shown me how the blessed live above.\n\nTherefore, since you inquire of me (and the mere question is a torture\nto listen to) what I should do supposing she were to leave me and be\nthe first to die--well, I should try and console myself in sorrow with\nL\u00e6lius, the wisest of the Romans. With him I should say, \"It is her\ngoodness that I loved and that is not dead;\" and I would say to myself\nthose other words that he pronounced after the death of him for whom he\nhad conceived an affection surpassing all common affection.[4]\n\n_S. Augustine._ You retire to Error's inaccessible fastness, and it\nwill not be easy to dislodge you. But as I notice you are inclined\nto listen much more patiently to the truth about yourself and her,\nsing the praises of your darling lady as much as you will, and I will\ngainsay nothing. Were she a queen, a saint--\n\n      \"A very goddess, or to Apollo's self\n    Own sister, or a mother of the nymphs,\"[5]\n\nyet all her excellence will in nowise excuse your error.\n\n_Petrarch_. Let us see what fresh quarrel you seek with me?\n\n_S. Augustine._ It is unquestionably true that oftentimes the loveliest\nthings are loved in a shameful way.\n\n_Petrarch._ I have already met that insinuation on a previous occasion.\nIf any one could see the image of the love that reigns in my heart, he\nwould recognise that there is no difference between it and that face\nthat I have praised indeed much, but less by far than it deserves to be\npraised. I call to witness the spirit of Truth in whose presence we are\nspeaking when I assert that in my love there has never been anything\ndishonourable, never anything of the flesh, never anything that any\nman could blame unless it were its mere intensity. And if you add that\neven so it never passed the line of right, I think a fairer thing could\nnever be conceived.\n\n_S. Augustine._ I might reply to you with a word of Cicero and tell\nyou, \"You are talking of putting boundary lines in vice itself.\"[6]\n\n_Petrarch_. Not in vice, but in love.\n\n_S. Augustine_. But in that very passage he was speaking of love. Do\nyou remember where it occurs?\n\n_Petrarch._ Do I remember indeed? Of course I have read it in the\n_Tusculans_. But he was speaking of men's common love; mine is one by\nitself.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Other people, I fancy, might say the same of theirs;\nfor true it is that in all the passions, and most of all in this, every\nman interprets his own case favourably, and there is point in the verse\nthough from a common poet--\n\n    \"To every man his lady,\n       Then one to me assign;\n     To every man his love affairs,\n       And so let me have mine!\"[7]\n\n_Petrarch._ Would you like, if you have time, to hear me tell you a few\nof those many charms of hers that would strike you with astonishment\nand admiration?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Do you think I am ignorant of all\n\n    \"Those pleasant dreams that lovers use to weave\"?\n\nEvery schoolboy knows the line, but I confess I am ashamed to hear such\nsilliness from the lips of one whose words and thoughts should seek a\nhigher range.\n\n_Petrarch._ One thing I will not keep silence on,--call it silliness,\ncall it gratitude, as you please,--namely, that to her I owe whatever I\nam, and I should never have attained such little renown and glory as I\nhave unless she by the power of this love had quickened into life the\nfeeble germ of virtue that Nature had sown in my heart. It was she who\nturned my youthful soul away from all that was base, who drew me as it\nwere by a grappling chain, and forced me to look upwards. Why should\nyou not believe it? It is a sure truth that by love we grow like what\nwe love. Now there is no backbiter alive, let his tongue be as sharp\nas it may, that has ventured to touch her good name, or dared to say\nhe had seen a single fault, I will not say in her conduct, but even in\nany one of her gestures or words. Moreover, those whisperers who leave\nno one's reputation untouched if they can help it, have been obliged in\nher, case to utter only reverence and respect.\n\nIt is no wonder, then, if such a glory as hers should have fostered\nin my heart the longing for more conspicuous glory, and should have\nsweetened those hard toils which I had to endure if I would attain\nthat which I desired. What were all the wishes of my youth but solely\nto please her who above all others had pleased me? And you are not\nignorant that to gain my end I scorned delights a thousand times, I\ngave myself before my time to labour and to cares without number; and\nnow you bid me forget or diminish somewhat of my love for her who first\ntaught me how to escape the vulgar crowd, who guided all my steps,\nspurred on my lagging mind, and wakened into life my drowsy spirit.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Poor man! you would have done better to be silent than\nto speak, although even if you had been silent I should have discerned\nwhat you are within. But such stout words as these stir my indignation\nand anger.\n\n_Petrarch._ I wonder why?\n\n_S. Augustine._ To have a false opinion shows ignorance, but to keep on\nboldly proclaiming it shows pride as well as ignorance.\n\n_Petrarch_. Suppose you try and prove that what I think and say is\nfalse.\n\n_S. Augustine._ It is all false; and, first, what you say as to owing\nall you are to her. If you mean that she has made you what you are,\nthere you certainly lie; but if you were to say that it is she. who\nhas prevented you being any more than you are, you would speak the\ntruth. O what long contention would you have been spared if by the\ncharm of her beauty she had not held you back. What you are you owe to\nthe bounty of Nature; what you might have been she has quite cut off,\nor rather let me say you yourself have cut it off, for she indeed is\ninnocent. That beauty which seemed so charming and so sweet, through\nthe burning flame of your desire, through the continual rain of your\ntears, has done away all that harvest that should have grown from the\nseeds of virtue in your soul. It is a false boast of yours that she has\nheld you back from base things; from some perhaps she may, but only\nto plunge you into evils worse still. For if one leads you from some\nmiry path to bring you to a precipice, or in lancing some small abscess\ncuts your throat, he deserves not the name of deliverer but assassin.\nLikewise she whom you hold up as your guide, though she drew you away\nfrom some base courses, has none the less overwhelmed you in a deep\ngulf of splendid ruin. As for her having taught you to look upwards and\nseparate yourself from the vulgar crowd, what else is it than to say\nby sitting at her feet you became so infatuated with the charm of her\nabove as to studiously neglect everything else?\n\nAnd in the common intercourse of human life what can be more injurious\nthan that? when you say she has involved you in toils without number,\nthere indeed you speak truth. But what great gain is there in that?\nWhen there are such varied labours that a man is perforce obliged to\nengage in, what madness is it of one's own accord to go after fresh\nones! As for your boasting that it is she who has made you thirst for\nglory, I pity your delusion, for I will prove to you that of all the\nburdens of your soul there is none more fatal than this. But the time\nfor this is not yet come.\n\n_Petrarch_. I believe the readiest of warriors first threatens and\nthen strikes. I seem, however, to find threat and wound together. And\nalready I begin to stagger.\n\n_S. Augustine_. How much more will you stagger when I deliver my\nsharpest thrust of all? Forsooth that woman to whom you profess you owe\neverything, she, even she, has been your ruin.\n\n_Petrarch._ Good Heavens! How do you think you will persuade me of that?\n\n_S. Augustine._ She has detached your mind from the love of heavenly\nthings and has inclined your heart to love the creature more than the\nCreator: and that one path alone leads, sooner than any other, to death.\n\n_Petrarch._ I pray you make no rash judgment. The love which I feel for\nher has most certainly led me to love God.\n\n_S. Augustine._ But it has inverted the true order.\n\n_Petrarch._ How so?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Because 'every creature' should be dear to us because\nof our love for the Creator. But in your case, on the contrary, held\ncaptive by the charm of the creature, you have not loved the Creator as\nyou ought. You have admired the Divine Artificer as though in all His\nworks He had made nothing fairer than the object of your love, although\nin truth the beauty of the body should be reckoned last of all.\n\n_Petrarch._ I call Truth to witness as she stands here between us,\nand I take my conscience to witness also, as I said before, that the\nbody. of my lady has been less dear to me than her soul. The proof\nof it is here, that the further she has advanced in age (which for\nthe beauty of the body is a fatal thunderstroke) the more firm has\nbeen my admiration; for albeit the flower of her youth has withered\nvisibly with time, the beauty of her soul has grown with the years, and\nas it was the beginning of my love for her, even so has it been its\nsustainer. Otherwise if it had been her bodily form which attracted me,\nit was, ere this, time to make a change.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Are you mocking me? Do you mean to assert that if the\nsame soul had been lodged in a body ill-formed and poor to look upon,\nyou would have taken equal delight therein?\n\n_Petrarch._ I dare not say that. For the soul itself cannot be\ndiscerned, and the image of a body like that would have given no\nindication of such a soul. But were it possible for the soul to be\nvisible to my gaze, I should most certainly have loved its beauty even\nthough its dwelling-place were poor.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You are relying on mere words; for if you are only able\nto love that which is visible to your gaze, then what you love is the\nbodily form. However, I deny not that her soul and her character have\nhelped to feed your flame, for (as I will show you before long) her\nname alone has both little and much kindled your mad passion; for, as\nin all the affections of the soul, it happens most of all in this one\nthat oftentimes a very little spark will light a great fire.\n\n_Petrarch._ I see where you would drive me. You want to make me say\nwith Ovid--\n\n    \"I love at once her body and her soul.\"[8]\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yes, and you ought to confess this also, that neither\nin one or the other case has your love been temperate or what it should\nbe.\n\n_Petrarch._ You will have to put me to the torture ere I will make any\nsuch confession.\n\n_S. Augustine._ And you will allow that this love has also cast you\ninto great miseries.\n\n_Petrarch._ Though you place me on the block itself, I will not\nacknowledge any such thing.\n\n_S. Augustine._ If you do not ignore my questions and conclusions, you\nwill soon make both those confessions. Tell me, then, can you recall\nthe years when you were a little child, or have the crowding cares of\nyour present life blotted all that time out?\n\n_Petrarch._ My childhood and youth are as vividly before my eyes as if\nthey were yesterday.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Do you remember, then, how in those times you had\nthe fear of God, how you thought about Death, what love you had for\nReligion, how dear goodness and virtue were to you?\n\n_Petrarch._ Yes, I remember it all, and I am sorry when I see that as\nmy years increased these virtues grew less and less in me.\n\n_S. Augustine._ For my part I have ever been afraid lest the wind of\nSpring should cut that early blossom off, which, if only it might be\nleft whole and unhurt, would have produced a wondrous fruitage.\n\n_Petrarch._ Pray do not wander from the subject; for what has this to\ndo with the question we were discussing?\n\n_S. Augustine._ I will tell you. Recall each step in your life, since\nyour remembrance is so complete and fresh; recall all the course of\nyour life, and recollect at what period this great change you speak of\nbegan.\n\n_Petrarch._ I have run over in my mind all the course and number of my\nyears.\n\n_S. Augustine._ And what do you find?\n\n_Petrarch._ I see that the doctrine in the treatise of Pythagoras, of\nwhich I have heard tell and have read, is by no means void of truth.\nFor when travelling the right road, still temperate and modest, I had\nreached the parting of the ways and had been bidden to turn to the\nright hand, whether from carelessness or perversity I know not, behold\nI turned to the left; and what I had read in my boyhood was of no\nprofit to me--\n\n    \"Here the ways part: the right will thee conduct\n    To the walled palace of the mighty King\n    And to Elysium, but the left will lead\n    Where sin is punished and the malefactor\n    Goes to his dreaded doom.\"[9]\n\nAlthough I had read of all this before, yet I understood it not until\nI found it by experience. Afterwards I went wrong, in this foul and\ncrooked pathway, and often in mind went back with tears and sorrow, yet\ncould not keep the right way; and it was when I left that way, yes,\nthat was certainly the time when all this confusion in my life began.\n\n_S. Augustine_. And in what period of your age did this take place?\n\n_Petrarch._ About the middle of my growing youth. But if you give me a\nminute or two, I think I can recall the exact year when it took place.\n\n_S. Augustine_. I do not ask for the precise date, but tell me about\nwhen was it that you saw the form and feature of this woman for the\nfirst time?\n\n_Petrarch._ Never assuredly shall I forget that day.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Well now, put two and two together; compare the two\ndates.\n\n_Petrarch._ I must confess in truth they coincide. I first saw her and\nI turned from my right course at one and the same time.\n\n_S. Augustine._ That is all I wanted. You became infatuated. The\nunwonted dazzle blinded your eyes, so I believe. For they say the first\neffect of love is blindness. So one reads in the poet most conversant\nwith Nature--\n\n    \"At the first sight was that Sidonian dame\n    Blinded,\"\n\nand then he adds presently--\n\n    \"With love was Dido burning.\"[10]\n\nAnd though, as you well know, the story is but on ancient fable, yet\ndid the Poet in making it follow the order of Nature.\n\nAnd when you had been struck blind by this meeting, if you chose the\nleft-hand path it was because to you it seemed more broad and easy;\nfor that to the right is steep and narrow, and of its hardship you\nwere afraid. But that woman so renowned, whom you imagine as your most\nsafe guide, wherefore did not she direct you upward, hesitating and\ntrembling as you were? Why did she not take you by the hand as one does\nthe blind, and set you in the way where you should walk?\n\n_Petrarch_. She certainly did so, as far as it was in her power. What\nbut this was in her heart when, unmoved by my entreaties, unyielding\nto my caress, she safeguarded her woman's honour, and in spite of her\nyouth and mine, in spite of a thousand circumstances that would have\nbent a heart of adamant, she stood her ground, resolute and unsubdued?\nYes, this womanly soul taught me what should be the honour and duty of\na man; and to preserve her chastity she did, as Seneca expresses it--\n\n    \"What was to me at once an example and a reproach.\"[11]\n\nAnd at last, when she saw the reins of my chariot were broken and that\nI was rushing to the abyss, she chose rather to part from me than\nfollow where I went.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Base desires, then, sometimes you felt, though not long\nsince you denied it? But it is the common folly of lovers, let me say\nof mad folk. One may say of them all alike--\n\n    \"I would not, yet I would; I would, yet would not.\"[12]\n\nYou know not, any of you, what you want or what you want not.\n\n_Petrarch_. Without seeing, I fell into the snare. But if in past\ndays my feelings were other than they are now, love and youth were\nthe cause. Now I know what I wish and what I desire, and I have at\nlast made firm my staggering soul. She for her part has ever been firm\nin her mind and always the same. The more I understand this woman's\nconstancy, the more I admire it; and if sometimes I regretted her\nresolution, now I rejoice in it and give her thanks.\n\n_S. Augustine._ It is not easy to believe a man who has once taken you\nin. You may have changed the outside fashion of your life, but have not\nyet persuaded me that your soul is also changed.\n\nIf your flame is calmed and softened somewhat, yet it is not for\ncertain quite put out. But you who set such price on her you love,\ndo you not see how deeply by absolving her you condemn yourself? You\ndelight in seeing in her the model of purity, and you avow yourself to\nbe without any feeling and a criminal; and you protest that she is the\nmost happy of women, while her love has made you the most unhappy of\nmen. If you remember, it is just what I said at the beginning.\n\n_Petrarch._ Yes, I remember. I cannot deny that what you say is true,\nand I see whither you are gradually leading me.\n\n_S. Augustine._ To see it better still, lend me all your attention.\nNothing so much leads a man to forget or despise God as the love of\nthings temporal, and most of all this passion that we call love; and\nto which, by the greatest of all desecrations, we even gave the name\nof God, without doubt only that we may throw a heavenly veil over our\nhuman follies and make a pretext of divine inspiration when we want to\ncommit an enormous transgression. In the case of the other passions,\nthe sight of the object, the hope of enjoying it, and the ardour of\nthe will take us captive. Love also demands all that, but in addition\nit asks also a reciprocal passion, without which it will be forced to\ndie away. So, whereas in the other cases one loves singly and alone,\nin this case we must give love for love, and thus man's heart is stung\nand stung again. Therefore, Cicero was right when he wrote that \"Of\nall the passions of the soul, assuredly the most violent is love,\"[13]\nand he must have been very certain of his ground when he added that\n\"assuredly\"--he who in four books shows he was aware how Plato's\nAcademy doubted everything.[14]\n\n_Petrarch_. I have often noticed that reference, and wondered that of\nthe passions he should call this the most violent of all.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Your surprise would have vanished if you had not lost\nyour powers of memory. But I must recall you by a short admonition to a\nrecollection of its many evils. Think what you were when that plague\nseized upon your soul; how suddenly you fell to bemoaning, and came to\nsuch a pitch of wretchedness that you felt a morbid pleasure in feeding\non tears and sighs. Passing sleepless nights, and murmuring ever the\nname of your beloved, scorning everything, hating life, desiring death,\nwith a melancholy love for being alone, avoiding all your fellow-men,\none might well apply to you, for they exactly fit your case, the lines\nin which Homer describes Bellerophon--\n\n    \"There in the pleasant fields he wandered sad,\n    Eating his heart, far from the ways of men.\"[15]\n\nWhat meant that pale face and wasted figure? that flower of your age\nwithering before its time, those heavy eyes, ever bathed in tears, your\nmind in a state of agitation, your broken rest and troubled moans,\neven when you were asleep? Why was your voice weak and altered through\nyour sorrow of heart, and the very sound of your words, indistinct\nand broken, with whatever other token can be imagined, of a heart\ndistressed and in disorder? Do you call these the signs of one in good\nhealth? Was it not this lady with whom for you every day, whether feast\nor fast, began and ended? Was it not at her coming the sun shone forth,\nand when she left you, night returned? Every change of her countenance\nbrought a change in your heart; and if she were sad, you forthwith were\nfilled with sadness. In a word, your life became wholly dependent upon\nhers. You know that I say but what is true and what is in every one's\nmouth.\n\nAnd what could be more senseless than that, not content with the\npresence of her living face, the cause of all your woes, you must\nneeds obtain a painted picture by an artist[16] of high repute, that\nyou might carry it everywhere with you, to have an everlasting spring\nof tears, fearing, I suppose, lest otherwise their fountain might dry\nup? Of all such things you were only too vigilant, and you neglected\neverything else. But to come to that which is the very crowning\ninstance of your folly, and of which I gave you warning a little while\nago, who could sufficiently utter his indignation and amazement at this\nsign of a distempered mind, that, infatuated as much by the beauty of\nher name as of her person, you have with perfectly incredible silliness\npaid honour to anything that has the remotest connection with that name\nitself? Had you any liking for the laurel of empire or of poetry, it\nwas forsooth because the name they bore was hers; and from this time\nonwards there is hardly a verse from your pen but in it you have made\nmention of the laurel, as if indeed you were a denizen of Peneus'\nstream,[17] or some priest on Cirrha's[18] Mount.\n\nAnd finally, discovering that the laurel of empire was beyond your\nreach, you have, with as little self-restraint as you showed in the\ncase of your beloved herself, now coveted the laurel of Poetry of which\nthe merit of your works seemed to give more promise.\n\nAlthough to gain your reward you were borne up on the wings of genius,\nyet will you shudder to remember with what trouble you attained it. I\nclearly divine what excuse you will make, and I see your thought the\nmoment you open your lips. You will allege that you were devoted to\nthese studies some time before you became a lover at all, and that\ndesire for the glory of the poet's crown had kindled your heart from\nchildhood. I neither deny it or forget it; but the fact of the usage\nbeing obsolete for centuries, and this being an epoch very unfavourable\nfor studies like yours, the dangers also of long voyages, which would\nhave brought you to the threshold of prison and of death itself, not\nto mention other obstacles of fortune no less violent than those--all\nthese difficulties, I say, would perhaps have broken your resolve\nentirely, if the remembrance of a name so sweet, always entwining\nitself with your inmost soul, had not banished every other care, and\ndrawn you over sea, over land, across mountains of difficulty, to Rome\nand to Naples, where at length you attained what you had longed for\nwith such ardour. If all this seems to you the token of but a moderate\npassion, then at least shall be quite certain you are the victim of the\nmoderate delusion.\n\nI purposely leave out what Cicero was not ashamed to imitate from\nTerence when he wrote, \"Wrongs, suspicions, fierce quarrels,\njealousies, war, and then again peace--behold the miseries of love.\" Do\nyou not recognise at once in his words the madness and, above all, the\nmadness of jealousy which, as one knows too well, is the ruling power\nin love as love is the ruling passion among all others? Perhaps you\nmay reply: \"I admit it is so, but reason will be there to temper such\nexcess.\" Terence himself had anticipated your answer when he added--\n\n    \"Such fickle things to settle by sane rule\n    Is to be sanely insane.\"[19]\n\nThe phrase, the truth of which you will scarcely question, puts an end,\nunless I am mistaken, to all those subterfuges of yours.\n\nSuch, then, are the miseries of love, the particulars of which it is\nneedless to mention to those who have proved them, and which would not\nbe believed by those who never tried. But the worst of them all, to\ncome back to our subject, is that it engenders a forgetfulness of God\nand of man's real state. For how should the soul thus crushed beneath\nthese weights ever arise to that one and only most pure fountain of\ntrue Good? And since it is so, you may lay aside your wonder that\nCicero should tell us no passion of man's soul seemed to him more\nviolent than love.\n\n_Petrarch_. I must own myself beaten; for it appears all you have said\nis taken from the very heart of the book of experience. And as you have\nquoted from the play of Terence, let me please myself by bringing from\nthere also this sad complaint--\n\n    \"O deed of shame! now am I foil of woe.\n    Weary I burn with love; with open eyes,\n    Brain clear, I am undone; and what to do\n    I know not.\"[20]\n\nI would also call to mind this counsel from the same poet's words--\n\n    \"Think, while there's time, again and yet again.\"[21]\n\n_S. Augustine._ And I likewise from the lips of Terence will give you\nmy reply--\n\n    \"What in itself contains no rule or reason,\n    By rule or reason you can never hold.\"[22]\n\n_Petrarch._ What is to be done, then? Am I to despair?\n\n_S. Augustine._ That is the last thing in the world to do. However,\nlet me briefly tell you the remedy I propose. You know that on this\nsubject there are not only special treatises compiled by philosophers\nof eminence, but that some of the most famous poets have written on it\nwhole books.\n\nIt would be almost an insult to point out which they are, above all, to\nyou who are a past-master in the whole field, or to offer any advice\nas to reading them; but perhaps I might say a word without offence to\nsuggest in what way their study might be applied for your own welfare.\n\nFirst, then, notice what is said by Cicero--\n\n    \"Some think that an old love can best be driven out by\n    a new, as one nail is by another.\"[23]\n\nAnd Ovid agrees, giving this general rule--\n\n    \"Old love affairs must always yield to new.\"[24]\n\nAnd without a doubt it is the truth, for the mind thus divided and\nparcelled out between different objects feels itself moved with less\nforce towards each one. So the river Ganges, they tell us, was divided\nup by the Persian king into countless channels, and this river, that\nwas so deep and formidable, was cut up into a thousand inconsiderable\nstreamlets. And so an army, broken up and scattered, becomes vulnerable\nby the enemy; so Fire dispersed dies down; in a word, every power in\nthe world, if concentrated, increases, but by dispersion is reduced. On\nthe other hand, I think this is not to be overlooked, that there may\nbe great danger when you lay aside a passion and, if one may say so,\na passion of the nobler kind; you may, if you are not watchful, fall\ninto dissipation of another sort, run after women and become a loose\nlibertine. In my judgment, then, if one must die for certain, there is\nsome consolation in dying of a nobler rather than a less noble wound.\nSo if you ask my advice, it is this: Take your courage in both hands.\nFly, if you possibly can; and I would even say, go from one prison to\nanother; perchance you might escape by the way or else find a milder\ndiscipline to be under. Only beware, when your neck is freed from one\nsuch yoke as this, that you place it not under the weight of a crowd of\nmore base and vile oppressions.\n\n_S. Petrarch._ While the doctor is finishing his advice, will he allow\nthe patient, in the throes of his malady, to interrupt him for a minute?\n\n_Augustine._ Of course. Why not? Many a doctor, guided by the symptoms\nof his patient thus declared, has been able to find the very remedy he\nneeded.\n\n_Petrarch._ Then what I want to say is just this: For me to love\nanother is impossible. My mind has grown only to love her; my eyes to\nlook only for her; excepting her, all to them is nothing, or is mere\ndarkness. And so if your remedy is that in order to be healed of this\nlove I should love another, your condition is an impossible one. In\nthat case all is over, and I am lost.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Your senses are dulled, your appetite is lost; since\nthen you can take no internal remedy, one must have recourse to other\ntreatment and see what can be done by change of scene. Can you bring\nyour mind to think of flight or exile and going right away from the\nplaces that you know?\n\n_Petrarch_. Though I feel that her attraction draws me to her with\nhooks of steel, nevertheless if I have to go, I can.\n\n_S. Augustine_. If you can, you will be safe. What else can I say,\nthen, but this advice of Virgil's, changing only two little words--\n\n    \"Ah! flee this land beloved, and leave behind\n    shore to thee so dear.\"[25]\n\nFor how can you continue in safety in these scenes where there are so\nmany memories of your wounds, where things present and the memory of\nthings past cling always to you? So that I say, as Cicero also advises,\n\"Seek change of scene; take care to do as one does who is recovering\nfrom some illness.\"[26]\n\n_Petrarch_. Think of what you are prescribing. For how often and\noften, longing to get well, and familiar with advice like this, have I\ntried this remedy of flight; and though I have feigned various other\nreasons for it, yet the end and aim of all my peregrinations and all\nmy retirement to the country was this one thing--to become free! For\nthat I have wandered far away to the West, to the North, to the very\nconfines of the ocean. Far and wide have I roamed. You see what good\nit has done me. And so Virgil's simile has many a time come home to my\nheart,--\n\n    \"E'en as the stricken deer, that unaware\n    Rooming afar in pleasant groves of Crete,\n    The hunter pierces with his weapon keen.\n    And she unknowing o'er Mount Dicte's side\n    Flees wounded, and the fatal arrow cleaves\n    To her poor side.\"[27]\n\nI am even as that deer. I have fled, but I bear everywhere my wound\nwith me.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yourself have given me the answer for which you look.\n\n_Petrarch._ How so?\n\n_S. Augustine_. Why, do you not see that if a man bears his wound with\nhim, change of scone is but an aggravation of his pain and not a means\nof healing it? One might say your case is just that of the young man\nwho complained to Socrates that he had been a tour and it had done him\nno good whatever. \"You went touring with yourself,\"[28] said the Sage.\n\nYou must first break off the old load of your passions; you must\nmake your soul ready. _Then_ you must fly. For it is proved to\ndemonstration, not only in things physical but in moral also, that\nunless the patient is well disposed, the doctor's help is in vain.\nOtherwise were you to go to the far-off Indies, you will find that\nHorace only spoke truth when he said--\n\n    \"Who cross the ocean making peace their goal,\n    Change but their sky and cannot change their soul.\"\n\nOr thus--\n\n    \"We come to this; when o'er the world we range,\n    'Tis but our climate, not our mind, we change.\"[29]\n\n_Petrarch_. I must say I cannot follow you. You give me a prescription\nto cure and heal my soul and tell me I must first heal it and then\nflee. Now, my difficulty is I do not know how to heal it. If it is\ncured, what more do I need? But if, again, it is not cured, what good\nwill change of scene bring me? The help you offer me is useless. Tell\nme briefly what are the remedies I must use?\n\n_S. Augustine._ I did not say that you must cure and heal your soul.\nWhat I said was you must make it ready. As for the rest, either you\nwill be cured, and the change of scene will then establish your health\non a firm footing; or you will not yet be cured, but only made ready,\nand then the change of scene will have the same ultimate result. But,\nif your soul is neither cured nor made ready, this change and frequent\nmoving from place to place will only stir up its grief. I will still\nadvise you to take a leaf out of Horace's book--\n\n    \"For if the cure of mental ills is due\n    To sense and wisdom, not a fine sea view,\"[30]\n\n--what he says is true. You will set out full of the hope and the wish\nto return, carrying along with you all that has ensnared your soul.\nIn whatever place you are, to whatever side you turn, you will behold\nthe face, you will hear the voice of her whom you have left. By that\nsad enchantment that belongs to lovers, you will have power to see her\nthough you are absent, and to hear her though she is far away; and\ndo you imagine that love is to be extinguished by subterfuges like\nthis? Believe me, it will rather burn more fiercely. Those who call\nthemselves masters in the art of love enjoin among their other maxims\nshort absences one from another on the part of lovers, for fear they\nshould become tired of seeing each other face to face or from their\nimportunity. Therefore I advise, I recommend, I enjoin upon you that\nyou learn to wholly sever your soul from that which weighs it down\nand go away without hope of return. You will discover then, but not\nbefore, what absence is able to do for the soul's healing. If fate had\nplaced your lot in some unhealthy plague-stricken region where you\nwere liable to constant illness, should you not flee from it never to\nreturn? And so I counsel you to do now, unless, as I much fear, men\ncare more for their body than their soul.\n\n_Petrarch_. That is their affair. But undoubtedly if I found myself ill\non account of the unhealthiness of the place I was in, I should choose\nfor my recovery some place with a healthier climate, and I should act\nin the same way, and with stronger reasons still, in case of maladies\nof the soul. Yet, as far as I can see, the cure of these is a more\ndifficult matter.\n\n_S. Augustine_. The united testimony of the greatest philosophers\nproves the falsity of that assertion. It is evident that all the\nmaladies of the soul can be healed if only the patient puts no obstacle\nin the way, although many diseases of the body are incurable by any\nknown means. For the rest, and not to go too far from our subject, I\nstick to my judgment. You must, as I said, make your soul ready, and\nteach it to renounce the object of its love, never once to turn back,\nnever to see that which it was wont to look for. This is the only sure\nroad for a lover; and if you wish to preserve your soul from ruin, this\nis what you must do.\n\n_Petrarch._ That you may see how perfectly I have learned all you have\nsaid, let me recapitulate that to go for change of scene is useless,\nunless the soul is first made ready; such journeys will cure it when\nmade ready, and will establish it when once cured. Is not that the\nconclusion of your threefold precept?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yes, it is precisely that, and you sum up very well\nwhat I have unfolded.\n\n_Petrarch._ I could have divined your two first truths by myself,\nwithout you pointing them out; but as for the third, that the soul,\nwhen it is cured and established in health, still needs absence, I\ndo not understand it, unless it is the fear of a relapse that is the\nmotive of what you say.\n\n_S. Augustine._ But you surely do not suppose that to be a slight point\neven in bodily health? And how much more grave a matter ought one to\nthink it in regard to the soul, where a relapse is so much more rapid\nand dangerous. So I would say, let us refer once more to what seems one\nof the soundest remarks of Seneca, where in a letter he writes, \"If any\nman wishes to have done with love he must avoid all recollection of\nthe beloved form,\" and adds as his reason, \"For nothing is so easily\nrekindled to life again as love.\"[31] O how true a saying is that,\nand from what profound experience of life is he speaking! But it is\nneedless to call any other witness of this than your own knowledge will\nsupply.\n\n_Petrarch._ Yes, I agree he speaks truth, but if you notice he is\nspeaking not of one who already has done with love, but of one who\nwishes to have done with it.\n\n_S. Augustine_. He speaks of any man who is in danger. Any kind of\nblow is more dangerous if there is some wound before unhealed, or\nsome disease not yet cured; and even afterwards it is not safe. And\nsince we remember most, instances that have come home to us in our own\nexperience, let me ask how often have you who speak to me not found\nyourself, as you went about these well-known spots, by their mere look,\nthough no person met you, reminded of your former vanities; standing\nspeechless, full of sighs, as you pace this town that has been, I will\nnot say the cause, but at any rate the scene of all your evils; though\nbefore you came back to it you thought you were cured, and would have\nbeen to a very great extent if only you had remained away? And then\nwith difficulty restraining your tears, half-wounded to death, you have\nfled, and cried to your own heart, \"Here in these places I see at every\nturn the ambush of my ancient foe. The signs of death are ever about\nme!\" So, then, were you healed already, if you would take counsel of\nme, I should say, \"Do not stay long in this place. It is not wise for\nthe prisoner who has broken his chains to go wandering round the prison\ngates, ever ready to take him in again, before which the jailer is ever\non guard, laying his traps with special care to recapture those whose\nescape he regrets.\n\n    \"The downward path to hell is ever smooth,\n    Its dismal gate is open night and day.\"[32]\n\nIf precautions like these are needful for men in health, how much\nmore are they in the case of those who have not yet shaken off their\nsickness. It is of the latter that Seneca was thinking when he wrote\nthat maxim. He was giving counsel to those who were most in danger, for\nit was no use to speak of those whom the flame had already devoured\nand who were past all care for their safety. He addressed himself to\nthose in another stage, who still felt the heat but tried to come forth\nof the flame. Many a sick man on the way to recovery has been thrown\nback by a draught of water which before his illness would have done\nhim no harm; and often has one wearied out, with a long day's work,\nbeen knocked down by some trifling shake which when he was in his full\nstrength would not have moved him at all.\n\nIt needs but a trifle sometimes, when the soul is emerging from its\nmiseries, to plunge it quite back once more into the abyss. To see the\npurple on the shoulders of another will rouse again all our sleeping\nambition; the sight of a little pile of money sets up our thirst for\ngold; one look at some fair lady will stir again our desire; the light\nglance of an eye will awaken sleeping love.\n\nIt is no wonder plagues like these take possession of your minds, when\nyou see the madness of the world; and when once they have found their\nway back to the soul, they come with fatal ease. And since it is so, it\nis not enough merely to leave a plague-stricken spot, but you, O man,\nmust keep on in your flight for life, till you have escaped everything\nthat might drag the soul back to its old passions; for fear lest, when\nyou return from the pit with Orpheus and look back, you lose your\nEurydice once more.\n\nSuch is the sum of my counsel.\n\n_Petrarch_. I accept it heartily and with thankfulness, for I feel that\nthe remedy is suited to my wound. My intention is to fly, but I know\nnot yet where lies the direction I should choose.\n\n_S. Augustine._ A thousand ways are open to you to make choice of on\nevery side; a thousand ports are ready to receive you. I know that,\nmore than to other lands, your heart turns to Italy, and that a love of\nyour native soil is inborn in you; and you are right, for--\n\n    \"Not Media's forests rich, nor Ganges' stream,\n    Though fair it be, nor Hermus rolling gold,\n    May vie with Italy; Bactria and Ind,\n    And all Pachaia with its odours rare\n    Shall not be mentioned.\"[33]\n\nI think you have yourself not long ago, in a letter to one of your\nfriends,[34] treated this theme of the famous Poet at fuller length in\na Latin poem. Italy then would be my choice for you; because the ways\nof its people, its climate, the sea washing its shores, the Apennine\nrange coming between them, all promise that a sojourn there would be\nbetter suited to extirpate your troubles than going anywhere else in\nthe world. I would not, however, wish to confine you only to one corner\nof the land. Go under good auspices wherever inclination may lead; go\nwithout fear and with a free mind; take no backward glances, forget\nthe past and step forward to the future. See how long you have been a\nstranger to your own country and your own self. It is time to return,\nfor--\n\n    \"O now 'tis evening, and the night\n       Is chiefly friend to thieves.\"[35]\n\nI warn you in words of your own.\n\nOne further counsel I must urge which I had nearly forgotten. You must\navoid solitude, until you are quite sure that you have not a trace of\nyour old ailment left. You told me that a country life had done you no\ngood. There is nothing surprising in that. What remedy were you likely\nto find in a place all lonely and remote? Let me confess that often\nwhen you were retreating thither all by yourself, sighing, and turning\nlonging eyes back to the town, I have laughed heartily and said to\nmyself: \"What a blindfold fool love has made of this unhappy wight! and\nled him to quite forget the verse that every schoolboy knows, about\nflying from his trouble and finding his death.\"\n\n_Petrarch_. I am afraid you are right, but what are the lines to which\nyou allude?\n\n_S. Augustine._ Ovid, of course.\n\n    \"Lover! whoe'er you be, dwell not alone;\n    In solitude you're sure to be undone.\n    You're safer in a crowd; the word is true,\n    Lone woods are not the place for such as you.\"[36]\n\n_Petrarch_. Yes, I remember them perfectly, and knew them almost by\nheart from my childhood.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Much good has it done you to know so many things yet\nnot know how to suit them to your need. When you not only know all\nthe testimony of the ancients, but have yourself proved the evils of\nsolitude, it astonishes me that you should commit such a blunder as to\nseek it. You have, in fact, often complained that there was no good in\nbeing alone. You have expressed it in a thousand places, and especially\nin the fine poem you composed on your own misfortune. The sweet accents\nof it charmed me while you were writing.[37]\n\nIt surprised me to hear a song so harmonious arise from a soul so full\nof agitation, and come from the lips of a man so far out of his senses\nand I asked myself what power of love can stay the offended Muses from\nabandoning so dire a nest of troubles, and, scared by such aberration\nof mind in their host, forsaking utterly their wonted dwelling? I\nthought of words of Plato, \"Let no man wholly sane knock at Poe try'd\ndoor,\" and then of Aristotle, who followed him and said, \"All great\ngenius has a touch of madness in it,\"[38] but I remembered that in\nthese sayings of theirs they were thinking of a frenzy far indeed\nremoved from yours. However, we will return to this subject at some\nother time.\n\n_Petrarch_. I must fain own what you say is the truth; but I never\nthought to have made verses so harmonious as to be worth your praise\nand commendation. They will be all the dearer to me now that I know it.\n\nIf you have other remedy to offer me, I beg you withhold it not from\nhim who is in need.\n\n_S. Augustine_. To unfold all one knows is the act of a braggart more\nthan of a wise friend. And remember that men did not invent all the\nsundry kinds of remedies, internal and external, for diverse kinds of\nsickness, on purpose that each and every one should be tried on every\noccasion; but that, as Seneca remarks to Lucilius, \"Nothing is so\ncontrary to the work of healing as a frequent change of remedy; and\nno wound will ever be healed perfectly, to which first one and then\nanother medicine is continually applied. The true way is only to try\nthe new when the old remedy has failed.\"[39]\n\nSo, then, although the remedies for this kind of ailment are many and\nvaried, I will content myself with only pointing out a few, and I will\nchoose those which in my judgment will best suit your need. For indeed,\nI have no wish merely to show you what is new, but only to tell you, of\nall those which are known, what remedies, so far as I can judge, are\nmost likely in your case to be efficacious.\n\nThere are three things, as Cicero says, that will avert the mind of man\nfrom Love,--Satiety, Shamefastness, Reflection.[40]\n\nThere may indeed be more; there may be less. But, to follow the steps\nof so great an authority, let us suppose there are three. It will be\nuseless for me to speak of the first in your case, because you will\njudge it is impossible you should ever come to satiety of your love.\nBut still if your passion will hear the voice of reason and judge the\nfuture from the past, you will readily agree that an object, even\nthe most beloved, can produce, I do not say satiety only, but even\nweariness and disgust. Now, as I am quite sure I should be entering\non a vain quest if I embark on this track, because, even if it were\ngranted that satiety is a possible thing, and that it kills love, you\nwill pretend that by the ardour of your passion you are a thousand\nleagues removed from any such possibility, and, as I am not at all\ndisposed to deny it, what remains is for me to touch only upon the\nother two remedies that are left. You will not wish to dispute my\nassertion that Nature has endowed you with a certain power of reason,\nand also with some talent for forming a weighty judgment.\n\n_Petrarch._ Unless I am deceived by acting as judge in my own cause,\nwhat you say is so true that I am often inclined to fear I am too\nwanting in what is due both to my sex and this age; wherein, as\nyou doubtless observe, everything goes to the shameless. Honours,\nprosperity, wealth--all these hold the field; and to these, virtue\nitself, nay even fortune, must give way.[41]\n\n_S. Augustine._ Do you not see what conflict there is between Love and\nShamefastness? While the one urges the soul forward, the other holds it\nback; the one drives in the spur, the other pulls hard at the bridle;\nthe one looks at nothing, the other watches carefully on every side.\n\n_Petrarch_. This is only too familiar to me, and I feel to my cost\nhow distracted is my life by passions so contrary. They come upon me\nby turn, so that my poor spirit, tossed hither and thither, knows not\nwhich impulse to obey.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Do you mind telling me if you have looked in your glass\nlately?\n\n_Petrarch._ And, pray, what do you ask that question for? I have only\ndone as usual.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Heaven grant you do it no oftener, neither with more\nself-complacency, than you should! Well, and have you not noticed that\nyour face is changing from day to day, and that from time to time grey\nhairs begin to show themselves around your temples?\n\n_Petrarch._ Is that all? I thought you were about to ask me something\nout of the common; but to grow up, to grow old, to die is the common\nlot of all that are born. I have observed what befalls almost all my\ncontemporaries; for nowadays men seem to age more quickly than they\nused to, though I know not why or wherefore.\n\n_S. Augustine._ The growing old of others will not give you back your\nyouth, neither will their dying bring you immortality. So let us leave\non one side everything else and return to your own case. Tell me; when\nyou have noticed these signs of change in your body, has it not brought\nsome change also in your soul?\n\n_Petrarch._ It has certainly made some impression on me, but not\nexactly a change.\n\n_S. Augustine._ What, then, were your thoughts, and what did you say to\nyourself?\n\n_Petrarch._ What would you have me say, except what was said by\nDomitian the Emperor, \"With even mind I brook the sight of watching,\nthough still young, my hairs grow grey.\"[42] So illustrious an example\nhas consoled me for what grey hairs I too behold. And if I needed more,\nI brought to mind a king beside that emperor; I mean Numa Pompilius\nthe Second, who, as the historian relates, had grey hair even from\nhis youth. And Poetry as well as History comes to my aid, since in\nhis Bucolics our own Virgil, writing when he was but five-and-twenty,\nspeaking of himself in the person of a shepherd, exclaims--\n\n    \"When now my whitening beard the razor knew.\"[43]\n\n_S. Augustine._ What vast abundance of examples you can command! Pray\nheaven you have as many recollections of your own death. For I praise\nnot those exemplars that lead one to dissemble grey hairs which are\nthe heralds of old age, and the _avant-couriers_ of Death. And good\nthose examples are not, if their effect is to take you off the trouble\nof remembering how time flies, and to lead you to forget your own\nlast hour; to the recollection of which the whole of my discourse is\nentirely and without ceasing directed. When I bid you think on your own\nwhitening forehead, do you quote me a crowd of famous men whose locks\nwere white also? What does it prove? Ah, if you were able to say these\nwere immortal, then you might from their example put away the dread of\nyour changing brow. If instead of mentioning greyness I had ventured\nto hint that you were getting bald, you would, I suppose, have thrown\nJulius C\u00e6sar in my teeth!\n\n_Petrarch_. Certainly. What more illustrious example could I need?\nNow, unless I am mistaken, it is in fact a great comfort to find\noneself surrounded by companions so famous. Yes, I will freely admit\nthat I am not disposed for a moment to reject such examples, which\nare, for me, part of the luggage I carry daily in my mind; for it is a\npleasure to me not only in such misfortunes as Nature or chance have\nalready allotted me, but also in those which they may still have in\nstore; it is a pleasure, I say, to have ever at hand such matter of\ncomfort and consolation as I can obtain only from some truly cogent\nreason or outstanding example.\n\nIf, then, you meant to reproach me for being afraid of thunder--a\ncharge I could not deny (and one of the chief reasons why I love the\nlaurel is because it is said that thunder will not strike this tree),\nthen I shall reply to you that this was a weakness C\u00e6sar Augustus\nshared; if you allege that I am getting blind (and there also you\nwould be right), I should quote you Appius C\u00e6cus and also Homer, the\nPrince of Poets; if you call me one-eyed, I will, shield myself behind\nHannibal, the Punic leader, or Philip, King of Macedon; call me deaf,\nand Marcus Crassus shall be my defence; say I cannot stand the heat,\nand I will say I am but like Alexander, Prince of Macedonia.\n\nIt were tedious to go through all the list; but after these you can\njudge who they would be.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yes, perfectly. I am nowise displeased with your\nwealth of instances, provided it does not make you self-negligent and\nonly serves to disperse the clouds of fear and sadness. I applaud\nanything that helps a man to face with courage the coming of old age,\nand keeps him from bewailing its presence when it has arrived. But I\nloathe and abominate profoundly everything that conceals from him the\ntruth that old age is the port of departure from this life, and blinds\nhim to the need of reflecting on death. To take with equanimity the\ngoing grey before one's time is the sign of a good natural disposition;\nbut to try and interpose artificial checks, to cheat time of his years,\nto raise an outcry and declare grey hairs are come too soon, to begin\ndyeing or plucking them out, is a piece of folly, which, common as it\nmay be, is none the less egregious for all that.\n\nYou perceive not, O blind that you are, how swiftly the stars roll\nin their course, and how soon the flight of time consumes the space\nof your short life, and you marvel when you see old age coming on,\nhastening quickly the despatch of all your days.\n\nTwo causes seem to foster this delusion. The first is that even the\nshortest life is partitioned out by some people into four, by others\ninto six, and by others again into a still larger number of periods;\nthat is to say, the reality is so small, and as you cannot make it\nlonger, you think you will enlarge it by division. But of what profit\ntis all this dividing? Make as many particles as you like, and they are\nall gone in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.\n\n    \"Yesterday was born the baby,\n       See to-day the lovely boy,\n     Then the young man quick as may be,\n       Then an end of life and joy.\"\n\nYou observe with what quick hurrying words the subtle poet has sketched\nout the swift course of our life. So it is in vain you strive to\nlengthen out what Nature, the mother of us all, has made so short.\n\nThe second cause is that you will persist in letting old age find you\nstill in the midst of games and empty pleasures; like the old Trojans\nwho in their customary ways passed the last night without perceiving.\n\n    \"The cunning, fatal horse, who bore within\n    Those armed bands, had overleapt the wall\n    Of Pergamos.\"[44]\n\nYes, even so you perceive not that old age, bringing in his train\nthe armed warrior Death, unpitying and stem, has over-leapt the\nweakly-guarded rampart of your body; and then you find your foe has\nalready glided by stealth along his rope--\n\n    \"And now the invader climbs within the gate\n    And takes the city in its drunken sleep.\"[45]\n\nFor in the gross body and the pleasure of things temporal, not less\ndrunk are you than those old Trojans were, as Virgil saw them, in their\nslumber and their wine.\n\nOr, looking to another quarter, no less truth is to be found in the\nneat lines of the Satirist--\n\n\"Our lives unfold in morning air As lilies of a day, 'Come bring us\nwine,' we shout. 'Ho, there, Fetch garlands, odours, damsels fair.' But\nah! before we are aware, Old Age sweeps all away.\"[46]\n\nNow, to come back to our subject and to yourself, when this old age\ncomes stealing on and knocks at your door, you make an effort to\nbar him out. You pretend that by some infraction of the order of\nNature he has come too soon. You are delighted when you come across\nsome rather elderly person who declares he knew you when you were a\nchild, especially if, as people generally do, he makes out it was but\nyesterday or the day before. You find it convenient to forget that one\ncan say as much about any old dotard however decrepit. Who was not a\nchild yesterday, or to-day, as far as that goes?\n\nWe can look here and there and find infants of ninety quarrelling about\ntrifles and even now occupied with infantine toys. The days flee away,\nthe body decays, the soul is where it was. Though everything is rotten\nwith age, the soul has never grown up, never come to maturity, and\nit is a truth, as the proverb says, \"One soul uses up many bodies.\"\nInfancy passes, but, as Seneca remarks, \"childishness remains.\"[47]\nAnd, believe me, perhaps you are not so young as you imagine, for the\ngreater part of mankind have not yet reached the age which you have.\n\nBlush, therefore, to pass for an aged lover; blush to be so long the\nPublic's jest; and if true glory has no charm for you and ridicule no\nterror, at least let change of heart come to the rescue and save you\nfrom disgrace. For, if I see things at all truly, a man should guard\nhis reputation, if only to spare his own friends the shameful necessity\nof telling lies. All the world owes this to itself, but especially such\na man as yourself, who have so great a public to justify, and one which\nis always talking of you.\n\n    \"Great is the task to guard a great man's name.\"[48]\n\nIf in your poem of _Africa_ you make a truculent enemy tender such\ngood counsel to your beloved Scipio, you may well allow, for your own\nprofit, a father, who loves you tenderly, to utter with his lips the\nvery same monition.\n\nPut away the childish things of infancy; quench the burning desires\nof youth; think not all the time of what you are going to be and do\nnext; look carefully what you are now; do not imagine that the mirror\nhas been put before your eyes for nothing, but remember that which is\nwritten in the Book of Questions on Nature:--\n\n\"Mirrors were invented that men might know themselves. Much profit\ncomes thereby. First, knowledge of self; second, wise counsel. You are\nhandsome, then beware of what disfigures: plain, then make up by virtue\nwhat is wanting in good looks. You are young, then remember youth's\nspringtime is the time for study and for manly work: old, then lay\naside the ugly vices off the flesh and turn your thoughts to what will\nbe the latter end.\"[49]\n\n_Petrarch_. It has dwelt in my remembrance always, from the first day\nthat ever I read it; for the thing itself is worth remembering and its\nwarning is wise.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Of what profit has it been to you to read and remember?\nYou had better excused yourself had you pleaded ignorance for your\nshield. Knowing what you do, are you not ashamed to see that your grey\nhairs have brought no change in you?\n\n_Petrarch._ I am ashamed, I regret it, I repent of it, but as for doing\nmore, I cannot. Moreover, you know I have this much of consolation,\nthat she too is growing old with me.\n\n_S. Augustine._ The very word of Julia, C\u00e6sar Augustus' daughter!\nDoubtless it has lain fixed in your mind, has it not? When her father\nfound fault because she would not have older people round her, as did\nLivia, she parried the paternal reproof by the neat rejoinder--\"They\nwill be older as soon as I am.\"[50]\n\nBut pray, tell me, do you suppose that at your age it will be more\nbecoming to doat upon an old woman than to love a young one? On the\ncontrary, it is the more unbecoming, as the reason for loving is less.\nWell may you take shame to yourself never to grow any wiser though you\nsee your body daily growing older. That is all I can say on the subject\nof shame.\n\nBut, as Cicero tells us, it is but a poor thing to make shame do the\nwork of reason; and so to reason, the true source of all remedies, let\nus now turn for help. You will assuredly find it through using deep\nReflection--the third of the things that turn the soul away from love.\nRemember what you are now called to is that citadel wherein alone you\ncan be quite safe against the incursions of passion and by which alone\nyou will deserve the name of Man. Consider, then, first how noble a\nthing is the soul, and that so great is it that were I to discourse\nas I should wish, I must needs make a whole book thereon. Consider,\nagain, the frailty and vileness of the body, which would demand no\nless full treatment than the other. Think also of the shortness of our\nlife, concerning which many great men have left their books. Think\nof the flight of time, that no one yet has been able to express in\nwords. Think of Death, the fact so certain, the hour so uncertain, but\neverywhere and at all times imminent. Think how men are deceived just\nin this one point, that they believe they can put off what in fact\nnever can be put off: for no one is really such a fool as, supposing\nthe question is asked him, not to answer that of course some day he\nwill die. And so let not the hope of longer life mock you, as it mocks\nso many others, but rather lay up in your heart the verse that seems as\nit were an oracle of heaven--\n\n    \"Count every day that dawns to be your last,\"[51]\n\nFor is it not so that to mortal men every day is in truth the last,\nor all but the last? Consider, moreover, how shameful it is to have\nmen point the finger at you, and to become a public laughing-stock;\nremember, too, how ill your profession accords with a life like this.\nThink how this woman has injured your soul, your body, your fortune.\nRemember what you have borne for her, all to no purpose: how many times\nyou have been mocked, despised, scorned; think what flatteries, what\nlamentations, and of all the tears you have cast upon the wind; think\nhow again and again she has heaped all this on you with an air of\nhaughty disdain, and how if for a moment she showed herself more kind,\nit was but for the passing of a breath and then was gone.\n\nThink, moreover, how much you have added to her fame, and of what she\nhas subtracted from your life: how you have ever been jealous for her\ngood name, but she has been always regardless of your very self and\ncondition. Remember how she has turned you aside from loving God, and\ninto how great miseries you have fallen, known to me, but which I pass\nin silence lest the birds of the air carry the matter abroad.\n\nThink, moreover, what tasks on all sides are claiming your attention,\nand by which you may do far more good and deserve far more honour: how\nmany things you have on hand, as yet uncompleted, to which it would\nbe far better for you to return, and devote more time, instead of\nattempting them so perfunctorily as you have en doing lately.\n\nFinally, ponder well what that thing is for which you have such\nconsuming desire. But think like a man and with your wits about you;\nfor fear lest while you are in the act of flying you be cunningly\nentangled, as not a few have been when Beauty's fascinating charm\nsteals upon them by some little, unlooked-for channel, and then is fed\nand strengthened by evil remedies.\n\nFor how be there that have once tasted this seductive pleasure and\ncan retain enough manliness, not to say courage, to rate at its true\nvalue that poor form of woman of which I speak. Only too easily Man's\nstrength of mind gives way, and with nature pressing on, he falls\nsoonest on that side to which he has long leaned. Take most earnest\nheed that this happen not to you. Banish every recollection of those\nold cares of yours: put far away from you every vision of the past,\nand, as one has said in a certain place, \"dash the little children\nagainst the stones,\"[52] lest if they grow up you yourself be cast into\nthe mire. And defer not to knock at Heaven's door with prayers; let\nyour supplications weary the ears of the heavenly King; day and night\nlift up your petition with tears and crying, if perchance the Almighty\nwill take compassion upon you and give an end to your sore trouble and\ndistress.\n\nThese are the things that you must do, these the safeguards you must\nemploy; if you will observe them faithfully the Divine Help will be at\nhand, as I trust; and the right hand of the Deliverer whom none can\nresist will succour you.\n\nBut albeit I have spoken on this one malady what is too short for your\nneeds but too long for the briefness of our time, let us pass now to\nanother matter. One evil still is left, to heal you of which I now will\nmake a last endeavour.\n\n_Petrarch._ Even so do, most gentle Father. For though I be not yet\nwholly set free from my burdens, yet, nevertheless, from great part of\nthem I do feel in truth a blessed release.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Ambition still has too much hold on you. You seek too\neagerly the praise of men, and to leave behind you an undying name.\n\n_Petrarch._ I freely confess it. I cannot beat down that passion in my\nsoul. For it, as yet, I have found no cure.\n\n_S. Augustine_. But I greatly fear lest this pursuit of a false\nimmortality of fame may shut for you the way that leads to the true\nimmortality of life.\n\n_Petrarch._ That is one of my fears also, but I await your discovering\nto me the means to save my life; you, of a truth, will do it, who have\nfurnished me with means for the healing of evils greater still.\n\n_S. Augustine_. Think not that any of your ills is greater than this\none, though I deny not that some may be more vile.\n\nBut tell me, I pray you, what in your opinion is this thing called\nglory, that you so ardently covet?\n\n_Petrarch._ I know not if you ask me for a definition. But if so, who\nso capable to give one as yourself?\n\n_S. Augustine._ The name of glory is well enough known to you; but to\nthe real thing, if one may judge by your actions, you are a stranger.\nIf you had known what it is you would not long for it so eagerly.\nSuppose you define glory, with Cicero, as being \"the illustrious\nand world-wide renown of good services rendered to one's fellow\ncitizens, to one's country, or to all mankind\"; or as he expresses it\nelsewhere, \"Public opinion uttering its voice about a man in words of\npraise.\"[53] You will notice that in both these cases glory is said to\nbe reputation. Now, do you know what this reputation is?\n\n_Petrarch._ I cannot say any good description of it occurs to me at the\nmoment; and I shrink from putting forward things I do not understand. I\nthink, therefore, the truer and better course is for me to keep silence.\n\n_S. Augustine_. You act like a wise and modest man. In every serious\nquestion, and especially when the matter is ambiguous, one should pay\nmuch less attention to what one will say than to what one will not say,\nfor the credit of having said well is something much less than the\ndiscredit of having said ill. Now I submit to you that reputation is\nnothing but talk about some one, passing from mouth to mouth of many\npeople.\n\n_Petrarch._ I think your definition, or, if you prefer the word, your\ndescription, is a good one.\n\n_S. Augustine_. It is, then, but a breath, a changing wind; and, what\nwill disgust you more, it is the breath of a crowd. I know to whom I am\nspeaking. I have observed that no man more than you abhors the manners\nand behaviour of the common herd. Now see what perversity is this! You\nlet yourself be charmed with the applause of those whose conduct you\nabominate; and may Heaven grant you are only charmed, and that you put\nnot in their power your own everlasting welfare! Why and wherefore,\nI ask, this perpetual toil, these ceaseless vigils, and this intense\napplication to study? You will answer, perhaps, that you seek to find\nout what is profitable for life. But you have long since learned what\nis needful for life and for death.\n\nWhat was now required of you was to try and put in practice what you\nknow, instead of plunging deeper and deeper into laborious inquiries,\nwhere new problems are always meeting you, and insoluble mysteries,\nin which you never reach the end. Add to which the fact that you keep\ntoiling and toiling to satisfy the public; wearying yourself to please\nthe very people who, to you, are the most displeasing; gathering now a\nflower of poesy, now of history--in a word, employing all your genius\nof words to tickle the ears of the listening throng.\n\n_Petrarch_. I beg your pardon, but I cannot let that pass without\nsaying a word. Never since I was a boy have I pleased myself with\nelegant extracts and flowerets of literature. For often have I noted\nwhat neat and excellent things Cicero has uttered against butchers of\nbooks, and especially, also, the phrase of Seneca in which he declares,\n\"It is a disgrace for a man to keep hunting for flowers and prop\nhimself up on familiar quotations, and only stand on what he knows by\nheart.\"[54]\n\n_S. Augustine._ In saying what I did, I neither accuse you of idleness\nnor scant memory. What I blame you for is that in your reading you have\npicked out the more flowery passages for the amusement of your cronies,\nand, as it were, packed up boxes of pretty things out of a great heap,\nfor the benefit of your friends--which is nothing but pandering to a\ndesire of vainglory; and, moreover, I say that, not being contented\nwith your duty of every day (which, in spite of great expense of time,\nonly promised you some celebrity among your contemporaries), you have\nlet your thoughts run on ages of time and given yourself up to dreams\nof fame among those who come after. And in pursuit of this end, putting\nyour hand to yet greater tasks, you entered on writing a history from\nthe time of King Romulus to that of the Emperor Titus, an enormous\nundertaking that would swallow up an immensity of time and labour.\nThen, without waiting till this was finished, goaded by the pricks of\nyour ambition for glory, you sailed off in your poetical barque towards\nAfrica; and now on the aforesaid books of your _Africa_ you are hard at\nwork, without relinquishing the other. And in this way you devote your\nwhole life to those two absorbing occupations--for I will not stop to\nmention the countless others that come in also--and throw utterly away\nwhat is of most concern and which, when lost, cannot be recovered. You\nwrite books on others, but yourself you quite forget. And who knows but\nwhat, before either of your works be finished, Death may snatch the pen\nfrom your tired hand, and while in your insatiable hunt for glory you\nhurry on first by one path, then the other, you may find at last that\nby neither of them have you reached your goal?\n\n_Petrarch._ Fears of that kind have sometimes come over me, I confess.\nAnd knowing I suffered from grave illness, I was afraid death might\nnot be far off. Nothing then was more bitter to me than the thought of\nleaving my _Africa_ half finished. Unwilling that another hand should\nput the finishing touch, I had determined that with my own I would cast\nit to the flames, for there was none of my friends whom I could trust\nto do me this service after I was gone. I knew that a request like\nthat was the only one of our Virgil's which the Emperor C\u00e6sar Augustus\ndeclined to grant. To make a long story short, this land of Africa,\nburnt already by that fierce sun to which it is for ever exposed,\nalready three times by the Roman torches devastated far and wide, had\nall but yet again, by my hands, been made a prey to the flames.\n\nBut of that we will say no more now, for too painful are the\nrecollections that it brings.\n\n_S. Augustine._ What you have said confirms my opinion. The day of\nreckoning is put off for a short time, but the account remains still\nto be paid. And what can be more foolish than thus to waste such\nenormous labour over a thing of uncertain issue? I know what prevents\nyou abandoning the work is simply that you still hope you may complete\nit. As I see that there will be some difficulty (unless I am mistaken)\nin getting you to diminish this hope, I propose we try to magnify it\nand so set it out in words that you will see how disproportionate it is\nto toils like yours. Suppose, therefore, that you have full abundance\nof time, leisure, and freedom of mind; let there be no failure of\nintellect, no languor of body, none of those mischances of fortune\nwhich, by checking the first onrush of expression, so often stop the\nready writer's pen; let all things go better even than you had dared to\nwish--still, what considerable work do you expect to achieve?\n\n_Petrarch._ Oh, certainly, one of great excellence, quite out of the\ncommon and likely to attract attention.\n\n_S. Augustine._ I have no wish to seem contradictory: let us suppose\nit may be a work of great excellence. But if you knew of what greater\nexcellence still is the work which this will hinder, you would abhor\nwhat you now desire. For I will go so far as to assert that this work\nof yours is, to begin with, taking off your attention from cares of a\nnobler kind; and, greatly excellent as you think it, has no wide scope\nnor long future before it, circumscribed as it must be by time and\nspace.\n\n_Petrarch._ Well do I know that old story bandied about by the\nphilosophers, how they declare that all the earth is but a tiny point,\nhow the soul alone endures for infinite millions of years, how fame\ncannot fill either the earth or the soul, and other paltry pleas of\nthis sort, by which they try to turn minds aside from the love of\nglory. But I beg you will produce some more solid arguments than\nthese, if you know any; for experience has shown me that all this is\nmore specious than convincing. I do not think to become as God, or to\ninhabit eternity, or embrace, heaven and earth. Such glory as belongs\nto man is enough for me. That is all I sigh after. Mortal myself, it is\nbut mortal blessings I desire.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Oh, if that is what you truly mean, how wretched are\nyou! If you have no desire for things immortal, if no regard for what\nis eternal, then you are indeed wholly of the earth earthy: then all is\nover for you; no hope at all is left.\n\n_Petrarch._ Heaven defend me from such folly! But my conscience is\nwitness, and knows what have been my desires, that never have I\nceased to love with burning zeal the things eternal. I said--or if,\nperchance, I am mistaken, I intended to say--that my wish was to use\nmortal things for what they were worth, to do no violence to nature\nby bringing to its good things a limitless and immoderate desire, and\nso to follow after human fame as knowing that both myself and it will\nperish.\n\n_S. Augustine._ There you speak as a wise man. But when you declare you\nare willing to rob yourself of the riches that will endure merely for\nthe sake of what you own is a perishing breath of applause--then you\nare a fool indeed.\n\n_Petrarch_. True, I may be postponing those riches, but not\nrelinquishing them altogether.\n\n_S. Augustine._ But how dangerous is such delay, remembering that\ntime flies fast and how uncertain our short life is. Let me ask you a\nquestion, and I beg you to answer it. Suppose that He who alone can fix\nour time of life and death were this day to assign you one whole year,\nand you had the definite certainty of how would you propose to use that\nyear?\n\n_Petrarch_. Assuredly I should use great economy of time, and be\nextremely, careful to employ it on serious things; and I suppose no man\nalive would be so insolent or foolish as to answer your question in any\nother way.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You have answered rightly. And yet the folly men\ndisplay in this case is matter of astonishment, not to me only but to\nall those who have ever written on this subject. To set forth what\nthey feel, they have combined every faculty they possess and employed\nall their eloquence, and even then the truth itself will leave their\nutmost efforts far behind.\n\n_Petrarch._ I fear I do not understand the motive of so great\nastonishment.\n\n_S. Augustine._ It is because you are covetous of uncertain riches and\naltogether wasteful of those which are eternal, doing the very contrary\nof what you ought to do, if you were not quite devoid of wisdom.\n\nSo this space of a year, though short enough indeed, being promised\nyou by Him who deceives not, neither is deceived, you would partition\nout and dissipate on any kind of folly, provided you could keep the\nlast hour for the care of your salvation! The horrible and hateful\nmadness of you all is just this, that you waste your time on ridiculous\nvanities, as if there were enough and to spare, and though you do not\nin the least know if what you have will be long enough for the supreme\nnecessities of the soul in face of death. The man who has one year of\nlife possesses something certain though short; whereas he who has no\nsuch promise and lies under the power of death (whose stroke may fall\nat any moment), which is the common lot of all men--this man, I say, is\nnot sure of a year, a day; no, not even of one hour. He who has a year\nto live, if six months shall have slipped away, will still have another\nhalf-year left to run; but for you, if you lose the day that now is,\nwho will promise you to-morrow?[55]\n\nIt is Cicero who says: \"It is certain that we must die: what is\nuncertain is whether it will be to-day; and there is none so young\nthat-he can be sure he will live until the evening.\"[56] I ask, then,\nof you, and I ask it likewise of all those who stand gaping after the\nfuture and pay no heed to the present, \"Who knows if the high gods will\nadd even one morrow to this your little day of life?\"[57]\n\n_Petrarch_. If I am to answer for myself and for all: No one knows, of\na truth. But let us hope for a year at least; on which, if we are still\nto follow Cicero, even the most aged reckons!\n\n_S. Augustine._ Yes; and, as he also adds, not old men only but young\nones too are fools in that they cherish false hope, and promise\nthemselves uncertain goods as though they were certain.[58]\n\nBut let us take for granted (what is quite impossible) that the\nduration of life will be long and assured: still, do you not find it is\nthe height of madness to squander the best years and the best parts of\nyour existence on pleading only the eyes of others and tickling other\nmen's ears, and to keep the last and worst--the years that are almost\ngood for nothing--that bring nothing but distaste for life and then its\nend--to keep these, I say, for God and yourself, as though the welfare\nof your soul were the last thing you cared for?\n\nEven supposing the time were certain, is it not reversing the true\norder to put off the best to the last?\n\n_Petrarch._ I do not think my way of looking at it is so unreasonable\nas you imagine. My principle in that, as concerning the glory which we\nmay hope for here below, it is right for us to seek while we are here\nbelow. One may expect to enjoy that other more radiant glory in heaven,\nwhen we shall have there arrived, and when one will have no more care\nor wish for the glory of earth. Therefore, as I think, it is in the\ntrue order that mortal men should first care for mortal things; and\nthat to things transitory things eternal should succeed; because to\npass from those to these is to go forward in most certain accordance\nwith what is ordained for us, although no way is open for us to pass\nback again from eternity to time.\n\n_S. Augustine._ O man, little in yourself, and of little wisdom! Do\nyou, then, dream that you shall enjoy every pleasure in heaven and\nearth, and everything will turn out fortunate and prosperous for you\nalways and everywhere? But that delusion has betrayed thousands of\nmen thousands of times, and has sunk into hell a countless host of\nsouls. Thinking to have one foot on earth and one in heaven, they\ncould neither stand here below nor mount on high. Therefore they fell\nmiserably, and the moving breeze swept them suddenly away, some in the\nflower of their age, and some when they were in midst of their years\nand all their business.\n\nAnd do you suppose what has befallen so many others may not befall you?\nAlas! if (which may God forefend!) in the midst of all your plans and\nprojects you should be cut off--what grief, what shame, what remorse\n(then too late!) that you should have grasped at all and lost all!\n\n_Petrarch._ May the Most High in His mercy save me from that misery!\n\n_S. Augustine._ Though Divine Mercy may deliver a man from his folly,\nyet it will not excuse it. Presume not upon this mercy overmuch. For\nif God abhors those who lose hope, He also laughs at those who in\nfalse hope put their trust. I was sorry when I heard fall from your\nlips that phrase about despising what you called the old story of\nthe philosophers on this matter. Is it, then, an old story, pray, by\nfigures of geometry, to show how small is all the earth, and to prove\nit but an island of little length and width? Is it an old story to\ndivide the earth into five zones, the largest of which, lying in the\ncentre, is burned by the heat of the sun, and the two utmost, to right\nand left, are a prey to binding frost and eternal snow, which leave\nnot a corner where man can dwell; but those other two, between the\nmiddle and two utmost zones, are inhabited by man? Is it an old story\nthat this habitable part is divided again into two parts, whereof one\nis placed under your feet, guarded by a vast sea, and the other is\nleft you to inhabit everywhere, or, according to some authorities, is\nagain in two parts subdivided, with but one part habitable and the\nother surrounded by the winding intricacies of the Northern Ocean,\npreventing all access to it? As to that part under your feet, called\nthe antipodes, you are aware that for a long time the most learned men\nhave been of two opinions whether it is inhabited or not: for myself, I\nhave set forth my opinion in the book called _The City of God_, which\nyou have doubtless read. Is it also an old story that your habitable\npart, already so restricted, is yet further diminished to such an\nextent by seas, marshes, forests, sand and deserts, that the little\ncorner left you, of which you are so proud, is brought down to almost\nnothing? And, finally, is it an old story to point out to you that on\nthis narrow strip, where you dwell, there are divers kinds of life,\ndifferent religions which oppose one another, different languages and\ncustoms, which render it impossible to make the fame of your name go\nfar?\n\nBut if these things are to you nought but fables, so, to me, all I had\npromised myself of your future greatness must be a fable also; for I\nhad thought, hitherto, that no man had more knowledge of these things\nthan you yourself To say nothing of the conceptions of Cicero and\nVirgil and other systems of knowledge, physical or poetic, of which you\nseemed to have a competent knowledge, I knew that not long since, in\nyour _Africa,_ you had expressed the very same opinions in these pretty\nlines--\n\n    \"The Universe itself is but an isle\n    Confined in narrow bounds, small, and begirt\n    By Ocean's flowing waves.\"[59]\n\nYou have added other developments later on, and now that I know you\nthink them all fables, I am astonished you have put them forth with\nsuch hardihood.\n\nWhat shall I say now of the brief existence of human fame, the short,\nshort span of time, when you know too well how small and recent even\nthe oldest memory of man is if compared to eternity? I spare to call to\nyour mind those opinions of the men of old, laid up in Plato's _Tim\u00e6us_\nand in the sixth book of Cicero's _Republic,_ where it is foretold what\nfloods and conflagrations shall be coming not seldom on the earth. To\nmany men such things have seemed probable; but they wear a different\naspect to those who, like yourself, have come to know the true religion.\n\nAnd besides these, how many other things there are that militate\nagainst, I do not say the eternity, but even the survival of one's\nname. First there is the death of those with whom one has passed\none's life; and that forgetfulness which is the common bane of old\nage: then there is the rising fame, ever growing greater, of new men;\nwhich always, by its freshness, is somewhat derogatory to that of those\nwho went before, and seems to mount up higher just in so far as it\ncan depress this other down. Then you must add, also, that persistent\nenvy which ever dogs the steps of those who embark on any glorious\nenterprise; and the hatred of Truth itself, and the fact that the very\nlife of men of genius is odious to the crowd. Think, too, how fickle is\nthe judgment of the multitude. And alas for the sepulchres of the dead!\nto shatter which--\n\n    \"The wild fig's barren branch is strong enough,\"[60]\n\nas Juvenal has told us.\n\nIn your own _Africa_ you call this, elegantly enough, \"a second death\";\nand if I may here address to you the same words you have put in the\nmouth of another--\n\n    \"The animated bust and storied urn\n    Shall fall, and with them fall thy memory,\n    And thou, my son, thus taste a second death.\"[61]\n\nLo, then, how excellent, how undying that glory must be which the fall\nof one poor stone can bring to nought!\n\nAnd, then, consider the perishing of books wherein your name has\nbeen written, either by your own hand or another's. Even though that\nperishing may appear so much more delayed as books outlast monuments,\nnevertheless it is sooner or later inevitable; for, as is the case with\neverything else, there are countless natural or fortuitous calamities\nto which books are ever exposed. And even if they escape all these,\nthey, like us, grow old and die--\n\n    \"For whatsoever mortal hand has made,\n    With its vain labour, shall be mortal too,\"[62]\n\nif one may be allowed, for choice, to refute your childish error by\nyour own words.\n\nWhat need to say more? I shall never cease to bring to your\nrecollection lines of your own making which only too truly fit the case.\n\n    \"When your books perish you shall perish too;\n    This is the third death, still to be endured.\"[63]\n\nAnd now you know what I think about glory.\n\nPerhaps I have used more words in expressing it than was needful for\nyou or me; and yet fewer, I believe, than the importance of the subject\ndemands--unless perchance you still think all these things only an old\nstory?\n\n_Petrarch_. No indeed. What you have been saying--so far from seeming\nto me like old stories--has stirred in me a new desire to get rid of\nmy old delusions. For albeit that these things were known to me long\nago, and that I have heard them oftentimes repeated, since, as Terence\nputs it--\n\n    \"Everything that one can say\n    Has all been said before,\"[64]\n\nnevertheless the stateliness of phrase, the orderly narration, the\nauthority of him who speaks, cannot but move me deeply.\n\nBut I have yet a last request to make, which is that you will give me\nyour definite judgment on this point. Is it your wish that I should put\nall my studies on one side and renounce every ambition, or would you\nadvise some middle course?\n\n_S. Augustine._ I will never advise you to live without ambition; but\nI would always urge you to put virtue before glory. You know that\nglory is in a sense the shadow of virtue. And therefore, just as it\nis impossible that your body should not cast a shadow if the sun is\nshining, so it is impossible also in the light of God Himself that\nvirtues should exist and not make their glory to appear. Whoever, then,\nwould take true glory away must of necessity take away virtue also; and\nwhen that is gone man's life is left bare, and only resembles that of\nthe brute beasts that follow headlong their appetite, which to them is\ntheir only law. Here, therefore, is the rule for you to live by--follow\nafter virtue and let glory take care of itself; and as for this, as\nsome one said of Cato, the less you seek it the more you will find it.\nI must once more allow myself to invoke your own witness--\n\n    \"Thou shalt do well from Honour's self to flee,\n    For then shell Honour follow after thee.\"[65]\n\nDo you not recognise the verse? It is your own. One would surely think\nthat man a fool who at midday should run here and there in the blaze\nof the sun, wearing himself out to see his shadow and point it out\nto others; now the man shows no more sense or reason who, amid the\nanxieties of life, takes huge trouble, first one way, then another, to\nspread his own glory abroad.\n\nWhat then? Let a man march steadily to the goal set before him, his\nshadow will follow him step by step: let him so act that he shall make\nvirtue his prize, and lo! glory also shall be found at his side. I\nspeak of that glory which is virtue's true companion; as for that which\ncomes by other means, whether from bodily grace or mere cleverness, in\nthe countless ways men have invented, it does not seem to me worthy of\nthe name. And so, in regard to yourself, while you are wearing your\nstrength out by such great labours in writing books, if you will allow\nme to say so, you are shooting wide of the mark. For you are spending\nall your efforts on things that concern others, and neglecting those\nthat are your own; and so, through this vain hope of glory, the time,\nso precious, though you know it not, is passing away.\n\n_Petrarch._ What must I do, then? Abandon my unfinished works? Or would\nit be better to hasten them on, and, if God gives me grace, put the\nfinishing touch to them? If I were once rid of these cares I would go\nforward, with a mind more free, to greater things; for hardly could I\nbear the thought of leaving half completed a work so fine and rich in\npromise of success.\n\n_S. Augustine._ Which foot you mean to hobble on, I do not know. You\nseem inclined to leave yourself derelict, rather than your books.\n\nAs for me, I shall do my duty, with what success depends on you; but\nat least I shall have satisfied my conscience. Throw to the winds\nthose great loads of histories; the deeds of the Romans have been\ncelebrated quite enough by others, and are known by their own fame.\nGet out of Africa and leave it to its possessors. You will add nothing\nto the glory of your Scipio or to your own. He can be exalted to no\nhigher pinnacle, but you may bring down his reputation, and with it\nyour own. Therefore leave all this on one side, and now at length take\npossession of yourself; and to come back to our starting-point, let me\nurge you to enter upon the meditation of your last end, which comes\non step by step without your being aware. Tear off the veil; disperse\nthe shadows; look only on that which is coming; with eyes and mind\ngive all your attention there: let nought else distract you. Heaven,\nEarth, the Sea--these all suffer change. What can man, the frailest of\nall creatures, hope for? The seasons fulfil their courses and change;\nnothing remains as it was. If you think you shall remain, you are\ndeceived. For, Horace beautifully says--\n\n    \"The losses of the changing Heaven,\n       The changing moons repair;\n     But we, when we have gone below,\n     And our rich land no longer know,\n     And hear no more its rivers flow,\n       Are nought but dust and air.\"[66]\n\nTherefore, as often as you watch the fruits of summer follow the\nflowers of spring, and the pleasant cool of autumn succeed the summer\nheat, and winter's snow come after autumn's vintage, say to yourself:\n\"The seasons pass, yet they will come again; but I am going, never\nagain to return.\" As often as you behold at sunset the shadows of\nthe mountains lengthening on the plain, say to yourself: \"Now life\nis sinking fast; the shadow of death begins to overspread the scene;\nyonder sun to-morrow will again be rising the same, but this day of\nmine will never come back.\"\n\nWho shall count the glories of the midnight sky, which, though it be\nthe time that men of evil heart choose for their misdoing, yet is it\nto men of good heart the holiest of all times? Well, take care you be\nnot less watchful than that admiral of the Trojan fleet;[67] for the\nseas you sail upon are no more safe than his; rise up at the mid hour\nof night, and\n\n    \"All the stars, that in the silent sky\n    Roll on their way, observe with careful heed.\"[68]\n\nAs you see them hasten to their setting in the west, think how you\nalso are moving with them; and that as for your abiding you have no\nhope, saving only in Him who knows no change and suffers no decline.\nMoreover, when you meet with those whom you knew but yesterday as\nchildren, and see them now growing up in stature to their manhood,\nstage by stage, remember how you in like manner, in the same lapse of\ntime, are going down the hill, and at greater speed, by that law in\nnature under which things that are heavy tend to fall.\n\nWhen your eyes behold some ancient building, let your first thought\nbe, Where are those who wrought it with their hands? and when you see\nnew ones, ask, Where, soon, the builders of them will be also? If you\nchance to see the trees of some orchard, remember how often it falls\nout that one plants it and another plucks the fruit; for many a time\nthe saying in the _Georgics_ comes to pass--\n\n    \"One plants the tree, but eh, the slow-grown shade\n    His grandchild will enjoy.\"[69]\n\nAnd when you look with pleased wonder at some swiftly flowing stream,\nthen, that I bring no other poet's thought, keep ever in mind this one\nof your own--\n\n    \"No river harries with more rapid flight\n    Than Life's swift current.\"[70]\n\nNeither let multitude of days or the artificial divisions of time\ndeceive your judgment; for man's whole existence, let it be never so\nprolonged, Is but as one day, and that not a day entire.\n\nHave oftentimes before your eyes one similitude of Aristotle's, whom\nI know to be a favourite of yours; and his words I am sure you never\nread or hear without feeling them deeply. You will find it reported\nby Cicero in the _Tusculan Orations_, and in words possibly even more\nclear and impressive than the original. Here is what he says, or very\nnearly so, for at the moment I have not his book at hand:--\n\n\"Aristotle tells us that on the banks of the river Hypanis, which on\none side of Europe empties itself into the Euxine Sea, there exists a\nrace of little animals who only live one day. Any one of them that dies\nat sunrise dies young; he that dies at noon is middle-aged; and should\none live till sunset, he dies in old age: and especially is this so\nabout the time of the solstice. If you compare the time of man's life\nwith eternity, it will seem no longer than theirs.\"[71] So far I give\nyou Cicero; but what he says seems to me so beyond all cavil that now\nfor a long time the saying has passed from the tongue of philosophers\ninto common speech. Every day you hear even ignorant and unlearned men,\nif they chance to see a little child, make use of some expression like\nthis--\"Well, well, it's early morning with him yet\"; if they see a\nman they will say, \"Oh, it's high noon with him now,\" or \"He's well in\nthe middle of his day\"; if they see one old and broken down they will\nremark, \"Ah! he's getting toward evening and the going down of the sun.\"\n\nPonder well on these things, my very dear son, and on others akin\nto them, which will, I doubt not, flock into your thoughts, as\nthese on the spur of the moment have come into mine. And one more\nthing I beseech you to have in mind: look at the graves of those\nolder, perhaps, than you, but whom nevertheless you have known; look\ndiligently, and then rest assured that the same dwelling-place,\nthe same house, is for you also made ready. Thither are all of us\ntravelling on; that is our last home. You who now, perchance, are proud\nand think that your springtime has not quite departed, and are for\ntrampling others underfoot, you in turn shall underfoot be trampled.\nThink over all this; consider it by day and by night; not merely as a\nman of sober mind and remembering what nature he is of, but as becomes\na man of wisdom, and so holding it all fast, as one who remembers it is\nwritten\n\n    \"A wise man's life is all one preparation for death.\"[72]\n\nThis saying will teach you to think little of what concerns earthly\nthings, and set before your eyes a better path of life on which to\nenter. You will be asking me what is that kind of life, and by what\nways you can approach it? And I shall reply that now you have no need\nof long advice or counsel. Listen only to that Holy Spirit who is ever\ncalling, and in urgent words saying, \"Here is the way to your native\ncountry, your true home.\"\n\nYou know what He would bring to mind; what paths for your feet, what\ndangers to avoid. If you would be safe and free obey His voice. There\nis no need for long deliberations. The nature of your danger calls\nfor action, not words. The enemy is pressing you from behind, and\nhastening to the charge in front; the walls of the citadel, where you\nare besieged, already tremble. There is no time for hesitation. Of what\nuse is it to make sweet songs for the ears of others, if you listen not\nto them yourself?\n\nI must draw to an end. Shun the rocks ahead, at all costs; drop anchor\nin a place of safety; follow the lead which the inspirations of your\nown soul give you. They may, on the side of what is evil, be evil; but\ntowards that which is good they are themselves of the very best.\n\n_Petrarch_. Ah! would that you had told me all this before I had\nsurrendered myself over to these studies!\n\n_S. Augustine._ I have told you, many a time and oft. From the moment\nwhen I saw you first take up your pen, I foresaw how short life would\nbe, and how uncertain: how certain, too, and how long the toil. I\nsaw the work would be great and the fruit little, and I warned you\nof all these things. But your ears were filled with the plaudits of\nthe public, which, to my astonishment, took you captive, although you\ntalked as if you despised them. But as we have now been conferring\ntogether long enough, I beg that if any of my counsels have seemed good\nto you, you will not allow them to come to nothing for want of energy\nor recollection; and if, on the other hand, I have sometimes been too\nrough, I pray you take it not amiss.\n\n_Petrarch_. Indeed I owe you a deep debt of gratitude, as for many\nother things, so, especially, for this three days' colloquy; for you\nhave cleansed my darkened sight and scattered the thick clouds of error\nin which I was involved. And how shall I express my thankfulness to\nHer also, the Spirit of Truth, who, unwearied by our much talking,\nhas waited upon us to the end? Had She turned away her face from us we\nshould have wandered in darkness: your discourse had then contained no\nsure truth, neither would my understanding have embraced it. And now,\nas She and you have your dwelling-place in heaven, and I must still\nabide on earth, and, as you see, am greatly perplexed and troubled, not\nknowing for how long this must be, I implore you, of your goodness, not\nto forsake me, in spite of that great distance which separates me from\nsuch as you; for without you, O best of fathers, my life would be but\none long sadness, and without Her I could not live at all.\n\n_S. Augustine._ You may count your prayer already granted, if you will\nonly to yourself be true: for how shall any one be constant to him who\nis inconstant to himself?\n\n_Petrarch._ I will be true to myself, so far as in me lies. I will\npull myself together and collect my scattered wits, and make a great\nendeavour to possess my soul in patience. But even while we speak, a\ncrowd of important affairs, though only of the world, is waiting my\nattention.\n\n_S. Augustine._ For the common herd of men these may be what to\nthem seem more important; but in reality there is nothing of more\nimportance, and nothing ought to be esteemed of so much worth. For,\nof other trains of thought, you may reckon them to be not essential\nfor the soul, but the end of life will prove that these we have been\nengaged in are of eternal necessity.\n\n_Petrarch._ I confess they are so. And I now return to attend to those\nother concerns only in order that, when they are discharged, I may come\nback to these.\n\nI am not ignorant that, as you said a few minutes before, it would be\nmuch safer for me to attend only to the care of my soul, to relinquish\naltogether every bypath and follow the straight path of the way of\nsalvation. But I have not strength to resist that old bent for study\naltogether.\n\n_S. Augustine_. We are falling into our old controversy. Want of will\nyou call want of power. Well, so it must be, if it cannot be otherwise.\nI pray God that He will go with you where you go, and that He will\norder your steps, even though they wander, into the way of truth.\n\n_Petrarch._ O may it indeed be as you have prayed! May God lead me safe\nand whole out of so many crooked ways; that I may follow the Voice that\ncalls me; that I may raise up no cloud of dust before my eyes; and,\nwith my mind calmed down and at peace, I may hear the world grow still\nand silent, and the winds of adversity die away.\n\n\n_Francis Petrarch, Poet, Most illustrious Orator; his Book, which\nhe entitled Secretum; in which a Three days' Discussion concerning\nContempt of the World is carried on._ Finis.\n\n\n\n[1] _De Senectute_, xxiii.\n\n[2] _\u00c6neid_, vi. 428-29.\n\n[3] \"Tarda sit illa dies et nostro serior \u00e6vo.\"--_Met._ xv. 868.\n\n[4] This refers to the second Scipio Africanus, and the words alluded\nto are these: \"It is his goodness that I loved, and that is not dead;\nit lives not alone for me, who have had it ever before my eyes, but it\nwill go down in all its beauty to those who come after. Whenever a man\nis meditating some great undertaking, or shall be nourishing in his\nbreast great hopes, his shall be the memory, and his the image that\nsuch a man shall take for a pattern.\"--Cicero, _De Amiciti\u00e2_, xxvii.\n\n[5] _\u00c6neid,_ i. 328-29.\n\n[6] Cicero, _Tusculan Orations,_ iv. 18.\n\n[7] Quoted from Attilius in Cicero's _Letters to Atticus,_ xiv.\n\n[8] Ovid, _Amores_, I. x. 13.\n\n[9] _\u00c6neid_, vi. 540-43.\n\n[10] _\u00c6neid_, i. 613\n\n[11] Seneca, _De Beneficiis,_ vii. 8.\n\n[12] Terence, _Phormio_, 949.\n\n[13] _Tusculan Orations_, iv. 35\n\n[14] Academica.\n\n[15] Quoted from Tusculan Orations, iii. 26.\n\n[16] Simone Martini, of Siena.\n\n[17] A river in Thessaly.\n\n[18] A town in Phocis, near Delphi.\n\n[19] Terence, _Eunuch,_ 59-63.\n\n[20] Terence, _Eunuch,_ 70-73.\n\n[21] _Ibid.,_ 56.\n\n[22] _Ibid._ 57, 58.\n\n[23] _Tusculan Orations_, iv. 35.\n\n[24] _De Remediis Amoris,_ I. 162.\n\n[25] _\u00c6neid,_ iii. 44.\n\n[26] _Tusculan Orations,_ iv. 35.\n\n[27] _\u00c6neid_, iv. 69-73.\n\n[28] Seneca, _Epist._, xxviii.\n\n[29] Horace, _Epistles_, Book I., _Epist._, xi. 27 (Conington).\n\n[30] Horace, _Epist.,_ Book I., xi. 25-26 (Conington).\n\n[31] Seneca's _Epist.,_ lxiv.\n\n[32] _\u00c6neid,_ vi. 126-27.\n\n[33] _Georgics,_ ii. 136-39.\n\n[34] Ildebrandino di Conte, Bishop of Padua, _Epist._ cxi. 25.\n\n[35] Petrarch's _Penitential Psalms,_ iii. (translated by George\nChapman).\n\n[36] Ovid's _De Remediis Amoris_, 579-80.\n\n[37] Petrarch's _Epistles,_ i. 7.\n\n[38] Quoted in Seneca's treatise, _De Anim\u00e6 tranquillitate_, xv.\n\n[39] Seneca's _Epistles,_ ii.\n\n[40] _Tusculan Orations,_ iv. 35.\n\n[41] The text here is obscure.\n\n[42] Suetonius Domitian, xviii.\n\n[43] Virgil, _Eclogues,_ i. 29.\n\n[44] _\u00c6neid,_ vi. 615-16.\n\n[45] _Ibid.,_ ii. 265.\n\n[47] Seneca, _Epistles,_ iv.\n\n[48] Petrarch's _Africa_, vii. 292.\n\n[49] Seneca, _De Natura Qu\u00e6stiones,_ i. 17.\n\n[50] Macrobius _Saturnalia,_ ii 5.\n\n[51] Horace, _Epistles_, i 4, 13.\n\n[52] PS. cxxxi. 9.\n\n[53] Cicero, _Pro Marcello_, viii.\n\n[54] Seneca, _Letters_.\n\n[55] _De Senectute_, xx.\n\n[56] _Ibid.,_ xix.\n\n[57] Horace, _Odes,_ iv. 7,17.\n\n[58] _De Senectute_, xix.\n\n[59] _Africa_, ii. 361, 363.\n\n[60] _Satira,_ x. 145.\n\n[61] _Africa,_ ii. 481, &c.\n\n[62] _Africa_, ii. 455-6.\n\n[63] _Ibid._, ii. 464-5.\n\n[64] Terence's _Eunuch,_ 41.\n\n[65] _Africa_, ii 486.\n\n[66] Horace, _Odes_, iv. 7, 13-16.\n\n[67] Palinurus.\n\n[68] <b>\u00c6neid</b>, iii. 515.\n\n[69] _Georgics_, ii. 58.\n\n[70] Petrarch's Epist., I. iv. 91-2.\n\n[71] _Tusculan Orations_, i. 39.\n\n[72] _Tusculan Orations_, i. 30.","title":"Petrarch's Secret; or, the Soul's Conflict with Passion: Three Dialogues Between Himself and S. Augustine","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":51121}