you with his merciful rein, and so pricks you with his spur. It is not
surely possible, that he who thus has the thought of death before him
day by day should ever be doomed to death eternal.
But since you feel, and rightly so, that something still is wanting, I
will try and unfold to you what it is, and, if God so please, remove it
also; to the end that you may arise and with free, uplifted mind shake
off that old bondage that so long has kept you down.
_Petrarch_. O would that indeed you may prove able so to help me, and I
on my part be capable of receiving such a boon!
_S. Augustine._ It shall be yours if you wish. The thing is not
impossible. But in the nature of man's actions two things are required,
and if either be wanting, the action will come to nought. There must be
will, and that will must be so strong and earnest that it can deserve
the name of purpose.
_Petrarch._ So let it be.
_S. Augustine_. Do you know what stands in the way of your purpose of
heart?
_Petrarch._ That is what I want to know; what for so long I have
earnestly desired to understand.
_S. Augustine_. Then listen. It was from Heaven your soul came forth:
never will I assert a lower origin than that. But in its contact with
the flesh, wherein it is imprisoned, it has lost much of its first
splendour. Have no doubt of this in your mind. And not only is it so,
but by reason of the length of time it has in a manner fallen asleep;
and, if one may so express it, forgotten its own beginning and its
heavenly Creator.
And these passions that are born in the soul through its connection
with the body, and that forgetfulness of its nobler nature, seem to me
to have been touched by Virgil with pen almost inspired when he writes--
"The souls of men still shine with heavenly fire,
That tells from whence they come, save that the flesh
And limbs of earth breed dullness, hence spring fears,
Desire, and grief and pleasures of the world,
And so, in darkness prisoned, they no more
Look upward to heaven's face."[13]
Do you not in the poet's words discern that monster with four heads so
deadly to the nature of man?
_Petrarch_. I discern very clearly the fourfold passion of our nature,
which, first of all, we divide in two as it has respect to past and
future, and then subdivide again in respect of good and evil. And so,
by these four winds distraught, the rest and quietness of man's soul is
perished and gone.
_S. Augustine._ You discern rightly, and the words of the Apostle are
fulfilled in us, which say, "The corruptible body presseth down the
soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth
upon many things."[14] Of a truth the countless forms and images of
things visible, that one by one are brought into the soul by the senses
of the body, gather there in the inner centre in a mass, and the soul,
not being akin to these or capable of learning them, they weigh it
down and overwhelm it with their contrariety. Hence that plague of too
many impressions tears apart and wounds the thinking faculty of the
soul, and with its fatal, distracting complexity bars the way of clear
meditation, whereby it would mount up to the threshold of the One Chief
Good.
_Petrarch_. You have spoken admirably of that plague in many places,
and especially in your book on _True Religion_ (with which it is,
indeed, quite incompatible). It was but the other day that I lighted
on that work of yours in one of my digressions from the study of
philosophy and poetry, and it was with very great eagerness that I
began to peruse it. Indeed, I was like a man setting out from his own
country to see the world, and coming to the gate of some famous city
quite new to him, where, charmed by the novelty of all around, he stops
now here, now there, and looks intently on all that meets his gaze.
_S. Augustine._ And yet in that book, allowing for a difference of
phraseology such as becomes a teacher of catholic truth, you will
find a large part of its doctrine is drawn from philosophers, more
especially from those of the Platonist and Socratic school. And, to
keep nothing from you, I may say that what especially moved me to
undertake that work was a word of your favourite Cicero. God blessed
that work of mine so that from a few seeds there came an abundant
harvest. But let us come back to the matter in hand.
_Petrarch._ As you wish; but, O best of Fathers, do not hide from me
what that word was which gave you the starting-point of so excellent a
work.
_S. Augustine._ It was the passage where in a certain book Cicero
says, by way of expressing his detestation of the errors of his time:
"They could look at nothing with their mind, but judged everything by
the sight of their eyes; yet a man of any greatness of understanding
is known by his detaching his thought from objects of sense, and his
meditations from the ordinary track in which others move."[15] This,
then, I took as my foundation, and built upon it the work which you say
has given you pleasure.
_Petrarch._ I remember the place; it is in the _Tusculan Orations._
I have been delighted to notice what a habit it is of yours to quote
those words here and elsewhere in your works; and they deserve it, for
they are words that seem to blend in one phrase truth and dignity and
grace. Now, since it seems good to you, pray return to our subject.
_S. Augustine._ This, then, is that plague that has hurt you, this
is what will quickly drive you to destruction, unless you take
care. Overwhelmed with too many divers impressions made on it, and
everlastingly fighting with its own cares, your weak spirit is crushed
so that it has not strength to judge what it should first attack
or to discern what to cherish, what to destroy, what to repel; all
its strength and what time the niggard hand of Fate allows are not
sufficient for so many demands. So it suffers that same evil which
befalls those who sow too many seeds in one small space of ground.
As they spring up they choke each other. So in your overcrowded
mind what there is sown can make no root and bear no fruit. With
no considered plan, you are tossed now here now there in strange
fluctuation, and can never put your whole strength to anything. Hence
it happens that whenever the generous mind approaches (if it is
allowed) the contemplation of death, or some other meditation that
might help it in the path of life, and penetrates by its own acumen to
the depths of its own nature, it is unable to stand there, and, driven
by hosts of various cares, it starts back. And then the work, that
promised so well and seemed so good, flags and grows unsteady; and
there comes to pass that inward discord of which we have said so much,
and that worrying torment of a mind angry with itself; when it loathes
its own defilements, yet cleanses them not away; sees the crooked
paths, yet does not forsake them; dreads the impending danger, yet
stirs not a step to avoid it.
_Petrarch._ Ah, woe is me! Now you have probed my wound to the quick.
There is the seat of my pain, from there I fear my death will come.
_S. Augustine._ It is well. You are awakening to life. But as we have
now prolonged our discussion enough for to-day, let us, if you will,
defer the rest until to-morrow, and let us take a breathing space in
silence.
_Petrarch._ Yes, I am tired somewhat, and most gladly shall I welcome
quiet and rest.
[1] _Æneid,_ ix. 641.
[2] _S. Augustine Confessions_, viii. 8.
[3] _S. Augustine Confessions,_ viii. 12.
[4] _Æneid_, iv. 449.
[5] Publius Cyrus.
[6] Ovid, _Pontic._, III i. 35.
[7] Horace, _Epist.,_ I. 18, 83.
[8] _Æneid,_ vi 365.
[9] _Ibid.,_ vi 370.
[10] _Æneid,_ x. 649.
[11] _Ibid.,_ v. 849.
[12] Seneca, _Letters,_ xix.
[13] _Æneid,_ vi. 730-34.
[14] Book of wisdom, ix. 15
[15] _Tusculan Orations,_ i. 16.
DIALOGUE THE SECOND
S. AUGUSTINE--PETRARCH
_S. Augustine_. Well, have we rested long enough?
_Petrarch._ Certainly, if it so please you.
_S. Augustine._ Let me hear if you feel now in good heart and
confidence. For when a man has been ill, a hopeful spirit in him is no
small sign of returning health.
_Petrarch._ What hope I have is no whit in myself: God is my hope.
_S. Augustine._ It is wisely spoken. And now I return to our theme.
Many things are against you, many temptations assail, but you yourself
still seem ignorant both of their numbers and their strength. And what
in warfare generally happens to one who, from a distance, sees some
closely marshalled battalion, has happened to you. Such a man is often
deceived into thinking his foes fewer in number than they are. But when
they draw nearer, when they have deployed their serried ranks before
his eyes in all their martial pomp, then his fears soon increase, and
he repents him of his boldness. So likewise will it be with you when I
shall display before your eyes, on this side and on that, all the evils
that are pressing upon you and hemming you in from every quarter. You
will be ashamed of your own boldness, you will be sorry you were so
light-hearted, and begin to bewail that in its sore straits your soul
has been unable to break through the wedged phalanx of your foes. You
will discover presently how many foolish fancies of too easy victory
you have let come into your mind, excluding that wholesome dread to
which I am endeavouring to bring you.
_Petrarch_. Indeed, you make me horribly afraid. That my danger was
great I have always been aware; and now, in spite of this, you tell me
I have very much under-estimated it, and indeed that, compared with
what they should be, my fears have been nothing at all. What hope have
I then left?
_S. Augustine_. It is never time to despair. Be sure of that. Despair
is the very last and worst of evils, and therefore I would have you
make it a first principle to put it away wholly.
_Petrarch_. I knew the truth of the maxim, but in my dread forgot it at
the moment.
_S. Augustine_. Now give me all your attention, look and listen while I
recall words of your favourite seer.
"Behold what foemen gather round your walls
And at your gates make sharp their gleaming sword
To murder you and yours."[1]
Look what snares the world spreads for you; what vanities it dangles
before your eyes; what vain cares it has to weigh you down. To begin
at the beginning, consider what made those most noble spirits among
all creatures fall into the abyss of ruin; and take heed lest in like
manner you also fall after them. All your forethought, all your care
will be needed to save you from this danger. Think how many temptations
urge your mind to perilous and soaring flights. They make you dream
of nobleness and forget your frailty; they choke your faculties with
fumes of self-esteem, until you think of nothing else; they lead you
to wax so proud and confident in your own strength that at length you
hate your Creator. So you live for self-pleasing and imagine that great
things are what you deserve. Whereas if you had a truer remembrance,
great blessings ought to make you not proud but humble, when you
realise that they came to you for no merit of your own. What need for
me to speak of the Eternal Lord God when even to earthly lords men
feel their minds more humbly bound if they experience any bounty of
theirs which they are conscious of being undeserved. Do we not see them
striving to merit afterwards what they feel they should have earned
before?
Now let your mind realise, as it easily can, on what paltry grounds
your pride is set up. You trust in your intellect; you boast of what
eloquence much reading has given you; you take pleasure in the beauty
of your mortal body. Yet do you not feel that in many things your
intellect fails you? Are there not many things in which you cannot
rival the skill of the humblest of mankind? Nay, might I not go further
and, without mentioning mankind, may I not say that with all your
labour and study you will find yourself no match in skill for some of
the meanest and smallest of God's creatures? Will you boast, then, of
intellect after that? And as for reading, what has it profited you? Of
the multitude of things you have perused how many have remained in your
mind? How many have struck root and borne fruit in due season? Search
well your heart and you will find that the whole of what you know is
but like a little shrunken stream dried by the summer heat compared to
the mighty ocean.
And of what relevance is it to know a multitude of things? Suppose
you shall have learned all the circuits of the heavens and the earth,
the spaces of the sea, the courses of the stars, the virtues of herbs
and stones, the secrets of nature, and then be ignorant of yourself?
Of what profit is it? If by the help of Scripture you shall have
discovered the right and upward path, what use is it if wrath and
passion make you swerve aside into the crooked, downward way? Supposing
you shall have learned by heart the deeds of illustrious men of all the
ages, of what profit will it be if you yourself day by day care not
what you do?
What need for me to speak of eloquence? Will not you yourself readily
confess how often the putting any confidence in this has proved vain?
And, moreover, what boots it that others shall approve what you have
said if in the court of your own conscience it stands condemned? For
though the applause of those who hear you may seem to yield a certain
fruit which is not to be despised, yet of what worth is it after all
if in his heart the speaker himself is not able to applaud? How petty
is the pleasure that comes from the plaudits of the multitude! And
how can a man soothe and flatter others unless he first soothe and
flatter himself? Therefore you will easily understand how often you
are deluded by that glory you hope for from your eloquence, and how
your pride therein rests but upon a foundation of wind. For what can
be more childish, nay, might I not say more insane, than to waste time
and trouble over matters where all the things themselves are worthless
and the words about them vain? What worse folly than to go on blind
to one's real defects, and be infatuated with words and the pleasure
of hearing one's own voice, like those little birds they tell of
who are so ravished with the sweetness of their own song that they
sing themselves to death? And furthermore, in the common affairs of
every-day life does it not often happen to you to find yourself put to
the blush to discover that in the use of words you are no match even
for some whom you think are very inferior men? Consider also how in
Nature there are many things for which names are altogether wanting,
and many more to which names have indeed been given, but to express
the beauty of them--as you know by experience--words are altogether
inadequate. How often have I heard you lament, how often seen you
dumb and dissatisfied, because neither your tongue nor your pen could
sufficiently utter ideas, which nevertheless to your reflecting mind
were very clear and intelligible?
What, then, is this Eloquence, so limited and so weak, which is neither
able to compass and bring within its scope all the things that it
would, nor yet to hold fast even those things that it has compassed?
The Greeks reproach you, and you in turn the Greeks, with having
a paucity of words. Seneca, it is true, accounts their vocabulary
the richer, but Cicero at the beginning of his treatise _On the
Distinctions of Good and Evil_ makes the following declaration, "I
cannot enough marvel whence should arise that insolent scorn of our
national literature. Though this is not the place to discuss it, yet
I will express my conviction, which I have often maintained, not only
that the Latin tongue is not poor, as it is the fashion to assert, but
that it is, in fact, richer than the Greek;"[2] and as he frequently
repeats elsewhere the same opinion, so, especially in the _Tusculan
Orations_, he exclaims, "Thou Greek that countest thyself rich in
words, how poor art thou in phrases."[3]
This is the saying, mark you, of one who know quite well that he was
the prince of Latin oratory, and had already shown that he was not
afraid to challenge Greece for the palm of literary glory. Let me add
that Seneca, so notable an admirer of the Greek tongue, says in his
_Declamations_, "All that Roman eloquence can bring forward to rival or
excel the pride of Greece is connected with the name of Cicero."[4] A
magnificent tribute, but unquestionably true!
There is, then, as you see, on the subject of the primacy in Eloquence
a very great controversy, not only between you and the Greeks, but
among our own most learned writers themselves. There are in our camp
those who hold for the Greeks, and it may be among them there are some
who hold for us, if at least we may judge from what is reported of the
illustrious philosopher Plutarch. In a word, Seneca, who is ours,
while doing all justice to Cicero, gives his final verdict for the
Greeks, notwithstanding that Cicero is of the contrary opinion.
As to my own opinion on the question in debate, I consider that both
parties to the controversy have some truth on their side when they
accuse both Latin and Greek of poverty of words: and if this judgment
be correct in regard to two such famous languages, what hope is there
for any other?
Bethink you therefore what sort of confidence you can have in your own
simple powers when the whole resources of that people of which you are
but a little part are adjudged poor, and how ashamed you should be to
have spent so much time in pursuing something which cannot be attained,
and which, if it could be, would prove after all but vanity itself.
I will pass on to other points. Are you perhaps inclined to plume
yourself on your physical advantages? But think what a thread they hang
upon! What is it you are most pleased with in this way? Is it your good
health and strength? But truly nothing is more frail. It is proved by
the fatigue you suffer from even little things. The various maladies to
which the body is liable; the stings of insects; a slight draught of
air, and a thousand other such small vexations all tell the same tale.
Will you perchance be taken in by your own good-looking face, and when
you behold in the glass your smooth complexion and comely features are
you minded to be smitten, entranced, charmed? The story of Narcissus
has no warning for you, and, content with gazing only at the outward
envelope of the body, you consider not that the eyes of the mind tell
you how vile and plain it is within. Moreover, if you had no other
warning, the stormy course of life itself, which every day robs you of
something, ought to show you how transient and perishing that flower
of beauty is. And if, perhaps, which you will hardly dare affirm, you
fancy yourself invincible by age, by illness, and whatever else may
change the grace of bodily form, you have at least not forgotten that
Last Enemy which destroys all, and you will do well to engrave in your
inmost heart and mind this word of the satirist--
"'Tis death alone compels us all to see
What little things we are."[5]
Here, unless I am mistaken, are the causes that inflate your mind with
pride, forbid you to recognise your low estate, and keep you from the
recollection of death. But others there still are that I now propose to
pass in review.
_Petrarch._ Stop a little, I beg you, lest, overwhelmed by the weight
of so many reproaches, I have no strength or spirit to reply.
_S. Augustine._ By all means say on. Gladly will I hold my peace.
_Petrarch._ You have astonished me not a little by casting in my
teeth a multitude of things of which I am perfectly sure they have
never entered my head at all. You allege that I trusted in my own
intelligence. But surely the one sign I have given of possessing some
little intelligence is that never have I counted on that faculty
at all. Shall I pride myself on much reading of books, which with
a little wisdom has brought me a thousand anxieties? How can you
say I have sought the glory of eloquence, I, who, as you yourself
acknowledged a moment ago, am wont above all things to complain that
speech is inadequate to my thoughts? Unless you wish to try and prove
the contrary, I may say that you know I am always conscious of my own
littleness, and that if by chance I have ever thought myself to be
anything, such a thought has come but rarely and then only from seeing
the ignorance of other men; for, as I often remark, we are reduced to
acknowledge, according to Cicero's celebrated phrase, that "what powers
we may possess come rather from the feebleness of others than from any
merit in ourselves."
But even were I endowed as richly as you imagine with those advantages
of which you speak, what is there so magnificent about them that
I should be vain? I am surely not so forgetful of myself nor so
feather-brained as to let myself trouble about cares of that sort. For
what use in the world are intellect, knowledge, eloquence, if they can
bring no healing to a soul diseased? I remember having given expression
already in one of my letters to my sad sense of this truth.
As to what you remarked with an air of quasi gravity about my physical
advantages, I must confess it makes me smile. That I of all men should
be thought to have plumed myself on my mortal and perishing body, when
every day of my life I feel in it the ravages of time at work! Heaven
save me from such folly!
I will not deny that in the days of my youth I took some care to trim
my head and to adorn my face; but the taste for that kind of thing has
gone with my early years, and I recognise now the truth of that saying
of the Emperor Domitian who, writing of himself in a letter to a lady
friend, and complaining of the too swift decay of the goodliness of
man, said, "Know you that nothing is so sweet, but nothing also is so
fleeting, as the beauty of the body."[6]
_S. Augustine._ It would be an easy task to refute all you have
advanced, but I prefer that your own conscience should send the shaft
of shame to your heart rather than words of mine. I will not labour
the point or draw the truth from you by torture; but as those who take
revenge magnanimously, I will merely prefer a simple request that you
will continue to avoid what you profess you have hitherto avoided.
If by any chance the fashion of your countenance should at any time
have stirred the least motion of conceit, then I beg you to reflect
what soon those bodily members must become, though now they please
your eye: think how their destiny is to be foul and hideous, and what
repulsion they would cause even in yourself were you able to see them
then. Then call often to mind this maxim of the Philosopher: "I was
born for some higher destiny than to be the slave of my body."[7]
Assuredly it is the very climax of folly to see men neglect their real
selves in order to cosset the body and limbs in which they dwell. If a
man is imprisoned for a little while in some dungeon, dark, damp, and
dirty, would he not seem to have lost his senses if he did not shield
himself as far as he was able from any contact with the walls and soil?
And with the expectation of freedom would he not eagerly listen for the
footsteps of his deliverer? But if giving up that expectation, covered
with filth and plunged in darkness, he dreads to leave his prison; if
he turns all his attention to painting and adorning the walls which
shut him in, in a vain endeavour to counteract the nature of his
dripping prison-house, will he not rightly be counted a wretched fool?
Well, you yourself know and love your prison-house, wretched that you
are! And on the very eve of your issuing or being dragged therefrom you
chain yourself more firmly in it, labouring to adorn what you ought to
despise, if you would follow the advice you yourself had tendered to
the father of the great Scipio in your poem called _Africa._
"The bonds and fetters known and suffered long,
The clogs on liberty are hateful to us,
And the new freedom now attained we love."[8]
Wonderful is it if you made others give the counsel which you yourself
refuse! But I cannot disguise from you one word in your discourse
which to you may seem very humble, but to me seems full of pride and
arrogance.
_Petrarch._ I am sorry if I have in any way expressed myself
arrogantly, but if the spirit is the true rule of one's deeds and
words, then my own bears me witness that I intended nothing in that
sense.
_S. Augustine._ To depreciate others is a kind of pride more
intolerable than to exalt oneself above one's due measure; I would
much rather see you exalt others and then put yourself above them than
degrade all the world in a heap at your feet, and by a refinement of
pride fashion for yourself a shield of humanity out of scorn for your
neighbour.