two first steps depend on ourselves, the third is nevertheless in Fortune's hand.

S. Augustine. When I saw you ashamed I was ready to give you pardon, but brazen impudence angers me more than error itself. How is it you have forgotten all those wise precepts of Philosophy, which declare that no man can be made unhappy by those things you rattle off by name? Now if it is Virtue only that makes the happiness of man, which is demonstrated by Cicero and a whole multitude of weighty reasons, it follows of necessity that nothing is opposed to true happiness except what is also opposed to Virtue. This truth you can yourself call to mind even without a word from me, at least unless your wits are very dull.

Petrarch. I remember it quite well. You would have me bear in mind the precepts of the Stoics, which contradict the opinions of the crowd and are nearer truth than common custom is.

S. Augustine. You would indeed be of all men the most miserable were you to try to arrive at the truth through the absurdities of the crowd, or to suppose that under the leadership of blind guides you would reach the light. You must avoid the common beaten track and set your aspirations higher; take the way marked by the steps of very few who have gone before, if you would be counted worthy to hear the Poet's word—

"On, brave lad, on! your courage leading you,
So only Heaven is scaled."[1]

Petrarch. Heaven grant I may hear it ere I die! But I pray you to proceed. For I assure you I have by no means become shameless. I do not doubt the Stoics' rules are wiser far than the blunders of the crowd. I await therefore your further counsel.

S. Augustine. Since we are agreed on this, that no one can become or be unhappy except through his own fault, what need of more words is there?

Petrarch. Just this need, that I think I have seen very many people, and I am one of them, to whom nothing is more distressful than the inability to break the yoke of their faults, though all their life long they make the greatest efforts so to do. Wherefore, even allowing that the maxim of the Stoics holds good, one may yet admit that many people are very unhappy in spite of themselves, yes, and although they lament it and wish they were not, with their whole heart.

S. Augustine. We have wandered somewhat from our course, but we are slowly working back to our starting-point. Or have you quite forgotten whence we set out?

Petrarch. I had begun to lose sight of it, but it is coming back to me now.

S. Augustine. What I had set out to do with you was to make clear that the first step in avoiding the distresses of this mortal life and raising the soul to higher things is to practise meditation on death and on man's misery; and that the second is to have a vehement desire and purpose to rise. When these two things were present, I promised a comparatively easy ascent to the goal of our desire. Unless haply to you it seems otherwise?

Petrarch. I should certainly never venture to affirm this, for from my youth upwards I have had the increasing conviction that if in any matter I was inclined to think differently from yourself I was certain to be wrong.

S. Augustine. We will please waive all compliments. And as I observe you are inclined to admit the truth of my words more out of deference than conviction, pray feel at liberty to say whatever your real judgment suggests.

Petrarch. I am still afraid to be found differing, but nevertheless I will make use of the liberty you grant. Not to speak of other men, I call to witness Her who has ever been the ruling spirit of my life; you yourself also I call to witness how many times I have pondered over my own misery and over the subject of Death; with what floods of tears I have sought to wash away my stains, so that I can scarce speak of it without weeping; yet hitherto, as you see, all is in vain. This alone leads me to doubt the truth of that proposition you seek to establish, that no man has ever fallen into misery but of his own free will, or remained, miserable except of his own accord; the exact opposite of which I have proved in my own sad experience.

S. Augustine. That complaint is an old one and seems likely to prove unending. Though I have already several times stated the truth in vain, I shall not cease to maintain it yet. No man can become or can be unhappy unless he so chooses; but as I said at the beginning, there is in men a certain perverse and dangerous inclination to deceive themselves, which is the most deadly thing in life. For if it is true that we rightly fear being taken in by those with whom we live, because our natural habit of trusting them tends to make us unsuspicious, and the pleasantly familiar sound of their voice is apt to put us off our guard,—how much rather ought you to fear the deceptions you practise on yourself, where love, influence, familiarity play so large a part, a case wherein every one esteems himself more than he deserves, loves himself more than he ought, and where Deceiver and Deceived are one and the same person?

Petrarch. You have said this kind of thing pretty often to-day already. But I do not recollect ever practising such deception on myself; and I hope other people have not deceived me either.

S. Augustine. Now at this very moment you are notably deceiving yourself when you boast never to have done such a thing at all; and I have a good enough hope of your own wit and talent to make me think that if you pay close attention you will see for yourself that no man can fall into misery of his own will. For on this point our whole discussion rests. I pray you to think well before answering, and give your closest attention, and be jealous for truth more than for disputation, but then tell me what man in the world was ever forced to sin? For the Seers and Wise Men require that sin must be a voluntary action, and so rigid is their definition that if this voluntariness is absent then the sin also is not there. But without sin no man is made unhappy, as you agreed to admit a few minutes ago.

Petrarch. I perceive that by degrees I am getting away from my proposition and am being compelled to acknowledge that the beginning of my misery did arise from my own will. I feel it is true in myself, and I conjecture the same to be true of others. Now I beg you on your part to acknowledge a certain truth also.

S. Augustine. What is it you wish me to acknowledge?

Petrarch. That as it is true no man ever fell involuntarily, so this also is true that countless numbers of those who thus are voluntarily fallen, nevertheless do not voluntarily remain so. I affirm this confidently of my own self. And I believe that I have received this for my punishment, as I would not stand when I might, so now I cannot rise when I would.

S. Augustine. That is indeed a wise and true view to take. Still as you now confess you were wrong in your first proposition, so I think you should own you are wrong in your second.

Petrarch. Then you would say there is no distinction between falling and remaining fallen?

S. Augustine. No, they are indeed different things; that is to say, different in time, but in the nature of the action and in the mind of the person concerned they are one and the same.

Petrarch. I see in what knots you entangle me. But the wrestler who wins his victory by a trick is not necessarily the stronger man, though he may be the more practised.

S. Augustine. It is Truth herself in whose presence we are discoursing. To her, plain simplicity is ever dear, and cunning is hateful. That you may see this beyond all doubt I will go forward from this point with all the plainness you