With a view of getting clearly before himself all the questions which were constantly harassing him he prepared an imaginary dialogue, suggesting somewhat Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, in order to do full justice to the claims of each and all of his conflicting desires and emotions.
One day, he tells us, as he was meditating upon the confused mysteries of life, there appeared before him a wondrous Lady, whom, after his eyes had recovered from the dazzling light about her, he recognised as Truth. With her came a venerable person of profoundly religious mien, in whom Petrarch immediately discovered his favorite ghostly comforter, Saint Augustine. The Lady, having perceived the straits in which the poet was, had taken pity on him in his moral illness and had brought with her her cherished devotee, to whom she now commends him.
Having all retired to a secluded spot, they join in a consultation, which was prolonged during three days. Much was said of the evils of the age and of mortal perversity in general, but the discussion of his own sins made the deepest impression upon Petrarch. "And lest this friendly conference should fade from my mind," he says, "I resolved to write it down and have filled this little book with it. Not that I would wish it to be reckoned with my other works, nor do I write it for fame's sake (I am now dealing with higher matters), but solely in order that I may revive at will the delight which I then derived from our converse. Therefore, little book, thou wilt avoid the intercourse of men and wilt contentedly abide with me, not forgetful of thy name: for thou art 'My Secret' and so thou shalt be called."
The Confessions are, as their author tells us, not very voluminous—less than 30,000 words. They consist of the three dialogues that took place upon the three successive days; the conversation is spirited and natural throughout and infinitely superior to the pseudo-dialogues of the better known Remedies for both Good and Evil Fortune by the same author. We have no means of determining exactly when the Confessions were written. As Petrarch was accustomed to revise his work over and over again, it is probable that several years elapsed after the plan was once conceived before the little book received the finishing touches. There is, however, sufficient internal and external evidence to indicate that the work was written between the years 1342 and 1353; that is, at a time when its author's literary powers may be assumed to have been at their height. He must have been about thirty-eight years old when he began it, and had perhaps reached his fiftieth birthday before he laid it aside in the form that it has come down to us. In the printed editions the Confessions are called De Contemptu Mundi, a title that is at once misleading and unsupported by Petrarch's own authority. A much more pertinent heading is found in most of the manuscripts, namely, De secreto Conflictu curarum suarum,—the inward struggle between the monastic and secular ideals of life.[1]
It would be a grave misapprehension to suppose that the dialogue does not reflect a very real contradiction in the soul of the writer. No careful reader can fail to see in it the bitterness of a spirit at odds with itself. Indeed its whole significance lies in the sturdy and heartfelt defence of the intrinsic virtue of the more noble temporal ambitions, especially those of a man of letters, against the deadening suggestions of monasticism. The dialogues were written after Petrarch had outgrown his youthful unquestioning exuberance and before he had reached the philosophic calm of his later years. Even if he gives way, often reluctantly indeed and doubtfully, before Augustine's reasoning, his habitual conduct and his attitude of mind in old age prove that he was not vanquished. In the long run, the modern, or, if you will, the classical, spirit was destined to prevail, as we shall later see.
In this three-days' conference the first two days are devoted to the nature and cause of man's earthly misery, and its cure. "You remember," Augustine inquires, "that you are mortal?" Francesco replies that he not only remembers it but that the thought never fails to fill him with a certain horror. "If this be so it is well," his Confessor rejoins, "it will much lighten my duties; for it is certainly true that nothing is so efficacious against the seductions of this life and so potent to strengthen the soul amid the tempests of the world as the recollection of our own misery and meditation upon death; but this thought should produce no light and fleeting impression; it must sink into our very bones and marrow. I very much fear that in this respect, as in many other ways that I have observed, you deceive yourself."
Francesco replies that he does not think the remedy for human misery so simple as that suggested by Augustine, but admits that he does not altogether understand his reasoning. "I thought you had a better-developed mind," Augustine sharply rejoins; "it had not occurred to me that we should have to go back to first principles. Had you committed to memory the truths and salutary injunctions of the philosophers which you have often encountered in my works, and (if you will permit me to say it) had you laboured for yourself rather than for others and made the result of so much reading the rule of your life instead of an idle boast to gain the empty plaudits of the common herd, you would not be guilty of such crude and silly utterances."
No one is unhappy or can become so except voluntarily, Augustine continues. Cicero and the other philosophers amply prove that only that which is opposed to virtue can make us truly unhappy. "I remember," Francesco replies, "that these are the doctrines of the Stoics, but they are opposed to popular belief, and are better in theory than in practice (veritati propinquiora quam usui)." All vice begins voluntarily, he admits, yet he has seen many a man, himself included, who would gladly throw off the yoke of sin but who tries to do so in vain. In spite of the Stoics' cold comfort they remain the miserable victims of evil their lives long. He does not deceive himself as to the serious nature of his condition; on the contrary, he sheds many a bitter tear but finds no relief. Augustine replies that he himself experienced the same trials at the time of his own conversion, his account of which is doubtless familiar to Petrarch. The fundamental difficulty lies in our indifference to spiritual liberty. We do not, as Petrarch readily agrees, really desire to be free from our sins.
"No one can be dominated absolutely by this desire unless he puts an end to all other desires; for you well know how many and various are the objects of our wishes in life, all of which must come to be reckoned of no value if one would rise to the true yearning for the highest happiness.... Who is there indeed who could succeed in extinguishing all his desires,—it would be a long task even to enumerate them, to say nothing of conquering them,—in order that he might some day hope to guide his soul by the reins of reason, and dare to say 'I have nothing in common with the body; all that once seemed pleasing has become vile in my sight: I aspire to higher things,'" Such an one is rare enough, Francesco concedes. "But what in your opinion," he asks, "must we do in order that we may cast off our earthly shackles and rise to heaven?"