Petrarch. I mean, to desire without doing anything.
S. Augustine. What you propose is an impossibility. No one desires ardently and goes to sleep.
Petrarch. Of what use is desire, then?
S. Augustine. Doubtless the path leads through many difficulties, but the desire of virtue is itself a great part of virtue.
Petrarch. There you give me ground for good hope.
S. Augustine. All my discourse is just to teach you how to hope and to fear.
Petrarch. Why to fear?
S. Augustine. Then tell me why to hope?
Petrarch. Because whereas so far I have striven, and with much tribulation, merely not to become worse, you now open a way to me whereby I may become better and better, even to perfection.
S. Augustine. But maybe you do not think how toilsome that way is.