S. Augustine. What have you to say, O man of little strength? Of what are you dreaming? For what are you looking? Remember you not you are mortal?
Petrarch. Yes, I remember it right well, and a shudder comes upon me every time that remembrance rises in my breast.
S. Augustine. May you, indeed, remember as you say, and take heed for yourself. You will spare me much trouble by so doing. For there con be no doubt that to recollect one's misery and to practise frequent meditation on death is the surest aid in scorning the seductions of this world, and in ordering the soul amid its storms and tempests, if only such meditation be not superficial, but sink into the bones and marrow of the heart. Yet am I greatly afraid lest that happen in your case which I have seen in so many others, and you be found deceiving your own self.
Petrarch. In what way do you mean? For I do not clearly understand the drift of your remarks.
S. Augustine. O race of mortal men, this it is that above all makes me astonished and fearful for you, when I behold you, of your own will clinging to your miseries; pretending that you do not know the peril hanging over your heads and if one bring it under your very eyes, you try to thrust it from your sight and put it afar off.
Petrarch. In what way are we so mad?
S. Augustine. Do you suppose there is any living man so unreasonable that if he found himself stricken with a dangerous ailment he would not anxiously desire to regain the blessing of health?
Petrarch. I do not suppose such a case has ever been heard of.
S. Augustine. And do you think if one wished for a thing with all one's soul one would be so idle and careless as not to use all possible means to obtain what one desired?
Petrarch. No one, I think, would be so foolish.