No More Learning

I must give them something to eat, and I must tell them amusing
stories, or else pass for being proud or avaricious.

"I am desirous to found a little oratory for the Virgin Mary; and shall
do so, though I should sell or pawn my books. After that I shall go to
Avignon, if my strength permits. If it does not, I shall send one of my
people to the Cardinal Cabassole, and to you, that you may attempt to
accomplish what I have often wished, but uselessly, as both you and he
well know. If the holy father wishes to stay my old age, and put me into
somewhat better circumstances, as he appears to me to wish, and as his
predecessor promised me, the thing would be very easy. Let him do as it
may please him, much, little, or nothing; I shall be always content.
Only let him not say to me as Clement VI. used to do, 'ask what you wish
for. ' I cannot do so, for several reasons. In the first place, I do not
myself know exactly what would suit me. Secondly, if I were to demand
some vacant place, it might be given away before my demand reached the
feet of his Holiness. Thirdly, I might make a request that might
displease him. His extreme kindness might pledge him to grant it; and I
should be made miserable by obtaining it.

"Let him give me, then, whatever he pleases, without waiting for my
petitioning for it. Would it become me, at my years, to be a solicitor
for benefices, having never been so in my youth?
I trust, in this
matter, to what you may do with the Cardinal Sabina. You are the only
friends who remain to me in that country. These thirty years the
Cardinal has given me marks of his affection and good-will. I am about
to write to him a few words on the subject; and I shall refer him to
this letter, to save my repeating to him those miserable little details
with which I should not detain you, unless it seemed to be necessary. "

A short time afterwards, Petrarch heard, with no small satisfaction, of
the conduct of Cardinal Cabassole, at Perugia. When the Cardinal came to
take leave of the Pope the evening before his departure for that city,
he said, "Holy father, permit me to recommend Petrarch to you, on
account of my love for him. He is, indeed, a man unique upon earth--a
true phoenix. " Scarcely was he gone, when the Cardinal of Boulogne,
making pleasantries on the word phoenix, turned into ridicule both the
praises of Cabassole and him who was their object. Francesco Bruni, in
writing to Petrarch about the kindness of the one Cardinal, thought it
unnecessary to report the pleasantries of the other. But Petrarch, who
had heard of them from another quarter, relates them himself to Bruni,
and says:--"I am not astonished. This man loved me formerly, and I was
equally attached to him. At present he hates me, and I return his
hatred. Would you know the reason of this double change? It is because
he is the enemy of truth, and I am the enemy of falsehood; he dreads the
liberty which inspires me, and I detest the pride with which he is
swollen. If our fortunes were equal, and if we were together in a free
place, I should not call myself a phoenix; for that title ill becomes
me; but he would be an owl. Such people as he imagine, on account of
riches ill-acquired, and worse employed, that they are at liberty to say
what they please.