PETRARCH THE MAN 



" We will withdraw from the world and live concealed, 

 but not without glory. Unless I am deceived in my 

 hopes, our fame will resound all the more glorious, 

 coming from a sohtary retreat rather than from a 

 populous city. It will issue forth from every place to 

 the torment of the envious." There is another letter 

 (Fam., xii, 12), a most remarkable one, in which he 

 complains of the conduct of Bishop AcciaiuoH. He 

 writes: "No one keeps his word any longer in the 

 world. Who would have beheved that the bishop of 

 Florence, who is considered the sincerest person on 

 earth, could have wished to deceive me ? But this is 

 always my fate, to be deceived by every one. He had 

 promised to come to Vaucluse to admire this place, 

 famous throughout the world, and to see what was the 

 tenor of my Hfe in this solitude. Perhaps he scorned 

 dining with a poet, and disdained to honor with his 

 presence this spot, where one day the glory of our age, 

 Robert, king of Sicily, and after him many cardinals, 

 lords, and princes came sometimes to see the spring, 

 sometimes (I do not hesitate to boast a little before 

 you) to see me. Possibly this spring, which is unparal- 

 leled in the opinion of the world, and my person — not 

 the vilest on earth — were not of sufficient worth in the 

 Bishop's eyes to induce him to go three miles out of his 

 way to see them. True it is that I was not worthy of 

 such a guest, but surely he was worthy of being taken 

 at his word ... I had written as far as this and was 

 going to continue in this vein, when a loud noise at the 



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