XIII.  On Groundless Fears

      I know that you have plenty of spirit; for even before you began to equip yourself with maxims which were wholesome and potent to overcome obstacles, you were taking pride in your contest with Fortune; and this is all the more true, now that you have grappled with Fortune and tested your powers.  For our powers can never inspire in us implicit faith in ourselves except when many difficulties have confronted us on this side and on that, and have occasionally even come to close quarters with us.  It is only in this way that the true spirit can be tested,-the spirit that will never consent to come under the jurisdiction of things external to ourselves.  This is the touchstone of such a spirit; no prizefighter can go with high spirits into the strife if he has never been beaten black and blue; the only contestant who can confidently enter the lists is the man who has seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent's fist, who has been tripped and felt the full force of his adversary's charge, who had been downed in body but not in spirit, one who, as often as he falls, rises again with greater defiance than ever.  So then, to keep up my figure, Fortune had often in the past got the upper hand of you, and yet you have not surrendered, but have leaped up and stood your ground still more eagerly.  For manliness gains much strength by being challenged; nevertheless, if you approve, all me to offer some additional safeguards by which you may fortify yourself.

       There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.  I am not speaking with you in the Stoic strain but in my milder style.  For it is our Stoic fashion to speak of all those things, which provoke cries and groans, as unimportant and beneath notice; but you and I must drop such great sounding words, although, Heaven knows, they are true enough.  What I advise you to do is, not to be unhappy before the crisis comes; since it may be that the dangers before which you paled as if they were threatening you, will never come upon you; they certainly have not yet come.  Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us then they ought not to torment us at all.  We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow.

       The first of these three faults may be postponed for the present, because the subject is under discussion for the present, because the subject is under discussion and the case is still in court, so to speak.  That which I should call trifling, you will maintain to be most serious; for of course I know that some men laugh while being flogged, and that others wince at a box on the ear.  We shall consider later whether these evils derive their power from their own strength, or from our own weakness.

       Do me the favour, when men surround you and try to talk you into believing that you are unhappy, to consider not what you hear but what you yourself feel, and to take counsel with your feelings and question yourself independently, because you know your own affairs better than anyone else does.  Ask: "Is there any reason why these persons should condole with me?  Why should they be worried or even fear some infection from me, as if troubles could be transmitted?  Is there any evil involved, or is it a matter merely of ill report, rather than an evil?"  Put the question voluntarily to yourself: "Am I tormented without sufficient reason, am I morose, and do I convert what is not an evil into what is an evil?"  You may retort with the question: "How am I to know whether my sufferings are real or imaginary?"  Here is the rule for such matters: We are tormented either by things present, or by  things to come, or by both.  As to things present, the decision is easy.  Suppose that your person enjoys freedom and health, and that you do not suffer from any external injury.  As to what may happen to it in the future, we shall see later on.  To-day there is nothing wrong with it.  "But," you say, "something will happen to it."  First of all, consider whether your proofs to future trouble are sure.  For it is more often the case that we are mocked by that mocker, rumour, which is wont to settle wars, but much more often settles individuals.  Yes, my dear Lucilius; we agree too quickly with what people say.  We do not put to the test those things which cause our fear; we do not examine into them; we blench and retreat just like soldiers who are forced to abandon their camp because of a dust-cloud raised by stampeding cattle, or are thrown into a panic by the spreading of some unauthenticated rumour.  And somehow or other it is the idle report that disturbs us most.  For truth has its own definite boundaries, but that which arises from uncertainty is delivered over to guesswork and the irresponsible license of a frightened mind.  That is why no fear is so ruinous and so uncontrollable as panic fear.  For other fears are groundless, but this fear is witless.

       Let us, then, look carefully into the matter.  It is likely that some troubles will befall us; but it is not a present fact.  How often has the unexpected happened!  How often has the unexpected to pass!   And even thought it is ordained to be, what does it avail to run out to meet your suffering?  You will suffer soon enough, when it arrives; so look forward meanwhile which will serve to postpone, or end, or pass on to another person, the trials which are near or even in your very presence.  A fire has opened the way to flight.  Men have been let down softly by a catastrophe.  Sometimes the sword has been checked even at the victim's throat.  Men have survived their own executioners.  Even bad fortune is fickle.  Perhaps it will come, perhaps not; in the meantime it is not.  So look forward to better things.

       The mind at times fashions for itself false shapes of evil when there are no signs that point to any evil; it twists into the worst construction some word of doubtful meaning; or it fancies some person's grudge to be more serious than it really is, considering not how angry the enemy is, but to what lengths he may go if he is angry.  But life is not worth living, and there is not limit to our sorrows, if we indulge our fears to the greatest possible extent; in this matter, let prudence help you, and contemn fear with a resolute spirits even when it is in plain sight.  If you cannot do this, counter one weakness with another, and temper your fear with hope.  There is nothing so certain among these objects of fear that it is not more certain still that things we dread sink into nothing and that things we hope for a mock us.

       Accordingly, weigh carefully your hopes as well as your fears, and whenever all the elements are in doubt, decide in your own favor; believe what you prefer.  And if fear wins a majority of the votes, incline in the other direction anyhow, and cease to harass you soul, reflecting continually that most mortals, even when no troubles are actually at hand or are certainly to be expected in the future, become excited and disquieted.  No one calls a halt on himself, when he begins to be urged ahead; nor does he regulate his alarm according to the truth.  No one says:  "The author of the story is a fool, and he who has believed it is a fool, as well as he who fabricated it."  We let ourselves drift with every breeze; we are frightened at uncertainties, just as if they were certain.  We observe no moderation.  The slightest things turns the scales and throws us forthwith into a panic.

       But I am ashamed either to admonish you sternly or to try to beguile you with such mild remedies.  Let another say:  "Perhaps the worst will not happen."  You yourself must say:  "Well, what if it does happen?  Let us see who wins!  Perhaps it happens for my best interests; it may be that such a death will shed credit upon my life."  Socrates was ennobled by the hemlock draught.  Wretch from Cato's hand his sword, the vindicator of liberty, and you deprive him of the greatest share of his glory.  I am exhorting you far too long, since you need reminding rather than exhortation.  The path on which your nature leads you; you were born to such conduct as  I describe.  Hence there is all the more reason why you should increase and beautify the good that is in you.

       But now, to close my letter, I have only to stamp the usual seal upon it, in other words, to commit thereto some noble message to be delivered to you:  "The fool, with all his other faults, has this also,-he is always getting ready to live."  Reflect, my esteemed Lucilius, what this saying means, and you will see how revolting is the fickleness of men who lay down every day new foundations of life, and begin to build up fresh hopes even at the brink of the grave.  Look within your own mind for individual instances; you will think of old men who are preparing themselves at that very hour for a political career, or for travel, or for business.  And what is baser, than getting ready to live when you are already old?  I should not name the author of this motto, except that it is somewhat unknown of fame and is not one of those popular sayings of Epicurus which I have allowed myself to praise and to appropriate.  Farewell.

XVIII.  On Festivals and Fasting

     It is the month of December, and yet the city is at this very moment in a sweat.  Licence is given to the general merrymaking.  Everything resounds with mightily preparations,-as if the Saturnalia differed at all from the usual business day!  So true it is that the difference is nil, that I regard as correct the remark of the man who said:  "Once December was a month; now it is a year."

    If  I had you with me, I should be glad to consult you and find out what you think should be done,- whether we ought to make no change in our daily routine, or whether, in order not to be out of sympathy with the ways of the public, we should dine in gayer fashion and doff the toga.  As it is now, we Romas have changed our dress for the sake of pleasure and holiday-making, though in former disturbed and had fallen on evil days.  I am sure that, if I know you aright, playing the part of an umpire you would have wished that we should be neither like the liberty-capped throng in all ways, not in all ways unlike them; unless, perhaps, that is just the season when we ought to lay down the law to the soul, and bid it be alone in refraining from pleasures just when the whole mob has let itself go in pleasures; for this is the surest proof which a man can get of his own constancy, if he neither seeks the things which are seductive and allure him to luxury, nor is led into them.  It shows much more courage to remain dry and sober when the mob is drunk and vomiting; but it shows greater self-control to refuse to withdraw oneself and to do what the crowd does, but in a different way,-thus neither making oneself conspicuous nor becoming one of the crowd.  For one may keep holiday without extravagance.

    I am so firmly determined, however, to test the constancy of your mind that, drawing from the teachings of great men, I shall give you also a lesson:  Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while:  "Is this the condition that I feared?"  It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence.  In days of peace the soldier performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself by gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil.  If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.  Such is the course which those men have followed who, in their imitation of poverty, have every month come almost to want, that they might never recoil from what they had so often rehearsed.

    You need not suppose that I mean meals like Timon's or "paupers' huts," or any other device with luxurious millionaires use to beguile the tedium of their lives.  Let the pallet be a real one, and the coarse cloak; let the bread e hard and grimy.  Endure all this for three or four days at a time, sometimes for sometimes for more, so that it may be a test of yourself instead of a mere hobby.  Then, I assure you, my dear Lucilius, you will leap for joy when filled with a pennyworth of food, and you will understand that a man's peace of mind does not depend upon Fortune; for, even when angry she grants enough for our needs.

    There is no reason, however, why you should think that you are doing anything great; for you will merely be doing what many thousands of poor men are doing every day.  But you may credit. yourself with this item,- that you will not be doing it wonder compulsion, and that it will be as easy for you to endure it permanently as to make the experiment form time to time.  Let t us practice our guard.  We shall be rich with all the more comfort, if we once learn how far poverty is from being a burden. 

    Even Epicurus, the teacher of pleasure, used to observe stated intervals, during which he satisfies his hunger in niggardly fashion;   he wished to see whether he thereby feel short of full and complete happiness, and, if so, by what amount he feel short, and whether this amount was worth purchasing at the price of great effort.  At any rate, he makes such a statement in the well known letter written to Polyaenus in the archonship of Charinus.  Indeed, he boasts that he himself lived on less than a penny, but that Metrodorus, whose progress was not yet that there can be fullness on such fare?  Yes, and there is pleasure also,-not that shifty and fleeting pleasure which needs a fillip now and then, but a pleasure is steadfast and sure.   For though water, barley-meal, and crusts of barley-bread, are not a cheerful diet, yet is is the highest kind of pleasure to be able to derive pleasure from this sort of food, and to have reduced one's needs to that modicum which no unfairness of Fortune can snatch away.  Even prison fare is more generous; and those who have been set apart for capital punishment are not so meanly fed by the man who is to execute them.  Therefore, what a noble should must one have, to descend of one's own free will to a diet which even those who have been sentenced to death have into to fear!  This is indeed forestalling the spear thrust of Fortune. 

    So begin, my dear Lucilius, to follow the custom of these men, and set apart certain days on which you shall withdraw from your business and make yourself at home with the scantiest fare. Establish business relations with poverty.

    Dare, O my friend, to scorn the sight of wealth, And mould thyself to kinship with thy God.    For he alone is in kinship with God  who has scorned wealth.  Of course I do not forbid you to possess it, but I would have you reach the point at which you possess it dauntlessly;  this can be accomplished only be persuading yourself that you can live happily without it as well as with it, and by regarding riches always as likely to elude you.

    But   now I must begin to fold up my letter.  "Settle your debts first," you cry.  Here is a draft on Epicurus; he will pay down the sum:  "Ungoverned anger begets madness."  You  cannot help knowing the truth of these words, since you have had not only slaves, but also enemies.  But indeed this emotion blazes out against all sorts of persons; it springs from love as much as from hate, and shows itself not less in serious matters than in jest and sport.  And it makes no difference how important the provocation may be, but into what kind of soul it penetrates.  Similarly with fire; it does not matter how great is the flame, but what it falls upon.  For solid timbers have repelled a very great fire; conversely, dry and easily inflammable stuff nourished the slightest spark into a conflagration.  So it is with anger, my dear Lucilius; the outcome of a mighty anger is merely that we may escape excess, but that we may have a healthy mind.  Farewell.

XX.  On Practicing What You Preach

   If you are in good health and if you think yourself worthy of becoming at last your own master, I am glad.  For the credit will be mine, if I can drag you from the floods in which you are being buffeted without hope of emerging.  This, however, my dear Lucilius, I ask and beg of you, on your part, that you  let wisdom sink into your soul, and test your progress, not by mere speech or writings, but by stoutness of heart and decrease of desire.  Prove your words by your deeds.

   Far different is the purpose of those who are speech-making and trying to win the approbation of a throng of hearers, far different that of those who allure the ears of young men and idlers by many-sided or fluent argumentation; philosophy teaches us to act, not to speak; it exacts of every man that he should live according to his own standards that his life should not be out of harmony with his words, and that, further, his inner life should be of one hue and not out of harmony with all his activities.  This, I say, is the highest duty and the highest proof of  wisdom,--that deed and word should be in accord, that a man should be equal to himself under all conditions, and always the same.

   "But," you reply, "who can maintain this standard?"  Very few, to be sure, but there are some.  It is indeed a hard undertaking, and I do not say that the philosopher can always keep the same pace.  But he can always travel the same path.  Observe yourself, then, and see whether your dress and your house  are inconsistent, whether you treat yourself lavishly and your family  meanly, whether you eat frugal dinners and yet build luxurious houses.  You should lay hold, once for all, upon a single norm to live by, and should regulate your whole life according to this norm.  Some men restrict themselves lat home, but strut with swelling port before the public; such discordance is a fault, and it indicates a wavering mind which cannot yet keep its balance.  And I can tell you, further, whence arise this unsteadiness and  disagreement of action and purpose; it is because no man resolves upon what he wishes, and, even if he has done so, he does not persist in it, but jumps the track; not only does he change, but he returns and slips back to the conduct which he has abandoned and abjured.  Therefore, to omit the ancient definitions of wisdom and to include the whole manner of human life, I can be satisfied with the following:  "What is wisdom?  Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things."  You may be excused from adding the little proviso,--that what you wish, should be right; since no man can always be satisfied with the same thing unless it is right.

   For this reason men do not know what they wish, except at the actual moment of wishing; no man ever decided once and for all to desire or to refuse.  Judgment varies from day to day, and changes to the opposite, making many a man pass his life in a kind of game.  Press on, therefore, as you have begun; perhaps you will be led to perfection, or to a point which you alone understand is still short of perfection

   "But what," you say, "will become of my crowded household without a household income?"  If you stop supporting that crowd, it will support itself; or perhaps you will learn by the bounty of poverty what you cannot learn by your own bounty.  Poverty will keep for you your true and tried friends; you will be rid of the men who were not seeking you for yourself, but for something which you have.  Is it not true, however, that you should love poverty, if only for this single reason,--that it will show you those by whom you are loved?  O when will that time come, when no one shall tell lies to compliment you!  Accordingly, let your thoughts, your efforts, your desires, help to make you content with your own self and with the goods that spring from yourself; and commit all your other prayers to God's keeping!  What happiness could come closer home to you?  Bring yourself down to humble conditions, from which you cannot be ejected; and in order that you may do so with greater alacrity, the contribution contained in this letter shall refer to that subject; I shall bestow it upon you forthwith.

   Although you may look askance, Epicurus will once again be glad to settle my indebtedness:  "Believe me, your words will be more imposing if you sleep on a cot and wear rags.  For in that case you will not be merely saying them; you will be demonstrating their truth."  I, at any rate, listen in a different spirit to the utterances of our friend Demetrius, after I have seen him reclining without even a cloak to cover him, and, more than this, without rugs to lie upon.  He is not only a teacher of the truth,  but a witness to the truth.  "May not a man, however, despise wealth when it lies in his very pocket?"  Of course, he also is great-souled, who sees riches heaped up round him and, after wondering long and deeply because they have come into his possession, smiles, and hears rather than feels that they are his.  It means much not to be spoiled by intimacy with riches; and he is truly great who is poor amidst riches.  "Yes, but I do not know," you say, "how the man you speak of will endure poverty, if he falls into it suddenly."  Nor do I, Epicurus, know whether the poor man you speak of will despise riches, should he suddenly fall into them; accordingly, in the case of both, it is the mind that must be appraised, and we must investigate whether your man is pleased with his poverty, and whether my man is displeased with his riches.  Otherwise, the cot-bed and the rags are slight proof of his good intentions, if it has not been made clear that the person concerned endures these trials not from necessity but from preference.

   It is the mark, however, of a noble spirit not to precipitate oneself into such things on the ground that they are better, but to practise for them on the ground that they are thus easy to endure.  And they are easy to endure, Lucilius; when, however, you come to them after long rehearsal; they are even pleasant; for they contain a sense of freedom from care,--and without this nothing is pleasant.  I hold it essential, therefore, to do as I have told you in a letter that great men have often done:  to reserve a few days in which we may prepare ourselves for real poverty by means of fancied poverty.  There is all the more reason for doing this because we have been steeped in luxury and regard all duties as hard and onerous.  Rather let the soul be roused from its sleep and be prodded, and let it be reminded that nature has prescribed very little for us.  No man is born rich.  Every man, when he first sees light, is commanded to be content with milk and rags.  Such is our beginning, and yet kingdoms are all too small for us!  Farewell.        

XXII.  On the Futility of Half-Way Measures

       You understand by this time that you must withdraw yourself from those showy and depraved pursuits; but you still wish to know how this may be accomplished.  There are certain things which can be pointed out only by someone who is present.  The physician cannot prescribe by letter the proper time for eating or bathing; he must feel the pulse.  There is an old adage about gladiators,- that they plan their fight in the ring; as they intently watch, something in the adversary's glance, some movement of his hand, even some slight bending of his body, gives a warning.  We can formulate  general rules and commit them to writing, as to what is usually done, or ought to be done; such advice may be given, not only to our absent friends, but also to succeeding generations.  In regard, however, to that second "question,-when or how your plan is to be carried out,-no one will advise at long range; we must take counsel in the presence of the actual situation.  You must be not only present in the body, but watchful in mind, if you would avail yourself of the fleeting opportunity.  Accordingly, look about you for the opportunity; if you see it, grasp it, and with all your energy and with all your strength devote yourself to this task,-to rid yourself of those business duties.

Topic:  The gentle path to overcoming vice.

Epicurus:  Founder of the Epicurean School, which emphasized pleasure as the supreme good. Seneca, of course is no great fan of this approach.

XXXI.  On Siren Songs

       Now I recognize my Lucilius!  He is beginning to reveal the character of which he gave promise.  Follow up the impulse which prompted you to make for all that is best, treading under your feet that which is approved by the crowd.  I would not have you greater or better than you planned; for in your case the mere foundations have covered a large extent of ground; only finish all that you have laid out, and take in hand the plans which you have had in mind.  In short, you will be a wise man, if you stop up your ears; nor is it enough to close them with wax; you need a denser stopple than that which they say Ulysses used for his comrades.  The song which he feared was alluring, but came not from every side; the song, however, which you have to fear, echoes round you not from a single headland, but from every quarter of the world.  Sail, therefore, not past one region which you mistrust because of its treacherous delights, but past every city.  Be deaf to those who love you most of all; they pray for bad things with good intentions.  And, if you would be happy, entreat the gods that none of their fond desires for you may be brought to pass.  What they wish to have heaped upon you are not really good things; there is only one good, the cause and the support of a happy life,-trust in oneself.  But this cannot be attained, unless one had learned to despise toil and to reckon it among the things which are neither good nor bad.  For it is not possible that a single thing should be bad at one time and good at another, at times light and to be endured, and at times a cause of dread.  Work is not a good.  Then what is a good?  I say, the scorning of work.  That is why I should rebuke men who toil to no purpose.  But when, on the other hand, a man is struggling towards honourable things, in proportion as he applies himself more and more, and allows himself  less and less to be beaten or to halt, I shall recommend his conduct and shout my encouragement, saying: "By so much you are better!  Rise, draw a fresh breath, and surmount that hill, if possible, at a single spurt!"

       Work is the sustenance of noble minds.  There is, then, no reason why, in accordance with that old vow of your parents, you should pick and choose what fortune you wish should fall to your lot, or what you should pray for; besides, it is base for a man who has already travelled the whole round of highest honours to be still importuning the gods.  What need is there of vows?  Make yourself happy through your own efforts; you can do this, if once you comprehend that whatever is joined to vice is bad.  Just as nothing gleams if it has no light blended with it, and nothing is black unless it contains darkness or draws to itself something of dimness, and as nothing is hot without the aid of fire, and nothing is cold without air; so it is the association of virtue and vice that makes things honourable or base.

       What then is good?  The knowledge of things.  What is evil?  The lack of knowledge of things.  Your wise man, who is also a craftsman, will reject or choose in each case as it suits the occasion; but he does not fear that which he rejects, nor does he admire that which he chooses, if only he has a stout and unconquerable soul.  I forbid you to be cast down or depressed.  It is not enough if you do not shrink from work; ask for it.  "But," you say, "is not trifling and superfluous work, and work that has been inspired by ignoble causes, as bad sort of work?"  No; no more than that which is expected upon noble endeavours, since the very quality that endures toil and rouses itself to hard and uphill effort, is of the spirit, which says: "Why do you grow slack?  It is not the part of a man to fear sweat."  And besides this, in order that virtue may be perfect, there should be and even temperament and a scheme of life that is consistent with itself throughout; and this result cannot be attained without knowledge of things, and without the art which enables us to understand things human and things divine.  That is the greatest good.  If you seize this good, you begin to be the associate of the gods, and not their suppliant.

       "But how," you ask, "does one attain that goal?"  You do not need to cross the Pennine or Graian hills, or traverse the Candavian waste, or face the Syrtes, or Scylla, or Charybdis, although you have travelled through all these places for the bribe of a petty governorship; the journey for which nature has equipped you is safe and pleasant.  She has given you such gifts that you may, if you do not prove false to them, rise level with God.  Your money, however, will not place you on a level with God; for God has no property.  Your bordered robe will not do this; for God is not clad in raiment; nor a knowledge of your name wide-spread throughout the world; for no one has knowledge of God; many even hold him in low esteem, and do not suffer for so doing.  The throng of slaves which carries your litter along the city streets and in foreign places will not help you; for this God of whom I speak, though the highest and most powerful of beings, carries all things on his own shoulders.  Neither can beauty or strength make you blessed; for non of these qualities can withstand old age.

       What we have to seek for, then is that which does not each day pass more and more under the control of some power which cannot be withstood.  And what is this?  It is the soul,-but the soul that is upright, good, and great.  What else could you call such a soul than a god dwelling as a guest in a human body?  A soul like this may descend into a Roman knight just as well as into a freedman's son or a slave.  For what is a Roman knight, or a freedman's son, or a slave?  They are mere titles, born of ambition or of wrong.  One may leap to heaven from the very slums.  Only rise " And mould thyself to kinship with thy God."  This molding will not be done in gold or silver; an image that is to be in the likeness of God cannot be fashioned of such materials; remember that the gods, when they were kind unto men, were molded in clay.  Farewell.

LII.  On Choosing Our Teachers

        What is this force, Lucilius, that drags us in one direction when we are aiming in another, urging us on to the exact place from which we long to withdraw?  What is it that wrestles with our spirit, and does not allow us to desire anything once for all?  We veer from plan to plan.  None of our wishes is free, none is unqualified, none is lasting.  "But it is the fool," you say, "who is inconsistent; nothing suits him for long."  But how or when can we tear ourselves away from this folly?  No man by himself has sufficient strength to rise above it;  he needs a helping hand, and someone to extricate him.

   Epicurus remarks that certain men have worked their way to the truth without anyone's assistance, carving out their own passage.  And he gives special praise to these, for their impulse has come from within, and they have forged to the front by themselves.  Again, he says, there are others who need outside help, who will not proceed unless someone leads the way, but who will follow faithfully.  Of these, he says, Metrodorus was one; this type of man is also excellent, but belongs to the second grade.  We ourselves are not of that first class, either; we shall be well treated if we are admitted into the second.  Nor need you despise a man who can gain salvation only with the assistance of  another; the will to be saved means a great deal, too.

   You will find still another class of man,--and a class not to be despised,--who can be forced and driven into righteousness, who do not need a guide as much as they require someone to encourage and, as it were, to force them along.  This is the third  variety.  If  you ask me for a man of this pattern also, Epicurus tells us that Hermarchus was such.  And of the two last-named classes, he is more ready to congratulate the one, but he feels more respect for the other; for although both have reached the same goal, it is a greater credit to have brought about the same result with the more difficult material upon which to work.

   Suppose that two buildings have been erected, unlike as to their foundations, but equal in height and in grandeur.  One is built on faultless ground, and the process of erection goes right ahead.  In the other case, the foundations have exhausted the building materials, for they have been sunk into soft and shifting ground and much labour has been wasted in reaching the solid rock.  As one looks at both of them,  one sees clearly what progress the former has made, but the larger and more difficult part of the latter is hidden.  So with men's dispositions;  some are pliable and easy to manage, but others have to be laboriously wrought out by hand, so to speak, and are wholly employed in the making of their own foundations.  I should accordingly deem more fortunate the man who has never had any trouble with himself; but the other, I feel, has deserved better of himself, who has won a victory over the meanness of his own nature, and has not gently led himself, but has wrestled his way, to wisdom.

   You may be sure that this refractory nature, which demands much toil, has been implanted in us.  There are obstacles in our path; so let us fight, and call to our assistance some helpers.  "Whom," you say, "shall I call upon?  Shall it be this man or that?"  There is another choice also open to you; you may go to the ancients; for they have the time to help you.  We can get assistance not only from the living, but from those of the past.  Let us choose, however, from among the living, not men who pour forth their words with the greatest glibness, turning out commonplaces, and holding, as it were, their own little private exhibitions,--not these, I say, but men who teach us by their lives, men who tell us what we ought to do and then prove it by practice, who show us what we should avoid, and then are never caught doing that which they have ordered us to avoid.

   Choose as a guide one whom you will admire more when you see him act than when you hear him speak.  Of course I would not prevent you from listening also to those philosophers who are wont to hold public meetings and discussions, provided they appear before the people for the express purpose of improving themselves and others, and do not practise their profession for the sake of self-seeking.  For what is baser than philosophy courting applause?  Does the sick man praise the surgeon while he is operating?  In silence and with reverent awe submit to the cure.  Even though you cry applause, I shall listen to your cries as if you were groaning when your sores were touched.  Do you wish to bear witness that you are attentive, that you are stirred by the grandeur of the subject'  You may do this at the proper time; I shall of course allow you to pass judgment and cast a vote as to the better course.  Pythagoras made his pupils keep silence for five years; do you think that they had the right on that account to break out immediately into applause?

   How mad is he who leaves the lecture-room in a happy frame of mind simply because of applause from the ignorant!  Why do you take pleasure in being praised by men whom you yourself cannot praise?  Febianus used to give popular talks, but his audience listened with self-control.  Occasionally a loud shout of praise would burst forth, but it was prompted by the greatness of his subject, and not by the sound of oratory that slipped forth pleasantly and softly.  There should be a difference between the applause of the theatre and the applause of the school; and there is a certain decency even in bestowing praise.  If you mark them carefully, all acts are always significant, and you can gauge character by even the most trifling signs.  The lecherous man is revealed by his gait, by a movement of the hand, sometimes by a single answer, by his touching his head with a finger, by the shifting of his eye.  The scamp is shown up by his laugh; the madman by his face and general appearance.  These qualities become known by certain marks; but you can tell the character of every man when you see how he gives and receives praise.  The philosopher's audience, from this corner and that, stretch forth admiring hands, and sometimes the adoring crowd almost hang over the lecturer's head.  But, if you really understand, that is not praise; it is merely applause.  These outcries should be left for the arts which aim to please the crowd; let philosophy be worshipped in silence.  Young men, indeed, must sometimes have free play to follow their impulses, but it should only be at times when they act from impulse, and when they cannot force themselves to be silent.  Such praise  as that gives a certain kind of encouragement to the hearers themselves, and acts as a spur to the youthful mind.  But let them be roused to the matter, and not to the style; otherwise, eloquence does them harm, making them enamoured of  itself, and not of the subject.

   I shall postpone this topic for the present; it demands a long and special investigation, to show how the public should be addressed, what indulgences should be allowed to a speaker on a public occasion, and what should be allowed to the crowd itself in the presence of the speaker.  There can be no doubt that philosophy6 has suffered a loss, now that she has exposed her charms for sale.  But she can still be viewed in her sanctuary, if her exhibitor is a priest and not a pedlar.  Farewell.

XCVI.  On Facing Hardships

    Spite of all do you still chafe and complain, not understanding that, in all the evils to which you refer, there is really only one--the fact that you do chafe and complain?  If you ask me, I think that for a man there is no misery unless there be something in the universe which he thinks miserable.  I shall not endure myself on that day when I find anything unendurable.

    I am ill; but that is a part of my lot.  My slaves have fallen sick, my income has gone off, my house is rickety, I have been assailed by losses, accidents, toil, and fear; this is a common thing.  Nay, that was an understatement; it was an inevitable thing.  Such affairs come by order, and not by accident.  If you will believe me, it is my inmost emotions that I am just now disclosing to you when everything seems to go hard and uphill, I have trained myself not merely to obey God, but to agree with His decisions.  I follow Him because my soul wills it, and not because I must.  Nothing will ever happen to me that I shall receive with ill humour or with a wry face.  I shall pay up all my taxes willingly.  Now all the things which cause us to groan or recoil, are part of the tax of life--things, my dear Lucilius, which you should never hope and never seek to escape.                  

    It was disease of the bladder that made you apprehensive; downcast letters came from you, you were continually getting worse; I will touch the truth more closely, and say that you feared for your life.  But come, did you not know, when you prayed for long life, that this was what you were praying for?  A  long life that includes all these troubles, just as a long journey includes dust and mud and rain.  "But," you cry, "I wished to live, and at the same time to be immune from all ills."  Such a womanish cry does no credit to a man.  Consider in what attitude you shall receive this prayer of mine (I offer it not only in a good, but in a noble spirit):  "May gods land goddesses alike forbid that Fortune keep you in luxury!"  Ask yourself voluntarily which you would choose if some god gave you the choice--life in a cafe or life in a camp.

    And yet life, Lucilius, is really a battle.  For this reason those who are tossed about at sea, who proceed uphill and downhill over toilsome crags and heights, who go on campaigns that bring the greatest danger, are heroes and front-rank fighters; but persons who live in rotten luxury and ease while others toil, are mere turtle-doves--safe only because men despise them.  Farewell.

XCVIII.   On the Fickleness of Fortune

    You need never believe that anyone who depends upon happiness is happy!  It is a fragile support--this delight in adventitious things; the joy which entered from without will some day depart.  But that joy which springs wholly from oneself is leal and sound; it increases and attends us to the last; while all other things which provoke the admiration of the crowd are but temporary Goods.  You may reply:  "What do you mean?  Cannot such things serve both for utility and for delight?"  Of course.  But only if they depend on us, and not we on them.  All things that Fortune looks upon become productive and pleasant, only if he who possesses them is in possession also of himself, and is not in the power of that which belongs to him.  For men make a mistake, my dear Lucilius, if they hold that anything good, or evil either, is bestowed upon us by Fortune; it is simply the raw material of Goods and Ills that she gives to us--the sources of things which, in our keeping, will develop into good or ill.  For the soul is more powerful than any sort of Fortune; by its own agency it guides its affairs in either direction, and of its own power it can produce a happy life, or a wretched one.

    A bad man makes everything bad--even things which had come with the appearance of what is best; but the upright and honest man corrects the wrongs of Fortune; and softens hardship and bitterness because he knows how to endure them; he likewise accepts prosperity with appreciation and moderation, and stands up against trouble with steadiness and  courage.  Though a man be prudent, though he conduct all his interests with well-balanced judgment, though he attempt nothing beyond  his strength, he will not attain the Good which is unalloyed and beyond the reach of threats,  unless he is sure in dealing with that which is unsure.  For whether you prefer to observe other men (and it is easier to make up one's mind when judging the affairs of others), or whether you observe yourself, with all prejudice laid aside, you will perceive and acknowledge that there is no utility in all these desirable and beloved things, unless you equip yourself in opposition to the fickleness of chance and its consequences, and unless you repeat to yourself often and uncomplainingly, at every mishap, the words:  "Heaven decreed it otherwise!"  Nay rather, to adopt a phrase which is braver and nearer the truth--one on which you may more safely prop your spirit--say to yourself, whenever things turn out contrary to your expectation:  "Heaven decreed better!"

    If you are thus poised, nothing will affect you; and a man will be thus poised if he reflects on the possible ups and downs in human affairs before he feels their force, and if he comes to regard children, or wife, or property, with the idea that he will not necessarily possess them always and that he will not be any more wretched just because he ceases to possess them.  It is tragic for the soul to be apprehensive of the future and wretched in anticipation of wretchedness, consumed with an anxious desire that the objects which give pleasure may remain in its possession to the very end.  For such a soul will never be at rest; in waiting for the future it will lose the present blessings which it might enjoy.  And  there is no difference between grief for something lost and the fear of losing it.

    But I do not for this reason advise you to be indifferent.  Rather do you turn aside from you whatever may cause fear.  Be sure to foresee whatever can be foreseen by planning.  Observe and avoid, long before it happens, anything that is likely to do you harm.  To effect this your best assistance will be a spirit of confidence and a mind strongly resolved to endure all things.  He who can bear Fortune, can also beware of Fortune.  At any rate, there is no dashing of billows when the sea is calm.  And there is nothing more wretched or foolish than premature fear.  What madness it is to anticipate one's troubles!  In fine, to express my thoughts in brief compass land portray to you those busybodies and self-tormentors--they are as uncontrolled in the midst of their troubles as they are before them.  He suffers more than is necessary, who suffers before it is necessary; such men do not weigh the amount of their suffering, by reason of the same failing which prevents them from being ready for it; and with the same lack of restraint they fondly imagine that their luck will last forever, and fondly imagine that their gains are bound to increase as well as merely continue.  They forget this spring-board on which mortal things are tossed, and they guarantee for themselves exclusively a steady continuance of the gifts of chance.

    For this very reason I regard as excellent the saying of Metrodorus, in a letter of consolation to his sister on the loss of her son, a lad of great promise:  "All of Good of mortals is mortal."  He is referring to those Goods towards which men rush in shoals.  For the real Good does not perish; it is certain and lasting, and it consists of wisdom and virtue; it is  the only immortal thing that falls to mortal lot.  But men are so wayward, and so forgetful of their goal and of the point toward which every day jostles them, that they are surprised at losing anything, although some day they are bound to lose everything.  Anything of which you are entitled the owner is in your possession but is not your own; for there is no strength in that which is weak, nor anything lasting and invincible in that which is frail.  We must lose our lives as surely as we lose our property, and this, if we understand the truth, is itself a consolation.  Lose it with equanimity; for you must lose your life also.

    What resource do we find, then, in the face of these losses?  Simply this--to keep in memory the things we have lost, and not to suffer the enjoyment which we have derived from them to pass away along with them.  To have may be taken from us, to have had, never.  A man is thankless in the highest degree if, after losing something, he feels no obligation for having received it.  Chance robs us of the thing, but leaves us its use and its enjoyment--and we have lost this if we are so unfair as to regret.  Just say to yourself:  "Of all these experiences that seem so frightful, none is insuperable.  Separate trials have been overcome by many:  fire by Mucius, crucifixion by Regulus, poison by Socrates, exile by Rutilius, and a sword-inflicted death by Cato; therefore, let us also overcome something."  Again, those objects which attract the crowd under the appearance of beauty and happiness, have been scorned by many men and on many occasions.  Fabricius when he was general refused riches, and when he was censor branded them with disapproval.  Tubero deemed poverty worthy both of himself and of the deity on the Capitol when, by the use of earthenware dishes at a public festival, he showed that man should be satisfied with that which the gods could still use.  The elder Sextius rejected the honours of office; he was born with an obligation to take part in public affairs, and yet would not accept the broad stripe even when the deified Julius offered it to him.  For he understood that what can be given can also be taken away.

    Let us also, therefore, carry out some courageous act of our own accord; let us be included among the ideal types of history.  Why have we been slack?  Why do we lose heart?  That which could be done, can be done, if only we purify our souls and follow Nature; for when one strays away from Nature one is compelled to crave, and fear, and be a slave to the things of chance.  We may return to the true path; we may be restored to our proper state; let us therefore be so, in order that we may be able to endure pain, in whatever form it attacks our bodies, and say to Fortune:  "You have to deal with a man; seek someone whom you can conquer!"

    By these words, and words of a like kind the malignity of the ulcer is quieted down; and I hope indeed that it can be reduced, and either cured or brought to a stop, and grow old along with the patient himself.  I am, however, comfortable in my mind regarding him; what we are now discussing is our own loss--the taking-off of a most excellent old man.  For he himself has lived a full life, and anything additional may be craved by him, not for his own sake, but for the sake of those who need his services.  In continuing to live, he deals generously.  Some other person might have put an end to these  sufferings; but our friend considers it no less base to flee from death than to flee towards death.  "But," comes the answer, "if circumstances warrant, shall he not take his departure?  Of course, if he can no longer be of service to anyone, if all his business will be to deal with pain.  This, my dear Lucilius, is what we mean by studying philosophy while applying it, by practising it on truth--to note what courage a prudent man possesses against death, or against pain, when the one approaches and the other weighs heavily.  What ought to be done must be learned from one who does it.  Up to now we have dealt with arguments--whether any man can resist pain, or whether the approach of death can cast down even great souls.  Why discuss it further?  Here is an immediate fact for us to tackle--death does not make our friend braver to face pain, nor pain to face death.  Rather does he trust himself in the face of both; he does not suffer with resignation because he hopes for death, nor does he die gladly because he is tired of suffering.  Pain he endures, death he awaits.  Farewell.

CIII.   On the Dangers of Association with our Fellow Men

    Why are you looking about for troubles which may perhaps come your way, but which may indeed not come your way at all?  I mean fires, falling buildings, and other accidents of the sort that are mere events rather than plots against us.  Rather beware and shun those troubles which dog our steps and reach out their hands against us.  Accidents, though they may be serious, are few--such as being shipwrecked or thrown from one's carriage; but it is from his fellow-man that a man's everday danger comes.  Equip yourself against that; watch that with an attentive eye.  There is no evil more frequent, no evil more persistent, no evil more insinuating.  Even the storm, before it gathers, gives a warning:  houses crack before they crash; and smoke is the forerunner of fire.  But damage from man is instantaneous, and the nearer it comes the more carefully it is concealed.

    You must, however, reflect thus what danger you run at the hands of man, in order that you may deduce what is the duty of man.  Try, in your dealings with others, to harm not, in order that you be not harmed.  You should rejoice with all in their joys and sympathize with them in their troubles, remembering what you should offer and what you should withhold  And what may you attain by living such a life?  Not necessarily freedom from harm at their hands, but at least freedom from deceit.  Insofar, however, as you are able, take refuge with philosophy:  she will cherish you in her bosom, and in her sanctuary you shall be safe, or at any rate, safer than before.  People collide only when they are travelling the same path.  But this very philosophy must never be vaunted by you; for philosophy when employed with insolence and arrogance has been perilous to many.  Let her strip off your faults, rather than assist you to decry the faults of others.  Let her not hold aloof from the customs of mankind, nor make it her business to condemn whatever she herself does not do.  A man may be wise without parade and without arousing enmity.  Farewell.

CVII.  On Obedience to the Universal Will

        Where is that common-sense of yours?  Where that deftness in examining things?  That greatness of soul?  Have you come to be tormented by a trifle?  Your slaves regarded your absorption in business as an opportunity for them to run away.  Well, if your friends deceived you (for by all means let them have the name which we mistakenly bestowed upon them, and so call them, that they may incur more shame by not being such friends)--if your friends, I repeat, deceived you, all your affairs would lack something; as it is, you merely lack men who damaged  your own endeavours and considered you burdensome to your neighbours.  None of these things is unusual or unexpected.  It is as nonsensical to be put out by such events as to complain of being spattered in the street or at getting befouled in the mud.  The programme of life is the same as that of a bathing establishment, a crowd, or a journey:  sometimes things will be thrown at you, and sometimes they  will strike you by accident.  Life is not a dainty business.  You have started on a long journey; you are bound to slip, collide, fall, become weary, and cry out:  "O for Death!"--or in other words, tell lies.  At one stage you will leave a comrade behind you, at another you will bury someone, at another you will be apprehensive.  It is amid stumblings of this sort that you must travel out this rugged journey.

        Does one wish to die?  Let the mind be prepared to meet everything; let it know that it has reached the heights round which the thunder plays.  Let it know that it has arrived where--

Grief and avenging Care have set their couch,

And pallid sickness dwells, and drear Old Age.    

With such messmates must you spend your days.  Avoid them you cannot, but despise them you can.  And you will despise them, if you often take thought and anticipate the future.  Everyone approaches courageously a danger which he has prepared himself to meet long before, and withstands even hardships if he has previously practised how to meet them  But, contrariwise, the unprepared are panic-stricken even at the most trifling things.  We must see to it that nothing shall come upon us unforeseen.  And since things are all the more serious when they are unfamiliar, continual reflection will give you the power, no matter what the evil may be, not to play the unschooled boy.

    "My slaves have run away from me!"  Yes, other men have been robbed, blackmailed, slain, betrayed, stamped under foot, attacked by poison or by slander; no matter what trouble you mention, it has happened to many.  Again, there are manifold kinds of missiles which are hurled at us.  Some are planted in us, some are being brandished and at this very moment are on the way, some which were destined for other men graze us instead.  We should not manifest surprise at any sort of condition into which we are born, and which should be lamented by no one, simply because it is equally ordained for all.  Yes, I say, equally ordained; for a man might have experienced even that which he has escaped.  And an equal law consists, not of that which all have experienced, but of that which is laid down for all.  Be sure to prescribe for your mind this sense of equity; we should pay without complaint the tax of our mortality.

    Winter brings on cold weather; and we must shiver.  Summer returns, with its heat; and we must sweat.  Unseasonable weather upsets the health; and we must fall ill.  In certain places we may meet with wild beasts, or with men who are more destructive than any beasts.  Floods, or fires, will cause us loss.  And we cannot change this order of things; but what we can do is to acquire stout hearts, worthy of good men, thereby courageously enduring change and placing ourselves in harmony with Nature  And Nature moderates this world-kingdom which you see, by her changing seasons:  clear weather follows cloudy; after a calm comes the storm; the winds blow by turns; day succeeds night, some of the heavenly bodies rise, and some set.  Eternity consists of opposites.

    It is to this law that our souls must adjust themselves, this they should follow, this they should obey.  Whatever happens, assume that it was bound to happen, and do not be willing to rail at Nature.  That which you cannot reform, it is best to endure,  and to attend uncomplainingly upon the God under whose guidance everything progresses; for it is a bad soldier who grumbles when following his commander.  For this reason we should welcome our orders with energy and vigour, nor should we cease to follow the natural course of this most beautiful universe, into which all our future sufferings are woven.

    Let us address Jupiter, the pilot of this world-mass, as did our great Cleanthes in those most eloquent lines--lines which I shall allow myself to render in Latin, after the example of the  eloquent Cicero.  If you like them, make the most of them/ if they displease you, you will understand that I have simply been following the practice of Cicero:

Lead me, O Master of the lofty heavens,

My Father, whithersoever thou shalt wish.

I shall not falter, but obey with speed.

And though I would not, I shall go, and suffer,

In sin and sorrow what I might have done

In noble virtue.  Aye, the willing soul

Fate leads, but the unwilling drags along.

        Let us live thus, and speak thus; let Fate find us ready and alert.  Here is your great soul--the man who has given himself over to Fate; on the other hand, that man is a weakling and a degenerate who struggles and maligns the order of the universe and would rather reform the gods than reform himself.  Farewell.

CX.  On True and False Riches

        From my villa at Nomentum, I send you greeting and bid you keep a sound spirit within you--in other words, gain the blessing of all the gods, for he is assured of  their grace and favour who has become a blessing to himself.  Lay aside for the present the belief of certain persons--that a god is assigned to each one of us as a sort of attendant--not a god of regular rank but one of a lower grade--one of those whom Ovid calls "plebeian gods."  Yet, while laying aside this belief, I would have you remember that our ancestors, who followed such a creed, have become Stoics; for they have assigned a Genius or a Juno to every individual.  Later on we shall investigate whether the gods have enough time on their hands to care for the concerns of private individuals; in the meantime, you must know that whether we are allotted to special guardians, or whether we are neglected and consigned to Fortune, you can curse a man with no heavier curse than to pray that he may be at enmity with himself.

        There is no reason, however, why you should ask the gods to be hostile to anyone whom you regard as deserving of punishment; they are hostile to such a person, I maintain, even though he seems to be advanced by their favour.  Apply careful investigation, considering how our affairs actually stand, and not what men say of them; you will then understand that evils are more likely to help us than to harm us.  For how often has so-called affliction been the source and the beginning of happiness!  How often have privileges which we welcomed with deep thanksgiving built steps for themselves to the top of a precipice, still uplifting men who were already distinguished--just as if they had previously stood in a position whence they could fall in safety!  But this very fall has in it nothing evil, if you consider the end, after which nature lays no man lower.  The universal limit is near; yes, there is near us the point where the prosperous man is upset, and the point where the unfortunate is set free.  It is we ourselves that extend both these limits, lengthening them by our hopes and by our fears.

        If, however, you are wise, measure all things according to the state of man; restrict at the same time both your joys and your fears.  Moreover, it is worth while not to rejoice at anything for long, so that you may not fear anything for long.  But why do I confine the scope of this evil?  There is no reason why you should suppose that anything is to be feared.  All these things which stir us and keep us a-flutter, are empty things.  None of us has sifted out the truth; we have passed fear on to one another; none has dared to approach the object which caused his dread, and to understand the nature of his fear--aye, the good behind it.  That is why falsehood and vanity still gain credit--because they are not refuted.  Let us account it worth while to look closely at the matter; then it will be clear how fleeting, how unsure, and how harmless are the things which we fear.  The disturbance in our spirits is similar to that which Lucretius detected:

Like boys who cover frightened in the dark,

So grown-ups in the light of day feel fear.

What, then?  Are we not more foolish than any child, we who "in the light of day feel fear"?  But you were wrong, Lucretius; we are not afraid in the daylight; we have turned everything into a state of darkness.  We see neither what injures nor what profits us; all our lives through we blunder along,  neither stopping nor treading more carefully on this account.  But you see what madness it is to rush ahead in the dark.  Indeed, we are bent on getting ourselves called back from a greater distance; and though we do not know our goal, yet we hasten with wild speed in the direction whither we are straining.

        The light, however, may begin to shine, provided we are willing.  But such a result can come about only in one way--if we acquire by knowledge this familiarity with things divine and human, if we not only flood ourselves but steep ourselves therein, if a man reviews the same principles even though he understands them and applies them again and again to himself, if he has investigated what is good, what is evil, and what has falsely been so entitled; and, finally, if he has investigated honour and baseness, and Providence.  The range of the human intelligence is not confined within these limits; it may also explore outside the universe--its destination and its source, and the ruin towards which all nature hastens so rapidly.  We have withdrawn the soul from this divine contemplation and dragged it into mean and lowly tasks, so that it might be a slave to greed, so that it might forsake the universe and its confines, and, under the command of masters who try all possible schemes, pry beneath the earth and seek what evil it can dig up therefrom--discontented with that which was freely offered to it.

        Now God, who is the Father of us all, has placed ready to our hands those things which he intended for our own good; he did not wait for any search on our part, and he gave them to us voluntarily.  But that which would be injurious, he buried deep in the earth.  We can complain of nothing but ourselves; for we have brought to light the materials for our destruction, against the will of Nature, who hid them from us.  We have bound over our souls to pleasure, whose service is the source of all evil; we have surrendered ourselves to self-seeking and reputation, and to other aims which are equally idle and useless.

        What, then, do I now encourage you to do?  Nothing new--we are not trying to find cures for new evils--but this first of all:  namely, to see clearly for yourself what is necessary and what is superfluous.  What is necessary will meet you everywhere; what is superfluous has always to be hunted out--and with great endeavour.  But there is no reason why you should flatter yourself over-much if you despise gilded couches and jewelled furniture.  For what virtue lies in despising useless things:  The time to admire your own conduct is when you  have come to despise the necessities.  You are doing no great thing if you can live without royal pomp, if you feel no craving for boars which weigh a thousand pounds, or for flamingo tongues, or for the other absurdities of a luxury that already wearies of game cooked whole, and chooses different bits from separate animals; I shall admire you only when you have learned to scorn even the common sort of bread, when you have made yourself believe that grass grows for the needs of men as well as of cattle, when you have found out that food from the treetop can fill the belly--into which we cram things of value as if it could keep what it has received.  We should satisfy our stomachs without being overnice.  How does it matter what the stomach receives, since it must lose whatever it has received?  You enjoy the carefully arranged dainties which are caught on land and sea; some are more pleasing if they are brought fresh to the table, others, if after long feeding and forced fattening they almost melt and can hardly retain their own grease.  You like the subtly devised flavour of these dishes.  But I assure you that such carefully chosen and variously seasoned dishes, once they have entered the belly, will be overtaken alike by one and the same corruption.  Would you despise the pleasures of eating?  Then consider its result!  I remember some words of Attalus, which elicited general applause:

        "Riches long deceived me.  I used to be dazed when I caught some gleam of them here and there.  I used to think that their hidden influence matched their visible show.  But once, at a certain elaborate entertainment, I saw embossed work in silver and gold equalling the wealth of la whole city, and colours and tapestry devised to match objects which surpassed the value of gold or of silver--brought not only from beyond our own borders, but from beyond the borders of   our enemies; on one side were slave-boys notable for their training and beauty, on the other were throngs of slave-women, and all the other resources that a prosperous and mighty empire  could offer after reviewing its possessions.  What else is this, I said to myself, than a stirring-up of man's cravings, which are in themselves provocative of lust?  What is the meaning of all this display of money?  Did we gather merely to learn what greed was?  For my own part I left the place with less craving than I had when I entered.  I came to despise riches, not because of their uselessness, but because of their pettiness.  Have you noticed how, inside a few hours, that programme, however, slow-moving and carefully arranged, was over and done?  Has a business filled up this whole life of ours, which could not fill up a whole day?

        "I had another thought also:  the riches seemed to me to be as useless to the possessors as they were to the onlookers.  Accordingly, I say to myself, whenever a show of that sort dazzles my eyes, whenever I see a splendid palace with a well-groomed corps of attendants and beautiful bearers carrying a litter:  Why wonder?  Why gape in astonishment?  It is all show; such things are displayed, not possessed; while they please they pass away. Turn thyself rather to the true riches.  Learn to be content with little, and cry out with courage and with greatness of soul:  'We have water, we have porridge; let us compete in happiness with Jupiter himself.'  And why note, I pray thee, make this challenge even without porridge and water?   For it is base to make the happy life depend upon silver and gold, and just as base to make it depend upon water and porridge.  'But,' some will say, 'what could I do without such things?'  Do you ask what is the cure for want?  It is to make hunger satisfy hunger; for, all else being equal, what difference is there is the smallness or the largeness of the tings that force you to be a slave?  What matter how little it is that Fortune can refuse to you?  Your very porridge and water can fall under another's jurisdiction; and besides, freedom comes, not to him over whom Fortune has slight power, but to him over whom she has no power at all.  This is what I mean:  you must crave nothing, if you would vie with Jupiter; for Jupiter craves nothing."

        This is what Attalus told us.  If you are willing to think often of these things, you will strive not to seem happy, but to be happy, and, in addition, to seem happy to yourself rather than to others.  Farewell.