Letter 74

[1] Your letter gave me delight and roused me from my lethargy; it also called back my memory, which by now is sluggish and slow. Why should you not, my dear Lucilius, think it the greatest instrument of a happy life to hold this conviction: that the only good is what is honorable? For the man who judges other things to be goods comes under the power of Fortune and becomes subject to another's will; the man who has confined every good within the honorable is happy within himself. [2] This man grieves over the loss of his children; that one is anxious because they are sick; another is downcast because they are disgraced and tainted with some scandal. You will see one man tortured by love for another's wife, another by love for his own; there will be no shortage of someone twisted by a defeat at the polls, and there will be those whom public office itself harasses. [3] But the greatest crowd of wretches out of the whole population of mortals is the one driven from every side by the expectation of death, which hangs over them everywhere; for there is no quarter from which it does not steal upon them. And so, like men operating in enemy territory, they must look about this way and that, and turn the neck toward every sound; unless this fear has been cast out of the breast, one lives with a pounding heart. [4] Before you will pass men driven into exile and stripped of their goods; men who are poor in the midst of riches—a kind of poverty that is the most grievous of all; men who have been shipwrecked, or who have suffered things like shipwreck, whom either the anger of the people or envy—a weapon most destructive to the best men—scattered when they were unsuspecting and at ease, in the manner of a storm that tends to rise just when one trusts most in the calm, or of a sudden lightning bolt at whose stroke even the neighboring regions trembled. For just as there, whoever stood nearer the fire was struck dumb as though hit himself, so among these men, when something befalls through some violent force, calamity crushes one, while fear crushes the rest, and the mere possibility of suffering produces in them a grief equal to that of the sufferers. [5] The misfortunes of others, and sudden ones, trouble everyone's mind. Just as birds are terrified even by the sound of an empty sling, so we are agitated not only by the blow but by the noise. No one, therefore, can be happy who has surrendered himself to this opinion. For nothing is happy except what is fearless; life lived among things suspected is lived badly. [6] Whoever has given himself over much to the gifts of chance has made for himself a vast and inextricable source of disturbance. There is one road for the man going toward safety: to despise external things and be content with the honorable. For the man who thinks anything better than virtue, or any good besides it, spreads out his lap toward these things that Fortune scatters and waits anxiously for the projectiles she throws. [7] Set this image before your mind: that Fortune is holding games and shaking down honors, riches, and favor upon this assembly of mortals—some of which gifts are torn apart among the hands of those snatching at them, some divided up in faithless partnership, some grasped to the great loss of those into whose hands they fell. Of these, certain ones landed on men who were busy with other things; certain ones, because they were grabbed at too eagerly, were lost and, while being greedily snatched, were knocked away; but for no one, even the man to whom the plunder fell happily, did joy in his loot last into the next day. And so the most prudent man, as soon as he sees the little gifts being brought in, flees from the theater and knows that small things cost dearly. No one comes to blows with a man retreating, no one strikes a man going out: the brawl is around the prize. [8] The same thing happens with these things that Fortune flings down from above: we boil with wretchedness, we are pulled apart, we long to have many hands, we look now in this direction, now in that. The things that excite our cravings seem to us thrown too slowly, since they will reach a few but are awaited by all; [9] we long to go to meet them as they fall; we rejoice if we have seized anything, and an empty hope of seizing has cheated some men; we pay for cheap plunder with some great injury, or we are deceived. So let us withdraw from these games and give place to the snatchers; let them gaze upon those goods dangling above them, and let them dangle still more themselves. [10] Whoever resolves to be happy should consider that the one good is what is honorable; for if he reckons anything else to be good, in the first place he judges badly of Providence, because many misfortunes befall just men, and because whatever Providence has given us is brief and slight if you compare it with the age of the whole universe. [11] From this lamentation it arises that we become ungrateful interpreters of the divine gifts: we complain that they do not come to us always, that the things that do come are few and uncertain and bound to pass away. From this it comes that we are willing neither to live nor to die: a hatred of life grips us, and a fear of death. Our every plan is adrift, and no good fortune can fill us. The reason is that we have not arrived at that immense and insurmountable good where our willing must necessarily come to rest, because beyond the highest there is no place. [12] You ask why virtue lacks nothing? It rejoices in what is present, it does not crave what is absent; nothing is not great in its eyes, provided it is enough. Depart from this judgment, and piety will not stand firm, nor good faith; for the man who wishes to render both must endure many of the things that are called evils, and must spend many of the things in which we indulge ourselves as though they were goods. [13] Courage perishes, which ought to put itself to the test; greatness of soul perishes, which cannot stand out unless it has scorned as trivial all those things that the crowd longs for as the greatest; gratitude and the repaying of gratitude perish, if we fear toil, if we recognize anything as more precious than good faith, if we do not look to the best things. [14] But to pass over those points: either these things called goods are not goods, or man is more fortunate than God, since indeed God has no use of the things that are dear to us; for neither lust nor the luxury of banquets nor wealth nor any of these things that bait a man and lead him on with cheap pleasure pertains to him. Therefore, either it is credible that God lacks goods, or the very fact that they are lacking to God is itself an argument that they are not goods. [15] Add that many things that wish to seem goods fall to animals more fully than to man. They use their food more greedily, they are not equally wearied by sex; their strength is greater and more uniformly steady: it follows that they are far more fortunate than man. For they live without wickedness, without frauds; they enjoy pleasures, which they both take in greater measure and with more ease, without any fear of shame or repentance. [16] Consider, then, whether that thing ought to be called a good in which God is surpassed by man, and man by the animals. Let us keep the highest good within the soul: it is debased if it passes from the best part of us to the worst and is transferred to the senses, which are nimbler in dumb animals. The sum of our happiness must not be placed in the flesh: those goods are true which reason gives, solid and everlasting, which cannot fall, nor even decrease or diminish. [17] Other things are goods by opinion, and they share a common name with the true goods, but the essential nature of good is not in them; let them therefore be called "advantages" and, to speak in our own language, "preferred things" [Latin producta, rendering the Stoic Greek proegmena]. Furthermore, let us know that they are our slaves, not our parts, and let them be with us, but in such a way that we remember they are outside us; even if they are with us, let them be counted among things subordinate and lowly, on whose account no one should exalt himself. For what is more foolish than to take pleasure in something one did not make oneself? [18] Let all these things be added to us, not cling to us, so that, if they are taken away, they may depart without any tearing of ourselves. Let us use them, not boast of them, and let us use them sparingly, as though deposited with us and destined to leave. Whoever has possessed them without reason has not held them long; for good fortune itself, unless it is tempered, crushes itself. If a man has trusted in the most fleeting goods, he is quickly deserted, and, so as not to be deserted, he is tormented. To few has it been granted to lay down their good fortune gently: the rest fall together with the things among which they rose to prominence, and the very things that had raised them up weigh them down. [19] For this reason prudence will be brought in, to impose measure and thrift upon them, since indeed unchecked license hurls down and presses upon its own wealth, and excessive things have never lasted unless that governing reason restrained them. The outcome of many cities will show you this: in the very flower of their power their luxurious empires collapsed, and whatever had been won by virtue fell to ruin through lack of self-control. We must be fortified against these reverses. But there is no wall against Fortune that cannot be stormed: let us build up our defenses within; if that part is safe, a man can be battered but not captured. You wish to know what this instrument is? [20] Let him be indignant at nothing that happens to him, and let him know that those very things by which he seems to be harmed contribute to the preservation of the universe and are among the things that complete the world's course and its proper functioning; let whatever has pleased God please man; let him, for this very reason, marvel at himself and his own resources, that he cannot be conquered, that he holds the evils themselves beneath him, that by reason—than which nothing is stronger—he subdues chance and pain and injury. [21] Love reason! Love of it will arm you against the hardest things. Love of their cubs drives wild beasts onto the hunting-spears, and their ferocity and reckless rush make them untamable; sometimes a desire for glory has sent youthful spirits into contempt of both sword and fire; the mere appearance and shadow of virtue pushes some men into a voluntary death: by however much reason is stronger than all these, by however much more steadfast, by so much the more forcefully will it pass out through the very terrors and dangers. [22] "You accomplish nothing," says the objector, "by denying that there is any good other than the honorable. This fortification will not make you safe from Fortune and exempt from her. For you say that among goods are dutiful children, a well-ordered country, and good parents. You cannot watch these in danger and remain unmoved: the siege of your country will throw you into turmoil, the death of your children, the enslavement of your parents." [23] I will set down what is usually answered against these objectors on our behalf; then I will add what I think must be answered besides. The situation is different in those cases where the thing taken away substitutes some hardship in its place: as good health, when impaired, turns into bad; the keenness of the eyes, when extinguished, afflicts us with blindness; not only is swiftness lost when the knee-tendons are cut, but weakness comes in its place. There is no such danger in the things I mentioned a little earlier. Why? If I have lost a good friend, I do not have to endure treachery in his place, nor, if I have buried good children, does impiety succeed to their place. [24] Next, what is destroyed there is not the friends or the children but the bodies. But a good perishes in only one way, if it passes into an evil; and this nature does not allow, because every virtue and every work of virtue remains uncorrupted. Next, even if the friends have perished, even if children who were approved and answered their father's prayer, there is something to fill their place. You ask what it is? The thing that had made them good as well—virtue. [25] Virtue allows no space to be empty, it holds the whole soul, it removes the longing for everything, it alone is enough; for the force and origin of all goods is in it. What does it matter whether running water is cut off and flows away, if the spring from which it flowed is safe? You will not say that a life is more just with children safe than with children lost, nor better ordered, nor more prudent, nor more honorable; therefore not even better. The addition of friends does not make one wiser, the subtraction of them does not make one more foolish; therefore neither happier nor more wretched. As long as virtue remains safe, you will not feel whatever has departed. [26] "What, then? Is a man not happier when surrounded by a throng of friends and children?" Why should he not be? Because the highest good is neither diminished nor increased; it remains in its own measure, however Fortune has conducted herself. Whether a long old age has fallen to a man's lot, or whether he was ended short of old age, the measure of the highest good is the same, though the span of life be different. [27] Whether you draw a larger or a smaller circle pertains to its extent, not to its form: even if one lasts a long while, and you obliterate the other at once and dissolve it back into the dust in which it was drawn, each had the same form. What is right is measured neither by magnitude nor by number nor by time; it can no more be lengthened than shortened. Compress an honorable life from a span of a hundred years to whatever extent you wish, and squeeze it into a single day: it is equally honorable. [28] At one time virtue spreads more widely, governing kingdoms, cities, provinces, framing laws, cultivating friendships, dispensing duties among kinsmen and children; at another it is hemmed in by the narrow boundary of poverty, exile, bereavement; yet it is not smaller if it is brought down from a higher peak to a humble one, into private life from royal, from a public and spacious jurisdiction into the narrow confines of a house or a corner. [29] It is equally great even if it has withdrawn into itself, shut out on all sides; for it is no less of a great and lofty spirit, of perfect prudence, of unbending justice. Therefore it is equally happy; for that happiness is set in one place only, in the mind itself—stable, grand, tranquil—which cannot be brought about without knowledge of things divine and human. [30] There follows the point I said I would answer. The wise man is not crushed by the loss of children, nor of friends; for he bears their death in the same spirit in which he awaits his own; he no more fears the latter than he grieves over the former. For virtue consists in harmony: all its works agree and accord with itself. This harmony perishes if the mind, which ought to be lofty, is brought low by grief or longing. All trepidation and anxiety is dishonorable, as is sluggishness in any act; for what is honorable is untroubled and ready, undaunted, standing in battle array. [31] "What, then? Will he experience nothing like a disturbance? Will his color not change and his face not be agitated, and his limbs not grow cold? And whatever else is carried out not by the command of the mind but by some unconsidered impulse of nature?" I admit it; but the same conviction will remain with him: that none of those things is an evil, nor worthy that a sound mind should give way to it. [32] He will do boldly and promptly all the things that must be done. For one might call this the mark of folly: to do cravenly and stubbornly the things one does, and to drive the body one way and the mind another, and to be torn apart between the most opposite motions. For folly is despised on account of the very things by which it exalts and admires itself, and it does not even gladly do the things in which it glories. But if some evil is feared, the fool is oppressed by it, while he awaits it, just as though it had come, and whatever he fears he may suffer he already suffers through fear. [33] Just as in feeble bodies symptoms run ahead of illness—for there is a certain nerveless lethargy and a weariness without any labor, and yawning, and a shiver running through the limbs—so the feeble mind is shaken by its troubles long before it is overcome by them; it anticipates them and falls before its time. [34] What is more insane than to be tortured by the future and not to reserve oneself for the torment, but to summon miseries to oneself and bring them near—when it is best to put them off, if you cannot drive them away? Do you wish to know that no one ought to be tortured by the future? Whoever hears that he must endure punishments fifty years from now is not disturbed, unless he has leaped across the intervening span and thrust himself into that anxiety due to come a lifetime later: in the same way it happens that minds gladly sick and grasping at causes of grief are saddened by old and forgotten things. Both the things that have passed and the things that are to come are absent: we feel neither. But there is no pain except from what you feel. Farewell.

Your letter has given me pleasure, and has roused me from sluggishness. It has also prompted my memory, which has been for some time slack and nerveless. You are right, of course, my dear Lucilius, in deeming the chief means of attaining the happy life to consist in the belief that the only good lies in that which is honourable. For anyone who deems other things to be good, puts himself in the power of Fortune, and goes under the control of another; but he who has in every case defined the good by the honourable, is happy with an inward happiness. One man is saddened when his children die; another is anxious when they become ill; a third is embittered when they do something disgraceful, or suffer a taint in their reputation. One man, you will observe, is tortured by passion for his neighbour’s wife, another by passion for his own. You will find men who are completely upset by failure to win an election, and others who are actually plagued by the offices which they have won. But the largest throng of unhappy men among the host of mortals are those whom the expectation of death, which threatens them on every hand, drives to despair. For there is no quarter from which death may not approach. Hence, like soldiers scouting in the enemy’s country, they must look about in all directions, and turn their heads at every sound; unless the breast be rid of this fear, one lives with a palpitating heart. You will readily recall those who have been driven into exile and dispossessed of their property. You will also recall (and this is the most serious kind of destitution) those who are poor in the midst of their riches. You will recall men who have suffered shipwreck, or those whose sufferings resemble shipwreck; for they were untroubled and at ease, when the anger or perhaps the envy of the populace,—a missile most deadly to those in high places,—dismantled them like a storm which is wont to rise when one is most confident of continued calm, or like a sudden stroke of lightning which even causes the region round about it to tremble. For just as anyone who stands near the bolt is stunned and resembles one who is struck, so in these sudden and violent mishaps, although but one person is overwhelmed by the disaster, the rest are overwhelmed by fear, and the possibility that they may suffer makes them as downcast as the actual sufferer. Every man is troubled in spirit by evils that come suddenly upon his neighbour. Like birds, who cower even at the whirr of an empty sling, we are distracted by mere sounds as well as by blows. No man therefore can be happy if he yields himself up to such foolish fancies. For nothing brings happiness unless it also brings calm; it is a bad sort of existence that is spent in apprehension. Whoever has largely surrendered himself to the power of Fortune has made for himself a huge web of disquietude, from which he cannot get free; if one would win a way to safety, there is but one road,—to despise externals and to be contented with that which is honourable. For those who regard anything as better than virtue, or believe that there is any good except virtue, are spreading their arms to gather in that which Fortune tosses abroad, and are anxiously awaiting her favours. Picture now to yourself that Fortune is holding a festival, and is showering down honours, riches, and influence upon this mob of mortals; some of these gifts have already been torn to pieces in the hands of those who try to snatch them, others have been divided up by treacherous partnerships, and still others have been seized to the great detriment of those into whose possession they have come. Certain of these favours have fallen to men while they were absent-minded; others have been lost to their seekers because they were snatching too eagerly for them, and, just because they are greedily seized upon, have been knocked from their hands. There is not a man among them all, however,—even he who has been lucky in the booty which has fallen to him,—whose joy in his spoil has lasted until the morrow. The most sensible man, therefore, as soon as he sees the dole being brought in, runs from the theatre; for he knows that one pays a high price for small favours. No one will grapple with him on the way out, or strike him as he departs; the quarrelling takes place where the prizes are. Similarly with the gifts which Fortune tosses down to us; wretches that we are, we become excited, we are torn asunder, we wish that we had many hands, we look back now in this direction and now in that. All too slowly, as it seems, are the gifts thrown in our direction; they merely excite our cravings, since they can reach but few and are awaited by all. We are keen to intercept them as they fall down. We rejoice if we have laid hold of anything; and some have been mocked by the idle hope of laying hold; we have either paid a high price for worthless plunder with some disadvantage to ourselves, or else have been defrauded and are left in the lurch. Let us therefore withdraw from a game like this, and give way to the greedy rabble; let them gaze after such “goods,” which hang suspended above them, and be themselves still more in suspense. Whoever makes up his mind to be happy should conclude that the good consists only in that which is honourable. For if he regards anything else as good, he is, in the first place, passing an unfavourable judgment upon Providence because of the fact that upright men often suffer misfortunes, and that the time which is allotted to us is but short and scanty, if you compare it with the eternity which is allotted to the universe. It is a result of complaints like these that we are unappreciative in our comments upon the gifts of heaven; we complain because they are not always granted to us, because they are few and unsure and fleeting. Hence we have not the will either to live or to die; we are possessed by hatred of life, by fear of death. Our plans are all at sea, and no amount of prosperity can satisfy us. And the reason for all this is that we have not yet attained to that good which is immeasurable and unsurpassable, in which all wishing on our part must cease, because there is no place beyond the highest. Do you ask why virtue needs nothing? Because it is pleased with what it has, and does not lust after that which it has not. Whatever is enough is abundant in the eyes of virtue. Dissent from this judgment, and duty and loyalty will not abide. For one who desires to exhibit these two qualities must endure much that the world calls evil; we must sacrifice many things to which we are addicted, thinking them to be goods. Gone is courage, which should be continually testing itself; gone is greatness of soul, which cannot stand out clearly unless it has learned to scorn as trivial everything that the crowd covets as supremely important; and gone is kindness and the repaying of kindness, if we fear toil, if we have acknowledged anything to be more precious than loyalty, if our eyes are fixed upon anything except the best. But to pass these questions by: either these so-called goods are not goods, or else man is more fortunate than God, because God has no enjoyment of the things which are given to us. For lust pertains not to God, nor do elegant banquets, nor wealth, nor any of the things that allure mankind and lead him on through the influence of degrading pleasure. Therefore, it is, either not incredible that there are goods which God does not possess, or else the very fact that God does not possess them is in itself a proof that these things are not goods. Besides, many things which are wont to be regarded as goods are granted to animals in fuller measure than to men. Animals eat their food with better appetite, are not in the same degree weakened by sexual indulgence, and have a greater and more uniform constancy in their strength. Consequently, they are much more fortunate than man. For there is no wickedness, no injury to themselves, in their way of living. They enjoy their pleasures and they take them more often and more easily, without any of the fear that results from shame or regret. This being so, you should consider whether one has a right to call anything good in which God is outdone by man. Let us limit the Supreme Good to the soul; it loses its meaning if it is taken from the best part of us and applied to the worst, that is, if it is transferred to the senses; for the senses are more active in dumb beasts. The sum total of our happiness must not be placed in the flesh; the true goods are those which reason bestows, substantial and eternal; they cannot fall away, neither can they grow less or be diminished. Other things are goods according to opinion, and though they are called by the same name as the true goods, the essence of goodness is not in them. Let us therefore call them “advantages,” and, to use our technical term, “preferred” things. Let us, however, recognize that they are our chattels, not parts of ourselves; and let us have them in our possession, but take heed to remember that they are outside ourselves. Even though they are in our possession, they are to be reckoned as things subordinate and poor, the possession of which gives no man a right to plume himself. For what is more foolish than being self-complacent about something which one has not accomplished by one’s own efforts? Let everything of this nature be added to us, and not stick fast to us, so that, if it is withdrawn, it may come away without tearing off any part of us. Let us use these things, but not boast of them, and let us use them sparingly, as if they were given for safe-keeping and will be withdrawn. Anyone who does not employ reason in his possession of them never keeps them long; for prosperity of itself, if uncontrolled by reason, overwhelms itself. If anyone has put his trust in goods that are most fleeting, he is soon bereft of them, and, to avoid being bereft, he suffers distress. Few men have been permitted to lay aside prosperity gently. The rest all fall, together with the things amid which they have come into eminence, and they are weighted down by the very things which had before exalted them. For this reason foresight must be brought into play, to insist upon a limit or upon frugality in the use of these things, since licence overthrows and destroys its own abundance. That which has no limit has never endured, unless reason, which sets limits, has held it in check. The fate of many cities will prove the truth of this; their sway has ceased at the very prime because they were given to luxury, and excess has ruined all that had been won by virtue. We should fortify ourselves against such calamities. But no wall can be erected against Fortune which she cannot take by storm; let us strengthen our inner defences. If the inner part be safe, man can be attacked, but never captured. Do you wish to know what this weapon of defence is? It is the ability to refrain from chafing over whatever happens to one, of knowing that the very agencies which seem to bring harm are working for the preservation of the world, and are a part of the scheme for bringing to fulfilment the order of the universe and its functions. Let man be pleased with whatever has pleased God; let him marvel at himself and his own resources for this very reason, that he cannot be overcome, that he has the very powers of evil subject to his control, and that he brings into subjection chance and pain and wrong by means of that strongest of powers—reason. Love reason! The love of reason will arm you against the greatest hardships. Wild beasts dash against the hunter’s spear through love of their young, and it is their wildness and their unpremeditated onrush that keep them from being tamed; often a desire for glory has stirred the mind of youth to despise both sword and stake; the mere vision and semblance of virtue impel certain men to a self-imposed death. In proportion as reason is stouter and steadier than any of these emotions, so much the more forcefully will she make her way through the midst of utter terrors and dangers. Men say to us: “You are mistaken if you maintain that nothing is a good except that which is honourable; a defence like this will not make you safe from Fortune and free from her assaults. For you maintain that dutiful children, and a well-governed country, and good parents, are to be reckoned as goods; but you cannot see these dear objects in danger and be yourself at ease. Your calm will be disturbed by a siege conducted against your country, by the death of your children, or by the enslaving of your parents.” I will first state what we Stoics usually reply to these objectors, and then will add what additional answer should, in my opinion, be given. The situation is entirely different in the case of goods whose loss entails some hardship substituted in their place; for example, when good health is impaired there is a change to ill-health; when the eye is put out, we are visited with blindness; we not only lose our speed when our leg-muscles are cut, but infirmity takes the place of speed. But no such danger is involved in the case of the goods to which we referred a moment ago. And why? If I have lost a good friend, I have no false friend whom I must endure in his place; nor if I have buried a dutiful son, must I face in exchange unfilial conduct. In the second place, this does not mean to me the taking-off of a friend or of a child; it is the mere taking-off of their bodies. But a good can be lost in only one way, by changing into what is bad; and this is impossible according to the law of nature, because every virtue, and every work of virtue, abides uncorrupted. Again, even if friends have perished, or children of approved goodness who fulfil their father’s prayers for them, there is something that can fill their place. Do you ask what this is? It is that which had made them good in the first place, namely, virtue. Virtue suffers no space in us to be unoccupied; it takes possession of the whole soul and removes all sense of loss. It alone is sufficient; for the strength and beginnings of all goods exist in virtue herself. What does it matter if running water is cut off and flows away, as long as the fountain from which it has flowed is unharmed? You will not maintain that a man’s life is more just if his children are unharmed than if they have passed away, nor yet better appointed, nor more intelligent, nor more honourable; therefore, no better, either. The addition of friends does not make one wiser, nor does their taking away make one more foolish; therefore, not happier or more wretched, either. As long as your virtue is unharmed, you will not feel the loss of anything that has been withdrawn from you. You may say: “Come now; is not a man happier when girt about with a large company of friends and children?” Why should this be so? For the Supreme Good is neither impaired nor increased thereby; it abides within its own limits, no matter how Fortune has conducted herself. Whether a long old age falls to one’s lot, or whether the end comes on this side of old age—the measure of the Supreme Good is unvaried, in spite of the difference in years. Whether you draw a larger or a smaller circle, its size affects its area, not its shape. One circle may remain as it is for a long time while you may contract the other forthwith, or even merge it completely with the sand in which it was drawn; yet each circle has had the same shape. That which is straight is not judged by its size, or by its number, or by its duration; it can no more be made longer than it can be made shorter. Scale down the honourable life as much as you like from the full hundred years, and reduce it to a single day; it is equally honourable. Sometimes virtue is widespread, governing kingdoms, cities, and provinces, creating laws, developing friendships, and regulating the duties that hold good between relatives and children; at other times it is limited by the narrow bounds of poverty, exile, or bereavement. But it is no smaller when it is reduced from prouder heights to a private station, from a royal palace to a humble dwelling, or when from a general and broad jurisdiction it is gathered into the narrow limits of a private house or a tiny corner. Virtue is just as great, even when it has retreated within itself and is shut in on all sides. For its spirit is no less great and upright, its sagacity no less complete, its justice no less inflexible. It is, therefore, equally happy. For happiness has its abode in one place only, namely, in the mind itself, and is noble, steadfast, and calm; and this state cannot be attained without a knowledge of things divine and human. The other answer, which I promised to make to your objection, follows from this reasoning. The wise man is not distressed by the loss of children or of friends. For he endures their death in the same spirit in which he awaits his own. And he fears the one as little as he grieves for the other. For the underlying principle of virtue is conformity; all the works of virtue are in harmony and agreement with virtue itself. But this harmony is lost if the soul, which ought to be uplifted, is cast down by grief or a sense of loss. It is ever a dishonour for a man to be troubled and fretted, to be numbed when there is any call for activity. For that which is honourable is free from care and untrammelled, is unafraid, and stands girt for action. “What,” you ask, “will the wise man experience no emotion like disturbance of spirit? Will not his features change colour, his countenance be agitated, and his limbs grow cold? And there are other things which we do, not under the influence of the will, but unconsciously and as the result of a sort of natural impulse.” I admit that this is true; but the sage will retain the firm belief that none of these things is evil, or important enough to make a healthy mind break down. Whatever shall remain to be done virtue can do with courage and readiness. For anyone would admit that it is a mark of folly to do in a slothful and rebellious spirit whatever one has to do, or to direct the body in one direction and the mind in another, and thus to be torn between utterly conflicting emotions. For folly is despised precisely because of the things for which she vaunts and admires herself, and she does not do gladly even those things in which she prides herself. But if folly fears some evil, she is burdened by it in the very moment of awaiting it, just as if it had actually come,—already suffering in apprehension whatever she fears she may suffer. Just as in the body symptoms of latent ill-health precede the disease—there is, for example, a certain weak sluggishness, a lassitude which is not the result of any work, a trembling, and a shivering that pervades the limbs,—so the feeble spirit is shaken by its ills a long time before it is overcome by them. It anticipates them, and totters before its time. But what is greater madness than to be tortured by the future and not to save your strength for the actual suffering, but to invite and bring on wretchedness? If you cannot be rid of it, you ought at least to postpone it. Will you not understand that no man should be tormented by the future? The man who has been told that he will have to endure torture fifty years from now is not disturbed thereby, unless he has leaped over the intervening years, and has projected himself into the trouble that is destined to arrive a generation later. In the same way, souls that enjoy being sick and that seize upon excuses for sorrow are saddened by events long past and effaced from the records. Past and future are both absent; we feel neither of them. But there can be no pain except as the result of what you feel. Farewell.

[1] Epistula tua delectavit me et marcentem excitavit; memoriam quoque meam, quae iam mihi segnis ac lenta est, evocavit. Quidni tu, mi Lucili, maximum putes instrumentum vitae beatae hanc persuasionem unum bonum esse quod honestum est? Nam qui alia bona iudicat in fortunae venit potestatem, alieni arbitrii fit: qui omne bonum honesto circumscripsit intra se felix <est>. [2] Hic amissis liberis maestus, hic sollicitus aegris, hic turpibus et aliqua sparsis infamia tristis; illum videbis alienae uxoris amore cruciari, illum suae; non deerit quem repulsa distorqueat; erunt quos ipse honor vexet. [3] Illa vero maxima ex omni mortalium populo turba miserorum quam exspectatio mortis exagitat undique impendens; nihil enim est unde non subeat. Itaque, ut in hostili regione versantibus, huc et illuc circumspiciendum est et ad omnem strepitum circumagenda cervix; nisi hic timor e pectore eiectus est, palpitantibus praecordiis vivitur. [4] Occurrent acti in exsilium et evoluti bonis; occurrent, quod genus egestatis gravissimum est, in divitis inopes; occurrent naufragi similiave naufragis passi, quos aut popularis ira aut invidia, perniciosum optimis telum, inopinantis securosque disiecit procellae more quae in ipsa sereni fiducia solet emergere, aut fulminis subiti ad cuius ictum etiam vicina tremuerunt. Nam ut illic quisquis ab igne propior stetit percusso similis obstipuit, sic in his per aliquam vim accidentibus unum calamitas opprimit, ceteros metus, paremque passis tristitiam facit pati posse. [5] Omnium animos mala aliena ac repentina sollicitant. Quemadmodum aves etiam inanis fundae sonus territat, ita nos non ad ictum tantum exagitamur sed ad crepitum. Non potest ergo quisquam beatus esse qui huic se opinioni credidit. Non enim beatum est nisi quod intrepidum; inter suspecta male vivitur. [6] Quisquis se multum fortuitis dedit ingentem sibi materiam perturbationis et inexplicabilem fecit: una haec via est ad tuta vadenti, externa despicere et honesto esse contentum. Nam qui aliquid virtute melius putat aut ullum praeter illam bonum, ad haec quae a fortuna sparguntur sinum expandit et sollicitus missilia eius exspectat. [7] Hanc enim imaginem animo tuo propone, ludos facere fortunam et in hunc mortalium coetum honores, divitias, gratiam excutere, quorum alia inter diripientium manus scissa sunt, alia infida societate divisa, alia magno detrimento eorum in quos devenerant prensa. Ex quibus quaedam aliud agentibus inciderunt, quaedam, quia nimis captabantur, amissa et dum avide rapiuntur expulsa sunt: nulli vero, etiam cui rapina feliciter cessit, gaudium rapti duravit in posterum. Itaque prudentissimus quisque, cum primum induci videt munuscula, a theatro fugit et scit magno parva constare. Nemo manum conserit cum recedente, nemo exeuntem ferit: circa praemium rixa est. [8] Idem in his evenit quae fortuna desuper iactat: aestuamus miseri, distringimur, multas habere cupimus manus, modo in hanc partem, modo in illam respicimus; nimis tarde nobis mitti videntur quae cupiditates nostras irritant, ad paucos perventura, exspectata omnibus; [9] ire obviam cadentibus cupimus; gaudemus si quid invasimus invadendique aliquos spes vana delusit; vilem praedam magno aliquo incommodo luimus aut [de] fallimur. Secedamus itaque ab istis ludis et demus raptoribus locum; illi spectent bona ista pendentia et ipsi magis pendeant. [10] Quicumque beatus esse constituet, unum esse bonum putet quod honestum est; nam si ullum aliud existimat, primum male de providentia iudicat, quia multa incommoda iustis viris accidunt, et quia quidquid nobis dedit breve est et exiguum si compares mundi totius aevo. [11] Ex hac deploratione nascitur ut ingrati divinorum interpretes simus: querimur quod non semper, quod et pauca nobis et incerta et abitura contingant. Inde est quod nec vivere nec mori volumus: vitae nos odium tenet, timor mortis. Natat omne consilium nec implere nos ulla felicitas potest. Causa autem est quod non pervenimus ad illud bonum immensum et insuperabile ubi necesse est resistat voluntas nostra quia ultra summum non est locus. [12] Quaeris quare virtus nullo egeat? Praesentibus gaudet, non concupiscit absentia; nihil non illi magnum est quod satis. Ab hoc discede iudicio: non pietas constabit, non fides, multa enim utramque praestare cupienti patienda sunt ex iis quae mala vocantur, multa impendenda ex iis quibus indulgemus tamquam bonis. [13] Perit fortitudo, quae periculum facere debet sui; perit magnanimitas, quae non potest eminere nisi omnia velut minuta contempsit quae pro maximis vulgus optat; perit gratia et relatio gratiae si timemus laborem, si quicquam pretiosius fide novimus, si non optima spectamus. [14] Sed ut illa praeteream, aut ista bona non sunt quae vocantur aut homo felicior deo est, quoniam quidem quae cara nobis sunt non habet in usu deus; nec enim libido ad illum nec epularum lautitia nec opes nec quicquam ex his hominem inescantibus et vili voluptate ducentibus pertinet. Ergo aut credibile est bona deo deesse aut hoc ipsum argumentum est bona non esse, quod deo desunt. [15] Adice quod multa quae bona videri volunt animalibus quam homini pleniora contingunt. Illa cibo avidius utuntur, venere non aeque fatigantur; virium illis maior est et aequabilior firmitas: sequitur ut multo feliciora sint homine. Nam sine nequitia, sine fraudibus degunt; fruuntur voluptatibus, quas et magis capiunt et ex facili, sine ullo pudoris aut paenitentiae metu. [16] Considera tu itaque an id bonum vocandum sit quo deus ab homine, <homo ab animalibus> vincitur. Summum bonum in animo contineamus: obsolescit si ab optima nostri parte ad pessimam transit et transfertur ad sensus, qui agiliores sunt animalibus mutis. Non est summa felicitatis nostrae in carne ponenda: bona illa sunt vera quae ratio dat, solida ac sempiterna, quae cadere non possunt, ne decrescere quidem ac minui. [17] Cetera opinione bona sunt et nomen quidem habent commune cum veris, proprietas [quidem] in illis boni non est; itaque commoda vocentur et, ut nostra lingua loquar, producta. Ceterum sciamus mancipia nostra esse, non partes, et sint apud nos, sed ita ut meminerimus extra nos esse; etiam si apud nos sint, inter subiecta et humilia numerentur propter quae nemo se attollere debeat. Quid enim stultius quam aliquem eo sibi placere quod ipse non fecit? [18] Omnia ista nobis accedant, non haereant, ut si abducentur, sine ulla nostri laceratione discedant. Utamur illis, non gloriemur, et utamur parce tamquam depositis apud nos et abituris. Quisquis illa sine ratione possedit non diu tenuit; ipsa enim se felicitas, nisi temperatur, premit. Si fugacissimis bonis credidit, cito deseritur, et, ut deseratur, affligitur. Paucis deponere felicitatem molliter licuit: ceteri cum iis inter quae eminuere labuntur, et illos degravant ipsa quae extulerant. [19] Ideo adhibebitur prudentia, quae modum illis ac parsimoniam imponat, quoniam quidem licentia opes suas praecipitat atque urget, nec umquam immodica durarunt nisi illa moderatrix ratio compescuit. Hoc multarum tibi urbium ostendet eventus, quarum in ipso flore luxuriosa imperia ceciderunt, et quidquid virtute partum erat intemperantia corruit. Adversus hos casus muniendi sumus. Nullus autem contra fortunam inexpugnabilis murus est: intus instruamur; si illa pars tuta est, pulsari homo potest, capi non potest. Quod sit hoc instrumentum scire desideras? [20] Nihil indignetur sibi accidere sciatque illa ipsa quibus laedi videtur ad conservationem universi pertinere et ex iis esse quae cursum mundi officiumque consummant; placeat homini quidquid deo placuit; ob hoc ipsum <se> suaque miretur, quod non potest vinci, quod mala ipsa sub se tenet, quod ratione, qua valentius nihil est, casum doloremque et iniuriam subigit. [21] Ama rationem! huius te amor contra durissima armabit. Feras catulorum amor in venabula impingit feritasque et inconsultus impetus praestat indomitas; iuvenilia nonnumquam ingenia cupido gloriae in contemptum tam ferri quam ignium misit; species quosdam atque umbra virtutis in mortem voluntariam trudit: quanto his omnibus fortior ratio est, quanto constantior, tanto vehementius per metus ipsos et pericula exibit. [22] 'Nihil agitis' inquit 'quod negatis ullum esse aliud honesto bonum. non faciet vos haec munitio tutos a fortuna et immunes. Dicitis enim inter bona esse liberos pios et bene moratam patriam et parentes bonos. Horum pericula non potestis spectare securi: perturbabit vos obsidio patriae, liberorum mors, parentum servitus.' [23] Quid adversus hos pro nobis responderi soleat ponam; deinde tunc adiciam quid praeterea respondendum putem. Alia condicio est in iis quae ablata in locum suum aliquid incommodi substituunt: tamquam bona valetudo vitiata in malam transfert; acies oculorum exstincta caecitate nos afficit; non tantum velocitas perit poplitibus incisis, sed debilitas pro illa subit. Hoc non est periculum in iis quae paulo ante rettulimus. Quare? si amicum bonum amisi, non est mihi pro illo perfidia patienda, nec si bonos liberos extuli, in illorum locum impietas succedit. [24] Deinde non amicorum illic aut liberorum interitus sed corporum est. Bonum autem uno modo perit, si in malum transit; quod natura non patitur, quia omnis virtus et opus omne virtutis incorruptum manet. Deinde etiam si amici perierunt, etiam si probati respondentesque voto patris liberi, est quod illorum expleat locum. Quid sit quaeris? quod illos quoque bonos fecerat, virtus. [25] Haec nihil vacare patitur loci, totum animum tenet, desiderium omnium tollit, sola satis est; omnium enim bonorum vis et origo in ipsa est. Quid refert an aqua decurrens intercipiatur atque abeat, si fons ex quo fluxerat salvus est? Non dices vitam iustiorem salvis liberis quam amissis nec ordinatiorem nec prudentiorem nec honestiorem; ergo ne meliorem quidem. Non facit adiectio amicorum sapientiorem, non facit stultiorem detractio; ergo nec beatiorem aut miseriorem. Quamdiu virtus salva fuerit, non senties quidquid abscesserit. [26] 'Quid ergo? non est beatior et amicorum et liberorum turba succinctus?' Quidni non sit? Summum enim bonum nec infringitur nec augetur; in suo modo permanet, utcumque fortuna se gessit. Sive illi senectus longa contigit sive citra senectutem finitus est, eadem mensura summi boni est, quamvis aetatis diversa sit. [27] Utrum maiorem an minorem circulum scribas ad spatium eius pertinet, non ad formam: licet alter diu manserit, alterum statim obduxeris et in eum in quo scriptus est pulverem solveris, in eadem uterque forma fuit. Quod rectum est nec magnitudine aestimatur nec numero nec tempore; non magis produci quam contrahi potest. Honestam vitam ex centum annorum numero in quantum voles corripe et in unum diem coge: aeque honesta est. [28] Modo latius virtus funditur, regna urbes provincias temperat, fert leges, colit amicitias, inter propinquos liberosque dispensat officia, modo arto fine circumdatur paupertatis exsilii orbitatis; non tamen minor est si ex altiore fastigio in humile subducitur, in privatum ex regio, ex publico et spatioso iure in angustias domus vel anguli coit. [29] Aeque magna est, etiam si in se recessit undique exclusa; nihilominus enim magni spiritus est et erecti, exactae prudentiae, indeclinabilis iustitiae. Ergo aeque beata est; beatum enim illud uno loco positum est, in ipsa mente, stabile, grande, tranquillum, quod sine scientia divinorum humanorumque non potest effici. [30] Sequitur illud quod me responsurum esse dicebam. Non affligitur sapiens liberorum amissione, non amicorum; eodem enim animo fert illorum mortem quo suam exspectat; non magis hanc timet quam illam dolet. Virtus enim convenientia constat: omnia opera eius cum ipsa concordant et congruunt. Haec concordia perit si animus, quem excelsum esse oportet, luctu aut desiderio summittitur. Inhonesta est omnis trepidatio et sollicitudo, in ullo actu pigritia; honestum enim securum et expeditum est, interritum est, in procinctu stat. [31] 'Quid ergo? non aliquid perturbationi simile patietur? non et color eius mutabitur et vultus agitabitur et artus refrigescent? et quidquid aliud non ex imperio animi, sed inconsulto quodam naturae impetu geritur?' Fateor; sed manebit illi persuasio eadem, nihil illorum malum esse nec dignum ad quod mens sana deficiat. [32] Omnia quae facienda erunt audaciter faciet et prompte. Hoc enim stultitiae proprium quis dixerit, ignave et contumaciter facere quae faciat, et alio corpus impellere, alio animum, distrahique inter diversissimos motus. Nam propter illa ipsa quibus extollit se miraturque contempta est, et ne illa quidem quibus gloriatur libenter facit. Si vero aliquod timetur malum, eo proinde, dum exspectat, quasi venisset urguetur, et quidquid ne patiatur timet iam metu patitur. [33] Quemadmodum in corporibus infirmis languorem signa praecurrunt - quaedam enim segnitia enervis est et sine labore ullo lassitudo et oscitatio et horror membra percurrens - sic infirmus animus multo ante quam opprimatur malis quatitur; praesumit illa et ante tempus cadit. Quid autem dementius quam angi futuris nec se tormento reservare, sed arcessere sibi miserias et admovere? quas optimum est differre, si discutere non possis. [34] Vis scire futuro neminem debere torqueri? Quicumque audierit post quinquagesimum annum sibi patienda supplicia, non perturbatur nisi si medium spatium transiluerit et se in illam saeculo post futuram sollicitudinem immiserit: eodem modo fit ut animos libenter aegros et captantes causas doloris vetera atque obliterata contristent. Et quae praeterierunt et quae futura sunt absunt: neutra sentimus. Non est autem nisi ex eo quod sentias dolor. Vale. Seneca the YoungerThe Latin Library The Classics Page