The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose Volume II - Rome Part 7

Consider now, whether any thief, or false accuser, or headstrong neighbor, or rich man enjoying the power conferred by a childless old age, could do any injury to this man, from whom neither war nor an enemy whose profession was the n.o.ble art of battering city walls could take away anything. Amid the flash of swords on all sides, and the riot of the plundering soldiery, amid the flames and blood and ruin of the fallen city, amid the crash of temples falling upon their G.o.ds, one man was at peace. You need not therefore account that a reckless boast, for which I will give you a surety, if my word goes for nothing. Indeed, you would hardly believe so much constancy or such greatness of mind to belong to any man; but here a man comes forward to prove that you have no reason for doubting that one who is but of human birth can raise himself above human necessities, can tranquilly behold pains, losses, diseases, wounds, and great natural convulsions roaring around him, can bear adversity with calm and prosperity with moderation, neither yielding to the former nor trusting to the latter, that he can remain the same amid all varieties of fortune, and think nothing to be his own save himself, and himself too only as regards his better part....

You have no cause for saying, as you are wont to do, that this wise man of ours is nowhere to be found; we do not invent him as an unreal glory of the human race, or conceive a mighty shadow of an untruth, but we have displayed and will display him just as we sketch him, tho he may perhaps be uncommon, and only one appears at long intervals; for what is great and transcends the common ordinary type is not often produced; but this very Marcus Cato himself, the mention of whom started this discussion, was a man who I fancy even surpa.s.sed our model. Moreover, that which hurts must be stronger than that which is hurt. Now wickedness is not stronger than virtue; therefore the wise man can not be hurt. Only the bad attempt to injure the good. Good men are at peace among themselves; bad ones are equally mischievous to the good and to one another. If a man can not be hurt by one weaker than himself, and a bad man be weaker than a good one, and the good have no injury to dread, except from one unlike themselves; then, no injury takes effect upon the wise man; for by this time I need not remind you that no one save the wise man is good....

The n.o.bler a man is by birth, by reputation, or by inheritance, the more bravely he should bear himself, remembering that the tallest men stand in the front rank in battle. As for insults, offensive language, marks of disgrace, and such like disfigurements, he ought to bear them as he would bear the shouts of the enemy, and darts or stones flung from a distance, which rattle upon his helmet without causing a wound; while he should look upon injuries as wounds, some received on his armor and others on his body, which he endures without falling or even leaving his place in the ranks. Even tho you be hard prest and violently attacked by the enemy, still it is base to give way; hold the post a.s.signed to you by nature. You ask, what this post is? it is that of being a man. The wise man has another help, of the opposite kind to this; you are hard at work, while he has already won the victory. Do not quarrel with your own good advantage, and, until you shall have made your way to the truth, keep alive this hope in your minds, be willing to receive the news of a better life, and encourage it by your admiration and your prayers; it is to the interest of the commonwealth of mankind that there should be some one who is unconquered, some one against whom fortune has no power.

II

OF CONSOLATION FOR THE LOSS OF FRIENDS[78]

Why should I lead you on through the endless series of great men and pick out the unhappy ones, as tho it were not more difficult to find happy ones? for how few households have remained possest of all their members to the end? what one is there that has not suffered some loss?

Take any one year you please and name the Consuls for it; if you like, that of Lucius Bibulus[79] and Julius Caesar; you will see that, tho these colleagues were each other's bitterest enemies, yet their fortunes agreed. Lucius Bibulus, a man more remarkable for goodness than for strength of character, had both his sons murdered at the same time, and even insulted by the Egyptian soldiery, so that the agent of his bereavement was as much a subject for tears as the bereavement itself. Nevertheless Bibulus, who during the whole of his year of office had remained hidden in his house, to cast reproach upon his colleague Caesar on the day following that upon which he heard of both his sons' deaths, came forth and went through the routine business of his magistracy. Who could devote less than one day to mourning for two sons? Thus soon did he end his mourning for his children, altho he had mourned a whole year for his consuls.h.i.+p. Gaius Caesar, after having traversed Britain, and not allowed even the ocean to set bounds to his successes, heard of the death of his daughter, which hurried on the crisis of affairs. Already Cnaeus Pompey stood before his eyes, a man who would ill endure that any one besides himself should become a great power in the state, and one who was likely to place a check upon his advancement, which he had regarded, as onerous even when each gained by the other's rise: yet within three days' time he resumed his duties as general, and conquered his grief as quickly as he was wont to conquer everything else.

Why need I remind you of the deaths of the other Caesars, whom fortune appears to me sometimes to have outraged in order that even by their deaths they might be useful to mankind, by proving that not even they, altho they were styled "sons of G.o.ds," and "fathers of G.o.ds to come,"

could exercise the same power over their own fortunes which they did over those of others? The Emperor Augustus lost his children and his grandchildren, and after all the family of Caesar had perished was obliged to prop his empty house by adopting a son: yet he bore his losses as bravely as tho he were already personally concerned in the honor of the G.o.ds, and as tho it were especially to his interest that no one should complain of the injustice of Heaven. Tiberius Caesar lost both the son whom he begot and the son whom he adopted, yet he himself p.r.o.nounced a panegyric upon his son from the Rostra, and stood in full view of the corpse, which merely had a curtain on one side to prevent the eyes of the high priest resting upon the dead body, and did not change his countenance, tho all the Romans wept: he gave Seja.n.u.s, who stood by his side, a proof of how patiently he could endure the loss of his relatives. See you not what numbers of most eminent men there have been, none of whom have been spared by this blight which prostrates us all: men, too, adorned with every grace of character, and every distinction that public or private life can confer. It appears as tho this plague moved in a regular orbit, and spread ruin and desolation among us all without distinction of persons, all being alike its prey. Bid any number of individuals tell you the story of their lives: you will find that all have paid some penalty for being born.

I know what you will say, "You quote men as examples: you forget that it is a woman that you are trying to console." Yet who would say that nature has dealt grudgingly with the minds of women and stunted their virtues? Believe me, they have the same intellectual power as men, and the same capacity for honorable and generous action. If trained to do so, they are just as able to endure sorrow or labor. Ye good G.o.ds, do I say this in that very city in which Lucretia and Brutus removed the yoke of kings from the necks of the Romans? We owe liberty to Brutus, but we owe Brutus to Lucretia--in which Cloelia,[80] for the sublime courage with which she scorned both the enemy and the river, has been almost reckoned as a man.

The statue of Coelia, mounted on horseback, in the busiest of thoroughfares, the Sacred Way, continually reproaches the youth of the present day, who never mount anything but a cus.h.i.+oned seat in a carriage, with journeying in such a fas.h.i.+on through that very city in which we have enrolled even women among our knights. If you wish me to point out to you examples of women who have bravely endured the loss of their children, I shall not go far afield to search for them: in one family I can quote two Cornelias, one the daughter of Scipio, and the mother of Gracchi, who made acknowledgment of the birth of her twelve children by burying them all; nor was it so hard to do this in the case of the others, whose birth and death were alike unknown to the public, but she beheld the murdered and unburied corpses of both Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus, whom even those who will not call them good must admit were great men. Yet to those who tried to console her and called her unfortunate, she answered, "I shall never cease to call myself happy, because I am the mother of the Gracchi."

Cornelia, the wife of Livius Drusus,[81] lost by the hands of an unknown a.s.sa.s.sin a young son of great distinction, who was treading in the footsteps of the Gracchi, and was murdered in his own house just when he had so many bills half-way through the process of becoming law: nevertheless she bore the untimely and unavenged death of her son with as lofty a spirit as he had shown in carrying his laws.

Will you not, Marcia, forgive Fortune because she has not refrained from striking you with the darts which she launched at the Scipios, and the mothers and daughters of the Scipios, and with which she has attacked the Caesars themselves? Life is full of misfortunes; our path is beset with them: no one can make a long peace, nay, scarcely an armistice with fortune. You, Marcia, have borne four children; now they say that no dart which is hurled into a close column of soldiers can fail to hit one--ought you then to wonder at not having been able to lead along such a company without exciting the ill will of Fortune, or suffering loss at her hands?...

Think how great a blessing is a timely death, how many have been injured by living longer than they ought. If sickness had carried off that glory and support of the empire, Cnaeus Pompey, at Naples, he would have died undoubted head of the Roman people, but as it was, a short extension of time cast him down from his pinnacle of fame: he beheld his legions slaughtered before his eyes: and what a sad relic of that battle, in which the Senate formed the first line, was the survival of the general. He saw his Egyptian butcher, and offered his body, hallowed by so many victories, to a guardsman's sword, altho, even had he been unhurt, he would have regretted his safety: for what could have been more infamous than that a Pompey should owe his life to the clemency of a king? If Marcus Cicero had fallen at the time when he avoided those dangers which Catiline aimed equally at him and at his country, he might have died as the savior of the commonwealth which he had set free: if his death had even followed upon that of his daughter, he might have died happy. He would not then have seen swords drawn for the slaughter of Roman citizens, the goods of the murdered divided among the murderers, that men might pay from their own purse the price of their own blood, the public auction of the Consul's spoil in the civil war, the public letting out of murder to be done, brigandage, war, pillage, hosts of Catilines. Would it not have been a good thing for Marcus Cato if the sea had swallowed him up when he was returning from Cyprus after sequestrating the king's hereditary possessions, even if that very money which he was bringing to pay the soldiers in the civil war had been lost with him? He certainly would have been able to boast that no one would dare to do wrong in the presence of Cato: as it was, the extension of his life for a very few more years forced one who was born for personal and political freedom to flee from Caesar and to become Pompey's follower. Premature death therefore did him no evil: indeed, it put an end to the power of any evil to hurt him....

Born for a very brief s.p.a.ce of time, we regard this life as an inn which we are soon to quit that it may be made ready for the coming guest, Do I speak of our lives, which we know roll away incredibly fast? Reckon up the centuries of cities: you will find that even those which boast of their antiquity have not existed for long. All human works are brief and fleeting: they take up no part whatever of infinite time. Tried by the standard of the universe, we regard this earth of ours, with all its cities, nations, rivers, and seaboard, as a mere point: our life occupies less than a point when compared with all time, the measure of which exceeds that of the world, for indeed the world is contained many times in it. Of what importance, then, can it be to lengthen that which, however much you add to it, will never be much more than nothing? We can only make our lives long by one expedient, that is, by being satisfied with their length: you may tell me of long-lived men, whose length of days has been celebrated by tradition, you may a.s.sign a hundred and ten years apiece to them: yet when you allow your mind to conceive the idea of eternity, there will be no difference between the shortest and the longest life, if you compare the time during which any one has been alive with that during which he has not been alive. In the next place, when he died his life was complete; he had lived as long as he needed to live: there was nothing left for him to accomplish.

III

TO NERO ON CLEMENCY[82]

You, Caesar, can boldly say that everything which has come into your charge has been kept safe, and that the state has neither openly nor secretly suffered any loss at your hands. You have coveted a glory which is most rare, and which has been obtained by no emperor before you, that of innocence. Your remarkable goodness is not thrown away, nor is it ungratefully or spitefully undervalued. Men feel grat.i.tude toward you: no one person ever was so dear to another as you are to the people of Rome, whose great and enduring benefit you are. You have, however, taken upon yourself a mighty burden: no one any longer speaks of the good times of the late Emperor Augustus, or the first years of the reign of Tiberius, or proposes for your imitation any model outside yourself: yours is a pattern reign. This would have been difficult had your goodness of heart not been innate, but merely adopted for a time; for no one can wear a mask for long, and fict.i.tious qualities soon give place to true ones. Those which are founded upon truth, become greater and better as time goes on.

The Roman people were in a state of great hazard as long as it was uncertain how your generous disposition would turn out: now, however, the prayers of the community are sure of an answer, for there is no fear that you should suddenly forget your own character. Indeed, excess of happiness makes men greedy, and our desires are never so moderate as to be bounded by what they have obtained: great successes become the stepping-stones to greater ones, and those who have obtained more than they hoped, entertain even more extravagant hopes than before; yet by all your countrymen we hear it admitted that they are now happy, and moreover, that nothing can be added to the blessings that they enjoy, except that they should be eternal. Many circ.u.mstances force this admission from them, altho it is the one which men are least willing to make: we enjoy a profound and prosperous peace, the power of the law has been openly a.s.serted in the sight of all men, and raised beyond the reach of any violent interference: the form of our government is so happy, as to contain all the essentials of liberty except the power of destroying itself.

It is nevertheless your clemency which is most especially admired by the high and low alike: every man enjoys or hopes to enjoy the other blessings of your rule according to the measure of his own personal good fortune, whereas from your clemency all hope alike: no one has so much confidence in his innocence, as not to feel glad that in your presence stands a clemency which is ready to make allowance for human errors....

Since I have made mention of the G.o.ds, I shall state the best model on which a prince may mold his life to be, that he deal with his countrymen as he would that the G.o.ds may deal with himself. Is it then desirable that the G.o.ds should show no mercy upon sins and mistakes, and that they should harshly pursue us to our ruin? In that case what king will be safe? Whose limbs will not be torn asunder and collected by the sooth-sayers If, on the other hand, the G.o.ds are placable and kind, and do not at once avenge the crimes of the powerful with thunderbolts, is it not far more just that a man set in authority over other men should exercise his power in a spirit of clemency and should consider whether the conditions of the world is more beauteous and pleasant to the eyes on a fine calm day, or when everything is shaken with frequent thunder-claps and when lightning flashes on all sides!

Yet the appearance of a peaceful and const.i.tutional reign is the same as that of the calm and brilliant sky. A cruel reign is disordered and hidden in darkness, and while all shake with terror at the sudden explosions, not even he who caused all this disturbance escapes unharmed. It is easier to find excuses for private men who obstinately claim their rights; possibly they may have been injured and their rage may spring from their wrongs; besides this, they fear to be despised, and not to return the injuries which they have received looks like weakness rather than clemency; but one who can easily avenge himself, if he neglects to do so, is certain to gain praise for goodness of heart. Those who are born in a humble station may with greater freedom exercise violence, go to law, engage in quarrels, and indulge their angry pa.s.sions; even blows count for little between two equals; but in case of a king, even loud clamor and unmeasured talk are unbecoming....

Such was Augustus when an old man, or when growing old: in his youth he was hasty and pa.s.sionate, and did many things upon which he looked back with regret. No one will venture to compare the rule of the blest Augustus to the mildness of your own, even if your youth be compared with his more than ripe old age: he was gentle and placable, but it was after he had dyed the sea at Actium with Roman blood; after he had wrecked both the enemy's fleet and his own at Sicily; after the holocaust of Perusia and the proscriptions. But I do not call it clemency to be wearied of cruelty; true clemency, Caesar, is that which you display, which has not begun from remorse at its past ferocity, on which there is no stain, which has never shed the blood of your countrymen: this, when combined with unlimited power, shows the truest self-control and all-embracing love of the human race as of one's self, not corrupted by any low desires, any extravagant ideas, or any of the bad examples of former emperors into trying, by actual experiment, how great a tyranny you would be allowed to exercise over his countrymen, but inclining rather to blunting your sword of empire.

You, Caesar, have granted us the boon of keeping our state free from bloodshed, and that of which you boast, that you have not caused one single drop of blood to flow in any part of the world, is all the more magnanimous and marvelous because no one ever had the power of the sword placed in his hands at an earlier age. Clemency, then, makes empires besides being their most trustworthy means of preservation.

Why have legitimate sovereigns grown old on the throne, and bequeathed their power to their children and grandchildren, while the sway of despotic usurpers is both hateful and short-lived? What is the difference between the tyrant and the king--for their outward symbols of authority and their powers are the same--except it be that tyrants take delight in cruelty, whereas kings are only cruel for good reasons and because they can not help it....

Nothing can be imagined which is more becoming to a sovereign than clemency, by whatever t.i.tle and right he may be set over his fellow citizens. The greater his power, the more beautiful and admirable he will confess his clemency to be: for there is no reason why power should do any harm, if only it be wielded in accordance with the laws of nature. Nature herself has conceived the idea of a king, as you may learn from various animals, and especially from bees, among whom the king's cell is the roomiest, and is placed in the most central and safest part of the hive; moreover, he does no work, but employs himself in keeping the others up to their work. If the king be lost, the entire swarm disperses: they never endure to have more than one king at a time, and find out which is the better by making them fight with one another: moreover the king is distinguished by his statelier appearance, being both larger and more brilliantly colored than the other bees.

The most remarkable distinction, however, is the following: bees are very fierce, and for their size are the most pugnacious of creatures, and leave their stings in the wounds which they make, but the king himself has no sting: nature does not wish him to be savage or to seek revenge at so dear a rate, and so has deprived him of his weapon and disarmed his rage. She has offered him as a pattern to great sovereigns; for she is wont to practise herself in small matters, and to scatter abroad tiny models of the hugest structures. We ought to be ashamed of not learning a lesson in behavior from these small creatures, for a man, who has so much more power of doing harm than they, ought to show a correspondingly greater amount of self-control.

Would that human beings were subject to the same law, and that their anger destroyed itself together with its instruments, so that they could only inflict a wound once, and would not make use of the strength of others to carry out their hatreds; for their fury would soon grow faint if it carried its own punishment with it, and could only give rein to its violence at the risk of death. Even as it is, however, no one can exercise it with safety, for he must needs feel as much fear as he hopes to cause, he must watch every one's movements, and even when his enemies are not laying violent hands upon him he must bear in mind that they are plotting to do so, and he can not have a single moment free from alarm. Would any one endure to live such a life as this, when he might enjoy all the privileges of his high station to the general joy of all men, without fear? for it is a mistake to suppose that the king can be safe in a state where nothing is safe from the king; he can only purchase a life without anxiety for himself by guaranteeing the same for his subjects. He need not pile up lofty citadels, escarp steep hills, cut away the sides of mountains, and fence himself about with many lines of walls and towers: clemency will render a king safe even upon an open plain. The one fortification which can not be stormed is the love of his countrymen....

The reason why cruelty is the most hateful of all vices is that it goes first beyond ordinary limits, and then beyond those of humanity; that it devises new kinds of punishments, calls ingenuity to aid it in inventing devices for varying and lengthening men's torture, and takes delight in their sufferings: this accursed disease of the mind reaches its highest pitch of madness when cruelty itself turns into pleasure and the act of killing a man becomes enjoyment. Such a ruler is soon cast down from his throne; his life is attempted by poison one day and by the sword the next; he is exposed to as many dangers as there are men to whom he is dangerous, and he is sometimes destroyed by the plots of individuals, and at others by a general insurrection. Whole communities are not roused to action by unimportant outrages on private persons; but cruelty which takes a wider range, and from which no one is safe, becomes a mark for all men's weapons. Very small snakes escape our notice, and the whole country does not combine to destroy them; but when one of them exceeds the usual size and grows into a monster, when it poisons fountains with its spittle, scorches herbage with its breath, and spreads ruin wherever it crawls, we shoot at it with military engines. Trifling evils may cheat us and elude our observation, but we gird up our loins to attack great ones.

One sick person does not so much as disquiet the house in which he lies; but when frequent deaths show that a plague is raging, there is a general outcry, men take to flight and shake their fists angrily at the very G.o.ds themselves. If a fire breaks out under one single roof, the family and the neighbors pour water upon it; but a wide conflagration which has consumed many houses must be smothered under the ruins of a whole quarter of a city....

I have been especially led to write about clemency, Nero Caesar, by a saying of yours, which I remember having heard with admiration and which I afterward told to others: a n.o.ble saying, showing a great mind and great gentleness, which suddenly burst from you without premeditation, and was not meant to reach any ears but your own, and which displayed the conflict which was raging between your natural goodness and your imperial duties. Your praefect Burrus[83], an excellent man who was born to be the servant of such an emperor as you are, was about to order two brigands to be executed, and was pressing you to write their names and the grounds on which they were to be put to death; this had often been put off, and he was insisting that it should then be done. When he reluctantly produced the doc.u.ment and put it in your equally reluctant hands, you exclaimed: "Would that I had never learned my letters!" O what a speech, how worthy to be heard by all nations, both those who dwell within the Roman Empire, those who enjoy a debatable independence upon its borders, and those who either in will or in deed fight against it! It is a speech which ought to be spoken before a meeting of all mankind, whose words all kings and princes ought to swear to and obey: a speech worthy of the days of human innocence, and worthy to bring back that golden age. Now in truth we ought all to agree to love righteousness and goodness, covetousness, which is the root of all evil, ought to be driven away, piety and virtue, good faith and modesty ought to resume their interrupted reign, and the vices which have so long and so shamefully ruled us ought at last to give way to an age of happiness and purity.

IV

THE PILOT[84]

A tempest and storme hurt a Pilot, but notwithstanding they make him not worse. Certaine Stoicks do thus answer against this, that a Pilot is made worse by a tempest and by a storme, because that thing which he had purposed he cannot effect, nor keep on his course. Worse is he made, not in his skill, but in his work. To whom the Aristotelian: therefore, saith he, pouertie and dolour, and what soeuer such like thing there shall be, shall not take vertue from him, but shall hinder his working thereof.

This were rightly said, except the condition of a Pilot and of a wise-man were unlike. For the purpose of him is in leading his life, not without faile to effect that which he a.s.sayeth to doe, but to doe all things aright. It is the purpose of the Pilot, without faile to bring a s.h.i.+p into a hauen. They be seruile arts, they ought to performe that which they promise. Wisedome is mistresse and gouernesse. The arts doe serve to, wisedome commandeth our life. I judge that we must answere after another sort, namely that neyther the skill of the gouernour is made worse by any tempest, nor yet the very administration of art. The gouernour hath not promised prosperous successe unto thee, but his profitable endeuour, and skill to gouerne the s.h.i.+p. This appeareth the more, by how much the more some force of fortune hath hindered him. He that hath beene able to say this, O Neptune, this s.h.i.+p was neuer but right, hath satisfied skill. A tempest hindereth not the work of a pilot, but the successe.

What therefore sayeth thou? Doth not that thing hurt a Pilot, which hindereth him from entring the Port? Which causeth his endeuours to be vaine? Which eyther beareth him back, or detaineth and disarmeth him?

It hurteth him not as Pilot, but as one that doth saile. Otherwise it doth not so much hinder, as shew the Pilot's skill. For euery one can, as they say, be a pilot in the calme. These things hinder the s.h.i.+p; not a pilot as he is a pilot. Two persons a pilot hath; the one common with all who haue gone aboard the same s.h.i.+p, wherein he himselfe also is a pa.s.senger; the other proper as he is gouernour. The tempest hurteth him as he is a pa.s.senger not as a Pilot. Furthermore the art of a Pilot is another good, it appertaineth to those whom he carrieth: as the art of a Physitian appertaineth to those whom he doth cure. Wisedome is a common good; and is proper to ownes selfe, for those with whom he doth liue. Therefore peraduenture a Pilot is hurt, whose promised seruice to others is let by a tempest.

A wise man is not hurt by pouertie, nor by doulour, nor by other tempests of life. For not all workes of him be hindered, but only those that pertain to other men; alwayes is he himself indeed, the greatest of all, when fortune hath opposed herselfe unto him, then manageth he the businesse of wisdome itselfe: which wisdome we haue said to be both anothers and his owne good. Furthermore not then indeed is he hindered to profite other men, when some necessities do presse him. Through pouertie he is hindred to teach, how a Commonwealth may be managed: but he teacheth that thing, how pouertie is to be managed. His worke is extended all his life long. Thus no fortune, no thing excludeth the acts of a wise-man. For he doth not that verie thing, whereby he is forbidden to do other things. He is fit for both chances: a gouernour of the bad, an ouercommer of the good. So I say hath he exercised himselfe, that he sheweth vertue as well in prosperous as in aduerse affaires; neyther looketh he upon the matter thereof, but upon itselfe. Therefore neither pouerty nor doulour, nor any other thing which turneth back the unskilfull, and driuest them headlong, hindereth them. Hast thou rather he should be pressed? He maketh use of it. Not only of iuorie did Phidias know how to make images: he made them of bra.s.se. If marble were unto him, if thou hadst offered baser matter, he would haue made such a one thereof, as could be made of that which was the best.

So a wise-man will show uertue, if he may, in wealth, if not in pouertie: if he shall be able, in his countrie; if not in banishment; if he can, being a commander; if not, being a souldier: if he can being sound; if not, being weaker what fortune soeuer he shall entertaine, he will performe some memorable thing thereby. Certain tamers there be of wild beasts, who teach the fiercest creatures, and which terrifie a man when they meet him, to suffer the yoake: and not wanted to have shaken fiercenesse off, do tame them, euer to keep them companie. The master useth often to thrust out his hand to Lions; they kisse it. The keeper commandeth his tyger; the Ethiopian Player commandeth his elephants to fall upon their knees, and to walke upon a rope; so a wise-man is skilfull to subdue euil things. Dolour, pouertie, ignominie, prison, banishment, when they come unto him, are made tame.

V

OF A HAPPY LIFE[85]

All men, brother Gallio, wish to live happily, but are dull at perceiving exactly what it is that makes life happy: and so far is it from being easy to attain to happiness that the more eagerly a man struggles to reach it the further he departs from it, if he takes the wrong road; for, since this leads in the opposite direction, his very swiftness carries him all the further away. We must therefore first define clearly what it is at which we aim: next we must consider by what path we may most speedily reach it, for on our journey itself, provided it be made in the right direction, we shall learn how much progress we have made each day, and how much nearer we are to the goal toward which our natural desires urge us. But as long as we wander at random, not following any guide except the shouts and discordant clamors of those who invite us to proceed in different directions, our short life will be wasted in useless roamings, even if we labor both day and night to get a good understanding. Let us not therefore decide whither we must tend, and by what path, without the advice of some experienced person who has explored the region which we are about to enter, because this journey is not subject to the same conditions as others; for in them some distinctly understood track and inquiries made of the natives make it impossible for us to go wrong, but here the most beaten and frequented tracks are those which lead us astray.

Nothing, therefore, is more important than that we should not, like sheep, follow the flock that has gone before us, and thus proceed not whither we ought, but whither the rest are going....

True wisdom consists in not departing from nature and in molding our conduct according to her laws and model. A happy life, therefore, is one which is in accordance with its own nature, and can not be brought about unless in the first place the mind be sound and vigorous, enduring all things with most admirable courage suited to the times in which it lives, careful of the body and its appurtenances, yet not troublesomely careful. It must also set due value upon all the things which adorn our lives, without overestimating any one of them, and must be able to enjoy the bounty of Fortune without becoming her slave....

A happy life consists in a mind which is free, upright, undaunted, and stedfast beyond the influence of fear or desire, which thinks nothing good except honor, and nothing bad except shame, and regards everything else as a ma.s.s of mean details which can neither add anything to nor take anything away from the happiness of life, but which come and go without either increasing or diminis.h.i.+ng the highest good? A man of these principles, whether he will or no, must be accompanied by a continual cheerfulness, a high happiness, which comes indeed from on high because he delights in what he has, and desires no greater pleasures than those which his home affords. Is he not right in allowing these to turn the scale against petty, ridiculous, and short-lived movements of his wretched body? on the day on which he becomes proof against pleasure he also becomes proof against pain. See, on the other hand, how evil and guilty a slavery a man is forced to serve who is dominated in turn by pleasures and pains, those most untrustworthy and pa.s.sionate of masters. We must, therefore, escape from them into freedom. This nothing will bestow upon us save contempt of Fortune; but if we attain to this, then there will dawn upon us those invaluable blessings, the repose of a mind that is at rest in a safe haven, its lofty imaginings, its great and steady delight at casting out errors and learning to know the truth, its courtesy and its cheerfulness, in all of which we shall take delight, not regarding them as good things, but as proceeding from the proper good of man....

Why do you put together two things which are unlike and even incompatible one with another? virtue is a lofty quality, sublime, royal, unconquerable, untiring: pleasure is low, slavish, weakly, perishable; its haunts and homes are the brothel and the tavern. You will meet virtue in the temple, the market-place, the senate-house, manning the walls, covered with dust, sunburnt, h.o.r.n.y-handed: you will find pleasure skulking out of sight, seeking for shady nooks at the public baths, hot chambers, and places which dread the visits of the aedile, soft, effeminate, reeking of wine and perfumes, pale or perhaps painted and made up with cosmetics. The highest good is immortal: it knows no ending, and does not admit of either satiety or regret: for a right-thinking mind never alters or becomes hateful to itself, nor do the best things ever undergo any change: but pleasure dies at the very moment when it charms us most: it has no great scope, and therefore it soon cloys and wearies us, and fades away as soon as its first impulse is over: indeed, we can not depend upon anything whose nature is to change. Consequently, it is not even possible that there should be any solid substance in that which comes and goes so swiftly and which perishes by the very exercise of its own functions, for it arrives at a point at which it ceases to be, and even while it is beginning always keeps its end in view....

A man should be unbia.s.sed and not to be conquered by external things: he ought to admire himself alone, to feel confidence in his own spirit, and so to order his life as to be ready alike for good or bad fortune. Let not his confidence be without knowledge, nor his knowledge without stedfastness: let him always abide by what he has once determined, and let there be no erasure in his doctrine. It will be understood, even tho I append it not, that such a man will be tranquil and composed in his demeanor, high-minded and courteous in his actions. Let reason be encouraged by the senses to seek for the truth, and draw its first principles from thence: indeed it has no other base of operations or place from which to start in pursuit of truth: it must fall back upon itself. Even the all-embracing universe and G.o.d who is its guide extends Himself forth into outward things, and yet altogether returns from all sides back to Himself. Let our mind do the same thing: when, following its bodily senses, it has by means of them sent itself forth into the things of the outward world, let it remain still their master and its own. By this means we shall obtain a strength and an ability which are united and allied together; we shall derive from it that reason which never halts between two opinions, nor is dull in forming its perceptions, beliefs, or convictions. Such a mind, when it has ranged itself in order, made its various parts agree together, and, if I may so express myself, harmonized them, has attained to the highest good: for it has nothing evil or hazardous remaining, nothing to shake it or make it stumble: it will do everything under the guidance of its own will, and nothing unexpected will befall it, but whatever may be done by it will turn out well, and that, too, readily and easily, without the doer having recourse to any underhand devices: for slow and hesitating purpose.

You may, then, boldly declare that the highest good is singleness of mind: for where agreement and unity are, there must the virtues be: it is the vices that are at war with one another....