Minor Dialogues, Together With the Dialogue on Clemency
No; but they effect much good by their teaching, by the noble
thoughts which they conceive in their minds: would, indeed, that
they could act up to their talk: what could be happier than they
would be? but in the meanwhile you have no right to despise good
sayings and hearts full of good thoughts. Men deserve praise for
engaging in profitable studies, even though they stop short of
producing any results. Why need we wonder if those who begin to
climb a steep path do not succeed in ascending it very high? yet,
if you be a man, look with respect on those who attempt great things,
even though they fall. It is the act of a generous spirit to
proportion its efforts not to its own strength but to that of human
nature, to entertain lofty aims, and to conceive plans which are
too vast to be carried into execution even by those who are endowed
with gigantic intellects, who appoint for themselves the following
rules: I will look upon death or upon a comedy with the same
expression of countenance: I will submit to labours, however great
they may be, supporting {227} the strength of my body by that of
my mind: I will despise riches when I have them as much as when I
have them not; if they be elsewhere I will not be more gloomy, if
they sparkle around me I will not be more lively than I should
otherwise be: whether Fortune comes or goes I will take no notice
of her: I will view all lands as though they belong to me, and my
own as though they belonged to all mankind: I will so live as to
remember that I was born for others, and will thank Nature on this
account: for in what fashion could she have done better for me? she
has given me alone to all, and all to me alone. Whatever I may
possess, I will neither hoard it greedily nor squander it recklessly.
I will think that I have no possessions so real as those which I
have given away to deserving people: I will not reckon benefits by
their magnitude or number, or by anything except the value set upon
them by the receiver: I never will consider a gift to be a large
one if it be bestowed upon a worthy object. I will do nothing because
of public opinion, but everything because of conscience: whenever
I do anything alone by myself I will believe that the eyes of the
Roman people are upon me while I do it. In eating and drinking my
object shall be to quench the desires of Nature, not to fill and
empty my belly. I will be agreeable with my friends, gentle and
mild to my foes: I will grant pardon before I am asked for it, and
will meet the wishes of honourable men half way: I will bear in
mind that the world is my native city, that its governors are the
gods, and that they stand above and around me, criticizing whatever
I do or say. Whenever either Nature demands my breath again, or
reason bids me dismiss it, I will quit this life, calling all to
witness that I have loved a good conscience, and good pursuits;
that no one’s freedom, my own least of all, has been impaired through
me.” He who sets up these as the rules of his life will soar aloft
and strive to make his way to the gods: of a truth, even though he
fails, yet he {228}
“Fails in a high emprise.”[4]
But you, who hate both virtue and those who practise it, do nothing
at which we need be surprised, for sickly lights cannot bear the
sun, nocturnal creatures avoid the brightness of day, and at its
first dawning become bewildered and all betake themselves to their
dens together: creatures that fear the light hide themselves in
crevices. So croak away, and exercise your miserable tongues in
reproaching good men: open wide your jaws, bite hard: you will break
many teeth before you make any impression.
XXI. “But how is it that this man studies philosophy and nevertheless
lives the life of a rich man? Why does he say that wealth ought to
be despised and yet possess it? that life should be despised, and
yet live? that health should be despised, and yet guard it with the
utmost care, and wish it to be as good as possible? Does he consider
banishment to be an empty name, and say, “What evil is there in
changing one country for another?” and yet, if permitted, does he
not grow old in his native land? does he declare that there is no
difference between a longer and a shorter time, and yet, if he be
not prevented, lengthen out his life and flourish in a green old
age?” His answer is, that these things ought to be despised, not
that he should not possess them, but that he should not possess
them with fear and trembling: he does not drive them away from him,
but when they leave him he follows after them unconcernedly. Where,
indeed, can fortune invest riches more securely than in a place
from whence they can always be recovered without any squabble with
their trustee? Marcus Cato, when he was praising Curius and Coruncanius
and that century in which the possession of a few small silver coins
were an offence which was punished by the Censor, himself owned
four million sesterces; a less fortune no {229} doubt, than that
of Crassus, but larger than of Cato the Censor. If the amounts be
compared, he had outstripped his great-grandfather further than he
himself was outdone by Crassus, and if still greater riches had
fallen to his lot, he would not have spurned them: for the wise man
does not think himself unworthy of any chance presents: he does not
love riches, but he prefers to have them; he does not receive them
into his spirit, but only into his house: nor does he cast away
from him what he already possesses, but keeps them, and is willing
that his virtue should receive a larger subject-matter for its
exercise.
XXII. Who can doubt, however, that the wise man, if he is rich, has
a wider field for the development of his powers than if he is poor,
seeing that in the latter case the only virtue which he can display
is that of neither being perverted nor crushed by his poverty,
whereas if he has riches, he will have a wide field for the exhibition
of temperance, generosity, laboriousness, methodical arrangement,
and grandeur. The wise man will not despise himself, however short
of stature he may be, but nevertheless he will wish to be tall:
even though he be feeble and one-eyed he may be in good health, yet
he would prefer to have bodily strength, and that too, while he
knows all the while that he has something which is even more powerful:
he will endure illness, and will hope for good health: for some
things, though they may be trifles compared with the sum total, and
though they may be taken away without destroying the chief good,
yet add somewhat to that constant cheerfulness which arises from
virtue. Riches encourage and brighten up such a man just as a sailor
is delighted at a favourable wind that bears him on his way, or as
people feel pleasure at a fine day or at a sunny spot in the cold
weather. What wise man, I mean of our school, whose only good is
virtue, can deny that even these matters which we call neither good
nor bad have in themselves a {230} certain value, and that some of
them are preferable to others? to some of them we show a certain
amount of respect, and to some a great deal. Do not, then, make any
mistake: riches belong to the class of desirable things. “Why then,”
say you, “do you laugh at me, since you place them in the same
position that I do?” Do you wish to know how different the position
is in which we place them? If my riches leave me, they will carry
away with them nothing except themselves: you will be bewildered
and will seem to be left without yourself if they should pass away
from you: with me riches occupy a certain place, but with you they
occupy the highest place of all. In fine, my riches belong to me,
you belong to your riches.
XXIII. Cease, then, forbidding philosophers to possess money: no
one has condemned wisdom to poverty. The philosopher may own ample
wealth, but will not own wealth that which has been torn from
another, or which is stained with another’s blood: his must be
obtained without wronging any man, and without its being won by
base means; it must be alike honourably come by and honourably
spent, and must be such as spite alone could shake its head at.
Raise it to whatever figure you please, it will still be an honourable
possession, if, while it includes much which every man would like
to call his own, there be nothing which any one can say is his own.
Such a man will not forfeit his right to the favour of Fortune, and
will neither boast of his inheritance nor blush for it if it was
honourably acquired: yet he will have something to boast of, if he
throw his house open, let all his countrymen come among his property,
and say, “If any one recognizes here anything belonging to him, let
him take it.” What a great man, how excellently rich will he be,
if after this speech he possesses as much as he had before! I say,
then, that if he can safely and confidently submit his accounts to
the scrutiny of the people, and no one can find {231} in them any
item upon which he can lay hands, such a man may boldly and
unconcealedly enjoy his riches. The wise man will not allow a single
ill-won penny to cross his threshold: yet he will not refuse or
close his door against great riches, if they are the gift of fortune
and the product of virtue: what reason has he for grudging them
good quarters: let them come and be his guests: he will neither
brag of them nor hide them away: the one is the part of a silly,
the other of a cowardly and paltry spirit, which, as it were, muffles
up a good thing in its lap. Neither will he, as I said before, turn
them out of his house: for what will he say? will he say, “You are
useless,” or “I do not know how to use riches?” As he is capable
of performing a journey upon his own feet, but yet would prefer to
mount a carriage, just so he will be capable of being poor, yet
will wish to be rich; he will own wealth, but will view it as an
uncertain possession which will some day fly away from him. He will
not allow it to be a burden either to himself or to any one else:
he will give it—why do you prick up your ears? why do you open your
pockets?—he will give it either to good men or to those whom it may
make into good men. He will give it after having taken the utmost
pains to choose those who are fittest to receive it, as becomes one
who bears in mind that he ought to give an account of what he spends
as well as of what he receives. He will give for good and commendable
reasons, for a gift ill bestowed counts as a shameful loss: he will
have an easily opened pocket, but not one with a hole in it, so
that much may be taken out of it, yet nothing may fall out of it.
XXIV. He who believes giving to be an easy matter, is mistaken: it
offers very great difficulties, if we bestow our bounty rationally,
and do not scatter it impulsively and at random. I do this man a
service, I requite a good turn done me by that one: I help this
other, because I pity him: this man, again, I teach to be no fit
object for poverty to {232} hold down or degrade. I shall not give
some men anything, although they are in want, because, even if I
do give to them they will still be in want: I shall proffer my
bounty to some, and shall forcibly thrust it upon others: I cannot
be neglecting my own interests while I am doing this: at no time
do I make more people in my debt than when I am giving things away.
“What?” say you, “do you give that you may receive again?” At any
rate I do not give that I may throw my bounty away: what I give
should be so placed that although I cannot ask for its return, yet
it may be given back to me. A benefit should be invested in the
same manner as a treasure buried deep in the earth, which you would
not dig up unless actually obliged. Why, what opportunities of
conferring benefits the mere house of a rich man affords? for who