Minor Dialogues, Together With the Dialogue on Clemency
himself of with the greatest ease! Since we, however, have not such
strength of mind as this, we ought at any rate to diminish the
extent of our property, in order to be less exposed to the assaults
of fortune: those men whose bodies can be within the shelter of
their armour, are more fitted for war than those whose huge size
everywhere extends beyond {269} it, and exposes them to wounds: the
best amount of property to have is that which is enough to keep us
from poverty, and which yet is not far removed from it.
IX. We shall be pleased with this measure of wealth if we have
previously taken pleasure in thrift, without which no riches are
sufficient, and with which none are insufficient, especially as the
remedy is always at hand, and poverty itself by calling in the aid
of thrift can convert itself into riches. Let us accustom ourselves
to set aside mere outward show, and to measure things by their uses,
not by their ornamental trappings: let our hunger be tamed by food,
our thirst quenched by drinking, our lust confined within needful
bounds; let us learn to use our limbs, and to arrange our dress and
way of life according to what was approved of by our ancestors, not
in imitation of new-fangled models: let us learn to increase our
continence, to repress luxury, to set bounds to our pride, to assuage
our anger, to look upon poverty without prejudice, to practise
thrift, albeit many are ashamed to do so, to apply cheap remedies
to the wants of nature, to keep all undisciplined hopes and aspirations
as it were under lock and key, and to make it our business to get
our riches from ourselves and not from Fortune. We never can so
thoroughly defeat the vast diversity and malignity of misfortune
with which we are threatened as not to feel the weight of many gusts
if we offer a large spread of canvas to the wind: we must draw our
affairs into a small compass, to make the darts of Fortune of no
avail. For this reason, sometimes slight mishaps have turned into
remedies, and more serious disorders have been healed by slighter
ones. When the mind pays no attention to good advice, and cannot
be brought to its senses by milder measures, why should we not think
that its interests are being served by poverty, disgrace, or financial
ruin being applied to it? one evil is balanced by another. Let us
then teach ourselves to be able to {270} dine without all Rome to
look on, to be the slaves of fewer slaves, to get clothes which
fulfil their original purpose, and to live in a smaller house. The
inner curve is the one to take, not only in running races and in
the contests of the circus, but also in the race of life; even
literary pursuits, the most becoming thing for a gentleman to spend
money upon, are only justifiable as long as they are kept within
bounds. What is the use of possessing numberless books and libraries,
whose titles their owner can hardly read through in a lifetime? A
student is overwhelmed by such a mass, not instructed, and it is
much better to devote yourself to a few writers than to skim through
many. Forty thousand books were burned at Alexandria: some would
have praised this library as a most noble memorial of royal wealth,
like Titus Livius, who says that it was “a splendid result of the
taste and attentive care of the kings.”[5] It had nothing to do
with taste or care, but was a piece of learned luxury, nay, not
even learned, since they amassed it, not for the sake of learning,
but to make a show, like many men who know less about letters than
a slave is expected to know, and who uses his books not to help him
in his studies but to ornament his dining-room. Let a man, then,
obtain as many books as he wants, but none for show. “It is more
respectable,” say you, “to spend one’s money on such books than on
vases of Corinthian brass and paintings.” Not so: everything that
is carried to excess is wrong. What excuses can you find for a man
who is eager to buy bookcases of ivory and citrus wood, to collect
the works of unknown or discredited authors, and who sits yawning
{271} amid so many thousands of books, whose backs and titles please
him more than any other part of them? Thus in the houses of the
laziest of men you will see the works of all the orators and
historians stacked upon book-shelves reaching right up to the
ceiling. At the present day a library has become as necessary an
appendage to a house as a hot and cold bath. I would excuse them
straightway if they really were carried away by an excessive zeal
for literature; but as it is, these costly works of sacred genius,
with all the illustrations that adorn them, are merely bought for
display and to serve as wall-furniture.
X. Suppose, however, that your life has become full of trouble, and
that without knowing what you were doing you have fallen into some
snare which either public or private Fortune has set for you, and
that you can neither untie it nor break it: then remember that
fettered men suffer much at first from the burdens and clogs upon
their legs: afterwards, when they have made up their minds not to
fret themselves about them, but to endure them, necessity teaches
them to bear them bravely, and habit to bear them easily. In every
station of life you will find amusements, relaxations, and enjoyments;
that is, provided you be willing to make light of evils rather than
to hate them. Knowing to what sorrows we were born, there is nothing
for which Nature more deserves our thanks than for having invented
habit as an alleviation of misfortune, which soon accustoms us to
the severest evils. No one could hold out against misfortune if it
permanently exercised the same force as at its first onset. We are
all chained to Fortune: some men’s chain is loose and made of gold,
that of others is tight and of meaner metal: but what difference
does this make? we are all included in the same captivity, and even
those who have bound us are bound themselves, unless you think that
a chain on the left side is lighter to bear: one man may be bound
by public {272} office, another by wealth: some have to bear the
weight of illustrious, some of humble birth: some are subject to
the commands of others, some only to their own: some are kept in
one place by being banished thither, others by being elected to the
priesthood. All life is slavery: let each man therefore reconcile
himself to his lot, complain of it as little as possible, and lay
hold of whatever good lies within his reach. No condition can be
so wretched that an impartial mind can find no compensations in it.
Small sites, if ingeniously divided, may be made use of for many
different purposes, and arrangement will render ever so narrow a
room habitable. Call good sense to your aid against difficulties:
it is possible to soften what is harsh, to widen what is too narrow,
and to make heavy burdens press less severely upon one who bears
them skilfully. Moreover, we ought not to allow our desires to
wander far afield, but we must make them confine themselves to our
immediate neighbourhood, since they will not endure to be altogether
locked up. We must leave alone things which either cannot come to
pass or can only be effected with difficulty, and follow after such
things as are near at hand and within reach of our hopes, always
remembering that all things are equally unimportant, and that though
they have a different outward appearance, they are all alike empty
within. Neither let us envy those who are in high places: the heights
which look lofty to us are steep and rugged. Again, those whom
unkind fate has placed in critical situations will be safer if they
show as little pride in their proud position as may be, and do all
they are able to bring down their fortunes to the level of other
men’s. There are many who must needs cling to their high pinnacle
of power, because they cannot descend from it save by falling
headlong: yet they assure us that their greatest burden is being
obliged to be burdensome to others, and that they are nailed to
their lofty post rather than raised to it: let {273} them then, by
dispensing justice, clemency, and kindness with an open and liberal
hand, provide themselves with assistance to break their fall, and
looking forward to this maintain their position more hopefully. Yet
nothing sets us free from these alternations of hope and fear so
well as always fixing some limit to our successes, and not allowing
Fortune to choose when to stop our career, but to halt of our own
accord long before we apparently need do so. By acting thus certain
desires will rouse up our spirits, and yet being confined within
bounds, will not lead us to embark on vast and vague enterprises.
XI. These remarks of mine apply only to imperfect, commonplace, and
unsound natures, not to the wise man, who needs not to walk with
timid and cautious gait: for he has such confidence in himself that
he does not hesitate to go directly in the teeth of Fortune, and
never will give way to her. Nor indeed has he any reason for fearing
her, for he counts not only chattels, property, and high office,
but even his body, his eyes, his hands, and everything whose use
makes life dearer to us, nay, even his very self, to be things whose
possession is uncertain; he lives as though he had borrowed them,
and is ready to return them cheerfully whenever they are claimed.
Yet he does not hold himself cheap, because he knows that he is not
his own, but performs all his duties as carefully and prudently as
a pious and scrupulous man would take care of property left in his
charge as trustee. When he is bidden to give them up, he will not
complain of Fortune, but will say, “I thank you for what I have had
possession of: I have managed your property so as largely to increase
it, but since you order me, I give it back to you and return it
willingly and thankfully. If you still wish me to own anything of
yours, I will keep it for you: if you have other views, I restore
into your hands and make restitution of all my wrought and coined
silver, my house and my {274} household. Should Nature recall what
she previously entrusted us with, let us say to her also: ‘Take
back my spirit, which is better than when you gave it me: I do not
shuffle or hang back. Of my own free will I am ready to return what
you gave me before I could think: take me away,’” What hardship can
there be in returning to the place from whence one came? a man
cannot live well if he knows not how to die well. We must, therefore,
take away from this commodity its original value, and count the
breath of life as a cheap matter. “We dislike gladiators,” says
Cicero, “if they are eager to save their lives by any means whatever:
but we look favourably upon them if they are openly reckless of
them,” You may be sure that the same thing occurs with us: we often
die because we are afraid of death. Fortune, which regards our lives
as a show in the arena for her own enjoyment, says, “Why should I
spare you, base and cowardly creature that you are? you will be
pierced and hacked with all the more wounds because you know not
how to offer your throat to the knife: whereas you, who receive the
stroke without drawing away your neck or putting up your hands to
stop it, shall both live longer and die more quickly,” He who fears
death will never act as becomes a living man: but he who knows that
this fate was laid upon him as soon as he was conceived will live
according to it, and by this strength of mind will gain this further
advantage, that nothing can befal him unexpectedly: for by looking
forward to everything which can happen as though it would happen
to him, he takes the sting out of all evils, which can make no
difference to those who expect it and are prepared to meet it: evil
only comes hard upon those who have lived without giving it a thought