Minor Dialogues, Together With the Dialogue on Clemency
of insanity. The mind cannot use lofty language, above that of the
common herd, unless it be excited. When it has spurned aside the
commonplace environments of custom, and rises sublime, instinct
with sacred fire, then alone can it chant a song too grand for
mortal lips: as long as it continues to dwell within itself it
cannot rise to any pitch of splendour: it must break away from the
beaten track, and lash itself to frenzy, till it gnaws the curb and
rushes away bearing up its rider to heights whither it would fear
to climb when alone.
I have now, my beloved Serenus, given you an account of what things
can preserve peace of mind, what things can restore it to us, what
can arrest the vices which secretly undermine it: yet be assured,
that none of these is strong enough to enable us to retain so
fleeting a blessing, unless we watch over our vacillating mind with
intense and unremitting care.
[1] Cf. Juv. ii. 150.
[2] The chief magistrate of the Greeks.
[3] The chief magistrate of the Oscans.
[4] The chief magistrate of the Carthaginians.
[5] “Livy himself styled the Alexandrian library _elegantiae regum
curaeque egregium opus_: a liberal encomium, for which he is pertly
criticised by the narrow stoicism of Seneca (Tranq., ch. ix.), whose
wisdom, on this occasion, deviates into nonsense.”—Gibbon, “Decline
and Fall,” ch. li, note.
[6] Haase reads _Ptolemaeus_.
[7] Caligula.
[8] It was the duty of the executioner to fasten a hook to the neck
of condemned criminals, by which they were dragged to the Tiber.
[9] Caligula.
[10] The Romans reckoned twelve hours from sunrise to sunset. These
“two hours” were therefore the two last of the day.
{288}
THE TENTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO
PAULINUS.[1]
OF THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE.
I. The greater part of mankind, my Paulinus, complains of the
unkindness of Nature, because we are born only for a short space
of time, and that this allotted period of life runs away so swiftly,
nay so hurriedly, that with but few exceptions men’s life comes to
an end just as they are preparing to enjoy it: nor is it only the
common herd and the ignorant vulgar who mourn over this universal
misfortune, as they consider it to be: this reflection has wrung
complaints even from great men. Hence comes that well-known saying
of physicians, that art is long but life is short: hence arose that
quarrel, so unbefitting a sage, which Aristotle picked with Nature,
because she had indulged animals with such length of days that some
of them lived for ten or fifteen centuries, while man, although
born for many and such great exploits, had the term of his existence
cut so much shorter. We do not have a very short time assigned to
us, but we lose a great deal of it: life is long enough to carry
out the most important projects: we {289} have an ample portion,
if we do but arrange the whole of it aright: but when it all runs
to waste through luxury and carelessness, when it is not devoted
to any good purpose, then at the last we are forced to feel that
it is all over, although we never noticed how it glided away. Thus
it is: we do not receive a short life, but we make it a short one,
and we are not poor in days, but wasteful of them. When great and
kinglike riches fall into the hands of a bad master, they are
dispersed straightway, but even a moderate fortune, when bestowed
upon a wise guardian, increases by use: and in like manner our life
has great opportunities for one who knows how to dispose of it to
the best advantage.
II. Why do we complain of Nature? she has dealt kindly with us.
Life is long enough, if you know how to use it. One man is possessed
by an avarice which nothing can satisfy, another by a laborious
diligence in doing what is totally useless: another is sodden by
wine: another is benumbed by sloth: one man is exhausted by an
ambition which makes him court the good will of others[2]: another,
through his eagerness as a merchant, is led to visit every land and
every sea by the hope of gain: some are plagued by the love of
soldiering, and are always either endangering other men’s lives or
in trembling for their own: some wear away their lives in that
voluntary slavery, the unrequited service of great men: many are
occupied either in laying claim to other men’s fortune or in
complaining of their own: a great number have no settled purpose,
and are tossed from one new scheme to another by a rambling,
inconsistent, dissatisfied, fickle habit of mind: some care for no
object sufficiently to try to attain it, but lie lazily yawning
until their fate comes upon them: so that I cannot {290} doubt the
truth of that verse which the greatest of poets has dressed in the
guise of an oracular response—
“We live a small part only of our lives.”
But all duration is time, not life: vices press upon us and surround
us on every side, and do not permit us to regain our feet, or to
raise our eyes and gaze upon truth, but when we are down keep us
prostrate and chained to low desires. Men who are in this condition
are never allowed to come to themselves: if ever by chance they
obtain any rest, they roll to and fro like the deep sea, which
heaves and tosses after a gale, and they never have any respite
from their lusts. Do you suppose that I speak of those whose ills
are notorious? Nay, look at those whose prosperity all men run to
see: they are choked by their own good things. To how many men do
riches prove a heavy burden? how many men’s eloquence and continual
desire to display their own cleverness has cost them their lives?[3]
how many are sallow with constant sensual indulgence? how many have
no freedom left them by the tribe of clients that surges around
them? Look through all these, from the lowest to the highest:—this
man calls his friends to support him, this one is present in court,
this one is the defendant, this one pleads for him, this one is on
the jury: but no one lays claim to his own self, every one wastes
his time over some one else. Investigate those men, whose names are
in every one’s mouth: you will find that they bear just the same
marks: A is devoted to B, and B to C: no one belongs to himself.
Moreover some men are full of most irrational anger: they complain
of the insolence of their chiefs, because they have not granted
them an audience when they wished for it; as if a man had any right
to complain of being so haughtily shut out by another, when he never
has {291} leisure to give his own conscience a hearing. This chief
of yours, whoever he is, though he may look at you in an offensive
manner, still will some day look at you, open his ears to your
words, and give you a seat by his side: but you never design to
look upon yourself, to listen to your own grievances. You ought
not, then, to claim these services from another, especially since
while you yourself were doing so, you did not wish for an interview
with another man, but were not able to obtain one with yourself.[4]
III. Were all the brightest intellects of all time to employ
themselves on this one subject, they never could sufficiently express
their wonder at this blindness of men’s minds: men will not allow
any one to establish himself upon their estates, and upon the most
trifling dispute about the measuring of boundaries, they betake
themselves to stones and cudgels: yet they allow others to encroach
upon {292} their lives, nay, they themselves actually lead others
in to take possession of them. You cannot find any one who wants
to distribute his money; yet among how many people does every one
distribute his life? men covetously guard their property from waste,
but when it comes to waste of time, they are most prodigal of that
of which it would become them to be sparing. Let us take one of the
elders, and say to him, “We perceive that you have arrived at the
extreme limits of human life: you are in your hundredth year, or
even older. Come now, reckon up your whole life in black and white:
tell us how much of your time has been spent upon your creditors,
how much on your mistress, how much on your king, how much on your
clients, how much in quarrelling with your wife, how much in keeping
your slaves in order, how much in running up and down the city on
business. Add to this the diseases which we bring upon us with our
own hands, and the time which has laid idle without any use having
been made of it; you will see that you have not lived as many years
as you count. Look back in your memory and see how often you have
been consistent in your projects, how many days passed as you
intended them to do when you were at your own disposal, how often
you did not change colour and your spirit did not quail, how much
work you have done in so long a time, how many people have without
your knowledge stolen parts of your life from you, how much you
have lost, how large a part has been taken up by useless grief,
foolish gladness, greedy desire, or polite conversation; how little
of yourself is left to you: you will then perceive that you will
die prematurely.” What, then, is the reason of this? It is that
people live as though they would live for ever: you never remember
your human frailty; you never notice how much of your time has
already gone by: you spend it as though you had an abundant and
overflowing store of it, though all the while that day which you
devote {293} to some man or to some thing is perhaps your last. You
fear everything, like mortals as you are, and yet you desire
everything as if you were immortals. You will hear many men say,
“After my fiftieth year I will give myself up to leisure: my sixtieth
shall be my last year of public office”: and what guarantee have
you that your life will last any longer? who will let all this go
on just as you have arranged it? are you not ashamed to reserve
only the leavings of your life for yourself, and appoint for the
enjoyment of your own right mind only that time which you cannot
devote to any business? How late it is to begin life just when we
have to be leaving it! What a foolish forgetfulness of our mortality,
to put off wholesome counsels until our fiftieth or sixtieth year,
and to choose that our lives shall begin at a point which few of
us ever reach.
IV. You will find that the most powerful and highly-placed men let
fall phrases in which they long for leisure, praise it, and prefer
it to all the blessings which they enjoy. Sometimes they would fain
descend from their lofty pedestal, if it could be safely done: for
Fortune collapses by its own weight, without any shock or interference
from without. The late Emperor Augustus, upon whom the gods bestowed
more blessings than on any one else, never ceased to pray for rest
and exemption from the troubles of empire: he used to enliven his
labours with this sweet, though unreal consolation, that he would
some day live for himself alone. In a letter which he addressed to
the Senate, after promising that his rest shall not be devoid of
dignity nor discreditable to his former glories, I find the following
words:—”These things, however, it is more honourable to do than to
promise: but my eagerness for that time, so earnestly longed for,
has led me to derive a certain pleasure from speaking about it,
though the reality is still far distant.”[5] He thought leisure so
important, that though {294} he could not actually enjoy it, yet
he did so by anticipation and by thinking about it. He, who saw
everything depending upon himself alone, who swayed the fortunes
of men and of nations, thought that his happiest day would be that
on which he laid aside his greatness. He knew by experience how
much labour was involved in that glory that shone through all lands,
and how much secret anxiety was concealed within it: he had been