It is a fine and salutary course if, as you write, you are persevering in your pursuit of a good
mentality; it is stupid to pray for it when you can obtain it by your own efforts. We do not need
to lift our hands to heaven or beg the sexton for nearer access to the idol's ear, as if he could hear
us more clearly; god is near you, with you, inside you. Yes, Lucilius, there is a holy spirit abiding
within us who observes our good deeds and bad and watches over us. He treats us according as
we treat him. No man is good without god. Could any man rise above Fortune without his help?
It is he that imparts grand and upstanding counsel. In every man 'indwells a god, what god we
know not"(aeneid 8:352).
Have you ever come upon a grove thick with venerable trees which tower above the ordinary
height and by their layers of intertwined branches dim the light of heaven? The height of the forest,
its quiet seclusion, the marvel of thick and unbroken shade in the untrammeled space, will impart a
conviction of deity. A cavern formed by deep erosion of rocks holds a mountain above it, a
spacious void produced not by man's handiwork but by natural causes: you soul will be stirred by
religious awe. We venerate the sources of great rivers; we build altars where ample streams
suddenly burst from the unseen, we worship hot geysers; and we consecrate lakes for their opaque
waters and unplumbed depths. If you see a man undaunted in danger, untouched by passion,
happy in adversity, calm in the raging storm, viewing mankind from a higher level and the gods
from their own, will you not be moved by veneration? Will you not say: "This is too grand and
lofty to be a quality with the little body that contains it; the power that has informed that man is
divine."?
A soul which is of superior stature and well governed, which deflates the imposing by passing it by
and laughs at all our fears and prayers, is impelled by a celestial force. So great a thing cannot
stand without a buttress of divinity. Its larger portion therefore abides at its source. Just as the
rays of the sun do indeed warm the earth but remain at the source of their radiation, so a great
and holy soul is lowered to earth to gives us nearer knowledge of the divine; but though it is in
intercourse with us, it cleaves to its source; it is tied to it, it looks toward it, it seeks to rejoin it, and
its concern with our affairs is superior and detached.
And what is this soul? It shines with no good but its own. Could anything be stupider than to
praise a man for what is not his ow? Or madder than to admire a man for what may be forthwith
transferred to another? Golden reins do not make a horse better. A lion with gilded mane,
worked over and worn down to submit to grooming, enters the arena quite a different animal from
the untrimmed lion with spirit unbroken. Bold in attack, as nature meant him to be, handsome
because unkempt- the terror he inspires is the essence of his attraction - he has the edge over that
bedizened and spiritless creature.
No one ought to preen himself on what is not essentially his. We praise a vine of it loads its
tendrils with fruit, if its weight pull the very props that support it down to the ground. Would any
man prefer the famous vine which had golden grapes and golden leaves hanging from it? In a vine
the peculiar virtue is fertility, and in a man, too, we should praise what is peculiarly his own. He
has a handsome troop of slaves, a fine horse, broad acres, large investments; but none of these
things is in him, they are around him. Praise what cannot be given or taken away, what is peculiarly
the man's. What is this, you ask? It is soul, and reason perfected in the soul. For man is a
rational animal, and his good is realized if he implements the potentiality for which nature gave him
being. And what does reason demand of him? A very easy thing: to live according to his nature.
But general derangement makes it difficult; we shove one another in vice. And how can people be
recalled to safety when there is a crowd pushing them and nobody to hold them back?
It is your friend as you r write him down, that brought me your letter, and then you warn me not
discuss you affairs with him freely because you yourself avoid doing so. In the same letter, then,
you assert that the man is your friend and say that he is not. If you give that quite specific word its
popular usage and call a man "friend" as we call all candidates for office "gentlemen", or greet men
whose names slip us when we meet them as "my dear sir, "we shall let it pass. But if you think a
man you do not trust as fully as you trust yourself is a friend, you are grievously mistaken and do
not understand the meaning of true friendship.
Deliberate upon all questions with your friend, but first deliberate about him. After friendship there
must be full trust, but before it , discretion. If you reverse Theophrastus' trust precept and assay
the man you have loved instead of loving the man you have assayed, you put the cart before the
horse and confuse the rules of social behavior. Think long whether a man should be admitted to
your friendship, and when you have decided he should be, admit him with all your heart and speak
with him as freely as with yourself. You should, of course, so live that you have no confidences
you could not divulge even to an enemy; but because custom has made certain passages in a man's
life secret, share your reflections and your anxieties with a friend. If you believe he is loyal you will
make him so. Some people's fear of being deceived has taught men to deceive them; their
suspicions give a license to injury. Why should I watch my words in the presence of my friend?
Why should I not consider myself alone in his presence?
Some people give casual acquaintances full accounts of what ought to be confide only to friends
and unload whatever is on their minds into any ears at all. Some, on the other hand, shrink from
the privity of their dearest friends; they would not even trust themselves, if that we possible, but
surpress their every confidence deep within them. Neither course is correct. Trusting everyone
and trusting no one are both wrong, though I might say the one wrong is an excess of frankness and
the other an excess of security.
Another reprehensible pair is the man who is never at ease and the man who is always at ease.
Bustle is not briskness but the agitation of a turbulent mind. And disdaining all activity as a
nuisance is not ease but enervation and inertia. Keep in mid the remark I read in Pomponius:
"Some people have withdrawn to darkness so deep that they think anything in light is dim." The tow
attitudes should temper one another: the easygoing man should act, the active man take it easy.
Consult Nature: she will tell you that she created both day and night.
Your absurdity and your single-minded concentration on daily improvement give me satisfaction and
joy; I urge, nay beg, you to preserve in your course. But I admonish you not to behave like those
whose aim is notoriety rather than progress; do not make your dress or mode ofl ife conspicuous.
Rough clothing, an unshorn head, an untrimmed beard, militant scorn of silverware, a pallet spread
on the ground, and all other perverse media of self-advertisement you must shun. The mere title of
philosophy, however modestly worn, is invidious enough; what if we should begin to except ourselves
from the ordinary uses of mankind? Within we may be different in every point, but our front should
conform to society. The toga need not be exquisitely laundered, but it should not be dirty. We
need not possess silver encrusted with designs in solid gold, but let us not equate the absence of gold
and silver with frugality. Our endeavor must be to make our way of life better than the crowd's, not
contrary to it; else we shall turn from us and repel people we wish to improve. The result would be
that they would refuse to imitate anything in our program for fear they would have to imitate
everything in it.
Philosophy's first promise is a sense of participation, of belonging to mankind, being a member of
society. Unlikeness will alienate us from our promise. We must be careful that our efforts to
awaken admiration are not ludicrous or odious. Our principle, you remember, is "Life according to
nature"; but it is against Nature to torment one's body, to loathe neatness easily come by, to make a
point of squalor, to use victuals that are not only cheap but loathsome and repulsive. To desire
dainties is a mark of luxury; it is just as much a mark of lunacy to avoid ordinary food that is not
expensive. It is frugality that philosophy asks, not affliction, and frugality need not be slovenly. This
I hold is the correct mode: life should be steered between good mores and public mores; men
should respect our way of life, but they should find it recognizable.
"What is the upshot? Shall we do as others do? Will there be no distinction between us and them?"
A very great distinction. Anyone who looks closely will realize that we are unlike the crowd.
Anyone who enters our home will admire us rather than our furniture. It is a great man who uses
earthenware as if it were silver; he is no less great who uses silver as if it were
earthenware.
But I proceed to hand you your regular share of my day's profit. I find in Hecaton that curtailing
desire serves as a specific against fears; "You will cease to fear, "says he, "if you cease to hope."
You may ask, "How can things so different go hand in hand?" The truth is, my dear Lucilius, that
though they seem to differ they are in fact attached; one chain joins the prisoner and his guard, and
these two, different as they are, walk in step in the same way. Fear keeps pace with hope. Nor do
I find it surprising that they keep company, for each belongs to a mind in suspense, a mind hanging
on what the future might bring. The cause in both cases is failure to adjust ourselves to the present
and a tendency to project our mental processes far into the future. Foresight, which is mankind's
greatest advantage, is thus turned to disadvantage. Beasts avoid the dangers which confront them,
and when they have avoided them they stand at ease; we are tormented alike by the future and the
past. Our superiority brings us much distress; memory recalls the torment of fear, foresight
anticipates it. No one confines his misery to the present.
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