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Sec. XIX. And yet many shudder at that line of Menander,

“No one can say, I shall not suffer this or that,”

being ignorant how much it helps us to freedom from grief to practise to be able to look fortune in the face with our eyes open, and not to entertain fine and soft fancies, like one reared in the shade on many hopes that always yield and never resist. We can, however, answer Menander’s line,

“No one can say, I shall not suffer this or that,”

for a man can say, “I will not do this or that, I will not lie, I will not play the rogue, I will not cheat, I will not scheme.” For this is in our power, and is no small but great help to ease of mind. As on the contrary

“The consciousness of having done ill deeds,”[760]

like a sore in the flesh, leaves in the mind a regret which ever wounds it and pricks it. For reason banishes all other griefs, but itself creates regret when the soul is vexed with shame and self-tormented. For as those who shudder in ague-fits or burn in fevers feel more trouble and distress than those who externally suffer the same from cold or heat, so the grief is lighter which comes externally from chance, but that lament,

“None is to blame for this but I myself,”

coming from within on one’s own misdeeds, intensifies one’s bitterness by the shame felt. And so neither costly house, nor quantity of gold, nor pride of race, nor weighty office, nor grace of language, nor eloquence, impart so much calm and serenity to life, as a soul pure from evil acts and desires, having an imperturbable and undefiled character as the source of its life; whence good actions flow, producing an enthusiastic and cheerful energy accompanied by loftiness of thought, and a memory sweeter and more lasting than that hope which Pindar says is the support of old age. Censers do not, as Carneades said, after they are emptied, long retain their sweet smell; but in the mind of the wise man good actions always leave a fresh and fragrant memory, by which joy is watered and flourishes, and despises those who wail over life and abuse it as a region of ills, or as a place of exile for souls in this world.

Sec. XX. I am very taken with Diogenes’ remark to a stranger at Lacedaemon, who was dressing with much display for a feast, “Does not a good man consider every day a feast?” And a very great feast too, if we live soberly. For the world is a most holy and divine temple, into which man is introduced at his birth, not to behold motionless images made by hands, but those things (to use the language of Plato) which the divine mind has exhibited as the visible representations of invisible things, having innate in them the principle of life and motion, as the sun moon and stars, and rivers ever flowing with fresh water, and the earth affording maintenance to plants and animals. Seeing then that life is the most complete initiation into all these things, it ought to be full of ease of mind and joy; not as most people wait for the festivals of Cronos[761] and Dionysus and the Panathenaea and other similar days, that they may joy and refresh themselves with bought laughter, paying actors and dancers for the same. On such occasions indeed we sit silently and decorously, for no one wails when he is initiated, or groans when he beholds the Pythian games, or when he is drinking at the festival of Cronos:[761] but men shame the festivals which the deity supplies us with and initiates us in, passing most of their time in lamentation and heaviness of heart and distressing anxiety. And though men delight in the pleasing notes of musical instruments, and in the songs of birds, and behold with joy the animals playing and frisking, and on the contrary are distressed when they roar and howl and look savage; yet in regard to their own life, when they see it without smiles and dejected, and ever oppressed and afflicted by the most wretched sorrows and toils and unending cares, they do not think of trying to procure alleviation and ease. How is this? Nay, they will not even listen to others’ exhortation, which would enable them to acquiesce in the present without repining, and to remember the past with thankfulness, and to meet the future hopefully and cheerfully without fear or suspicion.