To those who are desirous of passing life in tranquility Remember that not only the desire of power and of riches makes us mean and subject to others, but even the desire of tranquillity, and of leisure. and of traveling abroad, and of learning. For, to speak plainly, whatever the external thing may be, the value which we set upon it places us in subjection to others. What, then, is the difference between desiring, to be a senator or not desiring to be one; what is the difference between desiring power or being content with a private station; what is the difference between saying, "I am unhappy, I have nothing, to do, but I am bound to my books as a corpse"; or saying, "I am unhappy, I have no leisure for reading"?
For as salutations and power are things external and independent of the will, so is a book. For what purpose do you choose to read? Tell me.
For if you only direct your purpose to being amused or learning something, you are a silly fellow and incapable of enduring labour. But if you refer reading to the proper end, what else is this than a tranquil and happy life?
But if reading does not secure for you a happy and tranquil life, what is the use of it? But it does secure this," the man replies, "and for this reason I am vexed that I am deprived of it." And what is this tranquil and happy life, which any man can impede; I do not say Caesar or Caesar's friend, but a crow, a piper, a fever, and thirty thousand other things?
But a tranquil and happy life contains nothing so sure is continuity and freedom from obstacle. Now I am called to do something: I will go, then, with the purpose of observing the measures which I must keep, of acting with modesty, steadiness, without desire and aversion to things external; and then that I may attend to men, what they say, how they are moved; and this not with any bad disposition, or that I may have something to blame or to ridicule; but I turn to myself, and ask if I also commit the same faults. "How then shall I cease to commit them?" Formerly I also acted wrong, but now I do not: thanks to God.
Come, when you have done these things and have attended to them, have you done a worse act than when you have read a thousand verses or written as many? For when you eat, are you grieved because you are not reading? are you not satisfied with eating according to what you have learned by reading, and so with bathing and with exercise? Why, then, do you not act consistently in all things, both when you approach Caesar and when you approach any person? If you maintain yourself free from perturbation, free from alarm, and steady; if you look rather at the things which are done and happen than are looked at yourself; if you do not envy those who are preferred before you; if surrounding circumstances do not strike you with fear or admiration, what do you want? Books? How or for what purpose? for is not this a preparation for life? and is not life itself made up of certain other things than this? This is just as if an athlete should weep when he enters the stadium, because he is not being exercised outside of it. It was for this purpose that you used to practice exercise; for this purpose were used the halteres, the dust, the young men as antagonists; and do you seek for those things now when it is the time of action? This is just as if in the topic of assent when appearances present themselves, some of which can he comprehended, and some cannot be comprehended, we should not choose to distinguish them but should choose to read what has been written about comprehension.
What then is the reason of this? The reason is that we have never read for this purpose, we have never written for this purpose, so that we may in our actions use in a way conformable to nature the appearances presented to us; but we terminate in this, in learning what is said, and in being able to expound it to another, in resolving a syllogism, and in handling the hypothetical syllogism. For this reason where our study is, there alone is the impediment. Would you have by all means the things which are not in your power? Be prevented then, be hindered, fail in your purpose. But if we read what is written about action, not that we may see what is said about action, but that we may act well: if we read what is said about desire and aversion, in order that we may neither fall in our desires, nor fall into that which we try to avoid: if we read what is said about duty, in order that, remembering the relations, we may do nothing irrationally nor contrary to these relations; we should not be vexed in being hindered as to our readings, but we should be satisfied with doing, the acts which are conformable, and we should be reckoning not what so far we have been accustomed to reckon; "To-day I have read so many verses, I have written so many"; but, "To-day I have employed my action as it is taught by the philosophers;
I have not employed any desire; I have used avoidance only with respect to things which are within the power of my will; I have not been afraid of such a person, I have not been prevailed upon by the entreaties of another; I have exercised my patience, my abstinence my co-operation with others"; and so we should thank God for what we ought to thank Him.
But now we do not know that we also in another way are like the many.
