Letter 4

4. To Olympius

What are you doing, my admirable friend, in driving our dear poverty, the nurse of philosophy, away from this retreat? For I think she would even bring a suit of ejectment against you, if she had any power of speech, on the ground that I had chosen to live with her—I who now praise Zeno, who, when he had lost everything in a shipwreck, uttered nothing ignoble, but said, "Well done, fortune, you are driving us into the threadbare cloak"; and who now praise Cleanthes, who drew water from the well for hire, by which he both kept himself alive and paid wages to his teachers. And Diogenes she never ceased to admire, who took pride in being content with only what nature provides, so that he threw away even his drinking-cup, when he had been taught by a child to drink by stooping with his hollowed hands. These and such things our housemate poverty might reproach you with, now driven out by your great gifts. And she might add a threat too: that, if I should catch you here again, I will show that your former state was Sicilian or Italian luxury—so exactly will I avenge myself with my own means.

So much, then, for that. But I was glad to hear that you have already begun your treatment, and I pray that you may profit by it. A service of the body free from pain would befit your holy soul.