Letter 6

I perceive, Lucilius, that I am not merely being corrected but transformed. Nor do I now promise or hope that there is nothing left in me that needs changing. How should I not have many things that ought to be gathered in, thinned down, raised up? And this very thing is a proof of a mind changed for the better, that it sees its own faults, which until now it did not know. To certain sick men congratulation is offered when they themselves have felt that they are sick.

And so I should wish to share with you this so sudden change in myself; then I should begin to have a surer confidence in our friendship—that true friendship which neither hope nor fear nor concern for its own advantage tears apart, that friendship with which men die, for which they die.

I will give you many who have lacked, not a friend, but friendship. This cannot happen when an equal will draws minds together into the fellowship of desiring what is honourable. And why can it not? Because they know that they have all things in common, and most of all their adversities. You cannot conceive in your mind how much I see each single day bringing me.

"Send to us also," you say, "those things you have found so effective." I, indeed, desire to pour everything over into you, and in this I rejoice to learn something—that I may teach it. Nothing will delight me, however excellent and wholesome it may be, that I am to know for myself alone. If wisdom were given on this condition, that I should keep it shut up and not speak it forth, I would refuse it. The possession of no good thing is pleasant without a partner.

I will therefore send you the books themselves, and, that you may not spend much labour in tracking down here and there the things that profit, I will set marks upon them, so that you may come at once to the very passages I approve and admire. Yet more good will the living voice and the companionship do you than any discourse. You must come to the spot in person: first, because men trust their eyes more than their ears; next, because the way is long through precepts, but short and effective through examples.

Cleanthes could not have been the very copy of Zeno if he had merely heard him; he shared in his life, looked into his secrets, observed him, to see whether he lived according to his own rule. Plato and Aristotle and the whole throng of sages destined to go their separate ways drew more from Socrates' character than from his words. It was not the school of Epicurus but living with him that made great men of Metrodorus and Hermarchus and Polyaenus. Nor do I summon you for this only, that you may make progress, but that you may help me; for we shall each contribute very much to the other.

Meanwhile, since I owe you the little daily wage, I will tell you what delighted me today in Hecato. "Do you ask," he says, "what progress I have made? I have begun to be a friend to myself." He had made much progress; he will never be alone. Know that such a man is a friend to all. Farewell.