Letter 115

I would not have you too anxious about words and composition, my dear Lucilius; I have greater things for you to care about. Ask what you are to write, not how; and even this, not that you may write it, but that you may feel it, that those things you have felt you may the more apply to yourself and, as it were, set your seal upon them. Whosoever's speech you see to be over-careful and polished, know that his mind too is no less taken up with petty things.

A great man speaks more carelessly and with more security; whatever he says has more of confidence than of pains. You know the trim young men, sleek of beard and hair, fresh from the band-box; you would hope nothing from them strong, nothing solid. Speech is the dress of the mind: if it is clipped round and rouged and made up by hand, it shows that the mind too is not sincere and has something cracked in it. Neatness is no manly ornament.

If it were permitted us to look into the mind of a good man, oh, what a fair face we should see, how holy, how shining with a magnificent calm—here justice gleaming, there courage, here temperance and prudence! And besides these, frugality and self-control and endurance and liberality and courtesy and—who would believe it?—a good rare in man, humanity, would shed their splendour upon it. Then would foresight together with refinement, and, springing from these, magnanimity most eminent, how much beauty, good gods, how much weight and dignity would they add to it! How great, with what charm, would be its authority! No one would call it lovable who would not at the same time call it venerable.

If anyone saw this face, loftier and more shining than is wont to be seen among human things, would he not halt, stupefied as though at the meeting of a divinity, and silently pray that it might be lawful to have seen it? Then, drawn on by the very kindness of its countenance calling him forth, would he not worship and entreat, and, long contemplating it, much towering and uplifted beyond the measure of what we are wont to look upon among us, with eyes blazing with a gentle yet none the less living fire—then at last would he not utter, in awe and astonishment, that saying of our Virgil?

"Oh, how shall I name you, maiden? For your face is not mortal, nor does your voice sound human. Be propitious, and lighten our toil, whoever you are." She will be present and will lighten it, if we are willing to worship her. But she is worshipped not by the slaughter of fat bulls' bodies, nor by gold and silver hung up, nor by coin poured into her treasury, but by a pious and upright will.

No one, I say, would not burn with love of her, if it fell to us to see her; for now many things hinder, and either dazzle our gaze with too great a splendour or hold it back in obscurity. But if, just as the sight of the eyes is wont to be sharpened and cleared by certain medicines, so we are willing to free the keen sight of the mind from its impediments, we shall be able to discern virtue even when it is buried in the body, even when poverty stands in the way, even when lowliness and infamy lie before it. We shall behold, I say, that beauty, however covered by what is sordid.

Conversely, we shall likewise perceive wickedness and the lethargy of a wretched mind, however much the splendour about it of radiant riches may hinder, and the false light, on this side of honours, on that of great powers, may beat upon the beholder.

Then it will be permitted us to understand how worthless are the things we admire, most like children, to whom every plaything is of value; for they prefer to their parents, and no less to their brothers, necklaces bought for a small coin. What then, as Ariston says, is the difference between us and them, save that we go mad over pictures and statues, fools at a dearer rate? Pebbles found on the shore, smooth and having some variety, delight them; us the spots of huge columns, whether brought from the sands of Egypt or from the deserts of Africa to support some portico or some dining-hall capacious enough for a populace.

We admire walls overlaid with thin marble, though we know what it is that is concealed beneath. We impose upon our own eyes, and when we have flooded our ceilings with gold, what else do we rejoice in but a lie? For we know that under that gold ugly timbers lie hidden. Nor is it only upon walls or ceilings that a thin ornament is stretched in front; the happiness of all those men whom you see walking on high is gilt foil. Look closely, and you will know how much evil lies beneath that thin film of dignity.

This very thing which holds so many magistrates, so many judges, which both makes magistrates and makes judges—money—ever since it began to be in honour, the true honour of things has fallen, and, made by turns merchants and merchandise, we ask not of what sort each thing is, but at what price; we are dutiful for a fee, undutiful for a fee, and we follow honourable things only so long as some hope is in them, ready to pass over to the contrary if crimes shall promise more.

Our parents have instilled in us an admiration of gold and silver, and the craving poured in while we were tender has settled deeper and grown up with us. Then the whole people, discordant in other things, agrees in this; this they look up to, this they wish for their own, this they dedicate to the gods, as though it were the greatest of human things, when they wish to seem grateful. In short, morals have been brought to such a pass that poverty is a thing of curse and reproach, despised by the rich, hateful to the poor.

Then come in besides the verses of the poets, which apply a torch to our passions, in which riches are praised as though they were the one glory and ornament of life. To them the immortal gods seem able to give and to have nothing better.

"The palace of the Sun was high with lofty columns, bright with flashing gold." Look at his chariot too: "The axle was of gold, the pole of gold, of gold the rim of the topmost wheel, and the row of spokes of silver." In short, the age that men wish to seem the best they call golden.

Nor among the Greek tragedians are there lacking those who barter innocence, safety, a good name, for gain. "Let me be called most base, so I be called rich." "Whether he be rich, we all ask; whether good, no one. Not for what reason or whence, only what you have, do they ask. Everywhere each man has been worth as much as he had. What is it shameful for us to have? Nothing. Either I choose to live rich or to die poor. He dies well, whoever dies while making gain." "Money, the mighty good of the human race, to which neither a mother's pleasure can be equal, nor a fawning child's, nor a father holy by his deserts; if anything so sweet shines in the face of Venus, deservedly does money move the loves of gods and men."

When these last verses had been pronounced in a tragedy of Euripides, the whole people rose up with one impulse to cast out both the actor and the play, until Euripides himself sprang forth into the midst, asking them to wait and to see what end this admirer of gold would make. In that play Bellerophon was paying the penalty which each man pays in his own.

For no avarice is without penalty, although avarice is itself penalty enough. Oh, how many tears, how many toils it demands! How wretched is it in its cravings, how wretched in its gains! Add the daily anxieties which torture each man in proportion to his holdings. Money is possessed with greater torment than it is sought. How men groan over their losses, which both fall heavy and seem heavier! In short, though fortune take nothing from them, whatever is not acquired is a loss.

"But men call that man happy and rich, and pray to attain as much as he possesses." I admit it. What then? Do you think any men of a worse condition than those who have both misery and envy? Would that those who are going to wish for riches would take counsel with the rich! Would that those going to seek honours would take counsel with the ambitious and with those who have attained the highest grade of dignity! Assuredly they would have changed their prayers, while these meanwhile take up new ones, though they have condemned their former. For there is no one whom his own good fortune, even if it came at a run, satisfies. Men complain both of their plans and of their advancements, and always prefer what they have left behind.

Therefore this is what philosophy will furnish you, than which I count nothing greater: you will never repent of yourself. To this so solid a happiness, which no storm may shake, words aptly woven together and speech flowing gently will not lead you. Let them go as they will, provided the mind keeps its own composure, provided it be great and unconcerned about opinions, and pleasing to itself because of the very things that displease others; one that estimates its own progress by its life, and judges that it knows just so much as it neither desires nor fears. Farewell.