Letter 43

You ask how this came to me, who told me that you were planning what you had told to no one? He who knows most—rumour. "What then?" you say, "am I so great that I can stir up rumour?" There is no reason for you to measure yourself by looking to this place; look to the place in which you dwell.

Whatever stands out among its neighbours is great, there where it stands out. For greatness has no fixed measure; comparison either raises it or lowers it. A ship which is great in a river is tiny in the sea. A rudder which is great for one ship is small for another.

You now, in your province, although you yourself despise yourself, are great. What you do, how you dine, how you sleep, is inquired into and known; the more carefully, therefore, must you live. But judge yourself happy then, when you can live in public, when your own walls shelter you, not conceal you—walls which for the most part we judge to be set around us not that we may live more safely, but that we may sin more secretly.

I shall tell you a thing by which you may estimate our characters: you will scarcely find anyone who can live with his door open. It is our conscience, not our pride, that has set doorkeepers before us; we live in such a way that to be caught is to be suddenly seen. But what does it profit to hide oneself away and to shun the eyes and ears of men?

A good conscience calls in a crowd; a bad one, even in solitude, is anxious and troubled. If the things you do are honourable, let all men know them; if base, what does it matter that no one knows, when you yourself know? Oh, wretched man, if you despise this witness! Farewell.