SENECA - College of Stoic Philosophers

EPISTLE LXXIV.
them, and, just because they are greedily seized
upon, have been knocked from their hands. There
is not a man among them all, however, even he
who has been lucky in the booty which has fallen
to him, whose joy in his spoil has lasted until the
morrow.
The most sensible man, therefore, as soon as he
sees the dole being brought in, a runs from the
theatre ;
for he knows that one pays a high price for
small favours. No one will grapple with him on the
way out, or strike him as he departs ; the quarrelling
takes place where the prizes are. Similarly with
wretches
the gifts
which Fortune tosses down to us ;
that we are, we become excited, we are torn asunder,
we wish that we had many hands, we look back now
in this direction and now in that. All too slowly, as
it seems, are the gifts thrown in our direction ;
they
merely excite our cravings, since they can reach but
few and are awaited by We all. are keen to intercept
them as they fall down. We rejoice if we
have laid hold of anything and some have
;
been
mocked by the idle hope of laying hold we
;
have
either paid a high price for worthless plunder
with some disadvantage to ourselves, or else have
been defrauded and are left in the lurch. Let
us therefore withdraw from a game like this,
and give way to the greedy rabble ;
let them
gaze after such "goods," which hang suspended
above them, and be themselves still more in suspense.
&
Whoever makes up his mind to be happy should
conclude that the good consists only in that which
is honourable. For if he regards anything else as
good, he is, in the first place, passing an unfavourable
judgment upon Providence because of the fact that
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