SENECA - College of Stoic Philosophers

EPISTLE LXXIX.
yours can collapse and fall in ruins, whether this
lofty summit, visible for many miles over the deep
sea, is wasted by the incessant power of the flames ;
but I do know that virtue will not be brought down
to a lower plane either by flames or by ruins. Hers
is the only greatness that knows no lowering ;
there
can be for her no further rising or sinking. Her
stature, like that of the stars in the heavens, is fixed.
Let us therefore strive to raise ourselves to this
altitude.
Already much of the task is accomplished nay,
;
rather, if I can bring myself to confess the truth,
not much. For goodness does not mean merely
being better than the lowest. Who that could
catch but a mere glimpse of the daylight would
boast his powers of vision ? One who sees the sun
shining through a mist may be contented meanwhile
that he has escaped darkness, but he does not yet
enjoy the blessing of light.
Our souls will not
have reason to rejoice in their lot until, freed from
this darkness in which they grope, they have not
merely glimpsed the brightness with feeble vision,
but have absorbed the full light of day and have
been restored to their place in the sky, until,
indeed, they have regained the place which they
held at the allotment of their birth. The soul is
summoned upward by its very origin. And it will
reach that goal even before it is released from its
prison below, as soon as it has cast off sin and, in
purity and lightness, has leaped up into celestial
realms of thought.
I
am glad, beloved Lucilius, that we are occupied
with this ideal, that we pursue
it with all our might,
even though few know it, or none. Fame is the
shadow of virtue ;
it will attend virtue even against
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