SENECA - College of Stoic Philosophers

EPISTLE LXVI.
he will entrust himself as readily to an honourable
deed as he would to a good man he will consider it
;
advantageous to himself, safe, propitious. And he
will hold the same view concerning an honourable
deed,, even though
it be fraught with sorrow and
hardship, as concerning a good man who is poor or
wasting away in exile. Come now, contrast a good
man who is rolling; O in wealth with a man who has
nothing, except that in himself he has all things ;
they will be equally good, though they experience
unequal fortune. This same standard, as I have
remarked, is to be applied to things as well as to
men; virtue is just as if it
praiseworthy dwells in a
sound and free body, as in one which is sickly or in
bondage. Therefore, as regards your own virtue also,
you will not praise it any more, if fortune has favoured
it
by granting you a sound body, than if fortune has
endowed you with a body that is crippled in some
member, since that would mean rating a master low
because he is dressed like a slave. For all those
things over which Chance holds sway are chattels,
money, person, position they are weak, shifting,
;
prone to perish, and of uncertain tenure. On
the other hand, the works of virtue are free and
unsubdued, neither more worthy to be sought when
fortune treats them kindly, nor less worthy when
any adversity weighs upon them.
Now friendship in the case of men corresponds to
desirability in the case of things.
You would not, I
fancy, love a good man if he were rich any more
than if he were poor, nor would you love a strong
and muscular person more than one who was slender
and of delicate constitution. Accordingly, neither
will you seek or love a good thing that is mirthful
and tranquil more than one that is full of perplexity
17