Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

LETTER TO LUCILIUS ON AETNA 139longer dimly and uncertainl}^ but admits the perfectlight ; when it is restored to its heavenly home and hasrecovered the place to which it was born. Our soul'sorigin calls it heavenward. It will gain heaven evenbeiore it is loosed from these bonds if it fling away itsfaults and emerge unstained and untrammelled into thecontemplation of the divine mysteries. This is whatwe should do, my dearest Lucilius ;toward this endshould we strain with our whole strength, though fewknow what we do, and none see us. Gloryis the shadow•of virtup it willaccompany even those who shun it. Butjust as a shadow sometimes goes before and sometimesfollows after, so glory is sometimes before us and offersitself to the view, but at other times holds back untilenvy has passed away, when it appears the greater forhaving come late. How long Democritus seemed amadman ! Fame scarce welcomed Socrates. How longwas Cato ignored by the State It !rejected him, and onlyunderstood when it had lost him. Had Rutilius neversuffered wrong his innocence and virtue would have remainedhidden ;he became famous through the violencedone to him. Did he not thank his fortune and embracehis exile ? I speak of those whom Fortune by persecutionhas rendered illustrious in their lifetime ;how manyare those whose accomplishments have become knownonly after their death ! howreceived but dragged out You !many whom Fame has notsee how greatly notmerely the learned, but this whole throng of theunlearned, admire Epicurus. He was quite unknownat Athens itself, where he lived in obscurity. Manyyears after the death of his friend Metrodorus, speakingin one of his letters with grateful recollection of theiramong so many ad-—friendship, he ends with this thatvantagesit was of no disservice to Metrodorus and himselfthat they lived in that famous country of Greece, notonly unknown, but almost unheard. Did he on this accountremain undiscovered after he had ceased to exist ?Did not his opinions then shine forth ? Metrodorus alsoconfesses in one of his letters that Epicurus and himself