Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

148 SENECAthough they have not asked it ;on others, again, Iwill press it though they refuse. 1 cannot be carelessin this matter ;I never invest with more care than instock of tliis nature. Do you expect interest, then ?I am asked. Well, at least, I do not wish to throw myinvestment away. I wish so to place my donation thatthough I must never seek a return, yet I may believea return to be possible. It should resemble a buriedtreasure which you do not disinter unless it be necessary.What an opportunity for kindness may not a rich manfind in his own household— for why should our liberalitybe confined to the free ? Nature bids us do good untoall men, whether free legally, or virtually by our consent :wherever there is a man, there is room for kindness.-^— - Such were Seneca's views, instinct with hiscustomary good sense and moderation, on thesubject of almsgiving and the use of money.They have a modern ring, and would have qualifiedhim in the island of Britain eighteen hundred yearslater for high office in the Charity OrganisationSociety. We have some evidence that, in thisinstance at least, his practice was on a level withhis precepts.No one [wrote Juvenal, some twenty years afterwards]now expects to receive what Seneca used tosend to very humble friends, or what the good Pisoor Gotta used to give ;for in those days a bountifuldisposition was thought to add lustre to honours andtitles.^And Martial, whose Spanish origin may haverecommended him toSeneca, in the same vein regretsin two of his epigrams the spacious days ofPiso and Seneca and Memmius, whom he prefers1De Vita Beata, 24.'Juv. v. 108.