Moral essays. With an English translation by J.W. Basore

ON FIRMNESS, xvin. 5-xix. 3ment ; for his offences are never exhausted upon oneindividual or in one insult.Let us turn now to the examples of those whoseendurance we commend—for instance to that ofSocrates, who took in good part the pubhshed andacted gibes directed against him in comedies," andlaughed as heartily as when his vrife Xanthippedrenched him with foul water. Antisthenes wastaunted with ha\'ing a barbarian, a Thracian woman,for his mother ; his retort was that even the motherof the gods was from Mount Ida.**Strife and \vTanghng we must not come near. Weshould flee far from these things, and all the provocationsthereto of unthinking people—which only the unthinkingcan give—should be ignored, and the honoursand the injuries of the common herd be valued bothalike. We must neither grieve over the one, nor rejoiceover the other. Other\\-ise, from the fear of insultsor from weariness of them, we shall fall short in thedoing of many needful things, and, suffering from awomanish distaste for hearing anything not to ourmind, we shall refuse to face both pubUc and privateduties, sometimes even when they are for our wellbeing.At times, also, enraged against powerful men,we shall reveal our feelings ^^ith unrestrained liberty.But not to put up with anything is not liberty ; wedeceive ourselves. Liberty is ha\ing a mind thatrises superior to injur}', that makes itself the onlysource from which its pleasures spring, that separatesitself from all external things in order that manmay not have to hve his life in disquietude, fearingeverybody's laughter, everybody's tongue. For ifany man can offer insult, who is there who cannot ?But the truly wise man and the aspirant to msdom103