BOOK IV. X. 22-29
anxiety about nothing, are you unwilling to spend anything, to make any exertion? But if something that belongs to you be lost while you are engaged in these affairs, or be spent to no purpose, or someone else get what you ought to have got, are you going to be vexed immediately at what has happened? Will you not balance off what you are getting in return for what, how much in return for how much? Nay, do you wish to get such valuable things for nothing? And how can you? "One serious business with another."[1]
25You cannot be continually giving attention to both externals and your own governing principle. But if you want the former, let the latter go; otherwise you will have neither the latter nor the former, being drawn in both directions. If you want the latter, you must let the former go. The oil will be spilled, my paltry furniture will perish, but I shall be calm. There will be a fire when I am not at home, and my books will perish, yet I shall deal with my external impressions according to nature. But I shall have nothing to eat. If I am so badly off as all that, death is my harbour. And this is the harbour of all men, even death, and this their refuge. That is why no one of the things that befall us in our life is difficult. Whenever you wish, you walk out of the house, and are no longer bothered by the smoke.[2] Why, then, are you consumed with anxiety? Why do you keep vigils? And why do you not forthwith reckon up where your good and your evil lie, and say, "They are both under my control; no man can either rob me of the one, or plunge me in the other against my will? Why, then, do I not throw myself down and
- ↑ Supply: "has no partnership." See IV. 6, 30, where the proverb is given in full.
- ↑ The reference is to suicide. Cf. I. 25, 18 and 20.
