BOOK V
daily for so many years I am fed and watered; which bears me as I tread it under foot and make full use of it in a thousand ways.
5. Sharpness of wit men cannot praise thee for.[1] Granted! Yet there are many other qualities of which thou canst not say: I had not that by nature.[2] Well then, display those which are wholly in thy power, sterling sincerity, dignity, endurance of toil,[3] abstinence from pleasure.[4] Grumble not at thy lot, be content with little,[5] be kindly, independent, frugal, serious, high-minded.[6] Seest thou not how many virtues it is in thy power to display now, in respect of which thou canst plead no natural incapacity or incompatibility, and yet thou art. content still with a lower standard? Or art thou forced to be discontented, to be grasping, to flatter, to inveigh against the body, to play the toady and the braggart, and to be so unstable in thy soul, because forsooth thou hast no natural gifts? By the Gods, No! but long ere now couldest thou have shaken thyself free from all this and have lain under the imputation only, if it must be so, of being somewhat slow and dull of apprehension. And this too thou must amend with training and not ignore thy dulness or be in love with it.
6. One man, when he has done another a kindness, is ready also to reckon on a return.[7] A second is not ready to do this, but yet in his heart of hearts ranks the other as a debtor, and he is conscious of what he has done.[8] But a third is in a manner not
- ↑ vii. 67; cp. Fronto, ad Ant. i. 2.
- ↑ cp. Hor. Ep. i. 1. 28–32.
- ↑ cp. i. 5.
- ↑ cp. Aristides, ad Reg. § 114 (Jebb) of Marcus, οὐδεμίας ἡδονῆς ἡττημένος; and Fronto, de Fer. Als. Nab. p. 225, volpem facilius quis tibi quam voluptatem conciliaverit.
- ↑ cp. i. 5; Julian, Conviv. 427.
- ↑ Or humble, if we read ἀμεγαλεῖον, but cp. v. 9.
- ↑ St. Luke vi. 34; xiv. 12.
- ↑ Sen. de Benef. ii. 6. But see the speech of Marcus to his soldiers (as reported by Dio, 71. 26, §2) on the revolt of Cassius.
