BOOK X
thing, in respect of substance, as but a fig-seed and, in respect to time, as but a twist of the drill.
18. Regarding attentively every existing thing reflect that it is already disintegrating and changing, and as it were in a state of decomposition and dispersion, or that everything is by nature made but to die.
19. What are they like when eating, sleeping, coupling, evacuating, and the rest! What again when lording it over others, when puffed up with pride, when filled with resentment or rebuking others from a loftier plane! Yet but a moment ago they were lackeying how many and for what ends, and anon will be at their old trade.[1]
20. What the Universal Nature brings to every thing is for the benefit of that thing, and for its benefit then when she brings it.[2]
21. The earth is in love with showers and the majestic sky is in love.[3] And the Universe is in love with making whatever has to be. To the Universe I say: Together with thee I will be in love. Is it not a way we have of speaking, to say, This or that loves to be so?
22. Either thy life is here and thou art inured to it; or thou goest elsewhere and this with thine own will; or thou diest and hast served out thy service. There is no other alternative. Take heart then.
23. Never lose sight of the fact that a man's 'freehold'[4] is such as I told thee, and how all the conditions are the same here as on the top of a
