desire) and their fears, and employs his thoughts about his own affairs and his own condition. Then I shall say to him, if you do not choose to desire that which you will fail to obtain nor to attempt to avoid that into which you will fall, desire nothing which belongs to (which is in the power of) others, nor try to avoid any of the things which are not in your power. If you do not observe this rule, you must of necessity fail in your desires and fall into that which you would avoid. What is the difficulty here? where is there room for the words, How will it be? and How will it turn out? and will this happen or that?
Now is not that which will happen independent of the will? Yes. And the nature of good and of evil is it not in the things which are within the power of the will? Yes. Is it in your power then to treat according to nature every thing which happens? Can any person hinder you? No man. No longer then say to me, How will it be? For however it may be, you will dispose of it well,[1] and the result to you will be a fortunate one. What would Hercules have been if he said, How shall a great lion not appear to me, or a great boar, or savage men? And what do you care for that? If a great boar appear, you will fight a greater fight: if bad men appear, you will relieve the earth of the bad. Suppose then that I lose my life in this way. You will die a good man, doing a noble act. For since we must certainly die, of necessity a man must be found doing something, either following the employment of a husbandman, or digging, or trading, or serving in a consulship or suffering from indigestion or from diarrhœa. What then do you wish to be doing when you are found by death? I for my part would wish to be found doing something which belongs to a man, beneficent, suitable to the general interest, noble. But if I cannot be found doing things so great, I would be found doing at least that which I
- ↑ See a passage in Plutarch on Tranquillity from Euripides, the great storehouse of noble thoughts, from which antient writers drew much good matter; and perhaps it was one of the reasons why so many of his plays and fragments have been preserved.
We must not quarrel with the things that are,
For they care not for us; but he who feels them
If he disposes well of things, fares well.
