Letters From a Stoic Read Online Free PDF

– always a good sign in a young man – so deep had the blush been that suffused his face. This I rather suspect will remain with him even when he has built up his character and stripped it of all weakness – even when he has become a wise man. For no amount of wisdom enables one to do away with physical or mental weaknesses that arise from natural causes; anything inborn or ingrained in one can by dint of practice be allayed, but not overcome. When they face a crowd of people some men, even ones with the stoutest of hearts, break into the sort of sweat one usually sees on persons in an overheated and exhausted state; some men experience a trembling at the knees when they are about to speak; some a chattering of the teeth, a stuttering tongue or stammering lips. These are things which neither training nor experience ever eliminates. Nature just wields her power and uses the particular weakness to make even the strongestconscious of her. One of these things I well know is a blush, which has a habit of suddenly reddening the faces of men of even the most dignified demeanour. It is of course more noticeable in the young, with their hotter blood and sensitive complexions; nevertheless seasoned men and ageing men alike are affected by it. Some men are more to be feared on the occasions when they flush than at any other time – as if in so doing they let loose all their inhibitions; Sulla was at his wildest when the blood had rushed to his visage. No features were more susceptible than Pompey’s: he never failed to blush in company, and particularly at public meetings. I remember Fabianus blushing when he appeared to give evidence before the Senate, and this bashfulness looked wonderfully well on him. When this happens it is not due to some mental infirmity, but to the unfamiliarity of some situation or other, which may not necessarily strike any alarm into inexperienced people but does produce a reaction in them if they are thus liable through having a natural, physical predisposition to it; certain people have good, ordinary blood and others just have an animated, lively sort of blood that comes to the face quickly.
    No amount of wisdom, as I said before, ever banishes these things; otherwise – if she eradicated every weakness – wisdom would have dominion over the world of nature. One’s physical make-up and the attributes that were one’s lot at birth remain settled no matter how much or how long the personality may strive after perfect adjustment. One cannot ban these things any more than one can call them up. The tokens used to portray embarrassment by professional actors, those actors who portray emotion, simulate unhappiness and reproduce for us fear and apprehension, are a hanging of the head, a dropping of the voice, a casting down of the eyes and keeping them fixed on the ground; a blush is something they can never manage to reproduce; it is something thatwill neither be summoned up nor be told to stay away. Against these things philosophy holds out no remedy and avails one nothing; they are quite independent; they come unbidden, they go unbidden.
    My letter calls for a conclusion. Here’s one for you, one that will serve you in good stead, too, which I’d like you to take to heart. ‘We need to set our affections on some good man and keep him constantly before our eyes, so that we may live as if he were watching us and do everything as if he saw what we were doing.’ This, my dear Lucilius, is Epicurus’ advice, and in giving it he has given us a guardian and a moral tutor – and not without reason, either: misdeeds are greatly diminished if a witness is always standing near intending doers. The personality should be provided with someone it can revere, someone whose influence can make even its private, inner life more pure. Happy the man who improves other people not merely when he is in their presence but even when he is in their thoughts! And happy, too, is the person who can so revere another as to