Another man is afraid that he shall not have power: you are afraid that you will. Do not do so, my man; but as you ridicule him who is afraid that he, shall not have power, so ridicule yourself also. For it makes no difference whether you are thirsty like a man who has a fever, or have a dread of water like a man who is mad. Or how will you still be able to say as Socrates did, "If so it pleases God, so let it be"? Do you think that Socrates, if he had been eager to pass his leisure in the Lyceum or in the Academy and to discourse dally with the young men, would have readily served in military expeditions so often as he did; and would he not have lamented and groaned, "Wretch that I am; I must now be miserable here, when I might be sunning myself in the Lyceum"? Why, was this your business, to sun yourself? And is it not your business to be happy, to be free from hindrance, free from impediment? And could he still have been Socrates, if he had lamented in this way: how would he still have been able to write Paeans in his prison?
In short, remember this, that what you shall prize which is beyond your will, so far you have destroyed your will. But these things are out of the power of the will, not only power, but also a private condition: not only occupation, but also leisure. "Now, then, must I live in this tumult?"
Why do you say "tumult"? "I mean among many men." Well what is the hardship? Suppose that you are at Olympia: imagine it to be a panegyris, where one is calling out one thing, another is doing another thing, and a third is pushing another person: in the baths there is a crowd: and who of us is not pleased with this assembly and leaves it unwillingly, Be not difficult to please nor fastidious about what happens. "Vinegar is disagreeable, for it is sharp; honey is disagreeable, for it disturbs my habit of body. I do not like vegetables." So also, "I do not like leisure; it is a desert: I do not like a crowd; it is confusion." But if circumstances make it necessary for you to live alone or with a few, call it quiet and use the thing as you ought: talk with yourself, exercise the appearances, work up your preconceptions. If you fall into a crowd, call it a celebration of games, a panegyris, a festival: try to enjoy the festival with other men. For what is a more pleasant sight to him who loves mankind than a number of men? We see with pleasure herds of horses or oxen: we are delighted when we see many ships: who is pained when he sees many men? "But they deafen me with their cries." Then your hearing is impeded. What, then, is this to you? Is, then, the power of ****** use of appearances hindered? And who prevents you from using, according to nature, inclination to a thing and aversion from it; and movement toward a thing and movement from it? What tumult is able to do this?
