Imaginary Conversations and Poems | Page 5

Then I am afraid, my friend----
_Seneca._ _My friend!_ are these the expressions--Well, let it pass. Philosophers must bear bravely. The people expect it.
_Epictetus._ Are philosophers, then, only philosophers for the people; and, instead of instructing them, must they play tricks before them? Give me rather the gravity of dancing dogs. Their motions are for the rabble; their reverential eyes and pendant paws are under the pressure of awe at a master; but they are dogs, and not below their destinies.
_Seneca._ Epictetus! I will give you three talents to let me take that sentiment for my own.
_Epictetus._ I would give thee twenty, if I had them, to make it thine.
_Seneca._ You mean, by lending it the graces of my language?
_Epictetus._ I mean, by lending it to thy conduct. And now let me console and comfort thee, under the calamity I brought on thee by calling thee _my friend_. If thou art not my friend, why send for me? Enemy I can have none: being a slave, Fortune has now done with me.
_Seneca._ Continue, then, your former observations. What were you saying?
_Epictetus._ That which thou interruptedst.
_Seneca._ What was it?
_Epictetus._ I should have remarked that, if thou foundest ingenuity in my writings, thou must have discovered in them some deviation from the plain, homely truths of Zeno and Cleanthes.
_Seneca._ We all swerve a little from them.
_Epictetus._ In practice too?
_Seneca._ Yes, even in practice, I am afraid.
_Epictetus._ Often?
_Seneca._ Too often.
_Epictetus._ Strange! I have been attentive, and yet have remarked but one difference among you great personages at Rome.
_Seneca._ What difference fell under your observation?
_Epictetus._ Crates and Zeno and Cleanthes taught us that our desires were to be subdued by philosophy alone. In this city, their acute and inventive scholars take us aside, and show us that there is not only one way, but two.
_Seneca._ Two ways?
_Epictetus._ They whisper in our ear, 'These two ways are philosophy and enjoyment: the wiser man will take the readier, or, not finding it, the alternative.' Thou reddenest.
_Seneca._ Monstrous degeneracy.
_Epictetus._ What magnificent rings! I did not notice them until thou liftedst up thy hands to heaven, in detestation of such effeminacy and impudence.
_Seneca._ The rings are not amiss; my rank rivets them upon my fingers: I am forced to wear them. Our emperor gave me one, Epaphroditus another, Tigellinus the third. I cannot lay them aside a single day, for fear of offending the gods, and those whom they love the most worthily.
_Epictetus._ Although they make thee stretch out thy fingers, like the arms and legs of one of us slaves upon a cross.
_Seneca._ Oh, horrible! Find some other resemblance.
_Epictetus._ The extremities of a fig-leaf.
_Seneca._ Ignoble!
_Epictetus._ The claws of a toad, trodden on or stoned.
_Seneca._ You have great need, Epictetus, of an instructor in eloquence and rhetoric: you want topics, and tropes, and figures.
_Epictetus._ I have no room for them. They make such a buzz in the house, a man's own wife cannot understand what he says to her.
_Seneca._ Let us reason a little upon style. I would set you right, and remove from before you the prejudices of a somewhat rustic education. We may adorn the simplicity of the wisest.
_Epictetus._ Thou canst not adorn simplicity. What is naked or defective is susceptible of decoration: what is decorated is simplicity no longer. Thou mayest give another thing in exchange for it; but if thou wert master of it, thou wouldst preserve it inviolate. It is no wonder that we mortals, little able as we are to see truth, should be less able to express it.
_Seneca._ You have formed at present no idea of style.
_Epictetus._ I never think about it. First, I consider whether what I am about to say is true; then, whether I can say it with brevity, in such a manner as that others shall see it as clearly as I do in the light of truth; for, if they survey it as an ingenuity, my desire is ungratified, my duty unfulfilled. I go not with those who dance round the image of Truth, less out of honour to her than to display their agility and address.
_Seneca._ We must attract the attention of readers by novelty, and force, and grandeur of expression.
_Epictetus._ We must. Nothing is so grand as truth, nothing so forcible, nothing so novel.
_Seneca._ Sonorous sentences are wanted to awaken the lethargy of indolence.
_Epictetus._ Awaken it to what? Here lies the question; and a weighty one it is. If thou awakenest men where they can see nothing and do no work, it is better to let them rest: but will not they, thinkest thou, look up at a rainbow, unless they are called to it by a clap of thunder?
_Seneca._ Your early youth, Epictetus, has been, I will not say neglected, but cultivated with rude instruments and unskilful hands.
_Epictetus._ I thank God for it. Those