The Epistles of Lucius Annaeus Seneca

quiet and peaceableness to the will of God and fate (i.e., the everlasting order of things, from the beginning, which he sometimes calls God!). The affections and passions, from whence originate all evils, how acutely does he describe, how severely reprimand, and how closely restrain them! Fear, hope, mirth, grief—how does he moderate, extenuate, or take them away! While he severely falls upon ambition, avarice, lust, luxury, and every kind of vice! Indeed, he treats them with so much acrimony as passionately to show he holds them in the utmost detestation and abhorrence! Taken up entirely with the admiration and recommendation of virtue, he spurns and rejects all external things and tramples upon the specious but deceitful splendor of fortune.

For the benefit of the attentive reader, so great vigor and warmth are everywhere displayed that the most idle cannot but be roused and the most frigid warmed. Indeed, we do not read his writings, but hear him speak. We see not his portrait in his book, but his very person. Happy genius! We may apply to Seneca what he says of Sextius in Epistle 64:

"How full of energy and spirit, such as you scarce find in all the tribes of philosophers! Some of their writings indeed have a great name, but in all other respects are weak and languid in comparison. They propose, they debate, they cavil; they inspire us not with courage and constancy, because they have them not themselves. This man is alive, he exults, he is free, and somewhat more than man. He sends me away full of conviction and confidence."

If such then were the admirable writings of Seneca, it is natural enough to inquire whether his life was consonant thereto. Report, I confess, will not allow him this, but rather charges him with the reverse. What then? It is the way of the world; the same was objected to Zeno, to Epicurus, to Plato. We propose not Seneca as a perfect pattern in the conduct of life, but recommend to attention his wise instructions and learning; yet we think at the same time that many objections to him will admit a defense.

"He followed the Court." And where is this forbidden to philosophers? It were to be wished that such more frequently attended courts and instructed them with their counsels. How happy would Rome have been if Nero had continued to follow the advice of Seneca as he began! For what could be more commendable than the earlier years of his life, while under the direction of Seneca?