C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Inconsistency

By Seneca (c. 4 B.C.–65 A.D.)

IF any one of those dogs who yelp at philosophy were to say, as they are wont to do:—“Why then do you talk so much more bravely than you live? why do you check your words in the presence of your superiors, and consider money to be a necessary implement? why are you disturbed when you sustain losses, and weep on hearing of the death of your wife or your friend? why do you pay regard to common rumor, and feel annoyed by calumnious gossip? why is your estate more elaborately kept than its natural use requires? why do you not dine according to your own maxims? why is your furniture smarter than it need be? why do you drink wine that is older than yourself? why are your grounds laid out? why do you plant trees which afford nothing except shade? why does your wife wear in her ears the price of a rich man’s house? why are your children at school dressed in costly clothes? why is it a science to wait upon you at table? why is your silver plate not set down anyhow or at random, but skillfully disposed in regular order, with a superintendent to preside over the carving of the viands?” Add to this, if you like, the questions:—“Why do you own property beyond the seas? why do you own more than you know of?—it is a shame to you not to know your slaves by sight; for you must be very neglectful of them if you only own a few, or very extravagant if you have too many for your memory to retain.” I will add some reproaches afterwards, and will bring more accusations against myself than you think of; for the present I will make you the following answer:—

“I am not a wise man, and I will not be one in order to feed your spite; so do not require me to be on a level with the best of men, but merely to be better than the worst: I am satisfied if every day I take away something from my vices and correct my faults. I have not arrived at perfect soundness of mind; indeed, I never shall arrive at it: I compound palliatives rather than remedies for my gout, and am satisfied if it comes at rarer intervals and does not shoot so painfully. Compared with your feet, which are lame, I am a racer.” I make this speech, not on my own behalf,—for I am steeped in vices of every kind,—but on behalf of one who has made some progress in virtue.

“You talk one way,” objects our adversary, “and live another.” You most spiteful of creatures, you who always show the bitterest hatred to the best of men, this reproach was flung at Plato, at Epicurus, at Zeno; for all these declared how they ought to live, not how they did live. I speak of virtue, not of myself; and when I blame vices, I blame my own first of all: when I have the power, I shall live as I ought to do: spite, however deeply steeped in venom, shall not keep me back from what is best; that poison itself with which you bespatter others, with which you choke yourselves, shall not hinder me from continuing to praise that life which I do not indeed lead, but which I know I ought to lead,—from loving virtue and from following after her, albeit a long way behind her and with halting gait.

- GENERAL INDEX - SONGS & LYRICS - QUICK INDEX - BIOGRAPHIES - READER’S DIGEST - STUDENT’S COURSE - PORTRAITS - BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD