Seneca · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
Seneca to his dear Lucilius: greetings. You complain that the letters I send you aren't polished enough. But who speaks carefully except someone who wants to sound affected? I want my letters to be like my conversation would be if we were sitting or walking together—unlabored and easy—with nothing far-fetched or contrived in them. If it were possible, I would rather show you what I think than say it. Even if I were making a formal argument, I wouldn't stamp my foot or wave my hand or raise my voice; I'd leave that to the orators, content to have carried my thoughts to you without dressing them up or cheapening them. This one thing I'd like plainly to prove to you: that I feel everything I say, and not only feel it but love it. People kiss a mistress one way and their children another; yet even in that embrace, chaste and restrained as it is, the affection shows through clearly enough. I don't mean, heaven knows, that what's said about such weighty matters should be dry and bloodless—philosophy doesn't renounce talent—but too much effort shouldn't be spent on the words. Let this be the whole of my aim: let us say what we feel, and feel what we say; let speech match life. A man has kept his promise when he is the same whether you see him or hear him. We'll see what sort of man he is, how great a man—he is one man, not two. Our words should not delight but help. Still, if eloquence can be had without effort, if it comes ready-made or costs little, let it be there, and let it accompany the finest subjects—but let it be the kind that shows the subject rather than itself. Other arts belong wholly to talent; here it's the soul's business that's at stake. A sick man doesn't look for an eloquent doctor—but if it happens that the very man who can cure him also discusses what needs doing in a polished way, he'll take it well enough. Still, he has no particular reason to congratulate himself on landing a doctor who is also a fine speaker; it's the same as if a skilled helmsman also happened to be handsome. Why do you scratch my ears? Why do you entertain me? Something else is at stake here: I must be cauterized, cut open, put on a strict regimen. That's what you were called in for; you must treat a disease that is old, serious, and shared by everyone. You have as much on your hands as a doctor does in a plague. And you're busy with words? Be glad, for heaven's sake, if you're even equal to the substance. When will you learn so much? When will you fix what you've learned so firmly in yourself that it can't slip away? When will you put it to the test? For it isn't enough, as with other things, to have committed it to memory—it has to be tried in practice. The happy man is not the one who knows these things, but the one who does them.
'What, then? Are there no steps below that man? Is it a sheer drop straight from wisdom?' No, I don't think so; for the man making progress is still counted among the fools, yet he is set apart from them by a great distance. Even among those making progress there are great differences: some hold that they fall into three classes.
The first are those who don't yet have wisdom but have already taken up a position in its neighborhood; and yet what is near is still outside. You ask who these people are? They are the ones who have already laid aside all their passions and vices, who have learned what things must be embraced, but whose confidence in this is still untested. They don't yet enjoy their own good in practice, though they can no longer fall back into what they've fled; they are already at the point past which there is no sliding backward, but this much is not yet clear to them about themselves—as I recall writing in a certain letter, 'they don't know that they know.' They have already come to enjoy their own good, but not yet to trust it. Some describe this class of the progressing, of which I've spoken, by saying that they have already escaped the diseases of the soul, though not yet its disturbances, and still stand on slippery ground, since no one is beyond the danger of wickedness except the man who has shaken it off entirely; and no one has shaken it off entirely except the man who has taken up wisdom in its place. I've often already explained the difference between diseases of the soul and its disturbances. But I'll remind you again now: diseases are inveterate, hardened vices, like greed and ambition; these have entangled the mind far too tightly and have begun to be its permanent afflictions. To put it briefly: a disease is a persistent misjudgment, as if things that deserve only mild pursuit deserved intense pursuit; or, if you prefer, let's define it this way: setting too high a value on things that deserve only mild pursuit, or none at all, or holding in great esteem something that ought to be held in some esteem, or none. Disturbances are objectionable movements of the mind, sudden and violent, which, when frequent and left unchecked, produce a disease—just as a single attack of catarrh, not yet become habitual, causes a cough, while a persistent, chronic one causes consumption. So those who have made the most progress are beyond the diseases, but still feel the disturbances, being nearest to the perfected state.
The second class consists of those who have laid aside both the worst afflictions of the soul and its disturbances, but in such a way that they don't yet hold secure possession of their own peace of mind; for they can still slide back into the same condition.
The third class is beyond many great vices, but not beyond all of them. It has escaped greed, but still feels anger; it is no longer troubled by lust, but still by ambition; it no longer desires, but still fears, and in that very fear it stands firm enough against some things but yields to others: it despises death but dreads pain.
Let's give some thought to this point: things will go well enough for us if we're admitted into this last number. The second rank is occupied only by great natural good fortune together with great and unrelenting effort of study; but even this third grade isn't to be despised. Think how much evil you see around you; consider how there's no wickedness without a precedent, how much villainy advances every day, how much wrongdoing goes on both in public and in private: you'll understand that we've achieved enough if we aren't among the worst. 'But I,' you say, 'hope I can rise even to the higher rank.' I would wish this for us more than promise it: we're already forestalled, hemmed in by our vices as we struggle toward virtue. It's shameful to admit: we cultivate what is honorable only in our spare time. And yet what a great reward awaits us if we break off our preoccupations and our most stubborn faults! No craving will drive us on, no fear; untroubled by terrors, uncorrupted by pleasures, we'll shudder neither at death nor at the gods; we'll know that death is not an evil, and that the gods are not the source of evil. Whatever harms is as weak as whatever is harmed by it: the finest power is free of harm. What awaits us, if we ever climb out of this dregs of existence into that sublime and lofty state, is tranquility of mind and, once errors are driven out, a freedom without reservation. You ask what that freedom is? Not fearing men, not fearing gods; wanting neither shameful things nor excessive things; holding the greatest power over oneself: to become one's own possession is an inestimable good. Farewell.