on sufficient to produce a sense of evil
be applied, then the lust is checked, and the mind at once regains its
original authority; whereas if you have recourse to no remedy, you can
no longer look for this return--on the contrary, the next time it is
excited by the corresponding object, the flame of desire leaps up more
quickly than before. By frequent repetition, the mind in the long
run becomes callous; and thus this mental disease produces confirmed
Avarice.

One who has had fever, even when it has left him, is not in the same
condition of health as before, unless indeed his cure is complete.
Something of the same sort is true also of diseases of the mind. Behind,
there remains a legacy of traces and blisters: and unless these are
effectually erased, subsequent blows on the same spot will produce
no longer mere blisters, but sores. If you do not wish to be prone
to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend its
increase. At first, keep quiet and count the days when you were not
angry: "I used to be angry every day, then every other day: next every
two, next every three days!" and if you succeed in passing thirty days,
sacrifice to the Gods in thanksgiving.

LXXVI

How then may this be attained?--Resolve, now if never before, to approve
thyself to thyself; resolve to show thyself fair in God's sight; long to
be pure with thine own pure self and God!

LXXVII

That is the true athlete, that trains himself to resist such outward
impressions as these.

"Stay, wretched man! suffer not thyself to be carried away!" Great is
the combat, divine the task! you are fighting for Kingship, for Liberty,
for Happiness, for Tranquillity. Remember God: call upon Him to aid
thee, like a comrade that stands beside thee in the fight.

LXXVIII

Who then is a Stoic--in the sense that we call a statue of Phidias
which is modelled after that master's art? Show me a man in this sense
modelled after the doctrines that are ever upon his lips. Show me a man
that is sick--and happy; an exile--and happy; in evil report--and happy!
Show me him, I ask again. So help me Heaven, I long to see one Stoic!
Nay, if you cannot show me one fully modelled, let me at least see one
in whom the process is at work--one whose bent is in that direction. Do
me that favour! Grudge it not to an old man, to behold a sight he has
never yet beheld. Think you I wish to see the Zeus or Athena of Phidias,
bedecked with gold an