you? Certainly. And is it possible that a fault should be one man's, and
the evil in another? No. Why then are you anxious about that which
belongs to others? Your question is reasonable; but I am anxious how I
shall speak to him. Cannot you then speak to him as you choose? But I
fear that I may be disconcerted? If you are going to write the name of
Dion, are you afraid that you would be disconcerted? By no means. Why?
is it not because you have practised writing the name? Certainly. Well,
if you were going to read the name, would you not feel the same? and
why? Because every art has a certain strength and confidence in the
things which belong to it. Have you then not practised speaking? and
what else did you learn in the school? Syllogisms and sophistical
propositions? For what purpose? was it not for the purpose of
discoursing skilfully? and is not discoursing skilfully the same as
discoursing seasonably and cautiously and with intelligence, and also
without making mistakes and without hindrance, and besides all this with
confidence? Yes. When then you are mounted on a horse and go into a
plain, are you anxious at being matched against a man who is on foot,
and anxious in a matter in which you are practised, and he is not? Yes,
but that person (to whom I am going to speak) has power to kill me.
Speak the truth, then, unhappy man, and do not brag, nor claim to be a
philosopher, nor refuse to acknowledge your masters, but so long as you
present this handle in your body, follow every man who is stronger than
yourself. Socrates used to practice speaking, he who talked as he did to
the tyrants, to the dicasts (judges), he who talked in his prison.
Diogenes had practised speaking, he who spoke as he did to Alexander, to
the pirates, to the person who bought him. These men were confident in
the things which they practised. But do you walk off to your own affairs
and never leave them: go and sit in a corner, and weave syllogisms, and
propose them to another. There is not in you the man who can rule a
state.

* * * * *

TO NASO.--When a certain Roman entered with his son and listened to one
reading, Epictetus said, This is the method of instruction; and he
stopped. When the Roman asked him to go on, Epictetus said, Every art
when it is taught causes labor to him who is unacquainted with it and is
unskilled in it, and indeed the things which proceed from the arts
immediately show their use in the