es the profession without due qualifications kindles against him
the anger of heaven. He is like a scurrilous Thersites, claiming the
imperial office of an Agamemnon. "If you think," he tells the young
student, "that you can be a Cynic merely by wearing an old cloak, and
sleeping on a hard bed, and using a wallet and staff, and begging, and
rebuking every one whom you see effeminately dressed or wearing purple,
you don't know what you are about--get you gone; but if you know what a
Cynic really is, and think yourself capable of being one, then consider
how great a thing you are undertaking.

"First as to yourself. You must be absolutely resigned to the will of
God. You must conquer every passion, abrogate every desire. Your life
must be transparently open to the view of God and man. Other men conceal
their actions with houses, and doors, and darkness, and guards; your
house, your door, your darkness, must be a sense of holy shame. You must
conceal nothing; you must have nothing to conceal. You must be known as
the spy and messenger of God among mankind.

"You must teach men that happiness is not there, where in their
blindness and misery they seek it. It is not in strength, for Myro and
Ofellius were not happy: not in wealth, for Croesus was not happy: not
in power, for the Consuls are not happy: not in all these together, for
Nero, and Sardanapalus, and Agamemnon sighed, and wept, and tore their
hair, and were the slaves of circumstances and the dupes of semblances.
It lies in yourselves: in true freedom, in the absence or conquest of
every ignoble fear; in perfect self-government; in a power of
contentment and peace, and the 'even flow of life' amid poverty, exile,
disease, and the very valley of the shadow of death. Can you face this
Olympic contest? Are your thews and sinews strong enough? Can you face
the fact that those who are defeated are also disgraced and whipped?

"Only by God's aid can you attain to this. Only by His aid can you be
beaten like an ass, and yet love those who beat you, preserving an
unshaken unanimity in the midst of circumstances which to other men
would cause trouble, and grief, and disappointment, and despair.

"The Cynic must learn to do without friends, for where can he find a
friend worthy of him, or a king worthy of sharing his moral sceptre? The
friend of the truly noble must be as truly noble as himself, and such a
friend the genuine Cynic cannot hope to find. Nor must he marry;
ma