inordinate, and so
to mingle the affairs of human life that no one should be entirely free
from calamities; but, as we read in Homer*, only those should think
themselves truly blessed to whom fortune has given an equal share of
good and evil.

* "Grief is useless; cease to lament," Achilles to Priam,
his suppliant for the body of Hecor. "For thus have the gods
appointed for mortal men; that they should live in vexation,
while the gods themselves are untroubled. Two vessels are
set upon the threshold of Zeus, of the gifts that he
dispenses; one of evil things, the other of good; he who
receives from both at the hand of thundering Zeus, meets at
one time with evil, and at another with good; he who
receives from only one, is a miserable wretch."

THE NOBLE CHARACTER OF CAIUS FABRICIUS FROM THE LIFE OF PYRRHUS

Caius Fabricius, a man of highest consideration among the Romans as an
honest man and a good soldier, but extremely poor, went upon an embassy
to Pyrrhus to treat about prisoners that had been taken. Pyrrhus
received him with much kindness, and privately would have persuaded
him to accept of his gold, not for any evil purpose, but as a mark of
respect and hospitable kindness. Upon Fabricius's refusal, he pressed
him no further, but the next day, having a mind to discompose him, as
he had never seen an elephant before, he commanded one of the largest,
completely armed, to be placed behind the hangings, as they were talking
together. This being done, at a given signal the hanging was drawn
aside, and the elephant, raising his trunk over the head of Fabricius,
made a horrid and ugly noise. He gently turned about and, smiling, said
to Pyrrhus, "neither your money yesterday, nor this beast today make any
impression upon me." At supper, amongst all sorts of things that were
discoursed of, but more particularly Greece and the philosophers there,
Cineas, by accident, had occasion to speak of Epicurus, and explained
the opinions his followers hold about the gods and the commonwealth, and
the object of life, who place the chief happiness of man in pleasure,
and decline public affairs as an injury and disturbance of a happy life,
and remove the gods afar off both from kindness or anger, or any
concern for us at all, to a life wholly without business and flowing in
pleasures. Before he had done speaking, Fabricius cried out to Pyrrhus,
"O Hercules! may Pyrrhus and the Samnit