that it is all one whether one puts one's feet or eyes in
another person's house. For such prying is neither honourable, nor
comely, nor even agreeable.

"Stranger, thou'lt see within untoward sights."

For such is generally the condition inside houses, utensils kicking
about, maids lolling about, no work going on, nothing to please the eye;
and moreover such side glances, and stray shots as it were, distort the
soul, and are unhandsome, and the practice is a pernicious one. When
Diogenes saw Dioxippus, a victor at Olympia, driving up in his chariot
and unable to take his eyes off a handsome woman who was watching the
procession, but still turning round and casting sheep's eyes at her, he
said, "See you yon athlete straining his neck to look at a girl?" And
similarly you may see curious people twisting and straining their necks
at every spectacle alike, from the habit and practice of turning their
eyes in all directions. And I think the senses ought not to rove about,
like an ill-trained maid, when sent on an errand by the soul, but to do
their business, and then return quickly with the answer, and afterwards
to keep within the bounds of reason, and obey her behests. But it is
like those lines of Sophocles,

"Then did the AEnianian's horses bolt,
Unmanageable quite;"[628]

for so the senses not having, as we said, right training and practice,
often run away, and drag reason along with them, and plunge her into
unlawful excesses. And so, though that story about Democritus is false,
that he purposely destroyed his eyesight by the reflection from
burning-glasses (as people sometimes shut up windows that look into the
street), that they might not disturb him by frequently calling off his
attention to external things, but allow him to confine himself to purely
intellectual matters, yet it is very true in every case that those who
use the mind most are least acted upon by the senses. And so the
philosophers erected their places for study as far as possible from
towns, and called Night the time propitious to thought,[629] thinking
quiet and withdrawal from worldly distractions a great help towards
meditating upon and solving the problems of life.

Sec. XIII. Moreover, when men are abusing and reviling one another in the
market-place, it is not very difficult or tiresome not to go near them;
or if a tumultuous concourse of people crowd together, to remain seated;
or to get up and go away, if you are not master of yo