passed all his life jesting and laughing as if at a festival. Agamemnon
was troubled with his rule over so many subjects,

"You look on Agamemnon, Atreus' son,
Whom Zeus has plunged for ever in a mass
Of never-ending cares."[722]

But Diogenes when he was being sold sat down and kept jeering at the
auctioneer, and would not stand up when he bade him, but said joking and
laughing, "Would you tell a fish you were selling to stand up?" And
Socrates in prison played the philosopher and discoursed with his
friends. But Phaeethon,[723] when he got up to heaven, wept because
nobody gave to him his father's horses and chariot. As therefore the
shoe is shaped by the foot, and not the foot by the shoe, so does the
disposition make the life similar to itself. For it is not, as one said,
custom that makes the best life seem sweet to those that choose it, but
it is sense that makes that very life at once the best and sweetest. Let
us cleanse therefore the fountain of contentedness, which is within us,
that so external things may turn out for our good, through our putting
the best face on them.

"Events will take their course, it is no good
Our being angry at them, he is happiest
Who wisely turns them to the best account."[724]

Sec. V. Plato compared human life to a game at dice, wherein we ought to
throw according to our requirements, and, having thrown, to make the
best use of whatever turns up. It is not in our power indeed to
determine what the throw will be, but it is our part, if we are wise, to
accept in a right spirit whatever fortune sends, and so to contrive
matters that what we wish should do us most good, and what we do not
wish should do us least harm. For those who live at random and without
judgement, like those sickly people who can stand neither heat nor cold,
are unduly elated by prosperity, and cast down by adversity; and in
either case suffer from unrest, but 'tis their own fault, and perhaps
they suffer most in what are called good circumstances. Theodorus, who
was surnamed the Atheist, used to say that he held out arguments with
his right hand, but his hearers received them with their left; so
awkward people frequently take in a clumsy manner the favours of
fortune; but men of sense, as bees extract honey from thyme which is the
strongest and driest of herbs,[725] so from the least auspicious
circumstances frequently derive advantage and profit.

Sec. VI. We ought then to cultivate such a