habit as this, like the man who
threw a stone at his dog, and missed it, but hit his step-mother, and
cried out, "Not so bad." Thus we may often turn the edge of fortune when
things turn not out as we wish. Diogenes was driven into exile; "not so
bad;" for his exile made him turn philosopher. And Zeno of Cittium,[726]
when he heard that the only merchantman he had was wrecked, cargo and
all, said, "Fortune, you treat me handsomely, since you reduce me to my
threadbare cloak and piazza."[727] What prevents our imitating such men
as these? Have you failed to get some office? You will be able to live
in the country henceforth, and manage your own affairs. Did you court
the friendship of some great man, and meet with a rebuff? You will live
free from danger and cares. Have you again had matters to deal with that
required labour and thought? "Warm water will not so much make the limbs
soft by soaking," to quote Pindar,[728] as glory and honour and power
make "labour sweet, and toil to be no toil."[729] Or has any bad luck or
contumely fallen on you in consequence of some calumny or from envy? The
breeze is favourable that will waft you to the Muses and the Academy, as
it did Plato when his friendship with Dionysius came to an end. It does
indeed greatly conduce to contentedness of mind to see how famous men
have borne the same troubles with an unruffled mind. For example, does
childlessness trouble you? Consider those kings of the Romans, none of
whom left his kingdom to a son. Are you distressed at the pinch of
poverty? Who of the Boeotians would you rather prefer to be than
Epaminondas, or of the Romans than Fabricius? Has your wife been
seduced? Have you never read that inscription at Delphi,

"Agis the king of land and sea erected me;"

and have you not heard that his wife Timaea was seduced by Alcibiades,
and in her whispers to her handmaidens called the child that was born
Alcibiades? Yet this did not prevent Agis from being the most famous and
greatest of the Greeks. Neither again did the licentiousness of his
daughter prevent Stilpo from leading the merriest life of all the
philosophers that were his contemporaries. And when Metrocles reproached
him with her life, he said, "Is it my fault or hers?" And when Metrocles
answered, "Her fault, but your misfortune," he rejoined, "How say you?
Are not faults also slips?" "Certainly," said he. "And are not slips
mischances in those matters wherein we slip?" Metrocles asse