, he asked one of
those who made a great show of condolence and sympathy, "Have you not
only one little piece of ground, while I have three fields left?" And
when he admitted that it was so, he went on to say, "Ought I not then to
condole with you rather than you with me?" For it is the act of a madman
to distress oneself over what is lost, and not to rejoice at what is
left; but like little children, if one of their many playthings be taken
away by anyone, throw the rest away and weep and cry out, so we, if we
are assailed by fortune in some one point, wail and mourn and make all
other things seem unprofitable in our eyes.

Sec. IX. Suppose someone should say, What blessings have we? I would reply,
What have we not? One has reputation, another a house, another a wife,
another a good friend. When Antipater of Tarsus was reckoning up on his
death-bed his various pieces of good fortune, he did not even pass over
his favourable voyage from Cilicia to Athens. So we should not overlook,
but take account of everyday blessings, and rejoice that we live, and
are well, and see the sun, and that no war or sedition plagues our
country, but that the earth is open to cultivation, the sea secure to
mariners, and that we can speak or be silent, lead a busy or an idle
life, as we choose. We shall get more contentedness from the presence of
all these blessings, if we fancy them as absent, and remember from time
to time how people ill yearn for health, and people in war for peace,
and strangers and unknown in a great city for reputation and friends,
and how painful it is to be deprived of all these when one has once had
them. For then each of these blessings will not appear to us only great
and valuable when it is lost, and of no value while we have it. For not
having it cannot add value to anything. Nor ought we to amass things we
regard as valuable, and always be on the tremble and afraid of losing
them as valuable things, and yet, when we have them, ignore them and
think little of them; but we ought to use them for our pleasure and
enjoyment, that we may bear their loss, if that should happen, with more
equanimity. But most people, as Arcesilaus said, think it right to
inspect minutely and in every detail, perusing them alike with the eyes
of the body and mind, other people's poems and paintings and statues,
while they neglect to study their own lives, which have often many not
unpleasing subjects for contemplation, looking abroad and