ians when Perseus their
king was taken prisoner. I saw, too, when I was a young man, some
Corinthians in the Peloponnesus. They might all have lamented with
Andromache,--

All these I saw...;

but they had perhaps given over lamenting themselves, for by their
countenances, and speech, and other gestures, you might have taken them
for Argives or Sicyonians. And I myself was more concerned at the ruined
walls of Corinth, than the Corinthians themselves were, whose minds by
frequent reflection and time had become callous to such sights. I have
read a book of Clitomachus, which he sent to his fellow-citizens, who were
prisoners, to comfort them after the destruction of Carthage; there is in
it a treatise written by Carneades, which, as Clitomachus says, he had
inserted into his book; the subject was, "That it appeared probable that a
wise man would grieve at the state of subjection of his country," and all
the arguments which Carneades used against this proposition are set down
in the book. There the philosopher applies such a strong medicine to a
fresh grief, as would be quite unnecessary in one of any continuance; nor,
if this very book had been sent to the captives some years after, would it
have found any wounds to cure, but only scars; for grief, by a gentle
progress and slow degrees, wears away imperceptibly. Not that the
circumstances which gave rise to it are altered, or can be, but that
custom teaches what reason should, that those things which before seemed
to be of some consequence, are of no such great importance after all.

XXIII. It may be said, What occasion is there to apply to reason, or to
any sort of consolation such as we generally make use of, to mitigate the
grief of the afflicted? For we have this argument always at hand, that
nothing ought to appear unexpected. But how will any one be enabled to
bear his misfortunes the better by knowing that it is unavoidable that
such things should happen to man? Saying this subtracts nothing from the
sum of the grief: it only asserts that nothing has fallen out but what
might have been anticipated; and yet this manner of speaking has some
little consolation in it, though I apprehend not a great deal. Therefore
those unlooked-for things have not so much force as to give rise to all
our grief; the blow perhaps may fall the heavier, but whatever happens
does not appear the greater on that account; no, it is the fact of its
having happened lately, and not of