Moral Letters to Lucilius

​I do not wish you, my Lucilius, to be too anxious about words and composition; I have greater things for you to care about. Seek what you should write, not how; and this itself, not so that you may write, but so that you may feel, so that you may apply those things which you have felt more to yourself and, as it were, stamp them upon you. Whosoever’s speech you see to be anxious and polished, know that their mind also is no less occupied with trifling things.

​That great man speaks more easily and with less care; whatever he says has more of confidence than of anxiety. You know those dandy young men, gleaming with their beard and hair, entirely straight out of a bandbox; you should expect nothing strong, nothing solid from them. Speech is the cultivation of the mind: if it is trimmed all around and painted and artificial, it shows that the mind also is not sincere and has something broken in it. Symmetry is not a manly ornament.

​If we were allowed to look into the mind of a good man, oh, what a beautiful face, how holy, how gleaming from grandeur and tranquility we should see, with justice shining from this side, fortitude from that, and temperance and prudence from this! In addition to these, frugality, self-control, endurance, liberality, courtesy, and—who would believe it?—humanity, a rare good in man, would pour their own splendor upon it. Then foresight along with refinement, and, most eminent of all arising from these, magnanimity, oh, good gods, how much beauty, how much weight and gravity they would add to it! How great would be its authority combined with grace! No one would call it amiable without at the same time calling it venerable.

​If anyone should see this face, loftier and more radiant than what is accustomed to be seen among human things, would he not stop, stunned as if by the encounter with a divinity, and silently pray that “it may be lawful to have seen it”? Then, drawn forward by the very kindness of the countenance calling him forth, would he not worship and supplicate, and having long contemplated it, standing out far and elevated above the measure of things accustomed to be looked at among us, with eyes that have something gentle in them, but nonetheless burning with a vivid fire—would he not then at last, reverent and astonished, utter that voice of our Virgil?

” Oh, how should I call you, maiden? For your countenance is not mortal, nor does your voice sound human. May you be propitious, and, whoever you are, lighten our labor.” She will be present and will lighten it, if we are willing to worship her. But she is worshiped not by slaughtering the fat bodies of bulls, nor by hanging up gold and silver, nor by pouring small coins into treasuries, but by a pious and upright will.

​No one, I say, would not burn with love for her, if it were our lot to see her; but as it is, many things block our way and either strike back our vision with excessive brightness or keep it in darkness. But if, just as the sight of the eyes is accustomed to be sharpened and cleansed by certain medicines, we are willing to free the vision of our mind from obstacles, we shall be able to perceive virtue even when buried in a body, even when poverty stands in its way, even when lowliness and infamy lie across it. We shall discern, I say, that beauty however covered with dirt.

​On the other hand, we shall equally perceive malice and the lethargy of a wretched mind, although the great splendor of radiant riches around it hinders us, and the false light of honors on this side, and of great powers on that side, strikes the onlooker .

​Then it will be permitted to us to understand how contemptible are the things we admire, being very like children to whom every toy is precious; indeed, they prefer necklaces bought for a few copper coins to their parents and no less to their brothers. What, then, is the difference between us and them, as Ariston says, except that we run mad about paintings and statues, being foolish at a higher cost? Smooth pebbles found on the shore, having some variety, delight them; the spots of huge columns, brought either from Egyptian sands or from the deserts of Africa to support some portico or a dining room capable of holding a crowd, delight us.

​We admire walls overlaid with a thin layer of marble, though we know what kind of thing is hidden beneath. We practice a deception upon our own eyes, and when we have gilded our ceilings with gold, what else do we do but rejoice in a lie? For we know that ugly wood lurks beneath that gold. Nor is a thin ornament stretched over walls or lacunars alone; the happiness of all those whom you see walking high is gold-leafed. Look within, and you will know how much evil lies beneath that thin membrane of dignity.