Moral Letters to Lucilius

​Therefore, although they may now endeavor to restore what they lost, although they may add field to field, driving out a neighbor either by purchase or by injury, although they may extend their estates to the size of provinces and call a long journey through their own lands “a single possession,” no extension of boundaries will lead us back to where we departed. When we have done all things, we shall have much; but we used to have the universe.

​The earth itself, untilled, was more fertile and abundant for the use of peoples who did not plunder. Whatever nature had produced, it was a pleasure no less to have found it than to show to another what had been found. Nor could there be too much or too little for anyone; it was divided among those who lived in harmony. Not yet had the stronger laid his hand upon the weaker; not yet had the avaricious, by hiding what lay there for himself, excluded another even from necessaries; there was an equal care for another as for oneself.

​Weapons were idle, and hands unstained with human blood had turned all their hatred toward wild beasts. Those whom some dense grove had protected from the sun, who lived under foliage safe from the severity of winter or rain in a mean shelter, passed peaceful nights without a sigh. Anxiety turns us on our purple couches and rouses us with the sharpest stings; but what soft sleep the hard earth gave to them!

​No carved ceilings hung over them, but as they lay in the open, the stars glided over them, and the universe, the wondrous spectacle of the nights, was driven headlong, performing so great a work in silence alone. The view of this most beautiful house was open to them by day as well as by night. It was a pleasure to watch the constellations sloping from the middle part of the sky, and again others rising from obscurity.

​Why should it not be a pleasure to wander among wonders so widely scattered? But you tremble at every sound of your roofs, and among your paintings, if anything makes a noise, you flee astonished. They did not have houses like cities. The breath of air, free and blowing through open spaces, and the light shadow of a cliff or a tree, and crystal-clear springs and streams, defiled neither by artifice nor by pipes nor by any forced channel, but flowing spontaneously, and meadows beautiful without art—among these was their rustic dwelling, fashioned by a simple hand. This was a house according to nature, in which it was a pleasure to live, fearing neither the house itself nor for it; now, a great part of our fear is our roofs.

​But although their life was excellent and free from deceit, they were not wise, since this name is already for the greatest achievement. Yet I would not deny that they were men of high spirit and, so to speak, fresh from the gods. For there is no doubt that the world, not yet exhausted, produced better things. But just as the disposition in all was stronger and more ready for labors, so minds were not perfected in all. For nature does not give virtue; it is an art to become good.

​They indeed did not seek gold or silver or translucent stones in the lowest dregs of the earth, and they still spared even dumb animals; it was so far from the case that a man should kill a man without anger, without fear, but merely to watch. Not yet was there embroidered clothing for them, not yet was gold woven, nor as yet was it even dug out.

​What is it then? They were innocent through ignorance of things. But there is a great difference between whether someone does not wish to sin, or does not know how. They lacked justice, they lacked prudence, they lacked temperance and fortitude. Their rude life had certain things similar to all these virtues; but virtue does not fall to the lot of a mind unless it is trained and taught, and brought to the highest point by constant practice. Indeed, we are born for this, but without this, and even in the best of us, before you educate them, there is the material of virtue, not virtue itself. FAREWELL.