EPISTLE LXXVI.
lead a happy life; which is of course impossible. One must endure all things in defence of that which is honourable; but this would not be necessary if there existed any other good besides that which is honourable.
Although this question was discussed by me pretty extensively in a previous letter,[1] I have discussed it summarily and briefly run through the argument. 27. But an opinion of this kind will never seem true to you unless you exalt your mind and ask yourself whether, at the call of duty, you would be willing to die for your country, and buy the safety of all your fellow-citizens at the price of your own; whether you would offer your neck not only with patience, but also with gladness. If you would do this, there is no other good in your eyes. For you are giving up everything in order to acquire this good. Consider how great is the power of that which is honourable: you will die for your country, even at a moment’s notice, when you know that you ought to do so. 28. Sometimes, as a result of noble conduct, one wins great joy even in a very short and fleeting space of time; and though none of the fruits of a deed that has been done will accrue to the doer after he is dead and removed from the sphere of human affairs, yet the mere contemplation of a deed that is to be done is a delight, and the brave and upright man, picturing to himself the guerdons of his death,—guerdons such as the freedom of his country and the deliverance of all those for whom he is paying out his life,—partakes of the greatest pleasure and enjoys the fruit of his own peril. 29. But that man also who is deprived of this joy, the joy which is afforded by the contemplation
- ↑ Ep. lxxiv., esp. § 14.
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