EPISTLE LXXXVIII.
rather what purity is, and how great a good we have in it, and whether it is situated in the body or in the soul.
9. Now I will transfer my attention to the musician. You, sir, are teaching me how the treble and the bass[1] are in accord with one another, and how, though the strings produce different notes, the result is a harmony; rather bring my soul into harmony with itself, and let not my purposes be out of tune. You are showing me what the doleful keys[2] are; show me rather how, in the midst of adversity, I may keep from uttering a doleful note. 10. The mathematician teaches me how to lay out the dimensions of my estates; but I should rather be taught how to lay out what is enough for a man to own. He teaches me to count, and adapts my fingers to avarice; but I should prefer him to teach me that there is no point in such calculations, and that one is none the happier for tiring out the book-keepers with his possessions—or rather, how useless property is to any man who would find it the greatest misfortune if he should be required to reckon out, by his own wits, the amount of his holdings. 11. What good is there for me in knowing how to parcel out a piece of land, if I know not how to share it with my brother? What good is there in working out to a nicety the dimensions of an acre, and in detecting the error if a piece has so much as escaped my measuring-rod, if I am embittered when an ill-tempered neighbour merely scrapes off a bit of my land? The mathematician teaches me how I may lose none of my boundaries; I, however, seek to learn how to lose them all with a light heart. 12. “But,” comes the reply, “I am being driven from the farm which my father and grandfather owned!” Well? Who owned the land before your grand-
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