he replies, "am I not good?" Because no good man laments or roans or
weeps, no good man is pale and trembles, or says, "How will he receive
me, how will he listen to me?" Slave, just as it pleases him. Why do
you care about what belongs to others? Is it now his fault if he
receives badly what proceeds from you? "Certainly." And is it possible
that a fault should be one man's, and the evil in another? "No." Why
then are you anxious about that which belongs to others? "Your
question is reasonable; but I am anxious how I shall speak to him."
Cannot you then speak to him as you choose? "But I fear that I may
be disconcerted?" If you are going to write the name of Dion, are
you afraid that you would be disconcerted? "By no means." Why? is it
not because you have practiced writing the name? "Certainly." Well, if
you were going to read the name, would you not feel the same? and why?
Because every art has a certain strength and confidence in the
things which belong to it. Have you then not practiced speaking? and
what else did you learn in the school? Syllogisms and sophistical
propositions? For what purpose? was it not for the purpose of
discoursing skillfully? and is not discoursing skillfully the same
as discoursing seasonably and cautiously and with intelligence, and
also without making mistakes and without hindrance, and besides all
this with confidence? "Yes." When, then, you are mounted on a horse
and go into a plain, are you anxious at being matched against a man
who is on foot, and anxious in a matter in which you are practiced,
and he is not? "Yes, but that person has power to kill me." Speak
the truth then, unhappy man, and do not brag, nor claim to be a
philosopher, nor refuse to acknowledge your masters, but so long as
you present this handle in your body, follow every man who is stronger
than yourself. Socrates used to practice speaking, he who talked as he
did to the tyrants, to the dicasts, he who talked in his prison.
Diogenes had practiced speaking, he who spoke as he did to
Alexander, to the pirates, to the person who bought him. These men
were confident in the things which they practiced. But do you walk off
to your own affairs and never leave them: go and sit in a corner,
and weave syllogisms, and propose them to another. There is not in you
the man who can rule a state.

CHAPTER 14

To Naso

When a certain Roman entered with his son and listened to one
reading, Epictetus said, "This is the method of instruction"; and he
stopped. When the Roman asked him to go on, Epictetus said: Every art,
when it is taught, causes labour to him who is unacquainted with it
and is unskilled in it, and indeed the things which proceed from the
arts immediately show their use in the purpose for which they were
made; and most of them contain something attractive and pleasing.
For indeed to be present and to observe how a shoemaker learns is
not a pleasant thing; but the shoe is useful and also not disagreeable
to look at. And the discipline of a smith when he is learning is