Discourses - Book IV   

live in this tumult?" Why do you say "tumult"? "I mean among many
men." Well what is the hardship? Suppose that you are at Olympia:
imagine it to be a panegyris, where one is calling out one thing,
another is doing another thing, and a third is pushing another person:
in the baths there is a crowd: and who of us is not pleased with
this assembly and leaves it unwillingly, Be not difficult to please
nor fastidious about what happens. "Vinegar is disagreeable, for it is
sharp; honey is disagreeable, for it disturbs my habit of body. I do
not like vegetables." So also, "I do not like leisure; it is a desert:
I do not like a crowd; it is confusion." But if circumstances make
it necessary for you to live alone or with a few, call it quiet and
use the thing as you ought: talk with yourself, exercise the
appearances, work up your preconceptions. If you fall into a crowd,
call it a celebration of games, a panegyris, a festival: try to
enjoy the festival with other men. For what is a more pleasant sight
to him who loves mankind than a number of men? We see with pleasure
herds of horses or oxen: we are delighted when we see many ships:
who is pained when he sees many men? "But they deafen me with their
cries." Then your hearing is impeded. What, then, is this to you?
Is, then, the power of making use of appearances hindered? And who
prevents you from using, according to nature, inclination to a thing
and aversion from it; and movement toward a thing and movement from
it? What tumult is able to do this?
Do you only bear in mind the general rules: "What is mine, what is
not mine; what is given to me; what does God will that I should do
now? what does He not will?" A little before he willed you to be at
leisure, to talk with yourself, to write about these things, to
read, to hear, to prepare yourself. You had sufficient time for
this. Now He says to you: "Come now to the contest; show us what you
have learned, how you have practiced the athletic art. How long will
you be exercised alone? Now is the opportunity for you to learn
whether you are an athlete worthy of victory, or one of those who go
about the world and are defeated." Why, then, are; you vexed? No
contest is without confusion. There be many who exercise themselves
for the contests, many who call out to those who exercise
themselves, many masters, many spectators. "But my wish is to live
quietly." Lament, then, and groan as you deserve to do. For what other
is a greater punishment than this to the untaught man and to him who
disobeys the divine commands: to be grieved, to lament, to envy, in
a word, to be disappointed and to he unhappy? Would you not release
yourself from these things? "And how shall I release myself?" Have you
not often heard that you ought to remove entirely desire, apply
aversion to those things only which are within your power, that you
ought to give up everything, body, property, fame, books, tumult,
power, private station? for whatever way you turn, you are a slave,
you are subjected, you are hindered, you are compelled, you are
entirely in the power of others. But keep the words of Cleanthes in
readiness,

Lead me, O Zeus, and thou necessity.