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escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have
often occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to
me now as at the time when he uttered them. For certainly
old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the pas-
sions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed
from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many.
The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the com-
plaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause,
which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for
he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the
pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition
youth and age are equally a burden.

I listened in admiration, and wanting to draw him out, that
he might go on--Yes, Cephalus, I said; but I rather suspect
that people in general are not convinced by you when you
speak thus; they think that old age sits lightly upon you, not
because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich,
and wealth is well known to be a great comforter.

You are right, he replied; they are not convinced: and
there is something in what they say; not, however, so much
as they imagine. I might answer them as Themistocles an-
swered the Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that
he was famous, not for his own merits but because he was
an Athenian: "If you had been a native of my country or
I of yours, neither of us would have been famous." And to
those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same
reply may be made; for to the good poor man old age can-
not be a light burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace
with himself.

May I ask, Cephalus, whether your fortune was for the most
part inherited or acquired by you?

Acquired! Socrates; do you want to know how much I
acquired? In the art of making money I have been midway
between my father and grandfather: for my grandfather,
whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of his patri-
mony, that which he inherited being much what I possess now;
but my father, Lysanias, reduced the property below what it
is at present; and I shall be satisfied if I leave to these my
sons not less, but a little more, than I received.

That was why I asked you the question, I replied, because
I see that you are indifferent about money, which is a charac-
teristic rather of those who have inherited their fortunes than of
those who have acquired them; the makers of fortunes have a
second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the
affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their
children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use
and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence
they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing
but the praises of wealth.
That is true, he said.

Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question?--
What do you consider to be the greatest blessing which you
have reaped from your wealth?

One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince
others. For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks
himself to be near death, fears and cares enter into his mind
which he never had before; the tales of a world below and the