You would try your hardest to be rid of the illness as soon as possible. If you were ill, you would stop caring for your personal concerns, and forget your business duties you would not think highly enough of any client to take active charge of his case during a slight abatement of your sufferings. Do not study philosophy merely during your spare time.ĩ. Say farewell to all other interests with courage and frankness. You are worthy of her she is worthy of you greet one another with a loving embrace. Philosophy, however, is the only power that can stir us, the only power that can shake off our deep slumber. Let us, therefore, rouse ourselves, that we may be able to correct our mistakes. Why will no man confess his faults? Because he is still in their grasp only he who is awake can recount his dream, and similarly a confession of sin is a proof of sound mind. For he whose sleep is light pursues visions during slumber, and sometimes, though asleep, is conscious that he is asleep but sound slumber annihilates our very dreams and sinks the spirit down so deep that it has no perception of self. You need not be surprised, my beloved Lucilius. The opposite holds true of diseases of the soul the worse one is, the less one perceives it. Then the ailment, uncertain at first, must be given a name and when it begins to swell the ankles also, and has made both our feet “right” feet, we are bound to confess that we have the gout. There is pain in the foot, and a tingling sensation in the joints but we still hide the complaint and announce that we have sprained a joint, or else are tired from over-exercise. A slight ague deceives us but when it has increased and a genuine fever has begun to burn, it forces even a hardy man, who can endure much suffering, to admit that he is ill. When I finally calmed my stomach (for you know that one does not escape seasickness by escaping from the sea) and refreshed my body with a rubdown, I began to reflect how completely we forget or ignore our failings, even those that affect the body, which are continually reminding us of their existence, – not to mention those which are more serious in proportion as they are more hidden. And in the future I also, if I must go anywhere by sea, shall only reach my destination in the twentieth year.ĥ. It is hard to believe what I endured when I could not endure myself you may be sure that the reason why Ulysses was shipwrecked on every possible occasion was not so much because the sea-god was angry with him from his birth he was simply subject to seasickness. What do you think my feelings were, scrambling over the rocks, searching out the path, or making one for myself? l understood that sailors have good reason to fear the land. I remembered my profession as a veteran devotee of cold water, and, clad as I was in my cloak, let myself down into the sea, just as a cold-water bather should. When we drew near, I did not wait for things to be done in accordance with Vergil’s orders, until Therefore I laid down the law to my pilot, forcing him to make for the shore, willy-nilly. But I was suffering too grievously to think of the danger, since a sluggish seasickness which brought no relief was racking me, the sort that upsets the liver without clearing it. I began to ask the pilot to put me ashore somewhere he replied that the coast was rough and a bad place to land, and that in a storm he feared a lee shore more than anything else. The storm had not yet begun, but the ground-swell was on, and the waves kept steadily coming faster. But when we were so far out that it made little difference to me whether I returned or kept on, the calm weather, which had enticed me, came to naught. So, in order to get away more quickly, I made straight out to sea for Nesis, with the purpose of cutting across all the inlets. Still, I thought that the few miles between Puteoli and your dear Parthenope might be run off in quick time, despite the uncertain and lowering sky. We cast off when the sea was lazily smooth the sky, to be sure, was heavy with nasty clouds, such as usually break into rain or squalls. You can persuade me into almost anything now, for I was recently persuaded to travel by water.
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