One of Caius's favourites whispered to the Emperor
that it was useless to extinguish a waning lamp; that the health of the
orator was so feeble that a natural death by the progress of his
consumptive tendencies would, in a very short time, remove him out of
the tyrant's way.
Throughout the remainder of the few years during which the reign of
Caius continued, Seneca, warned in time, withdrew himself into complete
obscurity, employing his enforced leisure in that unbroken industry
which stored his mind with such encyclopaedic wealth. "None of my days,"
he says, in describing at a later period the way in which he spent his
time, "is passed in complete ease. I claim even a part of the night for
my studies. I do not _find leisure_ for sleep, but I _succumb_ to it,
and I keep my eyes at their work even when they are wearied and drooping
with watchfulness. I have retired, not only from men, but from affairs,
and especially from my own. I am doing the work for posterity; I am
writing out things which may prove of advantage to them. I am
intrusting to writing healthful admonitions--compositions, as it were,
of useful medicines.
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