It is a hard matter, therefore, being rich to be
sober-minded, or being sober-minded to be rich."
The last sentence will forcibly remind the reader of our Lord's own
words, "How hardly shall they that have riches (or as the parallel
passage less startlingly expresses it, 'Children, how hard is it for
them that _trust_ in riches to') enter into the kingdom of God."
But this is a favourite subject with the ancient philosopher, and
Epictetus continues:--
"Had you been born in Persia, you would not have been eager to live in
Greece, but to stay where you were, and be happy; and, being born in
poverty, why are you eager to be rich, and not rather to abide in
poverty, and so be happy?"
"As it is better to be in good health, being hard-pressed on a little
truckle-bed, than to roll, and to be ill in some broad couch; so too it
is better in a small competence to enjoy the calm of moderate desires,
than in the midst of superfluities to be discontented."
This, too, is a thought which many have expressed. "Gentle sleep," says
Horace, "despises not the humble cottages of rustics, nor the shaded
banks, nor valleys whose foliage waves with the western wind;" and every
reader will recall the magnificent words of our own great Shakespeare--
"Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?"
To the subject of freedom, and to the power which man possesses to make
himself entirely independent of all surrounding circumstances, Epictetus
incessantly recurs.
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