He _must_, for instance, have a bath for his child,
provisions for his wife's ailments, and clothes for his little ones, and
money to buy them satchels and pens, and cribs and cups; and hence a
general increase of furniture, and all sorts of undignified
distractions, which Epictetus enumerates with an almost amusing
manifestation of disgust. It is true (he admits) that Crates, a
celebrated cynic, was married, but it was to a lady as self-denying as
himself, and to one who had given up wealth and friends to share
hardship and poverty with him. And, if Epictetus does not venture to say
in so many words that Crates in this matter made a mistake, he takes
pains to point out that the circumstances were far too exceptional to be
accepted as a precedent for the imitation of others.
"But," inquires the interlocutor, "how then is the world to get on?" The
question seems quite to disturb the bachelor equanimity of Epictetus; it
makes him use language of the strongest and most energetic contempt: and
it is only when he trenches on this subject that he ever seems to lose
the nobility and grace, the "sweetness and light," which are the general
characteristic of his utterances.
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