to delight our ears with language, or with the voice, or with plays. You
will observe a large portion of the audience to whom the philosopher's
school is a mere haunt of their leisure. Their object is not to lay
aside any vices there, or to accept any law in accordance with which
they may conform their life, but that they may enjoy a mere tickling of
their ears. Some, however, even come with tablets in their hands, to
catch up not _things_ but _words_. Some with eager countenances and
spirits are kindled by magnificent utterances, and these are charmed by
the beauty of the thoughts, not by the sound of empty words; but the
impression is not lasting. Few only have attained the power of carrying
home with them the frame of mind into which they had been elevated."

It was to this small latter class that Seneca belonged. He became a
Stoic from very early years. The Stoic philosophers, undoubtedly the
noblest and purest of ancient sects, received their name from the fact
that their founder Zeno had lectured in the Painted Porch or Stoa
Paecile of Athens. The influence of these austere and eloquent masters,
teaching high lessons of morality and continence, and inspiring their
young audience with the glow of their own enthusiasm for virtue, must
have been invaluable in that effete and drunken age. Their doctrines
were pushed to yet more extravagant lengths by the Cynics, who were so
called from a Greek word meaning "dog," from what appeared to the
ancients to be the dog-like brutality of their manners. Juvenal
scornfully remarks, that the Stoics only differed from the Cynics "by a
tunic," which the Stoics wore and the Cynics discarded. Seneca never
indeed adopted the practices of Cynicism, but he often speaks admiringly
of the arch-Cynic Diogenes, and repeatedly refers to the Cynic
Demetrius, as a man deserving of the very highest esteem. "I take with
me everywhere," writes he to Lucilius, "that best of men, Demetrius;
and, leaving those who wear purple robes, I talk with him who is half