of little worth in return for their labours; but what shall we say of
their reward who toil to obtain to themselves good friends, or to
subdue their enemies, or that through strength of body and soul they
may administer their households well, befriend their friends, and
benefit the land which gave them birth? Must we not suppose that these
too will take their sorrows lightly, looking to these high ends? Must
we not suppose that they too will gaily confront existence, who have
to support them not only their conscious virtue, but the praise and
admiration of the world?[24] And once more, habits of indolence, along
with the fleeting pleasures of the moment, are incapable, as gymnastic
trainers say, of setting up[25] a good habit of body, or of implanting
in the soul any knowledge worthy of account; whereas by painstaking
endeavour in the pursuit of high and noble deeds, as good men tell us,
through endurance we shall in the end attain the goal. So Hesiod
somewhere says:[26]

Wickedness may a man take wholesale with ease, smooth is the way
and her dwelling-place is very nigh; but in front of virtue the
immortal gods have placed toil and sweat, long is the path and
steep that leads to her, and rugged at the first, but when the
summit of the pass is reached, then for all its roughness the path
grows easy.

[23] Cf. above, I. vi. 8.

[24] Or, "in admiration of themselves, the praise and envy of the
world at large."

[25] See Hippocrates, "V. Med." 18.