_A._ It is not to be expressed how much I was delighted, or rather
edified, by your discourse of yesterday. For although I am conscious to
myself that I have never been too fond of life, yet at times, when I
have considered that there would be an end to this life, and that I
must some time or other part with all its good things, a certain dread
and uneasiness used to intrude itself on my thoughts; but now, believe
me, I am so freed from that kind of uneasiness that there is nothing
that I think less worth any regard.

_M._ I am not at all surprised at that, for it is the effect of
philosophy, which is the medicine of our souls; it banishes all
groundless apprehensions, frees us from desires, and drives away fears:
but it has not the same influence over all men; it is of very great
influence when it falls in with a disposition well adapted to it. For
not only does Fortune, as the old proverb says, assist the bold, but
reason does so in a still greater degree; for it, by certain precepts,
as it were, strengthens even courage itself. You were born naturally
great and soaring, and with a contempt for all things which pertain to
man alone; therefore a discourse against death took easy possession of
a brave soul. But do you imagine that these same arguments have any
force with those very persons who have invented, and canvassed, and
published them, excepting indeed some very few particular persons? For
how few philosophers will you meet with whose life and manners are
conformable to the dictates of reason! who look on their profession,
not as a means of displaying their learning, but as a rule for their
own practice! who follow their own precepts, and comply with their own
decrees! You may see some of such levity and such vanity, that it would
have been better for them to have been ignorant; some covetous of
money, some others eager for glory, many slaves to their lusts; so that