man, because each man fancies that the one man can improve his
circumstances for him.

But the wise man will learn, like Epictetus the heroic slave, the slave
of Epaphroditus, Nero's minion--and in what baser and uglier
circumstances could human being find himself?--to find out the secret of
being truly free; namely, to be discontented with no man and no thing
save himself. To say not--"Oh that I had this and that!" but "Oh that I
were this and that!" Then, by God's help--and that heroic slave, heathen
though he was, believed and trusted in God's help--"I will make myself
that which God has shown me that I ought to be and can be."

Ten thousand a-year, or ten million a-year, as Epictetus saw full well,
cannot mend that vulgar discontent with circumstances, which he had
felt--and who with more right?--and conquered, and despised. For that is
the discontent of children, wanting always more holidays and more sweets.
But I wish my readers to have, and to cherish, the discontent of men and
women.

Therefore I would make men and women discontented, with the divine and
wholesome discontent, at their own physical frame, and at that of their
children. I would accustom their eyes to those precious heirlooms of the
human race, the statues of the old Greeks; to their tender grandeur,
their chaste healthfulness, their unconscious, because perfect, might:
and say--There; these are tokens to you, and to all generations yet
unborn, of what man could be once; of what he can be again if he will
obey those laws of nature which are the voice of God. I would make them
discontented with the ugliness and closeness of their dwellings; I would
make the men discontented with the fashion of their garments, and still
more just now the women, of all ranks, with the fashion of theirs; and