and resolved henceforth to keep my house. I lead the life you see--a
spiritless, womanish life, most men would account it--holding converse
with Philosophy, with Plato, with Truth. From my high seat in this
vast theatre, I look down on the scene beneath me; a scene calculated
to afford much entertainment; calculated also to try a man's
resolution to the utmost. For, to give evil its due, believe me, there
is no better school for virtue, no truer test of moral strength, than
life in this same city of Rome. It is no easy thing, to withstand so
many temptations, so many allurements and distractions of sight and
sound. There is no help for it: like Odysseus, we must sail past them
all; and there must be no binding of hands, no stopping of our ears
with wax; that would be but sorry courage: our ears must hear, our
hands must be free,--and our contempt must be genuine. Well may that
man conceive an admiration of philosophy, who is a spectator of so
much folly; well may he despise the gifts of Fortune, who views this
stage, and its multitudinous actors. The slave grows to be master, the
rich man is poor, the pauper becomes a prince, a king; and one is His
Majesty's friend, and another is his enemy, and a third he banishes.
And here is the strangest thing of all: the affairs of mankind are
confessedly the playthings of Fortune, they have no pretence to
security; yet, with instances of this daily before their eyes, men
will reach after wealth and power;--not one of them but carries his
load of hopes unrealized.

'But I said that there was entertainment also to be derived from the
scene; and I will maintain it. Our rich men are an entertainment in
themselves, with their purple and their rings always in evidence, and
their thousand vulgarities. The latest development is the _salutation
by proxy_; [Footnote: The _spoken_ salutation being performed by a