Examine it narrowly in all its details, and see whether you like the idea
of going in at my golden front door, to be expelled ignominiously at the
back. And whichever way you decide, remember the words of the wise man:
'Blame not Heaven, but your own choice.'




APOLOGY FOR 'THE DEPENDENT SCHOLAR'


DEAR SABINUS,

I have been guessing how you are likely to have expressed yourself upon
reading my essay about dependants. I feel pretty sure you read it all and
had a laugh over it; but it is your running and general comment in words
that I am trying to piece on to it. If I am any good at divination, this
is the sort of thing: _To think that a man can set down such a scathing
indictment of the life, and then forget it all, get hold of the other end
of the stick, and plunge headlong into such manifest conspicuous slavery!
Take Midas, Croesus, golden Pactolus, roll them into one, multiply them,
and could they induce him to relinquish the freedom which he has loved
and consorted with from a child? He is nearly in the clutches of Aeacus,
one foot is on the ferryman's boat, and it is now that he lets himself be
dragged submissively about by a golden collar._ [Footnote: Omitting as
a scholium, with Dindorf and Fritzsche, the words: hoia esti ton
tryphonton plousion ta sphingia kai ta kourallia.] _There is some
slight inconsistency between his life and his treatise; the rivers are
running up-hill; topsy-turvydom prevails; our recantations are new-