into full practice in public life without incurring the certain
displeasure of the emperor. The stricter Stoic, therefore, like Thrasea,
retired to the seclusion of his estates 'condemning the wicked world of
Rome by his absence from it'.[151] Seneca, weaker, but possessed of
greater common sense, chose the _via media_. He was content to sacrifice
something of his principles to the service of Rome--and of himself. It
is not necessary to regard him as wholly disinterested in his conduct;
it is unjust and absurd to regard him as a glorified Tartuffe.[152] Such
a supposition is adequately refuted by his writings. It is easy for a
writer at once so fluent and so brilliant to give the impression of
insincerity; but the philosophical works of Seneca ring surprisingly
true. We cannot doubt his faith, though his life may at times have
belied it. He reveals a warmth of human feeling, a richness of
imagination, a comprehension of human failings and sorrows, that make
him rank high among the great preachers of the world. Even here, it is
true, he has his failings; he repeats himself, has little constructive
talent, and fails at times to conceal a passion for the obvious beneath
the brilliance of his epigram. But alike in the spheres of politics and
literature he is the greatest man of his age. In literature he stands
alone: he is a prose Ovid, with the saving gift of moral fervour. His
style is terse and epigrammatic, but never obscure; it lacks the roll of
the continuous prose of the Augustan age, but its phrases have a beauty
and a music of their own: at their best they are touched with a genuine
vein of poetry, at their worst they have a hard brilliance against the
attractions of which only the most fastidious eye is proof. He towered
over all his contemporaries. In him were concentrated all the
excellences of the rhetorical schools of the day. Seneca became the
model for literary aspirants to copy. But he was a dangerous model. His
lack of connexion and rhythm became exaggerated by his followers, and
the slightest lack of dexterity in the imitator led to a flashy