The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [53]
2. Consider what Laelius said when asked about the death of his friend Scipio, with whom he had passed all his life in work, in war, in office and in affection.
3. A friend said to Laelius, ‘You are accounted wise not only for your natural ability and character, but also for your learning.
4. ‘In this sense we hear of no one called wise save that one man at Athens, Socrates, who desired to know the good.
5. ‘Your wisdom consists in this, that you look upon yourself as self-sufficing, and regard the accidents of life as powerless to affect your virtue.
6. ‘How then do you respond to the death of your dear friend Scipio: for such grief is both a test of character, and a mark of the nature of friendship.
7. ‘For you did not come to our regular meeting at our college, and it was asked: how fares Laelius in the death of Scipio?
8. ‘What does a man reputed for wisdom think and feel in this heavy case?
9. ‘I see that you bear your grief in a reasoned manner, even though you have lost one who was at the same time your dearest friend and a man of illustrious character;
10. ‘So of course you could not but be affected; nothing else would have been natural in a man of your gentleness;
11. ‘But yet I think that the cause of your absence from our college was illness, not melancholy; I do not think grief has defeated you.’
12. To which Laelius replied: ‘My thanks, friend! What you say is correct; I would have no right, if in health, to withdraw from duties, not even for personal misfortune;
13. ‘For I do not think that anything that can happen will cause a man of principle to intermit a duty.
14. ‘As for the honourable appellation of wisdom you give me, I make no claim: you doubtless say this from affection;
15. ‘But if anyone was ever truly wise, which I yet doubt, the great Cato most certainly was.
16. ‘Putting aside everything else, consider how he bore his son’s death! I have not forgotten those who lost their sons when mere children; but Cato lost his when full-grown with an assured reputation.
17. ‘Do not therefore be in a hurry to reckon as Cato’s superior even Socrates, for remember that the former’s reputation rests on deeds, the latter’s on words.
18. ‘But if I were to claim not to be affected by grief for Scipio, I should lie, for so I am:
19. ‘Affected by the loss of a friend as I think there will never be again, such as I can fearlessly say there never was before.
20. ‘Yet I stand in no need of medicine. I can find my own consolation, and it consists chiefly in being free from the mistaken notions that generally cause pain at the death of friends.
21. ‘To Scipio I am convinced no evil has befallen. Mine is the disaster, if disaster there be; and to be prostrated by distress at one’s own misfortunes does not show that you love your friend, but that you love yourself.
22. ‘As for him, who can say that all is not more than well? He rests for ever now; and this after attainments in life which any man would wish for.
23. ‘He achieved great things by his unswerving dedication in the work that the world and our community asked of him.
24. ‘What need even to mention the grace of his manners, his devotion to those he loved, the integrity of his conduct to everyone?
25. ‘All this is known. What could such a man have gained by the addition of a few years?
26. ‘Though age need not be a burden, yet it cannot but take away a measure of vigour and freshness;
27. ‘And with little more to add, there is nothing that is lost when so much stands already gained.
28. ‘Wherefore, as I said before, all is as well as possible with him: he sleeps, after much achievement.’
Chapter 2
1. ‘Not so with me; for as I entered life before him, it would have been fairer for me to leave it also before him.
2. ‘Yet such is the pleasure I take in recalling our friendship, that I look upon my life as having been a happy one because I have spent it with Scipio.
3. ‘With him I was associated