The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [61]
6. ‘Why then,’ you ask, ‘do we all so persist in lamenting what was ours, if it is not nature’s will that we should?’
7. Because we never anticipate any evil before it arrives, but, imagining that we ourselves are exempt and are travelling a less exposed path,
8. We refuse to be taught by the mishaps of others that such is the lot of all. So many funerals pass our doors, yet we never think of death!
9. So many deaths are untimely, yet we make plans for our own infants – how they will don the toga, serve in the army, and succeed to their father’s property!
10. So many rich men are stricken before our eyes with sudden poverty, yet it never occurs to us that our own wealth also rests on just as slippery a footing!
11. Of necessity, therefore, we are more prone to collapse; we are struck, as it were, off our guard; blows that are long foreseen fall less violently.
12. And you wish to be told that you stand exposed to blows of every sort, and that the darts that have transfixed others have quivered around you!
13. Just as if you were assaulting some city wall, or were mounting, only half-armed, against some lofty position manned by the enemy,
14. Expect to be wounded, and be sure that the missiles that whirl above your head, the stones and the arrows and the javelins, were all aimed at your own person.
15. Whenever anyone falls at your side or behind you, cry out: ‘Life, you will not deceive me, you will not find me unprepared and heedless.
16. ‘I know what you are planning; it is true you struck someone else, but you aimed at me.’
17. Who of us ever looked upon his possessions with the thought that he would die?
18. Who of us ever ventured to think upon exile, upon want, upon grief?
19. Who, if he were urged to reflect upon these things, would not reject the idea as too uncomfortable?
20. You say: ‘I did not think it would happen.’ Do you think there is anything that will not happen, when you know that it is possible to happen, when you see that it has already happened to many?
21. Whatever can befall one man can befall all men.
22. That man lost his children; you also may lose yours.
23. That man was condemned to death; your innocence also is in peril.
24. Such is the delusion that deceives and weakens us while we suffer misfortunes which we never foresaw that we ourselves could possibly suffer.
Chapter 12
1. He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand.
2. All these fortuitous things, Marcia, that glitter about us – children, honours, wealth, spacious halls and vestibules packed with a throng of unadmitted clients,
3. A famous name, a high-born or beautiful wife, and all else that depends upon uncertain and fickle chance – these are not our own but borrowed trappings;
4. Not one of them belongs to us outright. The properties that adorn life’s stage have been lent, and must go back to their owners;
5. Some of them will be returned on the first day, others on the second, only a few will endure until the end.
6. We have, therefore, no reason to be prideful as if we were surrounded with things that belong to us; we have received them merely as a loan from time.
7. On our part we ought always to keep in readiness the gifts that have been granted for a time not fixed, and, when called upon, to restore them without complaint.
8. And so we should love all our dear ones, both those whom, by the condition of birth, we hope will survive us, and those whose own most just hope is to pass away before us,
9. But always with the thought that we have no promise that we may keep them for ever;
10. Nay, no promise even that we may keep them for long.
11. Often must the heart be reminded of this; it must remember that loved objects will surely leave, indeed, are already leaving.
12. Take whatever life gives, remembering that it has no promise to endure.
13. Snatch the pleasures your children bring, let your children in turn find delight in you, and drain joy to the dregs without delay;
14. No promise has been given you even