ents of your old crony, who himself still requires teaching, just
as if a blind man should undertake to show the way: however see, if even
I can advance any thing, which you may think worth your while to adopt
as your own.

If pleasant rest, and sleep till seven o'clock, delight you; if dust and
the rumbling of wheels, if the tavern offend you, I shall order you off
for Ferentinum. For joys are not the property of the rich alone: nor
has he lived ill, who at his birth and at his death has passed
unnoticed. If you are disposed to be of service to your friends, and to
treat yourself with somewhat more indulgence, you, being poor, must pay
your respects to the great. Aristippus, if he could dine to his
satisfaction on herbs, would never frequent [the tables] of the great.
If he who blames me, [replies Aristippus,] knew how to live with the
great, he would scorn his vegetables. Tell me, which maxim and conduct
of the two you approve; or, since you are my junior, hear the reason why
Aristippus' opinion is preferable; for thus, as they report, he baffled
the snarling cynic: "I play the buffoon for my own advantage, you [to
please] the populace. This [conduct of mine] is better and far more
honorable; that a horse may carry and a great man feed me, pay court to
the great: you beg for refuse, an inferior to the [poor] giver; though
you pretend you are in want of nothing." As for Aristippus, every
complexion of life, every station and circumstance sat gracefully upon
him, aspiring in general to greater things, yet equal to the present: on
the other hand, I shall be much surprised, if a contrary way of life
should become [this cynic], whom obstinacy clothes with a double rag.
The one will not wait for his purple robe; but dressed in any thing,
will go through the most frequented places, and without awkwardness
support either character: the other will shun the cloak wrought at
Miletus with greater aversion than [the bite of] dog or viper; he will
die with cold, unless you restore him his ragged garment; restore it,
and let him live like a fool as he is. To perform exploits, and show the
citizens their foes in chains, reaches the throne of Jupiter, and aims
at celestial honors. To have been acceptable to the great, is not the
last of praises. It is not every man's lot to gain Corinth. He
[prudently] sat still who was afraid lest he should not succeed: be it
so; what then? Was it not bravely done by him, who carried his point?
Eithe