barley-cake,
and he plucked up his courage and said to himself, in a railing and
chiding fashion, "What say you, Diogenes? Do your leavings give this
mouse a sumptuous meal, while you, the gentleman, wail and lament
because you are not getting drunk yonder and reclining on soft and
luxurious couches?" Whenever such depressions of mind are not frequent,
and the mind when they take place quickly recovers from them, after
having put them to flight as it were, and when such annoyance and
distraction is easily got rid of, then one may consider one's progress
in virtue as a certainty.

Sec. VI. And since not only the things that in themselves shake and turn
them in the opposite direction are more powerful in the case of weak
philosophers, but also the serious advice of friends, and the playful
and jeering objections of adversaries bend and soften people, and have
ere now shaken some out of philosophy altogether, it will be no slight
indication of one's progress in virtue if one takes all this very
calmly, and is neither disturbed nor aggravated by people who tell us
and mention to us that some of our former comrades are flourishing in
kings' courts, or have married wives with dowries, or are attended by a
crowd of friends when they come down to the forum to solicit some office
or advocateship. He that is not moved or affected by all this is already
plainly one upon whom philosophy has got a right hold; for it is
impossible that we should cease to be envious of what most people
admire, unless the admiration of virtue was strongly implanted in us.
For over-confidence may be generated in some by anger and folly, but to
despise what men admire is not possible without a true and steady
elevation of mind. And so people in such a condition of mind, comparing
it with that of others, pride themselves on it, and say with Solon, "We
would not change virtue for wealth, for while virtue abides, wealth
changes hands, and now one man, now another, has it."[263] And Diogenes
compared his shifting about from Corinth to Athens, and again from
Thebes to Corinth, to the different residences of the King of Persia, as
his spring residence at Susa, his winter residence at Babylon, and his
summer residence in Media. And Agesilaus said of the great king, "How is
he better than me, if he is not more upright?" And Aristotle, writing to
Antipater about Alexander, said, "that he ought not to think highly of
himself because he had many subjects, for anyon