No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.
Constantly contemplate the whole of time and the whole of substance, and consider that all individual things as to substance are a grain of a fig, and as to time, the turning of a gimlet.
Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and in change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted by nature as to die.
Consider what men are when they are eating, sleeping, generating, easing themselves and so forth. Then what kind of men they are when they are imperious and arrogant, or angry and scolding from their elevated place. But a short time ago to how many they were slaves and for what things; and after a little time consider in what a condition they will be.
That is for the good of each thing, which the universal nature brings to each. And it is for its good at the time when nature brings it.
“The earth loves the shower”; and “the solemn æther loves”: and the universe loves to make whatever is about to be. I say then to the universe, that I love as thou lovest. And is not this too said, that “this or that loves [is wont] to be produced”?
Either thou livest here and hast already accustomed thyself to it, or thou art going away, and this was thy own will; or thou art dying and hast discharged thy duty. But besides these things there is nothing. Be of good cheer, then.
Let this always be plain to thee, that this piece of land is like any other; and that all things here are the same with things on top of a mountain, or on the seashore, or wherever thou choosest to be. For thou wilt find just what Plato says, Dwelling within the walls of a city as in a shepherd’s fold on a mountain.