1You ask about our friend Marcellinus and want to know how he is doing. 1He seldom comes to see me, for no other reason than that he is afraid to hear the truth, a danger from which he is by now quite free. 1For one should speak only to the man who will listen. 1That is why, about Diogenes and no less about the other Cynics, who used an indiscriminate freedom of speech and admonished whoever they met, it is commonly doubted whether they ought to have done so. 2For what if someone were to scold the deaf, or those made dumb by nature or by illness? 2'Why,' you say, 'should I be sparing with words?
2They cost nothing. 2I cannot know whether I shall help the man I admonish; 2this I do know, that I shall help someone if I admonish many. 2One must sow broadcast. 2It cannot be that one who tries many times will not sometimes succeed.' 3This, my Lucilius, I do not think a great man should do; 3his authority is diluted and has not enough weight with those whom it could correct if it were less cheapened. 3An archer ought not to hit the mark only sometimes, but to miss it only sometimes. 3That is no art which reaches its result by chance. 3Wisdom is an art; 3let it aim at a sure target, choose those who will make progress, withdraw from those it has given up hope of, yet not abandon them quickly, and in the very midst of despair try the last remedies.
4I do not yet despair of our Marcellinus. 4He can still be saved, but only if a hand is held out to him quickly. 4There is indeed a danger that he may drag down the one who holds it out; 4there is great force of talent in him, but it is already tending towards the bad. 4Nonetheless I shall face this danger and dare to show him his faults. 5He will do what he usually does; 5he will summon up that wit of his which can draw laughter even from mourners, and will make jokes first about himself, then about us. 5He will forestall everything I am going to say.
5He will rummage through our schools and throw in the philosophers' faces their handouts, their mistresses, their gluttony. 5He will show me one philosopher in adultery, another in a tavern, another at court. 6He will show me Aristo, the philosopher of Marcus Lepidus, who used to hold forth while being carried about in a litter. 6For that was the time he had chosen for bringing out his works. 6When it was asked to which sect he belonged, Scaurus said: 'At any rate he is no Peripatetic.' 6When Julius Graecinus, a distinguished man, was consulted about the same man and asked what he thought, he said: 'I cannot tell you; 6for I do not know what he can do on foot,' as if he were being asked about a chariot-fighter.
7He will thrust in my face these mountebanks, who would have done more decently to neglect philosophy than to sell it. 7Yet I have resolved to put up with insults; 7let him move me to laughter, I perhaps shall move him to tears, or, if he persists in laughing, I shall rejoice, as one may amid misfortunes, that his kind of madness has turned out to be a cheerful one. 7But such cheerfulness does not last long. 7Watch; 7you will see the same people within a short time laughing most fiercely and raging most fiercely. 8My plan is to tackle him and show him how much more he was worth when many thought him worth less.
8Even if I do not cut out his vices, I shall check them; 8they will not cease, but they will pause. 8And perhaps they will cease as well, if they make a habit of pausing. 8Even this is not to be scorned, since for those seriously ill a good remission takes the place of health. 9While I prepare myself for him, you meanwhile, who are able, who understand from where to where you have escaped, and can guess from this how far you will yet escape, set your character in order, lift up your spirit, stand firm against the things you have feared. 9Do not count those who make you afraid.
9Would not a man seem a fool if he feared a multitude in a place where passage is one at a time? 9Just so, there is no access to your death for many, though many threaten it. 9Nature has arranged it like this: just one will snatch your breath from you, as just one gave it. 10If you had any shame, you would have let me off the last instalment. 10But I shall not behave shabbily either at the settling of my debt, and I shall thrust on you what I owe. 10'I have never wanted to please the people. 10For what I know the people do not approve; 10what the people approve, I do not know.' 11'Who said this?' 11you ask, as though you did not know whom I press into service; 11Epicurus.
11But all of them will shout this same thing at you from every house, Peripatetics, Academics, Stoics, Cynics. 11For who can please the people, if virtue pleases him? 11Popular favour is sought by evil arts. 11You must make yourself like them. 11They will not approve you unless they recognise you as one of their own. 11But it matters much more what you seem to yourself than what you seem to others. 11The love of base men cannot be won except by base means. 12What then will that philosophy, so praised and to be preferred to all arts and possessions, provide? 12Why, that you would rather please yourself than the people, that you weigh judgements and do not count them, that you live without fear of gods and men, that you either overcome evils or end them.
12For the rest, if I see you celebrated by the favourable cries of the crowd, if when you enter, shouts and applause, the trappings of a pantomime dancer, ring around you, if throughout the whole city women and boys praise you, why should I not pity you, since I know what road leads to that popularity? 12Farewell.