Book 3
1
Then, if you make yourself such a character, you know that you will make yourself beautiful; but while you neglect these things, though you use every contrivance to appear beautiful, you must necessarily be deformed.
1
I know not how to say anything further to you; for if I speak what I think, you will be vexed, and perhaps go away and return no more. And if I do not speak, consider what I am doing. You come to me to be improved, and I do not improve you; and you come to me as to a philosopher, and I do not speak like a philosopher. Besides, how could it be consistent with my duty towards yourself, to pass you by as incorrigible? If, hereafter, you should come to have sense, you will accuse me with reason: What did Epictetus observe in me, that, when he saw me come to him in such a shameful condition, he overlooked it, and never said so much as a word about it? Did he so absolutely despair of me? Was I not young? Was I not able to hear reason? How many young men, at that age, are guilty of many such errors! I am told of one Polemo, who, from a most dissolute youth, became totally changed.By accidentally visiting the school of Xenocrates.—H. Suppose he did not think I should become a Polemo, he might nevertheless have set my locks to rights, he might have stripped off my bracelets and rings, he might have prevented my depilating my person. But when he saw me dressed like a—what shall I say?-he was silent. I do not say like what; when you come to your senses, you will say it yourself, and will know what it is, and who they are who adopt such a dress.
