the healthy hearing and smelling ought to be ready to perceive all that
can be heard and smelled. And the healthy stomach ought to be with
respect to all food just as the mill with respect to all things which it
is formed to grind. And accordingly the healthy understanding ought to be
prepared for everything which happens; but that which says, Let my dear
children live, and let all men praise whatever I may do, is an eye which
seeks for green things, or teeth which seek for soft things.

36. There is no man so fortunate that there shall not be by him when he
is dying some who are pleased with what is going to happen. Suppose that
he was a good and wise man, will there not be at last some one to say to
himself, Let us at last breathe freely, being relieved from this
schoolmaster? It is true that he was harsh to none of us, but I perceived
that he tacitly condemns us.--This is what is said of a good man. But in
our own case how many other things are there for which there are many who
wish to get rid of us. Thou wilt consider this, then, when thou art
dying, and thou wilt depart more contentedly by reflecting thus: I am
going away from such a life, in which even my associates in behalf of
whom I have striven so much, prayed, and cared, themselves wish me to
depart, hoping perchance to get some little advantage by it. Why then
should a man cling to a longer stay here? Do not however for this reason
go away less kindly disposed to them, but preserving thy own character,
and friendly and benevolent and mild, and on the other hand not as if
thou wast torn away; but as when a man dies a quiet death, the poor soul
is easily separated from the body, such also ought thy departure from men
to be, for nature united thee to them and associated thee. But does she
now dissolve the union? Well, I am separated as from kinsmen, not however
dragged resisting, but without compulsion; for this, too, is one of the
things according to nature.