Ch. 25
Concerning those who waver in their purpose.
Consider which of your undertakings you have
fulfilled, which not, and wherefore; which give
you pleasure, which pain, in the reflection; and, if
possible, recover yourself where you have failed. For
the champions in this greatest of combats must not
grow weary, but should even contentedly bear chastisement. For this is no combat of wrestling or boxing, where both he who succeeds and he who fails
may possibly be of very great worth or of little, indeed may be very fortunate or very miserable, but
this combat is for good fortune and happiness itself.
What is the case, then? Here, even if we have renounced the contest, no one restrains us from renewing it, nor need we wait for another four years for
the return of another Olympiad; but recollecting
and recovering yourself, and returning with the same
zeal, you may renew it immediately; and even if you
should again yield, you may again begin; and if you
once get the victory, you become like one who has
never yielded. Only do not begin by forming the
habit of this, to do it with pleasure, and then, like
quails that have fled the fighting-pit, go about as if
you were a brave champion, although you have been
conquered throughout all the games. "I am conquered in presence of a girl. But what of it? I
have been thus conquered before." "I am excited
to wrath against some one. But I have been in anger
before." You talk to us just as if you had come off
unhurt. As if one should say to his physician, who
had forbidden him to bathe, " Why, did not I bathe
before?" Suppose the physician should answer him,
"< Well, and what was the consequence of your bathing?
Were you not feverish? Had you not the headache? "
So, when you before railed at somebody, did you not
act like an ill-natured person; like an impertinent
one? Have not you fed this habit of yours by corresponding actions? When you were conquered by a
pretty girl, did you come off with impunity? Why,
then, do you talk of what you have done before?
You ought to remember it, I think, as slaves do whipping, so as to refrain from the same faults. "But the
case is unlike; for there it is pain that causes the remembrance. But what is the pain, what the punishment, of my committing these faults? For when was
I ever thus trained to the avoidance of bad actions? "
Yet the pains of experience, whether we will or not,
have their beneficial influence.
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