11. Why is it strange if God sends severe trials upon noble spirits? a test of one’s courage is never an easy matter. Is it destiny that scourges and lacerates us? let us endure it; ’tis not wanton cruelty, it is a contest; the oftener we enter it, the stronger we shall become. The solidest part of the body, frequent use has made so. We must be subjected to the buffetings of fortune in order that in this way we may become callous to it. Little by little, fortune makes us a match for itself; contempt of dangers results from often braving them. In this way sailors inure their bodies to the sea; the hands of the husbandman are calloused; the arms of the soldier are strong from hurling javelins; the limbs of runners are agile. That part of everybody is the strongest that has exercised the most. 12. The soul acquires the strength to brave misfortune by patient endurance; what it can effect in us thou mayst know, if thou dost but consider what hardship does for those peoples that go about without clothing and are strong by their very indigence. Consider all the nations over whom the sway of Rome does not extend, I mean the Germans and every nomad tribe along the Danube. Perpetual winter, a severe climate, bear hard upon them, a sterile soil grudgingly supports them, a hut or branches of trees protect them against the rain, they roam over marshes hardened by frost, for food they capture wild beasts. 13. Dost thou think them wretched? No one is wretched when he performs what habit has made second nature to him; for by degrees we find pleasure in doing what we began to do from necessity. These peoples have no houses and no resting place except as weariness finds them from day to day; their food is cheap and obtained only as wanted; their naked bodies are exposed to the terrible extremes of a horrid climate; what thou regardest as a frightful calamity is the whole life of many peoples. 14. Why dost thou wonder that good men are called upon to undergo violent shocks to the end that they may stand the more firmly? A tree does not take deep root, or grow strong, unless it is frequently shaken by the wind; for as a result of violent agitation its fiber is toughened and its roots more firmly set. Those are fragile that grow up in sheltered valleys. It is therefore a boon to good men, as it makes them fearless amid danger, to become familiar with hardships and to bear with equanimity those things that are not ills, except when they are borne with an ill grace. V.