There is something more astonishing yet, which clearly shows that the greatest wisdom is not so much to know as to conform to what one knows!... When, more than fifteen years ago, I lost a little boy who must have been of about the same age as the child whom he now mourns, Longinus undertook to console me. He wrote me an eloquent letter, wherein, relying on the authority of Metrodorus, Panætius and Hermachus, he proved that sorrow is not only useless, but ungrateful. I found and read the letter again this morning; and so striking are its more important passages that I know them almost by heart.... They were the loftiest words that human wisdom could utter against death and sorrow.... They protected me once.... MARY MAGDALENE What were the words? It is well to know anything that can relieve sorrow.... SILANUS “You expect consolation,” he said; “you shall receive only reproaches. If you bear the death of a child with so little patience, what would you do if you had lost a friend? You ought to bring yourself to this frame of mind, that you were more pleased at having had him than grieved that you had him no longer. But most men reckon past advantages and pleasures as of no account. They bury friendship with their friend....” APPIUS I recognize and hail the mighty wisdom of our venerable master. SILANUS Why does he not remember it, when misfortune strikes him? But why did I forget it myself, when I needed it most?... “I assure you,” he added, “that of those whom we have loved, much remains to us after death has removed them. The time that is past is ours; and I see nothing of which we are more certain than of that which has been. The hope of the future makes us ungrateful for the benefits which we have received, as though the favours which we expect were not bound soon to be ranked among things past. Death has deprived you of a son so young that he could be of no promise to you yet; it is only a little time lost. There are instances without end of fathers losing infant children without shedding a single tear and returning to the senate after laying them in the grave. This is not unreasonable; for, in the first place, it is idle to give way to grief when grief can serve no purpose. And then it is unjust to complain of a misfortune that has befallen one person and still threatens all the others. Moreover, it is madness to complain, when there is so little distance between the one who is dead and the one who mourns him. Consider that all mankind, destined to one and the same end, is divided only by little intervals, even when they appear very great. He whom you think lost has only gone before. Since we must all travel the same road, is it not unworthy of a wise man to weep for one who has set out earlier than ourselves? To complain that the friend or the child is dead is to complain that he was ever born. We are all linked to the same fate. He who has come into the world must also leave it.