still in the thick of them; perhaps he might not reach wisdom, but he would at least live for mankind "as one born for others,"[39] would do nothing for glory, and all for conscience, would be gentle and accessible even to his foes; as for wealth, it gave a wise man more opportunity, but if his riches deserted him, they would take nothing else with them; a philosopher might have wealth, "if it be taken forcibly from no man, stained with no man's blood, won by no wrong done to any, gained without dishonour; if its spending be as honest as its getting, if it wake no envy but in the envious."[40] The treatise has a suggestion of excitement, and there is a good deal of rhetoric in it. Now he proposed to the Emperor to put his words into action, and Nero would not permit him--he was not ready for the odium of despoiling his guardian, and the old man's name might still be of use to cover deeds in which he had no share. Seneca was not to resign his {47} wealth nor to leave Rome. Nero's words as given by Tacitus are pleasant enough, but we hardly need to be told their value.[41] [Sidenote: Seneca's last days] It was merely a reservation of the death sentence, and Seneca must have known it. The only thing now was to wait till he should receive the order to die, and Seneca occupied the time in writing. If what he wrote has a flushed and excited air, it is not surprising. The uncertainty of his position had preyed upon him while he was still Minister--"there are many," he had written, "who must hold fast to their dizzy height; it is only by falling that they can leave it."[42] He had fallen, and still he had to live in uncertainty; he had always been a nervous man. The end came in 65, in connexion with the conspiracy of Piso. Tacitus is not altogether distinct as to the implication of Seneca in this plot, but modern historians have inclined to believe in his guilt--if guilt it was.[43] Mr Henderson, in particular, is very severe on him for this want of "gratitude" to his benefactor and pupil, but it is difficult to see what Nero had done for him that he would not have preferred undone.[44] Perhaps at the time, and certainly later on, Seneca was regarded as a possible substitute for Nero upon the throne;[45] but he was well over sixty and frail, nor is it clear that the world had yet decided that a man could be Emperor without being a member of the Julian or Claudian house. Seneca, in fact any man, must have felt that any one would be better than Nero, but he had himself conspicuously left the world, and, with his wife, was living the philosophic life--a vegetarian again, and still a water-drinker.[46] Seneca was ready for the death-summons and at once opened his veins. Death came slowly, but it came; and he died, eloquent to the last--_novissimo quoque momenta suppeditante eloquentia_.