4. Look now how it stands: You have fine raiment, your neighbor has not; you have a window, and wish to air your clothes at it. The neighbor knoweth not what is the true good of man, but thinks it is to have fine raiment, the same thing that you also think. Then shall he not come and take them away? Show a cake to greedy persons, and eat it up yourself alone, and will you have them not snatch at it? Nay, but provoke them not. Have no window, and do not air your clothes. I also had lately an iron lamp set beside the images of the Gods; hearing a noise at the door, I ran down, and found the lamp carried off. I reflected that the thief’s impulse was not unnatural. What then? _To-morrow_, I said, _thou wilt find an earthen lamp_.[2] For a man loses only what he has. _I have lost a garment._ For you had a garment. _I have a pain in my head._ Have you any pain in your horns? Why, then, have you indignation? For there is no loss and no suffering save only in those things which we possess. CHAPTER XII. THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. Even as in a sea voyage, when the ship is brought to anchor, and you go out to fetch in water, you make a by-work of gathering a few roots and shells by the way, but have need ever to keep your mind fixed on the ship, and constantly to look round, lest at any time the master of the ship call, and you must, if he call, cast away all those things, lest you be treated like the sheep that are bound and thrown into the hold: So it is with human life also. And if there be given wife and children instead of shells and roots, nothing shall hinder us to take them. But if the master call, run to the ship, forsaking all those things, and looking not behind. And if thou be in old age, go not far from the ship at any time, lest the master should call, and thou be not ready. CHAPTER XIII. THE MARK OF EFFORT. 1. Seek not to have things happen as you choose them, but rather choose them to happen as they do, and so shall you live prosperously. 2. Disease is a hindrance of the body, not of the Will, unless the Will itself consent. Lameness is a hindrance of the leg, not of the Will. And this you may say on every occasion, for nothing can happen to you but you will find it a hindrance not of yourself but of some other thing. 3. What, then, are the things that oppress us and perturb us? What else than opinions? He that goeth away and leaveth his familiars and companions and wonted places and habits—with what else is he oppressed than his opinions? Now, little children, if they cry because their nurse has left them for a while, straightway forget their sorrow when they are given a small cake. Wilt thou be likened unto a little child? ——“Nay, by Zeus! for I would not be thus affected by a little cake, but by right opinions.” And what are these?