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Moral Letters Vol II

Seneca

§ Section 1

On ill-health and endurance of suffering

67:1

Book Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.

Book Description: The second volume of Seneca's moral letters to Lucilius. Each letter contains Seneca's advice and wisdom won from a life of Roman politics.

1.

If I may begin with a commonplace remark, spring is gradually disclosing itself; but though it is rounding into summer, when you would expect hot weather, it has kept rather cool, and one cannot yet be sure of it.

For it often slides back into winter weather.

Do you wish to know how uncertain it still is?

I do not yet trust myself to a bath which is absolutely cold; even at this time I break its chill.

You may say that this is no way to show the endurance either of heat or of cold; very true, dear Lucilius, but at my time of life one is at length contented with the natural chill of the body.

I can scarcely thaw out in the middle of summer.

Accordingly, I spend most of the time bundled up;