On style as a mirror of character
114:5
Book Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Book Description: The final volume of Seneca's moral letters. Common Stoic themes emerge again and again: the unreliability of fortune, the ability to form Stoic resolve, and the importance of virtue.
5.
What is more unbecoming than the words: “A stream and a bank covered with long-tressed woods”?
And see how “men plough the channel with boats and, turning up the shallows, leave gardens behind them.” Or, “He curls his lady-locks, and bills and coos, and starts a-sighing, like a forest lord who offers prayers with down-bent neck.” Or, “An unregenerate crew, they search out people at feasts, and assail households with the wine-cup, and, by hope, exact death.” Or, “A Genius could hardly bear witness to his own festival”; or “threads of tiny tapers and crackling meal”; “mothers or wives clothing the hearth.”
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On style as a mirror of character
Location: Chapter 114, Section 5
Content:
5.
What is more unbecoming than the words: “A stream and a bank covered with long-tressed woods”?
And see how “men plough the channel with boats and, turning up the shallows, leave gardens behind them.” Or, “He curls his lady-locks, and bills and coos, and starts a-sighing, like a forest lord who offers prayers with down-bent neck.” Or, “An unregenerate crew, they search out people at feasts, and assail households with the wine-cup, and, by hope, exact death.” Or, “A Genius could hardly bear witness to his own festival”; or “threads of tiny tapers and crackling meal”; “mothers or wives clothing the hearth.”