All this (I thought) was very moral in intention, but might it not have been put differently—“Father, I must needs disobey you for your sake as well as mine,” “Brother, you are going the way to dishonour yourself as well as me”? Glaucus could not have taken offence at that. However, this occasional austerity was characteristic of our Teacher. Perhaps it was an ingredient in his honesty. He liked to put things sometimes in their very hardest shape, as though to let his pupils see how very cold, reasonable, definite, and solid his philosophy was, how self-interested, how calculating, always looking at profit! Yet, in reality, he had no thought for what the world calls profit. His eyes were fixed on the glory of God. This alone was his profit and his gain. But unless we were as God-absorbed as he was—and which of us could boast that?—it was almost certain that we should to some degree misunderstand him. Just now, he was in one of these detached—one might almost call them “non-human”—moods.
A few moments ago, I had been sorry that Glaucus went out. But I ceased to regret it when I heard what followed. It was in a contrast between Socrates and the heroes of tragedy, or rather the victims of calamity. We must learn, he said, to exterminate from life the tragic phrases, “Alas!” “Woe is me!” “Me miserable!” We must learn to say with Socrates, on the point of drinking the hemlock, “My dear Crito, if this way is God’s will, this way let it be!” and not, “Miserable me! Aged as I am, to what wretchedness have I brought my grey hairs!” Then he asked, “Who says this? Do you suppose it is someone in a mean or ignoble station? Is it not Priam? Is it not Œdipus? Is it not the whole class of kings? What else is tragedy except the passionate words and acts and sufferings of human beings given up to a stupid and adoring wonder at external things—sufferings set forth in metre!”
This seemed to me gratuitously cruel. If ever human being deserved pity, was it not the poor babe Œdipus, predestined even before birth to evil, cast out to die on Mount Cithaeron, but rescued by the cruel kindness of a stranger—to kill his own father, to marry his own mother, to beget children that were his brothers and sisters, and to die, an exile, in self-inflicted blindness, bequeathing his evil fate to guilty sons and a guiltless daughter! But Epictetus would not let Œdipus alone: “It is among the rich, the kings, and the despots, that tragedies find place. No poor man fills a tragic part except as one of the chorus. But the kings begin with prosperity, commanding their subjects (like Œdipus) to fix garlands on their houses in joy and thankfulness to the Gods. Then, about the third or fourth act, comes ‘Alas, Cithaeron, why didst thou receive and shelter me?’ Poor, servile wretch, where are your crowns now? Where is your royal diadem? Cannot your guards assist you?”
All this was in stage-play, the agony of the king and the scoffing of the philosopher so life-like as to be quite painful—at least to me. Then Epictetus turned to us in his own person: “Well, then, in the act of approaching one of these great people, remember this, that you are going to a tragedian. By ‘tragedian’ I do not mean an actor, but a tragic person, Œdipus himself. But perhaps you say to me ‘Yes, but such and such a lord or ruler may be called blessed. For he walks with a multitude’”—of slaves, he meant—“‘around him.’ See, then! I too go and place myself in company with that multitude. Do not I also ‘walk with a multitude’? But to sum up. Remember that the door is always open. Do not be more cowardly than the children. When they cease to take pleasure in their game, they cry at once ‘I will not play any more.’ So you, too, as soon as things appear to you to point to that conclusion, say, ‘I will not play any more.’ And be off. Or, if you stay, don’t keep complaining.”
This was the end of the lecture, and I felt gladder than ever that Glaucus had gone; for he seemed to me to have been just in the mood to take to heart that last suggestion, “The door is always open.” I hastened to his rooms, but he was not there. I found however that he was expected back soon, for he was making preparations for a journey. Leaving word that I should call again in an hour, I determined to use the interval to leave Arrian’s note with Epictetus.
The Master was disengaged and gave me a most kindly welcome, asking with manifest interest about Arrian and his prospects, and giving me to understand that he had heard of me, too, from Arrian and others. His countenance always expressed vigour, but on this occasion it had even more than its usual glow. Perhaps he was a little flushed with the exertion of his lecture. Perhaps he was glad to hear that at least one pupil, likely to do good work in the world, was remembering him gratefully in Bithynia. Possibly he thought another such pupil stood before him. I had never seen him close, face to face. Now I felt strongly drawn towards him, but not quite as pupil to master. From the moment of leaving the lecture-room that day, I had been repeating, “Alas, Cithaeron, why didst thou receive and preserve me?” Poor Œdipus! He seemed to sum up the cry of myriads of mortals predestined to misery. And what gospel had my Master for them? Nothing but mockery, “Poor, servile wretches!”
Yet I had felt almost sure, even from the first utterance of the cruel words, that he had not intended to be cruel. Now, as I stood looking down into his face and he up at mine, some kind of subtle fellowship seemed to spring up between us. At least I felt it in myself and thought I saw it in him. And it grew stronger as we conversed. I rapidly recalled the reproach he had just now addressed to himself in his lecture, as coming from one of his pupils, “Are you so hard hearted?” At the moment I had asked “Could it possibly be true?” Now I knew it was not true. Certainly he had been absorbed in God. His God was not the God of Christ. It was a Being of Goodness of some sort, but impersonal, an Alone, not a real Father. Such as it was, however, Epictetus had been absorbed in it. He motioned to me to be seated, and began to question me about friends of his in Rome.
I was on the point of replying, when the door burst open and Glaucus suddenly rushed in, beside himself with fury. Striding straight up to Epictetus, he began pouring forth a tale of wrongs, treacheries, outrages and malignities, perpetrated on his family in Corinth. He took no notice of my presence, and I doubt whether he was even aware of it, as he burst out into passionate reproaches on our Master for teaching that a son must witness such sufferings in a father or mother, brother or sister, and say, “These evils are no evils to me.”
It would serve no useful purpose, nor should I be able, to set down exactly what Glaucus said. Let it suffice that he had only too much reason for burning indignation against certain miscreants in Corinth. He had only that morning received news—which had been kept back from him by treachery—that cruel and powerful enemies had brought ruin, desolation, and disgrace upon his family. His father had been suddenly imprisoned on false charges, his sister had been shamefully humiliated, and his mother had died of a broken heart. “Epictetus,” he cried, “do you hear this? Or do you make yourself a stone to me, as you bid us make ourselves stones when men smite us and revile us? Do you still assert that there are no evils except to the evil-minded? By Zeus in heaven, if there is a Zeus and if there is a heaven, I would sooner torture myself like a Sabazian, or be crucified like a Christian, or writhe with Ixion in hell, that I might at least cry out in the hearing of Gods and men, ‘These things are evil, they are, they are,’ than be transported to the side of the throne above with you, looking down on the things that have befallen my father, mother, and sister, and repeating my Epictetian catechism, I am in perfect bliss and blessedness; these things are no evils to me! O man, man, are you a hypocrite, or are you indeed a stone?” So saying, without waiting for a word of reply, he rushed from the room.
I went with him. I was not sure—nor am I now—whether Epictetus wished me to stay or to go. But I thought Glaucus needed me most. My heart went out to him when I heard for the first time how shamefully he had been deceived and how cruelly his family had been outraged, and I did not know what he might do in his despair. Besides, if I had stayed, could Epictetus have helped me to help my friend? What would his helping have been? It could have been nothing more—if he had been consistent—than to repeat for the thousandth time that Glaucus’s “trouble,” and my “trouble” for Glaucus’s sake, were mere dogmas, or “convictions,” and that our “convictions” were wrong and must be given up. Would he have been consistent? Would he have said these things?