The Queen of Love turns weary from the old,
|B| as Euripides has it. Though they may retain the appetite for eating and drinking—generally in a dulled or toothless form—they find a difficulty in whetting the edge or sharpening the teeth even of that. It is in the mind that one must lay up a stock of pleasures, though not of the mean and ignoble kind indicated by Simonides, when he told those who reproached him with avarice that, though age had robbed him of other joys, he had still one left to support his declining years—the joy of money-making. In public activity there are pleasures of the greatest and noblest sort, such as we may believe to be the only, or the chief, enjoyment of the gods themselves—I mean those which result from a beneficent deed or a fine achievement.
Nicias the painter was so taken up with his artistic work that he was often obliged to ask his servants whether he had had his |C| bath or his breakfast. Archimedes stuck so closely to his drawing-board that, in order to anoint him, his attendants had to drag him away and strip him by force. He then went on drawing his diagrams in the ointment on his body. Carus the flutist (an acquaintance of your own) used to say that people did not know how much more pleasure he himself got from playing than he gave to others; otherwise an audience would be paid to listen instead of paying. Can we fail to perceive how great are the pleasures derived from fine actions and public-spirited achievements by those who put high qualities to use? Nor is it by means of those effeminate titillations which soft and agreeable movements exert upon the flesh. The ticklings of the flesh |D| are spasmodic, fickle, intermittent, whereas the pleasures of noble deeds—the creations of the true statesman’s art—will bear the soul aloft in grandeur and pride and joy, as if, I will not say upon the ‘golden wings’ of Euripides, but upon those ‘celestial pinions’ described by Plato.
Remember the instances of which you have so often heard. Epaminondas, when asked what had been his most pleasurable experience, replied, ‘Having been victorious at Leuctra while |E| my father and mother were still alive.’ When Sulla first reached Rome after purging Italy of its civil wars, he could not sleep a wink that night. As he has written in his own Notes and Recollections, so elated was his mind with the greatness of his joy and happiness, that it seemed to walk on air. If we admit, with Xenophon, that ‘no hearing is so agreeable as praise‘, no sight, recollection, or reflection is so fraught with gratification as the contemplation of exploits of our own in the conspicuous public arena of office and statesmanship. Not but what, when |F| a grateful goodwill testifies to our achievements, and when there is a rivalry of commendation productive of well-earned popularity, our merit acquires a gloss and brilliance which adds to our sense of pleasure.
Therefore, instead of permitting our reputation to wither in our old age like an athlete’s crown, we must be constantly adopting new devices and making fresh efforts to enliven the sense of past obligation, to enhance it, and to make it permanent. We must act like the craftsmen who were required to provide for the security of the Delian ship. They used to replace unsound timbers by others, and, by means of insertions and repairs, were regarded as keeping the vessel immortal and indestructible from |787| the oldest times. Reputation is like flame. There is no difficulty in keeping it alive; it merely requires a little feeding with fuel. But let either of them become extinct and cold, and it will take some trouble to rekindle.
Lampis, the shipowner, was once asked how he made his fortune. ‘Making the big one,’ he answered, ‘was easy enough; but it was a long and hard business to make the little one.’ So with political power and reputation. Though not easy to get in the first instance, anything will suffice to maintain and increase them when once they are great. It is as with a friend, when once he becomes such. He does not look for a large number of important services in order to retain his friendship; |B| small tokens, consistently shown, will keep his constant affection. Nor are the confidence and friendship of the people perpetually calling for you to open your purse, to play the champion, or to hold an office. They are retained by mere public spirit—by being in no haste to desert or shirk the burden of care and watchfulness.
Campaigns are not matters of everlastingly facing the enemy, fighting, and besieging. They have also their times of sacrifice, their occasional social gatherings, their periods of ample leisure, when jest and nonsense are toward. And why should one look upon public life with dread, as being laborious, wearisome, and devoid of consolations, seeing that the theatre, processions, awards, ‘dances of the Muses and Gladsomeness,’ and honour |C| after honour to the gods relax the stern brow of the Bureau or the Chamber, and yield a manifold return of inviting entertainment?
In the next place jealousy, the greatest bane of public life, is less severe upon old age. For, to quote Heracleitus, ‘dogs bark at the man they do not know.’ Though jealousy may fight with the beginner at the doors of the platform and refuse him access, no savageness or fierceness is shown to a man of familiar and established reputation, but he finds friendly admittance. For this reason some have compared jealousy to smoke. In the case of beginners, during the process of kindling, it pours forth in clouds; when they are in full blaze, it disappears. And while |D| people resist and dispute other forms of superiority—in merit, birth, or public spirit—through a belief that any acknowledgement to others means so much derogation to themselves, the primacy which is due to time—‘seniority’ in the proper sense—is conceded without a grudge. Respect paid to the aged has the unique quality of doing more honour to the giver than to the recipient.
Moreover it is not every one who expects to attain to the power derived from wealth, eloquence, or wisdom; whereas no public man despairs of winning the esteem and distinction to which age gradually leads.
Imagine a navigator, who has managed his ship safely in the face of contrary winds and waves, and then, when the weather |E| becomes fair and calm, wishes to lay her to. It is just as strange when a man has fought his ship in a long battle with jealousies, and then, after they are quietly laid, backs out of public life, and, in abandoning his activities, abandons his partners and associates. The more time there has been, the more friends and fellow-workers he has made; but he is neither in a position to lead them with him off the stage, as a poet does his chorus, |F| nor has he the right to leave them in the lurch. A long public life is like an old tree. To pull it up is no easy task, because of its many roots and its entanglement with many interests, which involve worse wrenching and disturbance when you leave them than when you stay.