Seneca,

The closing of you last letter echoed thoughts of my own.  The diminution of virtue via accepting external goods as been something I’ve warned modern Stoics against for some time.

“If, however, you accept the view that there is anything good besides that which is honourable, all the virtues will suffer. For it will never be possible for any virtue to be won and held, if there is anything outside itself which virtue must take into consideration.”

As far as I know, this focus on what’s honorable is something particular to you letters, dear Seneca.  It seems a god metric.  It easily illuminates the correct path in a situation.  What would an honorable person do? Seem to me to be an easier question to answer quickly than What would a Sage do?

“If anything except the honourable is good, we shall be hounded by greed for life, and by greed for the things which provide life with its furnishings, – an intolerable state, subject to no limits, unstable.”

The above passage seems like curse.

“[W]hithersoever I am led and summoned by honour, I will go.”

Thank you for the letter.

Farewell.

Part of Michel Daw’s Reading Plan of Seneca’s Letters.