On Salaried Posts in Great Houses (41-42)

Having shaken them off, they hate them, very naturally, and endeavour in every way to destroy them outright if possible; for they expect them to betray the many hidden mysteries of their make-up, inasmuch as they are thoroughly acquainted with everything and have looked upon them unveiled. That sticks in their throat, because they are all exactly like

the finest of papyrus rolls, of which the knobs are of gold and the slip-cover of purple, but the content is either Thyestes feasting on his children or Oedipus married to his mother, or Tereus debauching two sisters at once. They too are splendid and universally admired, but inside, underneath their purple, they hide a deal of tragedy; in fact if you unroll any one of them, you will find an ample drama by an Euripides or a Sophocles, while on the outside there is a gaudy purple laticlave and a golden bulla. Conscious of all this, they hate and plot against any renegade who, having become thoroughly familiar with them, is likely to expose the plot and tell it broadcast.

I desire, nevertheless, in imitation of Cebes,[*] to paint you a picture of this career that we have discussed, so that you may look at it and determine. whether you should enter it. I should gladly have requisitioned an Apelles, or Parrhasius, or Aetion, or Euphranor to paint it, but since it is impossible nowadays to find anyone so excellent and so thoroughly master of his craft, I shall show you the picture as best I can in unembellished prose.

Imagine painted a lofty, golden gateway, not down on the level ground but above the earth on a hill; the slope is long and steep and slippery, so that many a time those who hoped soon to be at the summit have ‘broken their necks by a slip of the foot. Within, let Wealth himself be sitting, all golden, seemingly, very beautiful and fascinating; and let his lover, afler ascending with great toil, draw near the door and gaze spellbound at the gold. Let Hope, herself

tair of face and gaily dressed, take him in charge and conduct him within, tremendously impressed by his entrance. Then let Hope keep always in advance of him, and let other women, Deceit and Servitude, receive him successively and pass him on to Toil, who, after breaking the wretch with hard labour, shall at length deliver him, now sickly and faded, to Old Age. Last of all, let Insolence lay hold of him and drag him along to Despair; let Hope then fly away and vanish, and instead of the golden portal by which he entered, let him be ejected by some remote and secret postern, naked, paunchy, pale, and old, screening his nakedness with his left hand and throttling himself with his right; and on the way out, let him be met by Repentance, weeping to no avail and helping to make an end of the poor man.

“Let that be the conclusion of the painting. The rest, my dear Timocles, is up to you; examine all the details with care and make up your mind whether it suits you to enter the pictured career by these doors and be thrown out so disgracefully by that one opposite. Whatever you do, remember the words of the philosopher: “God is not at fault; the fault is his who maketh the choice.”[*]