Twice-read letters

In between classes today, I've been thumbing through a copy of Seneca's Letters From A Stoic that I bought in 1982 for $2.95 at the Wichita State University bookstore for one of my Latin classes with Dr. Kehoe.  What?  Why delve into a musty paperback with your new technology, sir?  Considering that my reading habit has turned to the Kindle and the "etext" as of late, I want to keep in practice with a "hands on" approach.  Best, I get to find the little berries of fruit from my earlier educational experience of marking and highlighting books that I read twenty to thirty years ago. 

Yes, I understand the Kindle offers a highlighting feature; however, there is no substitute for the yellowed, yellow glare of the highlighted passage to make one pause and consider:  Why did I underline that?

I offer a few of my earlier "recognitions of words important" at such time that I should consider them passages.

from Letter LXXVIII...
(Seneca quoting Posidonius...) "'In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes.'  In the meantime cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do.  Whatever you have been expecting for some time comes as less of a shock."

from Letter III...
"...people who never relax and people who are invariably in a relaxed state merit your disapproval - the former as much as the latter.  For a delight in bustling about is not industry - it is only the restless enerby of a hunted mind.  And the state of mind that looks on all activity as tiresome is not true repose, but a spineless inertia.  This prompts me to memorize something which I came across in Pomponius. 'Some men have shrunk so far into dark corners that objects in bright daylight seem quite blurred to them.'  A balanced combination of the two attitudes is what we want; the active man should be able to take things easily, while the man who is inclined towards repose should be capable of action.  Ask nature:  she will tell you that she made both day and night."

Ah, my Latin comes back a bit...aurea mediocritas

Finally, from Letter VII...
"Retire into yourself as much as you can.  Associate with people who are likely to improve you.  Welcome those whom you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one:  men learn as they teach.  And there is no reason why any pride in advertising your talents abroad should lure you forward into the public eye, inducing you to give readings of your works or deliver lectures.  I should be glad to see you doing that if what you had to offer them was suitable for the crowd I have been talking about: but the fact is, not one of them is really capable of understanding you."

Brevity, levity, & civility.  Let it snow; the sun shines today!