Yet
it is your duty, if you happen to live in an age when it is not easy to serve
the state, to devote more time to leisure and to literature.
Thus,
just as though you were making a perilous voyage, you may from time to time put
into harbor, and set yourself free from public business without waiting for it
to do so.
I have a
special fondness for the tales about Manius Curius Dentatus, a consul from the
old Roman Republic. The man even had the nerve to be a plebeian, and not a
patrician.
He
apparently lived a simple life, preferring, as he said, to rule over those who
possessed gold to possessing any gold for himself. It would be as if we now somehow
elected a congressman who wasn’t already a wealthy lawyer, or doctor, or
business mogul.
A story
has it that some foreign ambassadors came to visit him, offering elaborate
gifts to win his favor. Dentatus, it is said, would have none of it, and sat by
the fire, roasting some turnips instead.
“Report
and remember,” he told them, “that I can neither be defeated in battle, nor be
corrupted with money.”
Now
that’s my kind of man. Turnips over gold! What possible point could there be to
remaining alive in the body, while already being dead in the soul?
Sometimes
Fortune will permit a man like Dentatus to hold high office, but far more often
she will deny him such a position. If it must be this way, it is still no
obstacle to a good life. Will they not let you follow your calling, or pay you
for what you have done, or give you any respect? No matter. Your dignity
remains your own.
I have
worked in the trenches of education for quite a few years, and in that time I
have come across many directors, headmasters, deans, provosts, and presidents.
I have known only one who truly maintained his character while in such a
position. What was his secret?
There
was no secret at all. He was still a teacher at heart, and he was interested
only in helping other people learn, one student at a time. He kept roasting his
turnips, and he did it very well. When they finally ousted him from office, it
seemed so unfair, but he was quite content.
“I’ve
spent twenty years dodging the bureaucrats, and the whole time they completely
missed what I was doing. All I did was read dusty old books with people, but it
was a good run.”
Leisure
is not laziness, but rather taking the time to reflect. Literature is not a
waste of life, but rather a magnification of all the meaning that can be found
in life.
Written in 8/2011
IMAGE: Jacopo Amigoni, Manius Curius Dentatus Refuses the Gifts of the Samnites (c. 1736)
IMAGE: Jacopo Amigoni, Manius Curius Dentatus Refuses the Gifts of the Samnites (c. 1736)
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