The term "philosophy" is
misleading in Horace's case. It suggests books and formulae and
externals. What Horace read in books did not all remain for him the dead
philosophy of ink and paper; what was in tune with his nature he
assimilated, to become philosophy in action, philosophy which really was
the guide of life. His faith in it is unfeigned:
Thus does the time move slowly and ungraciously which hinders me from
the active realization of what, neglected, is a harm to young and old
alike.... The envious man, the ill-tempered, the indolent, the
wine-bibber, the too free lover,--no mortal, in short, is so crude that
his nature cannot be made more gentle if only he will lend a willing ear
to cultivation.
The occasional phraseology of the Schools which Horace employs should
not mislead. It is for the most part the convenient dress for truth
discovered for himself through experience; or it may be literary
ornament. The humorous and not unsatiric lines to his poet-friend Albius
Tibullus,--"when you want a good laugh, come and see me; you will find
me fat and sleek and my skin well cared for, a pig from the sty of
Epicurus,"--are as easily the jest of a Stoic as the confession of an
Epicurean.
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