Make
them your slaves, or they will make you theirs. Like wrath, they are all
forms of madness. The man who becomes avaricious has thrown away the
armor of life, has abandoned the post of virtue. Once let a man submit
to desire of an unworthy kind, and he will find himself in the case of
the horse that called a rider to help him drive the stag from their
common feeding-ground, and received the bit and rein forever.
So Horace will enter into no entangling alliances with ambition for
power, wealth, or position, or with the more personal passions. By some
of them he has not been altogether untouched, and he has not regret; but
to continue, at forty-five, would not do. He will be content with just
his home in the Sabine hills. This is what he always prayed for, a patch
of ground, not so very large, with a spring of ever-flowing water, a
garden, and a little timberland. He asks for nothing more, except that a
kindly fate will make these beloved possessions forever his own. He will
go to the ant, for she is an example, and consider her ways and be wise,
and be content with what he has as soon as it is enough.
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