Moral Letters to Lucilius Section 2

Male mihi esse malo quam molliter; male nunc sic excipe, quemadmodum a populo solet dici: dure, aspere, laboriose. Audire solemus sic quorundam vitam laudari, quibus invidetur: molliter vivit; hoc dicunt: mollis est. Paulatim enim effeminatur animus atque in similitudinem otii sui et pigritiae, in qua iacet, solvitur. Quid ergo? Viro non vel obrigescere satius est? Deinde idem delicati timent, cui vitam suam fecere similem. Multum interest inter otium et conditivum.

J’aime mieux être mal que mollement ; et prends ce mot être mal dans le sens ordinaire du peuple, vivre durement, pâtir et travailler. Souvent nous entendons vanter l’existence de certains hommes et dire avec envie : « Ils vivent dans la mollesse ; » c’est comme qui dirait : « Ils ne valent rien. » Car peu à peu leur âme s’effémine, et devient l’image même de la langueur, de la paresse où elle croupit et se fond. Et pour l’homme de cœur, s’endurcir à la peine ne vaut-il pas mieux ? Et puis l’efféminé craint de mourir, quand de sa vie il s’est fait une mort !

I prefer to be in trouble rather than in luxury; and you had better interpret the term “in trouble” as popular usage is wont to interpret it: living a “hard,” “rough,” “toilsome” life. We are wont to hear the lives of certain men praised as follows, when they are objects of unpopularity: “So-and-So lives luxuriously”; but by this they mean: “He is softened by luxury.” For the soul is made womanish by degrees, and is weakened until it matches the ease and laziness in which it lies. Lo, is it not better for one who is really a man even to become hardened? Next, these same dandies fear that which they have made their own lives resemble. Much difference is there between lying idle and lying buried!