applause:  but this is not in his power.  Accordingly, where he has skill, there he has confidence.  Bring any single person who knows nothing of music, and the musician does not care for him.  But in the matter where a man knows nothing and has not been practised, there he is anxious.  What matter is this?  He knows not what a crowd is or what the praise of a crowd is.  However, he has learned to strike the lowest chord and the highest; but what the praise of the many is, and what power it has in life, he neither knows nor has he thought about it.  Hence he must of necessity tremble and grow pale.  Is any man then afraid about things which are not evils?  No.  Is he afraid about things which are evils, but still so far within his power that they may not happen?  Certainly he is not.  If then the things which are independent of the will are neither good nor bad, and all things which do depend on the will are within our power, and no man can either take them from us or give them to us, if we do not choose, where is room left for anxiety?  But we are anxious about our poor body, our little property, about the will of Caesar; but not anxious about things internal.  Are we anxious about not forming a false opinion?  No, for this is in my power.  About not exerting our movements contrary to nature?  No, not even about this.  When then you see a man pale, as the physician says, judging from the complexion, this man’s spleen is disordered, that man’s liver; so also say, this man’s desire and aversion are disordered, he is not in the right way, he is in a fever.  For nothing else changes the color, or causes trembling or chattering of the teeth, or causes a man to

  Sink in his knees and shift from foot to foot. 
  Iliad, xiii., 281.

For this reason, when Zeno was going to meet Antigonus, he was not anxious, for Antigonus had no power over any of the things which Zeno admired; and Zeno did not care for those things over which Antigonus had power.  But Antigonus was anxious when he was going to meet Zeno, for he wished to please Zeno; but this was a thing external (out of his power).  But Zeno did not want to please Antigonus; for no man who is skilled in any art wishes to please one who has no such skill.

Should I try to please you?  Why?  I suppose, you know the measure by which one man is estimated by another.  Have you taken pains to learn what is a good man and what is a bad man, and how a man becomes one or the other?  Why then are you not good yourself?  How, he replies, am I not good?  Because no good man laments or groans or weeps, no good man is pale and trembles, or says, How will he receive me, how will he listen to me?  Slave, just as it pleases him.  Why do you care about what belongs to others?  Is it now his fault if he receives badly what proceeds from you?  Certainly.  And is it possible that a fault should be one man’s, and the evil in another?  No.  Why then are you anxious about that which belongs to others?