Page:Encheiridion of Epictetus - Rolleston 1881.pdf/16

x these things I endeavoured to set down in his very words, that having written them I might preserve to myself for future times a memorial of his thought and unstudied speech. Naturally, therefore, they are such things as one man might say another on the impulse of the moment, not such as he would write in the idea of finding readers long afterwards. Such they are, and I know not how, without my will or knowledge, they fell among men. [There seems to have been a pirated' edition of Arrian's private memorials brought out, which he would have been unwilling to let appear, could he have helped it, in their crude state.] But to me it matters little if I shall appear an incompetent writer, and to Epictetus not at all, if anyone shall despise his words. For when he was speaking them it was evident that he had only one aim-to stir the minds of his hearers towards the best things. And if, indeed, the words here written should do this, then they will do, I think, that which the words of philosophers ought to do. But if not, let those who read them know this, that when he himself spoke them it was impossible for the hearer to avoid feeling whatever Epictetus desired he should feel. And if his words, when they are merely words, have not this effect, perhaps