I know some who, for want of this faculty, have found a great inconvenience in negotiating with that nation.

I have often with great admiration reflected upon the wonderful constitution of Alcibiades, who so easily could transform himself to so various fashions without any prejudice to his health; one while outdoing the Persian pomp and luxury, and another, the Lacedaemonian austerity and frugality; as reformed in Sparta, as voluptuous in Ionia: "Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res." ["Every complexion of life, and station, and circumstance became Aristippus."-- Horace, Ep., xvii.

23.] I would have my pupil to be such an one, "Quem duplici panno patentia velat, Mirabor, vitae via si conversa decebit, Personamque feret non inconcinnus utramque." ["I should admire him who with patience bearing a patched garment, bears well a changed fortune, acting both parts equally well." -- Horace Ep., xvii.

25.] These are my lessons, and he who puts them in practice shall reap more advantage than he who has had them read to him only, and so only knows them.

If you see him, you hear him; if you hear him, you see him.