Seneca · Letters to Lucilius
Letter 26: On old age and death
Letter 26 takes stock of old age: the body feels the years, the mind does not, and a slow decline is the gentlest way out.
What has been said or studied proves nothing; death alone will pronounce on the real strength of the soul, which is why Seneca keeps rehearsing it.
From the letter
Nevertheless, I offer thanks to myself, with you as witness; for I feel that age has done no damage to my mind, though I feel its effects on my constitution.
But is there any better end to it all than to glide off to one’s proper haven, when nature slips the cable?
Put aside the studies which you have pursued throughout your life; Death will deliver the final judgment in your case.
What you have done in the past will be manifest only at the time when you draw your last breath.
He who has learned to die has unlearned slavery; he is above any external power, or, at any rate, he is beyond it.
Coverage
Our editions hold 30 letters of 124 in Richard Mott Gummere’s translation (1917–1925); 29 of them have a page here, those that Joseph Baillard’s French translation (1861) also contains.
Seneca and Epictetus are in Stoic+ — 2 passages of this letter, each with its reference; Marcus Aurelius is free in the app.