Why Your Environment Shapes Your Character — Letters from a Stoic

1.Every man does the best he can, my dear Lucilius! You over there have Etna,[1] that lofty and most celebrated mountain of Sicily; (although I cannot make out why Messala,—or was it Valgius? for I have been reading in both,—has called it “unique,” inasmuch as many regions belch forth fire, not merely the lofty ones where the phenomenon is more frequent,—presumably because fire rises to the greatest possible height,—but low-lying places also.) As for myself, I do the best I can; I have had to be satisfied with Baiae;[2] and I left it the day after I reached it;…