Sublime

Vices, Seneca warns, are contagious: They spread, quickly and unnoticed, from those who have them to those with whom they come into contact.2 Epictetus echoes this warning: Spend time with an unclean person, and we will become unclean as well.3 In particular, if we associate with people who have unwholesome desires, there is a very real danger that

For the ruling centre of a bad man can’t be trusted; it is unstable, and unsure in its judgements, falling under the power of one impression after another.

dangerously foolish. It would not have been the first foolish thing she’d done but possibly the most dangerous. A debt to the Trust had her tied to society’s dark underbelly, forced into a game of bargains. The magic held by those of the Trust

“The diseases of the rational soul are long-standing and hardened vices, such as greed and ambition—they have put the soul in a straitjacket and have begun to be permanent evils inside it. To put it briefly, this sickness is an unrelenting distortion of judgment, so things that are only mildly desirable are vigorously sought after.” —SENECA, MORAL