But be at once careful, because the use of things is not indifferent, and steadfast and tranquil because the things themselves are.... And hard it is, indeed, to mingle and reconcile together the carefulness of one whom outward things affect, with the steadfastness of him who regards them not. But impossible it is not; and if it is, it is impossible to be happy.... Take example of dice-players. The numbers are indifferent, the dice are indifferent. How can I tell what may be thrown up? But carefully and skilfully to make use of what is thrown, that is where my proper business begins”’ (Rolleston translation). This seems to me to describe the general temper and spirit in which Buchanan confronted the vicissitudes of life. I do not say that in a Register of Religions like that provided under 6 and 7 Will. IV. c. 85 and amending acts, he would have entered himself as ‘G. B., Stoic.’ For one thing, he had not the chance, as only one denomination was allowed. Nor do I think he ever said in his heart, ‘I am a Stoic, and mean to guide my life by the Stoical system’; but all the same, I believe that _convenienter naturæ vivere_, interpreted in the Stoical sense, sank with gradually increasing depth into his moral nature as life went on, and preserved him from Epicurean timidity, levity, and egotism. Not that he succeeded perfectly, but he kept trying to. Stoicism did not, any more than Christianity, maintain that the concrete Stoic was free from sins, both of omission and commission. Not Socrates, nor even Diogenes--most misunderstood of men, who attained the high degree of Cynic--would have been claimed as impeccable, although they came very near it. It has been said that Buchanan in several ways allowed the ‘outward things that were not in his power’ get the better of the ‘will’ that was, that he was, for instance, fiery and irritable, for little other reason, apparently, than that he had Celtic blood in him, and was bound to be so; that he was disappointed and soured by his early struggle with poverty, his critics assuming that this must have been the case, because in his circumstances they would have been so themselves; that he was a ‘good hater’--as if that were really a fault at all, etc.