the foul luxury of Nero on the throne. It is not happiness, but it is something higher than happiness; it is stillness, it is assurance, it is satisfaction, it is peace; the world can neither understand it, nor give it, nor take it away,--it is something indescribable--it is the gift of God. "The fallacy" of being surprised at wickedness in prosperity, and righteousness in misery, "can only lie," says Mr. Froude, in words which would have delighted Epictetus, and which would express the inmost spirit of his philosophy, "in the supposed _right_ to happiness.... Happiness is not what we are to look for. Our place is to be true to the best we know, to seek that, and do that; and if by 'virtue is its own reward' be meant that the good man cares only to continue good, desiring nothing more, then it is a true and a noble saying.... Let us do right, and then whether happiness come, or unhappiness, it is no very mighty matter. If it come, life will be sweet; if it do not come, life will be bitter--bitter, not sweet, and yet to be borne.... The well-being of our souls depends only on what we _are_; and nobleness of character is nothing else but _steady love of good, and steady scorn of evil_.... Only to those who have the heart to say, 'We can do without selfish enjoyment: it is not what we ask or desire,' is there no secret. Man will have what he desires, and will find what is really best for him, exactly as he honestly seeks for it. _Happiness may fly away, pleasure pall or cease to be obtainable, wealth decay, friends fail or prove unkind; but the power to serve God never fails, and the love of Him is never rejected_." CHAPTER III. LIFE AND VIEWS OF EPICTETUS (_continued._) Of the life of Epictetus, as distinct from his opinions, there is unfortunately little more to be told. The life of "That halting slave, who in Nicopolis Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son Cleared Rome of what most shamed him," is not an eventful life, and the conditions which surrounded it are very circumscribed. Great men, it has been observed, have often the shortest biographies; their real life is in their books.