"Soon, very soon, thou wilt be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name, or not even a name; but name is sound and echo. And the things which are much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and trifling, and _little dogs biting one another, and little children quarrelling, laughing, and then straightway weeping. But fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and truth are fled_ "'Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.'" (v. 33.) "It would be a man's happiest lot to depart from mankind without having had a taste of lying, and hypocrisy, and luxury, and pride. However to _breathe out one's life when a man has had enough of those things_ is the next best voyage, as the saying is." (ix. 2.) "_Enough of this wretched life, and murmuring, and apish trifles._ Why art thou thus disturbed? What is there new in this? What unsettles thee?... Towards the gods, then, now become at last more simple and better." (ix. 37.) The thought is like that which dominates through the Penitential Psalms of David,--that we may take refuge from men, their malignity and their meanness, and find rest for our souls in God. From men David has _no_ hope; mockery, treachery, injustice, are all that he expects from them,--the bitterness of his enemies, the far-off indifference of his friends. Nor does this greatly trouble him, so long as he does not wholly lose the light of _God's_ countenance. "I had no place to flee unto, and no man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, O Lord, and said, _Thou_ art my hope, and my portion in the land of the living." "Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." But whatever may have been his impulse at times to give up in despair all attempt to improve the "little breed" of men around him, Marcus had schooled his gentle spirit to live continually in far other feelings. Were men contemptible? It was all the more reason why he should himself be noble. Were men petty, and malignant, and passionate and unjust? In that proportion were they all the more marked out for pity and tenderness, and in that proportion was he bound to the utmost of his ability to show himself great, and forgiving, and calm, and true. Thus Marcus turns his very bitterest experience to gold, and from the vilenesses of others, which depressed his lonely life, so far from suffering himself to be embittered as well as saddened, he only draws fresh lessons of humanity and love.