O framed for nobler times and calmer hearts! O studious thinker, eloquent for truth! Philosopher, despising wealth and death, But patient, childlike, full of life and love! CHAPTER IV. THE "MEDITATIONS" OF MARCUS AURELIUS. Emperor as he was, Marcus Aurelius found himself in a hollow and troublous world; but he did not give himself up to idle regret or querulous lamentations. If these sorrows and perturbations came from the gods, he kissed the hand that smote him; "he delivered up his broken sword to Fate the conqueror with a humble and a manly heart." In any case he had _duties_ to do, and he set himself to perform them with a quiet heroism--zealously, conscientiously, even cheerfully. The principles of the Emperor are not reducible to the hard and definite lines of a philosophic system. But the great laws which guided his actions and moulded his views of life were few and simple, and in his book of _Meditations_, which is merely his private diary written to relieve his mind amid all the trials of war and government, he recurs to them again and again. "Plays, war, astonishment, torpor, slavery," he says to himself, "will wipe out those holy principles of thine;" and this is why he committed those principles to writing. Some of these I have already adduced, and others I proceed to quote, availing myself, as before, of the beautiful and scholar-like translation of Mr. George Long. All pain, and misfortune, and ugliness seemed to the Emperor to be most wisely regarded under a threefold aspect, namely, if considered in reference to the gods, as being due to laws beyond their control; if considered with reference to the nature of things, as being subservient and necessary; and if considered with reference to ourselves, as being dependent on the amount of indifference and fortitude with which we endure them. The following passages will elucidate these points of view:-- "The intelligence of the Universe is social. Accordingly it has made the inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the superior to one another." (v. 30.) "Things do not touch the soul, for they are eternal, and remain immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is within.... _The Universe is Transformation; life is opinion_" (iv. 3.) "To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter, and to those bitten by mad dogs water causes fear; and to little children the ball is a fine thing. Why then am I angry? Dost thou think that a false opinion has less power than the bile in the jaundiced, or the poison in him who is bitten by a mad dog?" (vi. 52.) "How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome and unsuitable, and immediately to be at tranquillity." (v. 2.)