them off with mere _hopes_ of his doing it some time after, because they
were then still young." He was far the superior of these men, not only
socially but even morally and intellectually; yet from the height of his
exalted rank and character he delighted to associate with them on the
most friendly terms, and to treat them, even till his death, with
affection and honour, to place their likenesses among his household
gods, and visit their sepulchres with wreaths and victims.

3. His _hardiness_ and self-denial were perhaps still more remarkable. I
wish that those boys of our day, who think it undignified to travel
second-class, who dress in the extreme of fashion, wear roses in their
buttonholes, and spend upon ices and strawberries what would maintain a
poor man for a year, would learn how _infinitely more noble_ was the
abstinence of this young Roman, who though born in the midst of
splendour and luxury, learnt from the first to loathe the petty vice of
gluttony, and to despise the unmanliness of self-indulgence. Very early
in life he joined the glorious fellowship of those who esteem it not
only a duty but a pleasure

"To scorn delights, and live laborious days,"

and had learnt "endurance of labour, and to want little, and to work
with his own hands." In his eleventh year he became acquainted with
Diognetus, who first introduced him to the Stoic philosophy, and in his
twelfth year he assumed the Stoic dress. This philosophy taught him "to
prefer a plank bed and skin, and whatever else of the kind belongs to
the Grecian discipline." It is said that "the skin" was a concession to
the entreaties of his mother, and that the young philosopher himself
would have chosen to sleep on the bare boards or on the ground. Yet he
acted thus without self-assertion and without ostentation. His friends