another passage, "What more dost thou want when thou hast done a service
to another? Art thou not content to have done an act conformable to thy
nature, and must thou seek to be paid for it, just as if the eye
demanded a reward for seeing, or the feet for walking?"

"Judge every word and deed which is according to nature to be fit for
thee, and be not diverted by the blame which follows...but if a thing is
good to be done or said, do not consider it unworthy of thee." (v. 3.)

Sometimes, indeed, Marcus Aurelius wavers. The evils of life overpower
him. "Such as bathing appears to thee," he says, "_oil, sweat, dirt,
filthy water, all things disgusting--so is every part of life and
everything_" (viii. 24); and again:--"Of human life the time is a point,
and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the
composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a
whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment."
But more often he retains his perfect tranquillity, and says, "Either
thou livest here, and hast already accustomed thyself to it, or thou
art going away, and this was thine own will; or thou art dying, and hast
discharged thy duty. _But besides these things there is nothing. Be of
good cheer, then_." (x. 22.) "Take me, and cast me where thou wilt, for
then I shall keep my divine part tranquil, that is, content, if it can
feel and act conformably to its proper constitution." (viii. 45.)

There is something delightful in the fact that even in the Stoic
philosophy there was some comfort to keep men from despair. To a holy
and scrupulous conscience like that of Marcus, there would have been an
inestimable preciousness in the Christian doctrine of the "forgiveness
of the sins." Of that divine mercy--of that sin-uncreating power--the
ancient world knew nothing; but in Marcus we find some dim and faint