and preserved! All else
may be neglected, all else may perish; but a word true forever to the
heart of humanity will be held too near to its heart to suffer from the
chances of time.

Of these two authors, Epictetus has the more nerve, spirit, and wit,
together with that exquisite homeliness which Thoreau rightly named "a
high art"; while Antoninus is characterized by more of tenderness,
culture, and breadth. The monarch, again, has a grave, almost pensive
tone; the slave is full of breezy health and cheer. One commonly prefers
him whom he has read last or read most. The distinction of both is, that
they hold hard to the central question, How shall man be indeed man? how
shall he be true to the inmost law and possibility of his being? Their
thoughts are, as we have said, respirations, vital processes, pieces of
spiritual function, the soul in every syllable. And hence through their
pages blows a breath of life which one may well name a wind of Heaven.

Our favorite was Antoninus until Mr. Higginson beguiled us with this
admirable version. For it is, indeed, admirable. It would be hard to
name a translation from Greek prose which, while faithful in substance
and tone to the original, is more entirely and charmingly readable.

Of mere correctness we do not speak. Correctness is cheap. It may be had
for money any day. A passage or two we notice, concerning which some
slight question might, perhaps, be opened; but it would be a question of
no importance; and the criticism we should be inclined to make might not
be sustained. Unquestionably the version is true, even nicely true, to
the ideas of the author.

But it is more and better. It is ingenious, felicitous, witty. Mr.
Higginson has the great advantage over too many translators (into
English, at least) of being not only a man of bright and vivid
intelligence, but also a proper proficient in the use of his mother
tongue, melodious in movement, elegant in manner, fortunate in phrase.
Now that Hawthorne is dead, America has not perhaps a writer who is
master of a more graceful prose. His style has that tempered and chaste
vivacity, that firm lightness of step, that quickness at a turn, not
interfering with continuity and momentum, which charms all whom style
can charm. Lowell's best prose--in "Fireside Travels," for example--has
similar qualities, and adds to them a surprising delicacy of wit and
subtilty of phrase, while it has less movement and less of rhythmical
emp