en well and nobly
entertained, it is fit that I give place to another guest.'"

The strength and mastery thus promised raised my dejected spirits, as
the words of a new and sanguine physician may hearten one who had long
lain stricken yet now dares to hope for the day of recovery. This was a
law which did not denounce the world as illusion or enjoin a cloistral
seclusion upon the mind, but rather proposed each and every appearance
as a touchstone on which the quality of personality should be
unceasingly tried. By the constant application of a high standard to
life, it seemed to implant an incorrupt seed of manliness, and to create
in its disciples that saner mood which holds in equal aversion a
Heliogabalus and a Simeon Stylites. So persuaded, I could join with the
fervour of a neophyte in the Stoic's profession: "Good and evil are in
choice alone, and there is no cause of sorrowing save in my own errant
and wilful desires. When these shall have been overcome, I shall possess
my soul in tranquillity, vexing myself in nowise if, in the world's
illusive good, all men have the advantage over me. For all outward
things I will bear with equal mind, even chains or insults or great
pain, ashamed of this only, if reason shall not wholly free me from the
servitude of care. Let others boast of material goods; mine is the
privilege of not needing these or stooping to their control. I will
have but a temperate desire of things open to choice, as they are good
and present, and the tempter shall find no hold for his hands by which
to draw me astray. I will be content with any sojourn or any company,
for there is none, howsoever perilous, which may not prove and
strengthen the defences of my soul. For I have built an impregnable
citadel whence, if only I am true to myself, I can repel assaults from
the four quarters of heaven. Who shall console one lifted above the
range of grief, whom neither privation nor insolence can annoy? for he
has peace as an inalienable possession, and by no earthly tyranny shall
be perturbed. Bearing serenely all natural impediments to action,
trespassing beyond no eternal landmark, by no foolishness provoked, he
shall become a spectator and interpreter of God's works; he shall ripen
to the harvest in the sunshine and wait tranquilly for the sickle,
knowing that corn is only sown that it may be reaped, and man only born
to die."

The mere repetition of these words, so instinct with the spirit of old
Roman