t times to give up in despair
all attempt to improve the "little breed" of men around him, Marcus had
schooled his gentle spirit to live continually in far other feelings.
Were men contemptible? It was all the more reason why he should himself
be noble. Were men petty, and malignant, and passionate and unjust? In
that proportion were they all the more marked out for pity and
tenderness, and in that proportion was he bound to the utmost of his
ability to show himself great, and forgiving, and calm, and true. Thus
Marcus turns his very bitterest experience to gold, and from the
vilenesses of others, which depressed his lonely life, so far from
suffering himself to be embittered as well as saddened, he only draws
fresh lessons of humanity and love.

He says, for instance, "Begin the morning by saying to thyself, _I shall
meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious,
unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance
of what is good and evil_. But I who have seen the nature of the good
that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of
him that does wrong that is akin to me,... and that it partakes of the
same portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them,
for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my
kinsman, nor hate him. _For we are made for co-operation,_ like feet,
like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To
act against one another then is contrary to nature; and _it_ is acting
against one another to be vexed and turn away." (ii. 1.) Another of his
rules, and an eminently wise one, was to fix his thoughts as much as
possible on the virtues of others, rather than on their vices. "When
thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the _virtues_ of those who
live with thee--the activity of one, the modesty of another, the
liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth." What a
rebuke to the contemptuous cynicism which we are daily tempted to
display! "An infinite being comes before us," says Robertson, "with a
whole eternity wrapt up in his mind and soul, and we _proceed to
classify him, put a label upon him, as we would upon a jar, saying, This
is rice, that is jelly, and this pomatum_; and then we think we have
saved ourselves the necessity of taking off the cover, How differently
our Lord treated the people who came to Him!... consequently, at His
touch each one gave out his p