ing day, though they will be exposed in the same state to the
same claws and bites_. Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these
few names: and if thou art able to abide in them, abide as if thou were
removed to the Islands of the Blest." Alas! to Aurelius, in this life,
the Islands of the Blest were very far away. Heathen philosophy was
exalted and eloquent, but all its votaries were sad; to "the peace of
God, which passeth all understanding," it was not given them to attain.
We see Marcus "wise, self-governed, tender, thankful, blameless," says
Mr. Arnold, "yet with all this agitated, stretching out his arms for
something beyond--_tendentemque manue ripae ulterioris amore_"

I will quote in conclusion but three short precepts:--

"Be cheerful, and seek not external help, nor the tranquillity which
others give. _A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by
others_." (iv. 5.)

"_Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but
it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it_" (iv. 49.)

This comparison has been used many a time since the days of Marcus
Aurelius. The reader will at once recall Goldsmith's famous lines:--

"As some tall cliff that rears its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

"Short is the little that remains to thee of life. _Live as on a
mountain_. For it makes no difference whether a man lives there or here,
if he lives everywhere in the world as in a civil community. Let men
see, let them know a real man who lives as he was meant to live. If they
cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live as
men do." (x. 15.)

Such were some of the thoughts which Marcus Aurelius wrote in his diary
after days of battle with the Quadi, and the Marcomanni, and the
Sarmatae. Isolated from others no less by moral grandeur than by the
supremacy of his sovereign rank, he sought the society of his own noble
soul. I sometimes imagine that I see him seated on the borders of some
gloomy Pannonian forest or Hungarian marsh; through the darkness the
watchfires of the enemy gleam in the distance; but both among them, and
in the camp around him, every sound is hushed, except the tread of the
sentinel outside the imperial tent; and in that tent long after midnight
sits the patient Emperor by the light of his solitary lamp,