deed, but they have suffered it. The sorest calamity
that afflicts mortals has overtaken them; their choicest jewel has been
torn from them; and they can no more drown the memory of their loss than
they can take that faculty itself and tear it from their souls. Comfort
cannot come from that quarter. It can come only from being re-possessed
of that which has been lost hereafter, and from enjoying the hope of
that felicity now. See how Marcus writes. After much else, he says,

'I miss you, Piso, and the conversations which we had together. I know
not how it is, but your presence acted as a restraint upon my hot and
impatient temper. Since your departure I have been little less than mad,
and so far from being of service to Lucilia, she has been compelled to
moderate her own grief in the hope to assuage mine. I have done nothing
but rave, and curse my evil fortune. And can anything else be looked
for? How should a man be otherwise than exasperated when the very thing
he loves best in the wide universe is, without a moment's warning,
snatched away from him? A man falls into a passion if his seal is
stolen, or his rings, or his jewels, if his dwelling burns down, or his
slaves run away or die by some pestilence. And why should he not much
more when the providence of the gods, or the same power whatever it may
be that gave as a child, tears it from us again; and just then when we
have so grown into it that it is like hewing us in two? I can believe in
nothing but capricious chance. We live by chance, and so we die. Such
events are otherwise inexplicable. For what reason can by the most
ingenious be assigned for giving life for a few years to a being like
Gallus, and who then, before he is more than just past the threshold of
life, before a single power of his nature has put itself forth, but at
the moment when he is bound to his parents by ties of love which never
afterwards would be stronger--is struck dead? We can give no account of
it. It is irreconcilable with the hypothesis of an intelligent and good
Providence. It has all the features of chance upon it. A god could not
have done it unless he had been the god of Tartarus. Dark Pluto might,
or the avenging Furies, were they supreme. But away with all such
dreams! The slaves who were his proper attendants, have been scourged
and crucified. That at first gave me some relief; but already I repent
it. So it is with me; I rush suddenly upon what at the moment I think
right, and