iph Amurath with his tale of fourteen happy days out of a
long life of royal opportunity; Swift with his birthday lection from
Jeremiah. Rather there trooped into memory with a quiet pomp and
induction of joy, forms of men who, though justified in rebellion by
every human suffrage, remained loyal to the end and proved by endurance
a more imperial humanity. Socrates unperturbed by mortal injustice;
Dante a deep harmonious voice amid jangling destinies; William the
Silent serene in every desperate conjecture--these seemed now the more
perfect captains. If exile had done no more than transfer my allegiance
to such as these, I had not borne the lash in vain.

But at the first setting out upon this later stage I had still mistakes
to make, and the ascent to tranquillity was not to be accomplished
without stumbling. It was the old Roman creed which first drew me away
from fretting memories; in its high restraint, as of a hushed yet mighty
wind, it breathed a power of valiant endurance, and promised before
nightfall the respite of a twilight hour. For stoicism has qualities
which seem foreordained for the bracing of shy souls, as if the men who
framed its austere laws had prescience of our frailty and consciously
legislated to its intention. It is the philosophy of the individual
standing by himself, as the shy must always stand, over against a world
which he likes not but may not altogether shun. And in this proud
estrangement it promises release from all the inquisition of morbid
fears, and an imperturbable calm above the need of earthly friends or
comfort or happiness; it plants the feet upon that path of nature along
which a man may go strongly, consoled in solitude by a god-like sense of
self-reliance. This immutable confidence is the essential power of
stoicism, which does not, like the great oriental religions, tame
personality by ruthless maiming, but teaches it to bear the brunt of
adversities erect, like an athlete finely trained. Its very arrogance,
its sufficiency, perforce commend it to those whose instinct urges to
self-abasement: its lofty disregard of adverse circumstance is medical
to their timidity.

And so in the hour of my bereavement its voice inspired to resistance
like a bugle sounding the advance; its echoes rang with the assurance
that man was not made to be the worm of Eden, darkly creeping in the
dust, but rather its noblest creature, with the light crowning his head
and the winds tossing his hair.