a nature to be left at a critical age
with absolute power, and wholly without good counsel and direction, was
the more fatal. Still one cannot help wishing that the example of Marcus
Aurelius could have availed more with his own only son. One cannot but
think that with such virtue as his there should go, too, the ardor that
removes mountains, and that the ardor that removes mountains might have
even won Commodus; the word _ineffectual_ again rises to one's mind;
Marcus Aurelius saved his own soul by his righteousness, and he could do
no more. Happy they who can do this! but still happier, who can do more!

Yet, when one passes from his outward to his inward life, when one turns
over the pages of his "Meditations," entries jotted down from day to day,
amid the business of the city or the fatigues of the camp, for his own
guidance and support; meant for no eye but his own; without the slightest
attempt at style, with no care, even, for correct writing; not to be
surpassed for naturalness and sincerity--all disposition to carp and cavil
dies away, and one is overpowered by the charm of a character of such
purity, delicacy, and virtue. He fails neither in small things nor in
great; he keeps watch over himself, both that the great springs of action
may be right in him, and that the minute details of action may be right
also. How admirable in a hard-tasked ruler, and a ruler, too, with a
passion for thinking and reading, is such a memorandum as the following:--

"Not frequently nor without necessity to say to anyone, or to write in a
letter, that I have no leisure; nor continually to excuse the neglect of
duties required by our relation to those with whom we live, by alleging
urgent occupation."

And, when that ruler is a Roman emperor, what an "idea" is this to be
written down and meditated by him:--

"The idea of a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity
administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and
the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of
the governed."

And, for all men who "drive at practice," what practical rules may not one
accumulate out of these "Meditations":--

"The greatest part of what we say or do being unnecessary, if a man takes
this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness. Accordingly, on
every occasion, a man should ask himself, 'Is this one of the unnecessary
things?' Now a man should take away not only unnecessar