h me; that,
whenever I wished to help any man in his need, I was never told that I had
not the means of doing it; that, when I had an inclination to philosophy,
I did not fall into the hands of a sophist."

And, as he dwelt with gratitude on these helps and blessings vouchsafed to
him, his mind (so, at least, it seems to me) would sometimes revert with
awe to the perils and temptations of the lonely height where he stood, to
the lives of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, in their hideous
blackness and ruin; and then he wrote down for himself such a warning
entry as this, significant and terrible in its abruptness:--

"A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial,
childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent,
tyrannical!"

Or this:--

"About what am I now employing my soul? On every occasion I must ask
myself this question, and inquire, What have I now in this part of me
which they call the ruling principle, and whose soul have I now--that of a
child, or of a young man, or of a weak woman, or of a tyrant, or of one of
the lower animals in the service of man, or of a wild beast?"

The character he wished to attain he knew well, and beautifully he has
marked it, and marked, too, his sense of shortcoming:--

"When thou hast assumed these names,--good, modest, true, rational,
equal-minded, magnanimous,--take care that thou dost not change these
names; and, if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them. If thou
maintainest thyself in possession of these names, without desiring that
others should call thee by them, thou wilt be another being, and wilt
enter on another life. For to continue to be such as thou hast hitherto
been, and to be torn in pieces and denied in such a life, is the character
of a very stupid man, and one overfond of his life, and like those
half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, who though covered with wounds
and gore, still entreat to be kept to the following 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 wast removed to the Happy Islands."

For all his sweetness and serenity, however, man's point of life "between
two infinities" (of that expression Marcus Aurelius is the real owner) was
to him anything but a Happy Island, and the performances on it he saw
through no veils of illusion. Nothing is in g