BOOK IV
unnecessary, for then neither will distracting actions follow.
25. Try living the life of the good man who is more than content with what is allotted to him out of the whole, and is satisfied with his own acts as just and his own disposition as kindly: see how that answers.
26. Hast thou looked on that side of the picture? Look now on this! Fret not thyself; study to be simple.[1] Does a man do wrong? The wrong rests with him.[2] Has something befallen thee? It is well. Everything that befalls was from the beginning destined and spun[3] for thee as thy share out of the Whole. In a word, life is short.[4] Make profit of the present by right reasoning and justice. In thy relaxation be sober.
27. Either there is a well-arranged Order of things or a medley that is confused,[5] yet still an order. Or can a sort of order subsist in thee, while in the Universe there is no order, and that too when all things, though separated and dispersed, are still in sympathetic connexion?
28. A black character,[6] an unmanly character, an obstinate character, inhuman, animal, childish, stupid, counterfeit, shameless, mercenary, tyrannical.[7]
29. If he is an alien in the Universe who has no cognizance of the things that are in it, no less is he an alien[8] who has no cognizance of what is happening in it. He is an exile, who exiles himself from civic
- ↑ iv. 37; ix. 37. Dio (71. 34 §§ 4, 5) says of Marcus οὐδὲν προσποίητον είχε, and he is a far better authority than Capit. xxix. 6 and xx. 1–4.
- ↑ ix. 4, 38.
- ↑ iii. 11; iv. 34.
- ↑ iv. 17.
- ↑ vi. 10.
- ↑ iv. 18.
- ↑ Marcus here in his vehemence seems to violate his own gentle precepts. He must be thinking of some monster of iniquity, such as Nero.
- ↑ iv. 46. cp. 1 St. Peter, iv. 12.
