BOOK X
what is just and right? It will make none. Hast thou forgotten that those who play the wanton[1] in their praise and blame of others, are such as they are[2] in their beds, at their board; and what are the things that they do, the things that they avoid or pursue, and how they pilfer and plunder, not with hands and feet but with the most precious part of them, whereby a man calls into being at will faith, modesty, truth, law, and a good 'genius'?[3]
14. Says the well-schooled and humble heart to Nature that gives and takes back all we have; Give what thou wilt, take back what thou wilt.[4] But he says it without any bravado of fortitude, in simple obedience and good will to her.
15. Thou has but a short time left to live. Live as on a mountain[5]; for whether it be here or there, matters not provided that, wherever a man live, he live as a citizen of the World-City.[6] Let men look upon thee, cite thee, as a man in very deed that lives according to Nature. If they cannot bear with thee, let them slay thee. For it were better so than to live their life.
16. Put an end once for all to this discussion of what a good man should be, and be one.[7]
17. Continually picture to thyself Time as a whole, and Substance as a whole, and every individual
- ↑ vii. 3; ix. 41.
- ↑ iii. 4 ad fin.; vi. 59; vii. 62; viii. 52, 53; ix. 34.
- ↑ vii. 17.
- ↑ cp. Job i. 21.
- ↑ x. 23. This striking phrase seems from a comparison of § 23 to mean: Count your life here in the city and Court, or, maybe, camp, as no whit worse than life in the free and health-giving air of a mountain-top with all its serenity and leisure for study and contemplation. It rests with you to make your "little plot within you" what you please. But, taken alone, "Live as on a mountain" might mean "Live in the open light of day under the eyes of God and men in a purer atmosphere above the pettinesses of the world."
- ↑ iv. 3, § 2.
- ↑ Dio (71. 34, § 5) says of Marcus ὡς ἀληθῶς ἀγαθὸς ἀνὴρ ἦν.
