ENGLISH COMMENTARY
that, if opposition arouses your wrath, you can calm yourself by repeating the alphabet, 'like to him that would say over the four and twenty letters when he was angry', as Bacon advises. Ch. 27 gives a reason why we are not to be angry with those who 'spell' their aims and objects differently from ourselves.
Marcus often recurs to this subject of Anger, and, as it seems in reading his book, with increasing charity. In xi. 18 he summarizes his position in a kind of 'Duty to my neighbour'. Elsewhere he gives these precepts to himself:
Be kind to the offender and not angry; the gods are not provoked and even bestow upon men the inferior goods which they desire, health, wealth and glory.[1]
When tempted to be angry, examine your own shortcomings.[2]
Cure by reasoning and, if you must reprove, do it in a corner, without display of arrogance or anger.[3]
Never blink the fact that evil is evil, only treat all evil with charity.[4]
Chs. 28–9. The thought of Death as rest and relief is succeeded by a reminder that while the body can still carry on, the spirit dishonours itself by surrender. This leads to the profession of the central chapter of the Book.
Ch. 30. The self-dedication, with its reminder of the temptations of his imperial station, is followed by the character sketch of him whose disciple he calls himself. The portrait converts the abstract terms 'simple, good, etc.' proposed to himself, into the exquisite detail of the conduct of his predecessor, as head of the State.
Much has been made of this passage in the endeavour to show that vi. 30 was written earlier than i. 16, with its fuller study of Antoninus Pius. But it might well be a redraft of the earlier chapter, on a scale suitable to this place.
Ch. 31. The thought of the last hour leads to this call to life from sleep and death.[5] The last words are difficult. He seems to mean 'look at the present as clearly as you looked at the past' (vii. 2).
Chs. 32–4. The way to look at the present is to be independent of mere bodily sensations, and of all except present activities; for
