ENGLISH COMMENTARY
Nowhere else has the Emperor put so well and so concisely his disdain of theories, his recognition of true political idealism. Here is no philosophic pedantry, only the frank recognition of the littleness even of the best endeavour.
Ch. 30. The temptation to vanity may be corrected by looking down in imagination, as Marcus must often have looked down from his place in the amphitheatre, upon the countless pettiness of men's acts and thoughts (vii. 48). Even the Roman Empire is bounded in extent, and many nations and climes know nothing of its ruler's name and deeds; if they do, they will soon forget them.
Chs. 31–3. Three chapters teaching calm amid circumstance; the first is derived from the transitory fate of human endeavour, from the duty of just dealing, and from the need to express Nature's common law in everyday life. The second enforces this lesson by a fresh reminder of Time's brevity and Change's rapidity; the third repeats the old thought that all finite time, long or short, is equal when compared with infinite time (ii. 14).
Ch. 34. What is the worth of those who censure and hate, if you look through the outward covering to the petty selves within? (chs. 18, 27).
Chs. 35–7. These three chapters are cither a dialogue with the lower self, or with an imaginary interlocutor. The word 'loss', with which they begin, suggests that Marcus is here correcting the tendency in the hour of bereavement to rebel against what his creed holds to be both inevitable and good. He who rebels ascribes suffering to the cruelty or weakness of the gods.
Marcus lost a child, called by his own name, Annius Verus, in a.d. 169. The skill of Galen could not cure him of a growth in the ear.[1] The subject is handled exquisitely by Walter Pater.[2]
Chapter 36 seems also to have been prompted by loss. The method of analysis beginning with the dead body and ending with the breath of life is used as a remedy in the presence of mortality.
Chapter 37 is difficult to arrange. Perhaps the first sentence is spoken by the sufferer of ch. 35, the rest is the reply by way of comfort and healing. Marcus recalls, in his own way, the familiar consolatory theme, the unimportance of length of days when
