Part 8 (1/2)
”What more dost thou want when thou hast done a man a service? Art thou not content that thou hast done something conformable to thy nature, and dost thou seek to be paid for it, _just as if the eye demanded a recompense for seeing, or the feet for walking_?”
Christianity, in order to match morality of this strain, has to correct its apparent offers of external reward, and to say: ”The kingdom of G.o.d is within you.”
I have said that it is by its accent of emotion that the morality of Marcus Aurelius acquires a special character, and reminds one of Christian morality. The sentences of Seneca are stimulating to the intellect; the sentences of Epictetus are fortifying to the character; the sentences of Marcus Aurelius find their way to the soul. I have said that religious emotion has the power to _light up_ morality: the emotion of Marcus Aurelius does not quite light up his morality, but it suffuses it; it has not power to melt the clouds of effort and austerity quite away, but it s.h.i.+nes through them and glorifies them; it is a spirit, not so much of gladness and elation, as of gentleness and sweetness; a delicate and tender sentiment, which is less than joy and more than resignation. He says that in his youth he learned from Maximus, one of his teachers, ”cheerfulness in all circ.u.mstances as well as in illness; _and a just admixture in the moral character of sweetness and dignity_”: and it is this very admixture of sweetness with his dignity which makes him so beautiful a moralist. It enables him to carry, even into his observation of nature, a delicate penetration, a sympathetic tenderness, worthy of Wordsworth; the spirit of such a remark as the following seems to me to have no parallel in the whole range of Greek and Roman literature:--
”Figs, when they are quite ripe, gape open; and in the ripe olives the very circ.u.mstance of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty to the fruit. And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion's eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and many other things,--though they are far from being beautiful, in a certain sense,--still, because they come in the course of nature, have a beauty in them, and they please the mind; so that, if a man should have a feeling and a deeper insight with respect to the things which are produced in the universe, there is hardly anything which comes in the course of nature which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure.”
But it is when his strain pa.s.ses to directly moral subjects that his delicacy and sweetness lend to it the greatest charm. Let those who can feel the beauty of spiritual refinement read this, the reflection of an emperor who prized mental superiority highly:--
”Thou sayest, 'Men cannot admire the sharpness of thy wits.' Be it so; but there are many other things of which thou canst not say, 'I am not formed for them by nature.' Show those qualities, then, which are altogether in thy power--sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, magnanimity. Dost thou not see how many qualities thou art at once able to exhibit, as to which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet thou still remainest voluntarily below the mark? Or art thou compelled, through being defectively furnished by nature, to murmur, and to be mean, and to flatter, and to find fault with thy poor body, and to try to please men, and to make great display, and to be so restless in thy mind? No, indeed; but thou mightest have been delivered from these things long ago. Only, if in truth thou canst be charged with being rather slow and dull of comprehension, thou must exert thyself about this also, not neglecting nor yet taking pleasure in thy dulness.”
The same sweetness enables him to fix his mind, when he sees the isolation and moral death caused by sin, not on the cheerless thought of the misery of this condition, but on the inspiriting thought that man is blest with the power to escape from it:--
”Suppose that thou hast detached thyself from the natural unity,--for thou wast made by nature a part, but now thou hast cut thyself off,--yet here is this beautiful provision, that it is in thy power again to unite thyself. G.o.d has allowed this to no other part--after it has been separated and cut asunder, to come together again. But consider the goodness with which he has privileged man; for he has put it in his power, when he has been separated, to return and to be united and to resume his place.”
It enables him to control even the pa.s.sion for retreat and solitude, so strong in a soul like his, to which the world could offer no abiding city.
”Men seek retreat for themselves, houses in the country, seash.o.r.es, and mountains; and thou, too, art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of man, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that, by looking into them, he is immediately in perfect tranquillity.
Constantly, then, give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself; and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which thou returnest.”
Against this feeling of discontent and weariness, so natural to the great for whom there seems nothing left to desire or to strive after, but so enfeebling to them, so deteriorating, Marcus Aurelius never ceased to struggle. With resolute thankfulness he kept in remembrance the blessings of his lot; the true blessings of it, not the false.
”I have to thank Heaven that I was subjected to a ruler and a father [Antoninus Pius] who was able to take away all pride from me, and to bring me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a palace without either guards, or embroidered dresses, or any show of this kind; but that it is in such a man's power to bring himself very near to the fas.h.i.+on of a private person, without being for this reason either meaner in thought or more remiss in action with respect to the things which must be done for public interest.... I have to be thankful that my children have not been stupid or deformed in body; that I did not make more proficiency in rhetoric, poetry, and the other studies, by which I should perhaps have been completely engrossed, if I had seen that I was making great progress in them;... that I knew Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus;...
that I received clear and frequent impressions about living according to nature, and what kind of a life that is, so that, so far as depended on Heaven and its gifts, help, and inspiration, nothing hindered me from forthwith living according to nature, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, and through not observing the admonitions of Heaven, and, I may almost say, its direct instructions; that my body has held out so long in such a kind of life as mine; that, though it was my mother's lot to die young, she spent the last years of her life with 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 grat.i.tude 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, b.e.s.t.i.a.l, 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 a.s.sumed 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 general more gloomy and monotonous than declamations on the hollowness and transitoriness of human life and grandeur; but here, too, the great charm of Marcus Aurelius, his emotion, comes in to relieve the monotony and to break through the gloom; and even on this eternally used topic he is imaginative, fresh, and striking:--
”Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wis.h.i.+ng for somebody to die, grumbling about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring to be consuls or kings. Well, then that life of these people no longer exists at all.
Again, go to the times of Trajan. All is again the same. Their life too is gone. But chiefly thou shouldst think of those whom thou hast thyself known distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to do what was in accordance with their proper const.i.tution, and to hold firmly to this and to be content with it.”
Again:--
”The things which are much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and trifling; and people are like little dogs, biting one another, and little children quarreling, crying, and then straightway laughing. But fidelity, and modesty, and justice and truth are fled
Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.
What then is there which still detains thee here?”