Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

cxii INTRODUCTION SECT.
theatre-going, of physical exercise, of personal cleanli-
ness ; he pokes fun at fashion or unmasks meanness ;
he spices his talk with homely and concrete illustration,
racy and sometimes coarse ; he appeals now to litera-
ture and history, now to anecdotes of philosophers or
characters upon the stage ; his humour is fresh, caustic
and imperturbable, in personality and method reminding
us of Socrates.
In manner, the contrast offered by Marcus is com-
No sense of mission, and no hankering after
(plete. novelty or eclat, inspires his pen. He has neither
objectors to gainsay, nor disciples to edify ; he does not
exhort or rebuke, spur the apathetic or shame the re-
probate ; he has no mixed audience to attract and hold,
no diversity of circumstances to take into account. He
need not season instruction with wit, or diversify his
theme with illustration; such illustrations as occur are
from the large analogies of nature or from the ordered
round of day-by-day activities. The proofs and processes
which Epictetus discusses and justifies, Marcus
it is beside his mark
assumes as known and granted ;
to complete or articulate his system as a whole, to
/ formulate a moral casuistry for varieties of fortune, age,
/ and circumstance. He has but a single auditor serious,
V dispassionate, intent, himself. And even so the range
of introspection and of utterance is severely circumscribed.
Temptations of the flesh, for instance, except in forms of
weariness or pain, have passed out of sight. 'A few
principles, brief and elemental ' x
they are enough :
he
1 iv. 3, with which xi. 18 may be compared, as a summary of
'
all the commandments/