depressing, ignoble, and pitiable circumstance of life—­showed how one who seemed born to be a wretch could win noble happiness and immortal memory; the other—­a Roman, a patrician, strong, of heavenly beauty, of noble ancestors, almost born to the purple, the favourite of Emperors, the greatest conquerer, the greatest philosopher, the greatest ruler of his time-proved for ever that it is possible to be virtuous, and tender, and holy, and contented in the midst of sadness, even on an irresponsible and imperial throne.  Strange that, of the two, the Emperor is even sweeter, more simple, more admirable, more humbly and touchingly resigned, than the slave.  In him, Stoicism loses all its haughty self-assertion, all its impracticable paradox, for a manly melancholy which at once troubles and charms the heart.  “It seems,” says M. Martha, “that in him the philosophy of heathendom grows less proud, draws nearer and nearer to a Christianity which it ignored or which it despised, and is ready to fling itself into the arms of the ’Unknown God.’  In the sad Meditations of Aurelius we find a pure serenity, sweetness, and docility to the commands of God, which before him were unknown, and which Christian grace has alone surpassed.  If he has not yet attained to charity in all that fulness of meaning which Christianity has given to the word he has already gained its unction, and one cannot read his book, unique in the history of Pagan philosophy, without thinking of the sadness of Pascal and the gentleness of Fenelon.  We must pause before this soul, so lofty and so pure, to contemplate ancient virtue in its softest brilliancy, to see the moral delicacy to which profane doctrines have attained—­how they laid down their pride, and how penetrating a grace they have found in their new simplicity.  To make the example yet more striking, Providence, which, according to the Stoics, does nothing by chance, determined that the example of these simple virtues should bloom in the midst of all human grandeur—­that charity should be taught by the successor of blood stained Caesars, and humbleness of heart by an Emperor.”

Aurelius has always exercised a powerful fascination over the minds of eminent men “If you set aside, for a moment, the contemplation of the Christian verities,” says the eloquent and thoughtful Montesquieu, “search throughout all nature, and you will not find a grander object than the Antonines....  One feels a secret pleasure in speaking of this Emperor; one cannot read his life without a softening feeling of emotion.  He produces such an effect upon our minds that we think better of ourselves, because he inspires us with a better opinion of mankind.”  “It is more delightful,” says the great historian Niebuhr, “to speak of Marcus Aurelius than of any man in history; for if there is any sublime human virtue it is his.  He was certainly the noblest character of his time, and I know no other man who combined such unaffected kindness, mildness, and humility, with such conscientiousness and severity towards himself.  We possess innumerable busts of him, for every Roman of his time was anxious to possess his portrait, and if there is anywhere an expression of virtue it is in the heavenly features of Marcus Aurelius.”