Of the appointment of Commodus as his successor, it may be said that the paternal heart hoped against hope for filial excellence.  Marcus Aurelius believed, as clearly appears from many passages in the ‘Meditations,’ that men did not do evil willingly but through ignorance; and that when the exceeding beauty of goodness had been fully disclosed to them, the depravity of evil conduct would appear no less clearly.  The Emperor who, when the head of his rebellious general was brought to him, grieved because that general had not lived to be forgiven; the ruler who burned unread all treasonable correspondence, would not, nay, could not believe in the existence of such an inhuman monster as Commodus proved himself to be.  The appointment of Commodus was a calamity of the most terrific character; but it testifies in trumpet tones to the nobility of the Emperor’s heart, the sincerity of his own belief in the triumph of right and justice.

The volume of the ‘Meditations’ is the best mirror of the Emperor’s soul.  Therein will be found expressed delicately but unmistakably much of the sorrow that darkened his life.  As the book proceeds the shadows deepen, and in the latter portion his loneliness is painfully apparent.  Yet he never lost hope or faith, or failed for one moment in his duty as a man, a philosopher, and an Emperor.  In the deadly marshes and in the great forests which stretched beside the Danube, in his mortal sickness, in the long nights when weakness and pain rendered sleep impossible, it is not difficult to imagine him in his tent, writing, by the light of his solitary lamp, the immortal thoughts which alone soothed his soul; thoughts which have out-lived the centuries—­not perhaps wholly by chance—­to reveal to men in nations then unborn, on continents whose very existence was then unknown, the Godlike qualities of one of the noblest of the sons of men.

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The best literal translation of the work into English thus far made is that of George Long.  It is published by Little, Brown & Co. of Boston.  A most admirable work, ‘The Life of Marcus Aurelius,’ by Paul Barron Watson, published by Harper & Brothers, New York, will repay careful reading.  Other general works to be consulted are as follows:—­’Seekers After God,’ by Rev. F.W.  Farrar, Macmillan & Co. (1890); and ’Classical Essays,’ by F.W.H.  Myers, Macmillan & Co. (1888).  Both of these contain excellent articles upon the Emperor.  Consult also Renan’s ’History of the Origins of Christianity,’ Book vii., Marcus Aurelius, translation published by Mathieson & Co. (London, 1896); ‘Essay on Marcus Aurelius’ by Matthew Arnold, in his ‘Essays in Criticism,’ Macmillan & Co.  Further information may also be had in Montesquieu’s ‘Decadence of the Romans,’ Sismondi’s ‘Fall of the Roman Empire,’ and Gibbon’s ’Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.’

[Illustration:  Signature:  James F. Gluck]

EXCERPTS FROM THE ‘MEDITATIONS’