parts of the body are for the service of the whole; whence it follows that clashing and opposition are utterly unnatural.  This being of mine consists of body, breath, and that part which governs.  Put away your books and face the matter itself.  As for your body, value it no more than if you were just expiring; it is nothing but a little blood and bones.  Your breath is but a little air pumped in and out.  But the third part is your mind.  Here make a stand.  Consider that you are an old man, and do not let this noble part of you languish in slavery any longer.  Let it not be overborne with selfish passions; let it not quarrel with fate, or be uneasy at the present, or afraid of the future.  Providence shines clearly through the work of the gods.  Let these reflections satisfy you, and make them your rule to live by.  As for books, cease to be eager for them, that you may die in good humour, heartily thanking the gods for what you have had.

Remember that you are a man and a Roman, and let your actions be done with dignity, gravity, humanity, freedom and justice; let every action be done as though it were your last.  Have neither insincerity nor self-love.  Man has to gain but few points in order to live a happy and godlike life.  And what, after all, is there to be afraid of in death?  If the gods exist, you can suffer no harm; and if they do not exist, or take no care of us mortals, a world without gods or Providence is not worth a man’s while to live in.  But the being of the gods, and their concern in human affairs, is beyond dispute; and they have put it in every man’s power not to fall into any calamity properly so called.  Living and dying, honour and infamy, pleasure and pain, riches and poverty—­all these are common to the virtuous and the depraved, and are therefore intrinsically neither good nor evil.  We live but for a moment; our being is in a perpetual flux, our faculties are dim, our bodies tend ever to corruption; the soul is an eddy, fortune is not to be guessed at, and posthumous fame is oblivion.  To what, then, may we trust?  Why, to nothing but philosophy.  This is, to keep the interior divinity from injury and disgrace, and superior to pleasure and pain, and to acquiesce in one’s appointed lot.

BOOK III

Observe that the least things and effects in Nature are not without charm and beauty, as the little cracks in the crust of a loaf, though not intended by the baker, are agreeable and invite the appetite.  Thus figs, when they are ripest, open and gape; and olives, when they are near decaying, are peculiarly attractive.  The bending of an ear of corn, the frown of a lion, the foam of a boar, and many other like things, if you take them singly, are far from beautiful; but seen in their natural relations are characteristic and effective.  So if a man have but inclination and thought to examine the product of the universe, he will find that the most unpromising appearances have their own appropriate charm.