But whatever may have been his impulse at times to give up in despair all attempt to improve the “little breed” of men around him, Marcus had schooled his gentle spirit to live continually in far other feelings.  Were men contemptible?  It was all the more reason why he should himself be noble.  Were men petty, and malignant, and passionate and unjust?  In that proportion were they all the more marked out for pity and tenderness, and in that proportion was he bound to the utmost of his ability to show himself great, and forgiving, and calm, and true.  Thus Marcus turns his very bitterest experience to gold, and from the vilenesses of others, which depressed his lonely life, so far from suffering himself to be embittered as well as saddened, he only draws fresh lessons of humanity and love.

He says, for instance, “Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.  All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.  But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him that does wrong that is akin to me,... and that it partakes of the same portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.  To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and turn away.” (ii. 1.) Another of his rules, and an eminently wise one, was to fix his thoughts as much as possible on the virtues of others, rather than on their vices.  “When thou wishest to delight thyself, think of the virtues of those who live with thee—­the activity of one, the modesty of another, the liberality of a third, and some other good quality of a fourth.”  What a rebuke to the contemptuous cynicism which we are daily tempted to display!  “An infinite being comes before us,” says Robertson, “with a whole eternity wrapt up in his mind and soul, and we proceed to classify him, put a label upon him, as we would upon a jar, saying, This is rice, that is jelly, and this pomatum; and then we think we have saved ourselves the necessity of taking off the cover, How differently our Lord treated the people who came to Him!... consequently, at His touch each one gave out his peculiar spark of light.”

Here, again, is a singularly pithy, comprehensive, and beautiful piece of advice:—­

“Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them or bear with them” (viii. 59.)

And again:  “The best way of revenging thyself is not to become like the wrong doer.”

And again, “If any man has done wrong, the harm is his own.  But perhaps he has not done wrong.” (ix. 38.)