“To the jaundiced honey tastes bitter, and to those bitten by mad dogs water causes fear; and to little children the ball is a fine thing.  Why then am I angry?  Dost thou think that a false opinion has less power than the bile in the jaundiced, or the poison in him who is bitten by a mad dog?” (vi. 52.)

“How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome and unsuitable, and immediately to be at tranquillity.” (v. 2.)

The passages in which Marcus speaks of evil as a relative thing,—­as being good in the making,—­the unripe and bitter bud of that which shall be hereafter a beautiful flower,—­although not expressed with perfect clearness, yet indicate his belief that our view of evil things rises in great measure from our inability to perceive the great whole of which they are but subservient parts.

“All things,” he says, “come from that universal ruling power, either directly or by way of consequence. And accordingly the lion’s gaping jaws, and that which is poisonous, and every hurtful thing, as a thorn, as mud, are after-products of the grand and beautiful.  Do not therefore imagine that they are of another kind from that which thou dost venerate, but form a just opinion of the source of all.”

In another curious passage he says that all things which are natural and congruent with the causes which produce them have a certain beauty and attractiveness of their own; for instance, the splittings and corrugations on the surface of bread when it has been baked.  “And again, figs when they are quite ripe gape open; and in the ripe olives the very circumstances of their being near to rottenness adds a peculiar beauty to the fruit.  And the ears of corn bending down, and the lion’s eyebrows, and the foam which flows from the mouth of wild boars, and many other things—­though they are far from being beautiful, if a man should examine them severally—­still, because they are consequent upon the things which are formed by nature, help to adorn them, and they please the mind; so that if a man should have a feeling and deeper insight about the things found in the universe there is hardly one of those which follow by way of consequence which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed so as to give pleasure.” (iv. 2.)

This congruity to nature—­the following of nature, and obedience to all her laws—­is the key-formula to the doctrines of the Roman Stoics.

“Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and terminates in itself, not having praise as part of itself.  Neither worse, then, nor better is a thing made by being praised.... Is such a thing as an emerald made worse than it was, if it is not praised? or gold, ivory, purple, a lyre, a little knife, a flower, a shrub?” (iv. 20.)

“Everything harmonizes with me which is harmonious to thee, O Universe.  Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee.  Everything is fruit to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature! from thee are all things, in thee are all things, to thee all things return. The poet says, Dear city of Cecrops; and wilt not thou say, Dear city of God?” (iv. 23.)