“When thou hast assumed these names,—­good, modest, true, rational, equal-minded, magnanimous,—­take care that thou dost not change these names; and, if thou shouldst lose them, quickly return to them.  If thou maintainest thyself in possession of these names without desiring that others should call thee by them, thou wilt be another being, and wilt enter on another life.  For to continue to be such as thou hast hitherto been, and to be torn in pieces and defiled in such a life, is the character of a very stupid man, and one overfond of his life, and like those half-devoured fighters with wild beasts, who though covered with wounds and gore still entreat to be kept to the following day, though they will be exposed in the same state to the same claws and bites.  Therefore fix thyself in the possession of these few names:  and if thou art able to abide in them, abide as if thou wast removed to the Happy Islands."[234]

For all his sweetness and serenity, however, man’s point of life “between two infinities” (of that expression Marcus Aurelius is the real owner) was to him anything but a Happy Island, and the performances on it he saw through no veils of illusion.  Nothing is in general more gloomy and monotonous than declamations on the hollowness and transitoriness of human life and grandeur:  but here, too, the great charm of Marcus Aurelius, his emotion, comes in to relieve the monotony and to break through the gloom; and even on this eternally used topic he is imaginative, fresh, and striking:—­

“Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian.  Thou wilt see all these things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for somebody to die, grumbling about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring to be consuls or kings.  Well then that life of these people no longer exists at all.  Again, go to the times of Trajan.  All is again the same.  Their life too is gone.  But chiefly thou shouldst think of those whom thou hast thyself known distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to do what was in accordance with their proper constitution, and to hold firmly to this and to be content with it."[235]

Again:—­

“The things which are much valued in life are empty, and rotten, and trifling; and people are like little dogs, biting one another, and little children quarrelling, crying, and then straightway laughing.  But fidelity, and modesty, and justice, and truth, are fled

  ‘Up to Olympus from the wide-spread earth.’

What then is there which still detains thee here?"[236]

And once more:—­

“Look down from above on the countless herds of men, and their countless solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, and the differences among those who are born, who live together, and die.  And consider too the life lived by others in olden time, and the life now lived among barbarous nations, and how many know not even thy name, and how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are praising thee will very soon blame thee and that neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor reputation, nor anything else."[237]