in great part merely a protest against paganism; its ideal is negative
rather than positive, passive rather than active." He says, that, in
certain most important respects, "it falls far below the best morality
of the ancients." Now, the object of systems of morality is to take
possession of human life, to save it from being abandoned to passion or
allowed to drift at hazard, to give it happiness by establishing it in
the practice of virtue; and this object they seek to attain by
prescribing to human life fixed principles of action, fixed rules of
conduct. In its uninspired as well as in its inspired moments, in its
days of languor and gloom as well as in its days of sunshine and energy,
human life has thus always a clue to follow, and may always be making
way towards its goal. Christian morality has not failed to supply to
human life aids of this sort. It has supplied them far more abundantly
than many of its critics imagine. The most exquisite document after
those of the New Testament, of all the documents the Christian spirit
has ever inspired,--the _Imitation_,[184]--by no means contains the
whole of Christian morality; nay, the disparagers of this morality would
think themselves sure of triumphing if one agreed to look for it in the
_Imitation_ only. But even the _Imitation_ is full of passages like
these: "Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est";--"Omni die renovare
debemus propositum nostrum, dicentes: nunc hodie perfecte incipiamus,
quia nihil est quod hactenus fecimus";--"Secundum propositum nostrum
est cursus profectus nostri";--"Raro etiam unum vitium perfecte
vincimus, et ad _quotidianum_ profectum non accendimur"; "Semper aliquid
certi proponendum est"; "Tibi ipsi violentiam frequenter fac." (_A life
without a purpose is a languid, drifting thing;--Every day we ought to
renew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a sound
beginning, for what we have hitherto done is nought;--Our improvement is
in proportion to our purpose;--We hardly ever manage to get completely
rid even of one fault, and do not set our hearts on _daily_
improvement;--Always place a definite purpose before thee;--Get the
habit of mastering thine inclination._) These are moral precepts, and
moral precepts of the best kind. As rules to hold possession of our
conduct, and to keep us in the right course through outward troubles and
inward perplexity, they are equal to the best ever furnished by the
great masters of morals--Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.
But moral rules, apprehended as ideas first, and then rigorously
followed as laws, are, and must be, for the sage only. The mass of
mankind have neither force of intellect enough to apprehend them clearly
as ideas, nor force of character enough to follow them strictly as laws.
The mass of mankind can be carried along a course full of hardship for
the natural man, can be borne over the thousand impediments of the
narrow way, only by the tide of a joyful and bounding emotion. It is
impossible to rise from reading Epictetus[185]or Marcus Aurelius
without a sense of constraint and melancholy, without feeling that the
burden laid upon man is well-nigh greater than he can bear. Honor to the
sages who have felt this, and yet have borne it! Yet, even for the sage,
this sense of labor and sorrow in his march towards the goal constitutes
a relative inferiority; the noblest souls of whatever creed, the pagan
Empedocles[186] as well as the Christian Paul, have insisted on the
necessity of an inspiration, a joyful emotion, to make moral action
perfect; an obscure indication of this necessity is the one drop of
truth in the ocean of verbiage with which the controversy on
justification by faith has flooded the world. But, for the ordinary man,
this sense of labor and sorrow constitutes an absolute disqualification;
it paralyzes him; under the weight of it, he cannot make way towards the
goal at all. The paramount virtue of religion is, that it has _lighted
up_ morality; that it has supplied the emotion and inspiration needful
for carrying the sage along the narrow way perfectly, for carrying the
ordinary man along it at all. Even the religions with most dross in them
have had something of this virtue; but the Christian religion manifests
it with unexampled splendor. "Lead me, Zeus and Destiny!" says the
prayer of Epictetus, "whithersoever I am appointed to go; I will follow
without wavering; even though I turn coward and shrink, I shall have to
follow all the same."[187] The fortitude of that is for the strong, for
the few; even for them the spiritual atmosphere with which it surrounds
them is bleak and gray. But, "Let thy loving spirit lead me forth into
the land of righteousness";[188]--"The Lord shall be unto thee an
everlasting light, and thy God thy glory";[189]--"Unto you that fear my
name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings,"
[190] says the Old Testament; "Born, not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God";[191]--"Except a man be
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God";[192]--"Whatsoever is
born of God, overcometh the world,"[193] says the New. The ray of
sunshine is there, the glow of a divine warmth;--the austerity of the
sage melts away under it, the paralysis of the weak is healed; he who is
vivified by it renews his strength; "all things are possible to him
";[194] "he is a new creature."[195]
Epictetus says: "Every matter has two handles, one of which will bear
taking hold of, the other not. If thy brother sin against thee, lay not
hold of the matter by this, that he sins against thee; for by this
handle the matter will not bear taking hold of. But rather lay hold of
it by this, that he is thy brother, thy born mate; and thou wilt take
hold of it by what will bear handling."[196] Jesus, being asked whether
a man is bound to forgive his brother as often as seven times, answers:
"I say not unto thee, until seven times, but until seventy times seven."
[197] Epictetus here suggests to the reason grounds for forgiveness of
injuries which Jesus does not; but it is vain to say that Epictetus is
on that account a better moralist than Jesus, if the warmth, the
emotion, of Jesus's answer fires his hearer to the practice of
forgiveness of injuries, while the thought in Epictetus's leaves him
cold. So with Christian morality in general: its distinction is not that
it propounds the maxim, "Thou shalt love God and thy neighbor,"[198]
with more development, closer reasoning, truer sincerity, than other
moral systems; it is that it propounds this maxim with an inspiration
which wonderfully catches the hearer and makes him act upon it. It is
because Mr. Mill has attained to the perception of truths of this
nature, that he is,--instead of being, like the school from which he
proceeds, doomed to sterility,--a writer of distinguished mark and
influence, a writer deserving all attention and respect; it is (I must
be pardoned for saying) because he is not sufficiently leavened with
them, that he falls just short of being a great writer.
That which gives to the moral writings of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius
their peculiar character and charm, is their being suffused and softened
by something of this very sentiment whence Christian morality draws its
best power. Mr. Long[199] has recently published in a convenient form a
translation of these writings, and has thus enabled English readers to
judge Marcus Aurelius for themselves; he has rendered his countrymen a
real service by so doing. Mr. Long's reputation as a scholar is a
sufficient guarantee of the general fidelity and accuracy of his
translation; on these matters, besides, I am hardly entitled to speak,
and my praise is of no value. But that for which I and the rest of the
unlearned may venture to praise Mr. Long is this: that he treats Marcus
Aurelius's writings, as he treats all the other remains of Greek and
Roman antiquity which he touches, not as a dead and dry matter of
learning, but as documents with a side of modern applicability and
living interest, and valuable mainly so far as this side in them can be
made clear; that as in his notes on Plutarch's Roman Lives he deals with
the modern epoch of Cæsar and Cicero, not as food for schoolboys, but as
food for men, and men engaged in the current of contemporary life and
action, so in his remarks and essays on Marcus Aurelius he treats this
truly modern striver and thinker not as a Classical Dictionary hero, but
as a present source from which to draw "example of life, and instruction
of manners." Why may not a son of Dr. Arnold[200] say, what might
naturally here be said by any other critic, that in this lively and
fruitful way of considering the men and affairs of ancient Greece and
Rome, Mr. Long resembles Dr. Arnold?
One or two little complaints, however, I have against Mr. Long, and I
will get them off my mind at once. In the first place, why could he not
have found gentler and juster terms to describe the translation of his
predecessor, Jeremy Collier,[201]--the redoubtable enemy of stage
plays,--than these: "a most coarse and vulgar copy of the original?" As
a matter of taste, a translator should deal leniently with his
predecessor; but putting that out of the question, Mr. Long's language
is a great deal too hard. Most English people who knew Marcus Aurelius
before Mr. Long appeared as his introducer, knew him through Jeremy
Collier. And the acquaintance of a man like Marcus Aurelius is such an
imperishable benefit, that one can never lose a peculiar sense of
obligation towards the man who confers it. Apart from this claim upon
one's tenderness, however, Jeremy Collier's version deserves respect for
its genuine spirit and vigor, the spirit and vigor of the age of Dryden.
Jeremy Collier too, like Mr. Long, regarded in Marcus Aurelius the
living moralist, and not the dead classic; and his warmth of feeling
gave to his style an impetuosity and rhythm which from Mr. Long's style
(I do not blame it on that account) are absent. Let us place the two
side by side. The impressive opening of Marcus Aurelius's fifth book,
Mr. Long translates thus:--
"In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be
present: I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I
dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for
which I was brought into the world? Or have I been made for this, to lie
in the bed clothes and keep myself warm?--But this is more pleasant.--
Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure, and not at all for action or
exertion?"
Jeremy Collier has:--
"When you find an unwillingness to rise early in the morning, make this
short speech to yourself: 'I am getting up now to do the business of a
man; and am I out of humor for going about that which I was made for,
and for the sake of which I was sent into the world? Was I then designed
for nothing but to doze and batten beneath the counterpane? I thought
action had been the end of your being.'"
In another striking passage, again, Mr. Long has:--
"No longer wonder at hazard; for neither wilt thou read thy own memoirs,
nor the acts of the ancient Romans and Hellenes, and the selections from
books which thou wast reserving for thy old age. Hasten then to the end
which thou hast before thee, and, throwing away idle hopes, come to
thine own aid, if thou carest at all for thyself, while it is in thy
power."[202]
Here his despised predecessor has:--
"Don't go too far in your books and overgrasp yourself. Alas, you have
no time left to peruse your diary, to read over the Greek and Roman
history: come, don't flatter and deceive yourself; look to the main
chance, to the end and design of reading, and mind life more than
notion: I say, if you have a kindness for your person, drive at the
practice and help yourself, for that is in your own power."
It seems to me that here for style and force Jeremy Collier can (to say
the least) perfectly stand comparison with Mr. Long. Jeremy Collier's
real defect as a translator is not his coarseness and vulgarity, but his
imperfect acquaintance with Greek; this is a serious defect, a fatal
one; it rendered a translation like Mr. Long's necessary. Jeremy
Collier's work will now be forgotten, and Mr. Long stands master of the
field, but he may be content, at any rate, to leave his predecessor's
grave unharmed, even if he will not throw upon it, in passing, a handful
of kindly earth.
Another complaint I have against Mr. Long is, that he is not quite
idiomatic and simple enough. It is a little formal, at least, if not
pedantic, to say _Ethic_ and _Dialectic_, instead of _Ethics_ and
_Dialectics_, and to say "_Hellenes_ and Romans" instead of "_Greeks_
and Romans." And why, too,--the name of Antoninus being preoccupied by
Antoninus Pius,[203]--will Mr. Long call his author Marcus _Antoninus_
instead of Marcus _Aurelius?_ Small as these matters appear, they are
important when one has to deal with the general public, and not with a
small circle of scholars; and it is the general public that the
translator of a short masterpiece on morals, such as is the book of
Marcus Aurelius, should have in view; his aim should be to make Marcus
Aurelius's work as popular as the _Imitation_, and Marcus Aurelius's
name as familiar as Socrates's. In rendering or naming him, therefore,
punctilious accuracy of phrase is not so much to be sought as
accessibility and currency; everything which may best enable the Emperor
and his precepts _volitare per ora virum_[204] It is essential to
render him in language perfectly plain and unprofessional, and to call
him by the name by which he is best and most distinctly known. The
translators of the Bible talk of _pence_ and not _denarii_, and the
admirers of Voltaire do not celebrate him under the name of Arouet.[205]
But, after these trifling complaints are made, one must end, as one
began, in unfeigned gratitude to Mr. Long for his excellent and
substantial reproduction in English of an invaluable work. In general
the substantiality, soundness, and precision of Mr. Long's rendering are
(I will venture, after all, to give my opinion about them) as
conspicuous as the living spirit with which he treats antiquity; and
these qualities are particularly desirable in the translator of a work
like that of Marcus Aurelius, of which the language is often corrupt,
almost always hard and obscure. Any one who wants to appreciate Mr.
Long's merits as a translator may read, in the original and in Mr.
Long's translation, the seventh chapter of the tenth book; he will see
how, through all the dubiousness and involved manner of the Greek, Mr.
Long has firmly seized upon the clear thought which is certainly at the
bottom of that troubled wording, and, in distinctly rendering this
thought, has at the same time thrown round its expression a
characteristic shade of painfulness and difficulty which just suits it.
And Marcus Aurelius's book is one which, when it is rendered so
accurately as Mr. Long renders it, even those who know Greek tolerably
well may choose to read rather in the translation than in the original.
For not only are the contents here incomparably more valuable than the
external form, but this form, the Greek of a Roman, is not exactly one
of those styles which have a physiognomy, which are an essential part of
their author, which stamp an indelible impression of him on the reader's
mind. An old Lyons commentator finds, indeed, in Marcus Aurelius's
Greek, something characteristic, something specially firm and imperial;
but I think an ordinary mortal will hardly find this: he will find
crabbed Greek, without any great charm of distinct physiognomy. The
Greek of Thucydides and Plato has this charm, and he who reads them in a
translation, however accurate, loses it, and loses much in losing it;
but the Greek of Marcus Aurelius, like the Greek of the New Testament,
and even more than the Greek of the New Testament, is wanting in it. If
one could be assured that the English Testament were made perfectly
accurate, one might be almost content never to open a Greek Testament
again; and, Mr. Long's version of Marcus Aurelius being what it is, an
Englishman who reads to live, and does not live to read, may henceforth
let the Greek original repose upon its shelf.
The man whose thoughts Mr. Long has thus faithfully reproduced, is
perhaps the most beautiful figure in history. He is one of those
consoling and hope-inspiring marks, which stand forever to remind our
weak and easily discouraged race how high human goodness and
perseverance have once been carried, and may be carried again. The
interest of mankind is peculiarly attracted by examples of signal
goodness in high places; for that testimony to the worth of goodness is
the most striking which is borne by those to whom all the means of
pleasure and self-indulgence lay open, by those who had at their command
the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Marcus Aurelius was the
ruler of the grandest of empires; and he was one of the best of men.
Besides him, history presents one or two sovereigns eminent for their
goodness, such as Saint Louis or Alfred. But Marcus Aurelius has, for us
moderns, this great superiority in interest over Saint Louis or Alfred,
that he lived and acted in a state of society modern by its essential
characteristics, in an epoch akin to our own, in a brilliant centre of
civilization. Trajan talks of "our enlightened age" just as glibly as
the _Times_[206] talks of it. Marcus Aurelius thus becomes for us a man
like ourselves, a man in all things tempted as we are. Saint Louis[207]
inhabits an atmosphere of mediæval Catholicism, which the man of the
nineteenth century may admire, indeed, may even passionately wish to
inhabit, but which, strive as he will, he cannot really inhabit. Alfred
belongs to a state of society (I say it with all deference to the
_Saturday Review_[208] critic who keeps such jealous watch over the
honor of our Saxon ancestors) half barbarous. Neither Alfred nor Saint
Louis can be morally and intellectually as near to us as Marcus
Aurelius.
The record of the outward life of this admirable man has in it little of
striking incident. He was born at Rome on the 26th of April, in the year
121 of the Christian era. He was nephew and son-in-law to his
predecessor on the throne, Antoninus Pius. When Antoninus died, he was
forty years old, but from the time of his earliest manhood he had
assisted in administering public affairs. Then, after his uncle's death
in 161, for nineteen years he reigned as emperor. The barbarians were
pressing on the Roman frontier, and a great part of Marcus Aurelius's
nineteen years of reign was passed in campaigning. His absences from
Rome were numerous and long. We hear of him in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt,
Greece; but, above all, in the countries on the Danube, where the war
with the barbarians was going on,--in Austria, Moravia, Hungary. In
these countries much of his Journal seems to have been written; parts of
it are dated from them; and there, a few weeks before his fifty-ninth
birthday, he fell sick and died.[209] The record of him on which his
fame chiefly rests is the record of his inward life,--his _Journal_, or
_Commentaries_, or _Meditations_, or _Thoughts_, for by all these names
has the work been called. Perhaps the most interesting of the records of
his outward life is that which the first book of this work supplies,
where he gives an account of his education, recites the names of those
to whom he is indebted for it, and enumerates his obligations to each of
them. It is a refreshing and consoling picture, a priceless treasure for
those, who, sick of the "wild and dreamlike trade of blood and guile,"
which seems to be nearly the whole of what history has to offer to our
view, seek eagerly for that substratum of right thinking and well-doing
which in all ages must surely have somewhere existed, for without it the
continued life of humanity would have been impossible. "From my mother I
learnt piety and beneficence, and abstinence not only from evil deeds
but even from evil thoughts; and further, simplicity in my way of
living, far removed from the habits of the rich." Let us remember that,
the next time we are reading the sixth satire of Juvenal.[210] "From my
tutor I learnt" (hear it, ye tutors of princes!) "endurance of labor,
and to want little and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with
other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander." The
vices and foibles of the Greek sophist or rhetorician--the _Græculus
esuriens_[211]--are in everybody's mind; but he who reads Marcus
Aurelius's account of his Greek teachers and masters, will understand
how it is that, in spite of the vices and foibles of individual
_Græculi_, the education of the human race owes to Greece a debt which
can never be overrated. The vague and colorless praise of history leaves
on the mind hardly any impression of Antoninus Pius: it is only from the
private memoranda of his nephew that we learn what a disciplined,
hard-working, gentle, wise, virtuous man he was; a man who, perhaps,
interests mankind less than his immortal nephew only because he has left
in writing no record of his inner life,--_caret quia vate sacro_.[212]
Of the outward life and circumstances of Marcus Aurelius, beyond these
notices which he has himself supplied, there are few of much interest
and importance. There is the fine anecdote of his speech when he heard
of the assassination of the revolted Avidius Cassius,[213] against whom
he was marching; _he was sorry_, he said, _to be deprived of the
pleasure of pardoning him_. And there are one or two more anecdotes of
him which show the same spirit. But the great record for the outward
life of a man who has left such a record of his lofty inward aspirations
as that which Marcus Aurelius has left, is the clear consenting voice of
all his contemporaries,--high and low, friend and enemy, pagan and
Christian,--in praise of his sincerity, justice, and goodness. The
world's charity does not err on the side of excess, and here was a man
occupying the most conspicuous station in the world, and professing the
highest possible standard of conduct;--yet the world was obliged to
declare that he walked worthily of his profession. Long after his death,
his bust was to be seen in the houses of private men through the wide
Roman empire. It may be the vulgar part of human nature which busies
itself with the semblance and doings of living sovereigns, it is its
nobler part which busies itself with those of the dead; these busts of
Marcus Aurelius, in the homes of Gaul, Britain, and Italy, bear witness,
not to the inmates' frivolous curiosity about princes and palaces, but
to their reverential memory of the passage of a great man upon the
earth.