Gems.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 10, 1 July 1884, Page 13

Gems.

Apothegems of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

Envy and duplicity and hypocrisy are in a tyrant. The same man can bo most resolute and yielding.

Receive favours from friends without being cither humbled by them or letting them pass unnoticed.

In the morning when thou riscst unwillingly, let this thought be present: lam rising to a man's work.

There are briars in the road—turn aside from them. Do not add, And why were such things made in the world ?

Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.

Endure labor and want little; work with your own hands, and not meddle with the affairs of others, or listen readily to slander.

A just admixture of sweetness and dignity is becoming in the moral character—and to be beneficent, ready to forgive, and free from falsehood.

Avoid a black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, one bestial, childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit scurrilous, fraudulent, tyrannical.

Do not be a man of many words or busy about many things, but act like a Roman and a ruler, who has taken his post like a man waiting for the signal which summons him from life.

Let the mind be simple and naked, more manifest than the body which surrounds it, so that the character may be written on the forehead, as true affection reads everything in the eyes of those it loves.

I received from Severus a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity administered with regard to equal rights and freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed.

Let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which thou returnest.

When a man has done thee any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion about good or evil he has done wrong. For when thou hast seen this thou wilt pity him, and wilt neither wonder nor be angry. It is thy duty then to pardon him.

How worthless are all these poor people who are engaged in politics, and, as they think, are playing the philosopher ? Do not expect Plato's Republic, but be content if the least thing goes well, and consider such an event to be no small matter.

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores and mountains ; but it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from troubles does a man retire than into his own soul.

Suppose that men curse thee. If a man should stand by a pure spring and curse it, the spring never ceases sending up wholesome water ; and if he should cast clay into it or filth, it will speedily dispense them, and wash them out, and will not be at all polluted.

Think of thyself not as a part merely of the world, but as a member of the human body, else thou dost not yet love men from thy heart; to do good does not delight thee for its own sake ; thou doest it still barely as a thing of propriety, and not yet as doing good to thine own self.

As a dog when he has tracked the game, as a bee when he has made the honey, so a man when he has done a good act does not call out for others to come and see, but goes on to another act as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes' in season. Must a man then be one of these, who in a manner act thus without observing it? Yes.

What will the most violent man do to thee if thou are still kindly towards him, and if, as opportunity occurs, thou gently admonishest him and calmly correctest his errors at the very' time when he is trying to do thee harm, saying, Not so, my child, ; we are made by Nature for something else ; I shall certainly not be harmed, but thou art injuring thyself ? .Show him by gentle tact and by general principles that this is so, and that even bees do not as he does, nor any animals of social nature. Thou must do affectionately and without any rancour in thy soul; and not as if thou were lecturing him, nor yet that any bystander may admire. ' " B.

Despotism is not all Conservative. It is not even in Russia, Despotism is the most corrosive, the most deleterious, the most dissolving of all things.—Heezen