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Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

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cxxxvi INTRODUCTION SECT.<br />

vistas <strong>of</strong> poetic utterance.<br />

" Earth is in love with rain,<br />

and holy aether loves. Yes, the world-order is in love<br />

with fashioning whatever is <strong>to</strong> be. To the world-order I<br />

pr<strong>of</strong>ess 'Thy love is mine.'" 1 The very modernness <strong>of</strong><br />

<strong>to</strong>uch may cause the rarity and novelty <strong>of</strong> such a section<br />

as iii. 2 <strong>to</strong> escape the reader's notice. The directness<br />

and the delicacy <strong>of</strong> the realism go far beyond the generalities<br />

<strong>of</strong> the Hymn <strong>of</strong> Cleanthes, and anticipate notes<br />

such as those <strong>of</strong> the Prometheus Unbound:<br />

The wandering voices and the shadows these<br />

Of all that man becomes, the media<strong>to</strong>rs<br />

Of that best worship, love, by him and us<br />

Given and returned ; swift shapes and sounds, which grow<br />

More fair and s<strong>of</strong>t, as man grows wise and kind,<br />

And, veil by veil, evil and error fall.<br />

And men and beasts in happy dreams shall gather<br />

Strength for the coming day and all its joy.<br />

And death shall be the last embrace <strong>of</strong> her<br />

Who takes the life she gave, even as a mother,<br />

Folding her child, says, ' '<br />

Leave me not again.<br />

Thus man has conscious communion with all parts<br />

<strong>of</strong> the great whole : but a special tie <strong>of</strong> kind unites him<br />

with one member <strong>of</strong> the order, his fellow-men. In the<br />

economy <strong>of</strong> nature all things exist for sake <strong>of</strong> something<br />

else, the lower ever subserving the needs <strong>of</strong> the higher. 2<br />

Man, the crown <strong>of</strong> nature,<br />

differentiated from all other<br />

creatures by the gift <strong>of</strong> Reason, 3 is called <strong>to</strong> minister <strong>to</strong><br />

1 x. 21 ; cf. v. 4.<br />

2 v. 16, 30; vii. 55; xi. 10, 18.<br />

3 iii. 4, 6, 9 ; iv. 3, 4, 29 ; v. 16, 34 ; vi. 14, 23 ; ix. 8, 9 ;<br />

xi. i, 20, etc.

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