Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

158 MARCUS ANTONINUS BOOK
healthy smell should be prepared for every sound
and every scent ; and the healthy stomach too
for all kinds of food, no less than the molar for
everything which it was made to grind. So too
the healthy understanding should be prepared
for all that befalls. The mind which cries '
my
little ones '
or '
Save
Let every one applaud what-
ever I do,' is the eye that wants things green, or
the tooth that wants them soft.
No one is so fortunate, but that beside his
death-bed there will stand some welcoming the
coming blow. He was virtuous, say,
and wise.
Well, at the last will not one and another say in
his heart,
* Now let us breathe again, free of
master pedagogue ? True, he was never hard
on any of us, but I always felt that he was
tacitly condemning
us.' Such is the reward of
the virtuous. But in our case how many other
reasons there are, to swell the throng of those
who would be quit of us ! Realise this as death
draws on, and solace your departure with the
reflection I am leaving a life, in which my own
associates, for whom I have so striven, prayed
and thought, themselves wish for my removal,
hoping that they will perchance gain something