The Death of Marcus Aurelius
Tuesday, May 5, 2026
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Monday, May 4, 2026
Ellis Walker, Epictetus in Poetical Paraphrase 62
LXII.
In outward actions to spend to much time,
Is of stupidity too sure a sign;
As long to exercise, and long to eat,
To spend whole days, at least, to cram down meat,
To try what drink your belly will contain,
To be disgorg'd, to be piss'd out again,
Then half an hour, like a dull grinning fool,
To make wry faces over a close stool;
Or like a brutish swine, in sensual strife,
To wallow out whole hours with your dull wife,
When all this precious time should be assign'd,
For brave endeavours to improve your mind.
Is of stupidity too sure a sign;
As long to exercise, and long to eat,
To spend whole days, at least, to cram down meat,
To try what drink your belly will contain,
To be disgorg'd, to be piss'd out again,
Then half an hour, like a dull grinning fool,
To make wry faces over a close stool;
Or like a brutish swine, in sensual strife,
To wallow out whole hours with your dull wife,
When all this precious time should be assign'd,
For brave endeavours to improve your mind.
William Hogarth, Marriage A-la-Mode 6
While we were looking over this final entry in the series, she began to wonder: "Why does Hogarth have to be so over the top, so melodramatic? I understand that these folks are selfish, and lustful, and treacherous, but am I expected to believe that this sort of terrible punishment will befall all the villains of the world? I see all kinds of nasty people who are sitting pretty."
I knew better than to say anything, because she soon offered her own reply: "But they aren't really sitting pretty, are they? Their vices leave them rotting on the inside, though that would make for sort of a boring painting, so Hogarth takes their internal misery and reflects it in an external story. It's like an allegory about the state of their souls. Their Fortune mirrors their Nature."
Well, there you have it! Your sins might not drag you into poverty, or burden you with some wasting disease, or leave you completely alone, but they will never permit you a moment of peace.
Silvertongue has been hanged at Tyburn for the murder of the Earl, and the Countess can only return to her perpetually cash-strapped father. Though she has incurred no legal penalty, her life of status is now definitely over. Not even the needs of her child can overcome her guilt—or is it just shame? She has taken a fatal dose of laudanum.
Only the old maid seems to show any grief. The father is already removing his daughter's wedding ring, the last vestige of her former glory, in a desperate attempt to feed his avarice. The starving dog proves how far he has now fallen.
The child gives her mother one last kiss, though the marks on her face and the brace on her leg betray her final fate. The doctor berates the servant for having provided the drug, even as he appears more concerned with his professional pride than with his patient's comfort.
While I do know of some swindlers, dissemblers, and philanderers who found themselves penniless and friendless, I fear that most of them are living under the illusion of success. Don't let yourself be tricked by the facade.
William Hogarth, Marriage A-la-Mode VI: The Lady's Death (painting, 1743)
William Hogarth, Marriage A-la-Mode VI: The Lady's Death (engraving, 1743)
Sunday, May 3, 2026
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Saturday, May 2, 2026
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Friday, May 1, 2026
Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.3
You borrow, says one, these views from philosophers. I was afraid you would have told me that I borrowed it from panderers.
But Socrates reasoned in the manner you do—by Hercules, you say well; for it is recorded that he was a learned and a wise person.
Meanwhile as we are contending, not with blows, but with words, I ask you whether good men should inquire what was the opinion of porters and laborers, or that of the wisest of mankind? Especially too as no truer sentiment than this can be found, nor one more conducive to the interests of human life.
For what influence is there which can more deter men from the commission of every kind of evil, than if they become sensible that there are no degrees in sin? That the crime is the same, whether they offer violence to private persons or to magistrates. That in whatever families they have gratified their illicit desire, the turpitude of their lust is the same.
But Socrates reasoned in the manner you do—by Hercules, you say well; for it is recorded that he was a learned and a wise person.
Meanwhile as we are contending, not with blows, but with words, I ask you whether good men should inquire what was the opinion of porters and laborers, or that of the wisest of mankind? Especially too as no truer sentiment than this can be found, nor one more conducive to the interests of human life.
For what influence is there which can more deter men from the commission of every kind of evil, than if they become sensible that there are no degrees in sin? That the crime is the same, whether they offer violence to private persons or to magistrates. That in whatever families they have gratified their illicit desire, the turpitude of their lust is the same.
—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3
The observant teacher quickly discovers all of the ways his students will try to escape from an argument that makes them feel uncomfortable, and one of them is what I like to call the “stigma of snobbery”, a sort of corollary to the informal fallacy of ad populum.
“Yeah, well only eggheads say things like that! Why should I listen to some snooty philosopher?”
Indeed, if you are merely referring to a professional scholar, he may have much to teach you about footnotes and etymologies, even as he may not have much to offer you on becoming a wiser and a better human being. But do you include a Socrates, or a Diogenes, or an Epictetus in such a category? Were their noses in books, or were they out on the streets?
If I want to get something done right, whose guidance should I seek? It is the carpenter who can show me how to craft a chair, not the banker. It is the farmer who can advise me on growing a crop, not the lawyer. And it is the philosopher, properly understood, who can teach me right from wrong, not the celebrity demagogue of the hour.
The power to master a trade is within all of us, though only a few will freely choose the self-discipline necessary for such an excellence. Do not confuse the pretension of elitism with the authenticity of merit.
The Stoic claim about all virtues and vices being equal in kind is far more than a theoretical notion. It does me a world of good to remember why there is no such thing as a little bit of theft, or a little bit of adultery, or a little bit of murder, and that whatever the degrees of circumstance, each and every instance is a violation of my nature. As much as I justified the trifling diversion as harmless, it was a surrender of character from the very beginning.
When I first began to take my Catholic faith seriously, I was taken aback by the stark simplicity of an old-school confession: “number and species”. I was not being asked to provide any elaborate narrative for my sins, as if this could somehow alleviate my responsibility, and I was just required to state what I had done, and how many times I had done it.
If it involved mortal sin—grave matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent—then each and every instance was itself a deal-breaker, which completely separated me from sanctifying grace. Behind the formal language, it turned out to be a healthy dose of common sense.
The libertine will assume I am being priggish and repressed, but I have found that gently nurturing my conscience, without falling back on any cheap excuses, has allowed me to become far more compassionate and merciful: I know precisely what sort of a total jerk I have been, so I can hardly hold it against you. Beware the equivocation of the knave!
The observant teacher quickly discovers all of the ways his students will try to escape from an argument that makes them feel uncomfortable, and one of them is what I like to call the “stigma of snobbery”, a sort of corollary to the informal fallacy of ad populum.
“Yeah, well only eggheads say things like that! Why should I listen to some snooty philosopher?”
Indeed, if you are merely referring to a professional scholar, he may have much to teach you about footnotes and etymologies, even as he may not have much to offer you on becoming a wiser and a better human being. But do you include a Socrates, or a Diogenes, or an Epictetus in such a category? Were their noses in books, or were they out on the streets?
If I want to get something done right, whose guidance should I seek? It is the carpenter who can show me how to craft a chair, not the banker. It is the farmer who can advise me on growing a crop, not the lawyer. And it is the philosopher, properly understood, who can teach me right from wrong, not the celebrity demagogue of the hour.
The power to master a trade is within all of us, though only a few will freely choose the self-discipline necessary for such an excellence. Do not confuse the pretension of elitism with the authenticity of merit.
The Stoic claim about all virtues and vices being equal in kind is far more than a theoretical notion. It does me a world of good to remember why there is no such thing as a little bit of theft, or a little bit of adultery, or a little bit of murder, and that whatever the degrees of circumstance, each and every instance is a violation of my nature. As much as I justified the trifling diversion as harmless, it was a surrender of character from the very beginning.
When I first began to take my Catholic faith seriously, I was taken aback by the stark simplicity of an old-school confession: “number and species”. I was not being asked to provide any elaborate narrative for my sins, as if this could somehow alleviate my responsibility, and I was just required to state what I had done, and how many times I had done it.
If it involved mortal sin—grave matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent—then each and every instance was itself a deal-breaker, which completely separated me from sanctifying grace. Behind the formal language, it turned out to be a healthy dose of common sense.
The libertine will assume I am being priggish and repressed, but I have found that gently nurturing my conscience, without falling back on any cheap excuses, has allowed me to become far more compassionate and merciful: I know precisely what sort of a total jerk I have been, so I can hardly hold it against you. Beware the equivocation of the knave!
—Reflection written in 5/1999
Thursday, April 30, 2026
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Wednesday, April 29, 2026
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Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Maxims of Goethe 86
Whether memoirs are written by masters of servants, or by servants of masters, the processes always meet.
IMAGE: Nicolaes Maes, The Idle Servant (1655)
Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.2
Will any man call a person honest, who, having a deposit of ten pounds of gold made to him without any witness, so that he might take advantage of it with impunity, shall restore it, and yet should not do the same in the case of ten thousand pounds?
Can a man be accounted temperate who checks one inordinate passion and gives a loose to another?
Virtue is uniform, conformable to reason, and of unvarying consistency; nothing can be added to it that can make it more than virtue; nothing can be taken from it, and the name of virtue be left. If good offices are done with an upright intention, nothing can be more upright than upright is; and therefore it is impossible that anything should be better than what is good.
It therefore follows that all vices are equal; for the obliquities of the mind are properly termed vices. Now we may infer, that as all virtues are equal, therefore all good actions, when they spring from virtues, ought to be equal likewise; and therefore it necessarily follows, that evil actions springing from vices, should be also equal.
Can a man be accounted temperate who checks one inordinate passion and gives a loose to another?
Virtue is uniform, conformable to reason, and of unvarying consistency; nothing can be added to it that can make it more than virtue; nothing can be taken from it, and the name of virtue be left. If good offices are done with an upright intention, nothing can be more upright than upright is; and therefore it is impossible that anything should be better than what is good.
It therefore follows that all vices are equal; for the obliquities of the mind are properly termed vices. Now we may infer, that as all virtues are equal, therefore all good actions, when they spring from virtues, ought to be equal likewise; and therefore it necessarily follows, that evil actions springing from vices, should be also equal.
—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3
If I look at it from the side of my circumstances, then one crime can be radically different from another, either more or less severe, but if I look at it from the side of my character, then every crime does my soul an identical amount of harm. A virtue is the complete affirmation of my humanity, and thus it can become no better, while a vice is a complete rejection of my humanity, and thus it can become no worse.
This takes some getting used to. It is not a denial of our complexity, where both good and bad are at work within us, nor does it ignore the very real consequences of our choices. It rather asks us to measure our progress by the fulfillment of our whole being, instead of just subtracting some points over here, and then adding a few more over there.
Once again, I find both of Cicero’s examples to be extremely helpful. A man may commit fraud at the corner store for $10, or he may commit fraud on the stock market for $10 million, yet the duplicity itself is just the same. Another fellow may give up the booze for the new year, and he then starts to gorge himself on donuts, yet the gluttony itself is just the same.
When I worked in social services, it was common for the staff to lift their lunch money out of the petty cash box; the boss wasn’t looking, and surely no one would care about such a small amount. There was much outrage and pearl-clutching, however, when it turned out that a manager had paid for his vacation to San Francisco on the company credit card. Crucify him!
When I was in college, I found myself in a circle with unwritten rules about cheating on girlfriends or boyfriends. If you fooled around when you were drunk, this was considered a harmless amusement, but if you dared to go all the way when you were sober, you would face the wrath of the entire community. I was not surprised when so many of my peers later had failed marriages.
Over the years, I have grappled with countless temptations, some of which I mastered, many others which I allowed to master me. One of my greatest mistakes was to underestimate the little enticements, thinking it more important to take giant leaps instead of baby steps. I was forgetting how a man who cannot be good in small things cannot be good in big things, because any vice, at any scale, is equally an affront to his dignity. To sell myself for a trinket is as bad as selling myself for a kingdom.
As the perfection of our very nature, there is nothing higher than virtue. As the denial of our very nature, there is nothing lower than vice. Though the debts we owe to others may be greater or lesser, the debts we owe to ourselves are always absolute.
If I look at it from the side of my circumstances, then one crime can be radically different from another, either more or less severe, but if I look at it from the side of my character, then every crime does my soul an identical amount of harm. A virtue is the complete affirmation of my humanity, and thus it can become no better, while a vice is a complete rejection of my humanity, and thus it can become no worse.
This takes some getting used to. It is not a denial of our complexity, where both good and bad are at work within us, nor does it ignore the very real consequences of our choices. It rather asks us to measure our progress by the fulfillment of our whole being, instead of just subtracting some points over here, and then adding a few more over there.
Once again, I find both of Cicero’s examples to be extremely helpful. A man may commit fraud at the corner store for $10, or he may commit fraud on the stock market for $10 million, yet the duplicity itself is just the same. Another fellow may give up the booze for the new year, and he then starts to gorge himself on donuts, yet the gluttony itself is just the same.
When I worked in social services, it was common for the staff to lift their lunch money out of the petty cash box; the boss wasn’t looking, and surely no one would care about such a small amount. There was much outrage and pearl-clutching, however, when it turned out that a manager had paid for his vacation to San Francisco on the company credit card. Crucify him!
When I was in college, I found myself in a circle with unwritten rules about cheating on girlfriends or boyfriends. If you fooled around when you were drunk, this was considered a harmless amusement, but if you dared to go all the way when you were sober, you would face the wrath of the entire community. I was not surprised when so many of my peers later had failed marriages.
Over the years, I have grappled with countless temptations, some of which I mastered, many others which I allowed to master me. One of my greatest mistakes was to underestimate the little enticements, thinking it more important to take giant leaps instead of baby steps. I was forgetting how a man who cannot be good in small things cannot be good in big things, because any vice, at any scale, is equally an affront to his dignity. To sell myself for a trinket is as bad as selling myself for a kingdom.
As the perfection of our very nature, there is nothing higher than virtue. As the denial of our very nature, there is nothing lower than vice. Though the debts we owe to others may be greater or lesser, the debts we owe to ourselves are always absolute.
—Reflection written in 5/1999
IMAGE: Briton Riviere, The Temptation in the Wilderness (1898)
Monday, April 27, 2026
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James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 28
28.
Καταφρονήσει μού τις; ὄψεται. ἐγὼ δὲ ὄψομαι ἵνα μή τι καταφρονήσεως ἄξιον πράσσων ἣ λέγωνεὑρίσκωμαι. μισήσει; ὄψεται. ἀλλὰ ἐγὼ εὐμενὴς καὶ εὔνους παντὶ καὶ τούτῳ αὐτῷ ἕτοιμος τὸ παρορώμενον δεῖξαι, οὐκ ὀνειδιστικῶς οὐδὲ ὡς κατεπιδεικνύμενος ὅτι ἀνέχομαι, ἀλλὰ γνησίως καὶ χρηστῶς.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13
28.
How recks it me to wrangle it at all?
My part it is to rule me so withal,
And live so, that no cynic mood can hoot.
Hath any hated me, let him look to ’t,
Have, if he will, a sole, ne’er double, brawl;
My part is to hate not, and know ’twill fall
That as the tree is trained so is the fruit.
If one have stripes, fangs, claws and fur,
As such there be among us human creatures
In spiritual mark, why, then we see
A tiger with the tiger manner stir,
And tiger thrift go with the tiger features.
But I, who am a man, must man-like be.
IMAGE: Hu Zaobin, Victory or Defeat (c. 1930)
Sunday, April 26, 2026
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