Page:Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus - Volume 1 - Farquharson 1944.pdf/75

 expression? Marcus at times seems to aim at conveying into his Greek sentences something of the lapidary force of the Latin tongue.

Another mode of composition consists in the rare sentences written in a satiric vein; 'All that comes to pass is as familiar and well-known as the rose in spring and the grape in summer. Of like fashion are sickness, death, calumny, intrigue, and all that gladdens or saddens fools' (iv. 44: cf. v. 33, vi. 13, and the masterly vignette x. 36, and the dialogues, v. 1, 28 and 36). This occasional indulgence of satiric power, so quickly dropped or silenced, gives diversity to the prevailing monochrome; it resembles an artifice of Pascal, whose ironical pictures of men's ambition and distraction are a foil to his religious earnestness.

A study of the Meditations then, as a whole, suggests a various character of invention, which may be due to a variety of motives in the composition of its parts; that the larger bulk has a decided literary aim appears to me indisputable.

Returning to the Meditations as we now possess them, what indication of unities or incipient unities of composition do we actually discern? Book i stands by itself, with its clearly defined plan and distinct physiognomy. Only one other passage in the remainder is written in the same style, the duplicate portrait of Antoninus Pius in vi. 30. 2. Book ii, if we omit ch. 10, leaves a strong impression of unity. Book iii again approaches a unity, with a marked close. Further these two Books have, in their headings, definite marks of their place of composition.

The structure of the remainder is less clearly determined and the distribution into Books, if we had to make it for ourselves, might certainly be altered. Some signs,