Page:The Emperor Marcus Antoninus - His Conversation with Himself.djvu/36



I am willing (says he) to be impaled or crucified if you please, so you will but let me live through it. Without doubt 'tis worth his while to rest on his Wounds, and be strain'd on a Gibbet, only to keep his Punishment alive; which 'tis the best of his Case to dispatch as soon as may be! And lastly by this Notion; whosoever denies himself for his Pleasure, and suffers to gratify a Vitious Passion may be called a Man of Fortitude. But we say, 'tis the Cause and not the Punishment, that makes the Martyr. And thus 'tis not the What, but the Why of a Mans suffering ; which gives him the Credit on't : The Virtue turns chiefly upon the Reason, not upon the Pain : He only is the brave Man, that mortifies upon Principle; that chuses rather to suffer than misbehave himself; and runs through all Discouragements upon the score of Conscience and Honour. But how can that Man suffer upon these Grounds, who lays it down Rh