" No doubt Faustina was
unworthy of her husband; but surely it is the glory and not the shame of
a noble nature to be averse from jealousy and suspicion, and to trust to
others more deeply than they deserve.
So blameless was the conduct of Marcus Aurelius that neither the
malignity of contemporaries nor the sprit of posthumous scandal has
succeeded in discovering any flaw in the extreme integrity of his life
and principles. But meanness will not be baulked of its victims. The
hatred of all excellence which made Caligula try to put down the memory
of great men rages, though less openly, in the minds of many. They
delight to degrade human life into that dull and barren plain "in which
every molehill is a mountain, and every thistle a forest-tree." Great
men are as small in their eyes as they are said to be in the eyes of
their valets; and there are multitudes who, if they find
"Some stain or blemish in a name of note,
Not grieving that their greatest are so small,
Innate themselves with some insane delight,
And judge all nature from her feet of clay,
Without the will to lift their eyes, and see
Her godlike head crown'd with spiritual fire,
And touching other worlds.
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