INTRODUCTION
the Emperor's tablets and rolls, corrected perhaps already at some places by himself? We shall never know. All things considered, it appears reasonable to conjecture that an effort was made to collect faithfully what was thought to be best worth preserving, to respect the autographs or originals, to leave alone the repetitions, interruptions, digressions, even the inconsequences; to rearrange but little. If so, what we have may be no more than a selection, collected and arranged by an editor very much in its present shape.[1] The unity which runs through the whole arises from the rare sincerity and earnestness of the writer; what is logically inconsequent leaves behind a sense of continuity; as we read, many anomalies become intelligible, many hard places plain, though some will still be dark, even insoluble. But even so, with the injuries, dealt by the hand of time and by the misunderstandings of copyists, the unfinished pages are not incomplete. The merit and charm of Marcus is that, wherever you take him up and whenever you lay him down, you have had communion with a wise and chastened temper, faithful to its prescribed limits, always consistent in itself. 'It is not like acting and dancing, where the whole, if you interrupt it, is ruined. In every act and wherever surprised, the soul has made what it purposed entire, and nowhere deficient; so that it can say: I possess what is my own' (xi. 1. 1). The radiance of a lofty and humble spirit illuminates these sentences, as the sun lights up and blends the coloured fragments of an ancient window.
- ↑ In connexion with what has been said of the editing of Marcus' book, compare what is recorded of Frederick the Great's posthumous verses: 'Lorsque le Roi eut mis la dernière main aux pièces que nous avons nominées Poésies posthumes, il fit présent à son lecteur, Henri de Catt, du manuscrit destiné à l'impression . . . ce manuscrit se composait de trois cahiers, écrits par le secrétaire et chargés de corrections de la main du poëte' Œuvres poétiques de Frédéric II, 1849, Tome III, Avertissement, p. ix.
