Evening star., 1925-07-09
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES Z. TRACEWELL.

| How shall one begin the morning?
| Some get up "on the wrong side of
| the bed" as the saying Is, conse-
quently spelling their day not only
for themselves but also for all their
| home folks, friends and acquaint-
| ances.
| Others crouch along until they have
had their breakfasts, then suddenly
| begin to expand under the soothing
influence of hot coffee and bacon, so
that by the time they reach their
| office they are more or less normal
| human beings.
| Still others take setting-up exer-
cises, some cold baths, others "bawl
out" the children or reserve their
or the Office boy.
! Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Ro-
man emperor, lived 1000 years ago,
but he, too, much as you and 1 to-
| day, found it necessary to consider
this question of how to get up in the
morning.
Opening the second book of his
'Meditations," Marcus Aurelius said:
Begin the morning by saying to
| thyself, L shall meet with the busy
| body, the ungrateful, arrogant, de-
| ceitful, envious, unsocial.' All these
| things happen to them by reason
| of their ignorance of what Is good
and evil.
"But I, who have seen the nature
of the good that it is beautiful, and
of the bad that it is ugly, and the
nature of him who does wrong that
| II is akin to me, not only of the same
blood or seed, but that it participates
| in the same intelligence and the same
| portion of the divinity, | can neither
| be injured by any of them, for no
e. sr, ,,arIxs
can 1 be angry with my kinsman nor
hate him.
For we are made for cooperation,
like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like
the rows of the upper and lower teeth.
To act against one another, then, is
! contrary to nature; and it is acting
against one another to be vexed and
| to turn away"
There you have advice from a mas
| ter. Marcus was a patrician, but he
lived like a plebeian. He was man
who had many problems, many Sor-
rows, which he met the best he could.
One of his helps was his brain. a
| friend most of us have handy, and
| yet.
1t is a shame we do not use it
| more!
Aurelius discovered for himself that
thinking about problems helped him
meet them. One of his biggest wor-
ries was the busybody. Another was
the ungrateful man; another the con-
! ceited, arrogant cuss, who strutted the
streets of Rome in a purple toga and
imagined he was just a bit better than
every one else in town.
Those men worried the emperor,
because he was just human being
and longed to be happy. After he
met them he always felt unhappy.
Today every one of us has much
| the same experience as AureliuS had
in Rome between 121 AID. and $50
AID. We, too, meet the deceitful, the
envious, the unSocial man who does
not know how to get along with
others.
If we wonder "how do they get
| that way" it will be helpful to recall
that all these bad traits are theirs
| because they are in reality ignorant
| of what is good and evil.
The fact that a man has had an
education. or has not had it, does not
make much difference. The big thing
is whether he has "seen the nature
of the good that 1t is beautiful, and
of the bad that it is ugly"
No one who has could be stuck
on himself" No one who knows good
from evil will be envious.
But, no matter, we have to accept
people as we find them in this world
| and make the best of them. There
fore, 1t is up to him who desires to
get out of bed on the right side' to
! consider briefly, as he puts on his
collar and tie, that all the mean fel-
lows he will encounter an hour or so
later are in reality akin to him.
Not only are all men created free