And it was exactly a moral situation such as this that Fronto appeared to be contemplating.

He seemed to have before his mind the case of one--Cyrenaic or Epicurean, as the courtier tends to be, by habit and instinct, if not on principle--who yet experiences, actually, a strong tendency to moral assents, and a desire, with as little logical inconsistency as may be, to find a place for duty and righteousness in his house of thought.
And the Stoic professor found the key to this problem in the purely aesthetic beauty of the old morality, as an element in things, fascinating to the imagination, to good taste in its most highly developed form, through association--a system or order, as a matter of fact, in possession, not only of the larger world, but of the rare minority of elite intelligences; from which, therefore, least of all would the sort of Epicurean he had in view endure to become, so to speak, an outlaw.

He supposed his hearer to be, with all sincerity, in search after some principle of conduct (and it was here that he seemed to Marius to be speaking straight to him) which might give unity of motive to an actual rectitude, a cleanness and probity of life, determined partly by natural affection, partly by enlightened self-interest or the feeling of honour, due in part even to the mere fear of penalties; no element of which, [8] however, was distinctively moral in the agent himself as such, and providing him, therefore, no common ground with a really moral being like Cornelius, or even like the philosophic emperor.

Performing the same offices; actually satisfying, even as they, the external claims of others; rendering to all their dues--one thus circumstanced would be wanting, nevertheless, in the secret of inward adjustment to the moral agents around him.

How tenderly--more tenderly than many stricter souls--he might yield himself to kindly instinct! what fineness of charity in passing judgment on others! what an exquisite conscience of other men's susceptibilities! He knows for how much the manner, because the heart itself, counts, in doing a kindness.