Charles William Eliot (1834–1926)

As usual, the edition listed is a more recent one than the one that I just added the bk cover image to but they're both reissues of the same bk. The cover I added is from the Harvard Classics edition published by P. F. Collier & Son Corporation. This was probably the 1st philosophy bk I ever read. I remember reading it while I was a research volunteer for the University of Maryland hospital in downtown Baltimore. I might've been 21. My memories of it are more vividly associated w/ that circumstance than they are w/ its contents. I was the freak in the study who was composing a piece called "d composition" & reading classic philosophy. One of my roomies seemed to be fascinated by me. Somehow, from observing this intellectual behavior of mine, he concluded that I was some sort of hard-core orgy participant or something? He was a gigolo. After I was out of the hospital, he & I stayed in touch. I invited him to a party, he arrived w/ a friend in tow w/ a camera - both practically w/ their tongues lolling out. Their disappoinment at finding this a fairly tame painter's party was all too clear. Where's the orgy?

But back to the bk: Marcus Aurelius was the one who made the most impression on me. An emperor who was abstinent & tried to be fair? Or was the editor of the series trying to perpetuate ruling class myths that an elite university like Harvard was all too happy to use as a PR smokescreen for its own agenda? Hard to say in retrospect, but I doubt that I'll read Aurelius again to reform an opinion. I give it 4 stars anyway just b/c the whole experience of reading such a thing was important to me at that time in my life.… (mere)