Thus I wrote yesterday evening to my Aleksandra:

In the opening of Book I of his Meditations, Marcus gives thanks to his grandfather first and then to the biological father he never knew. In his grandfather, he sees an example of ‘sweetness of temper.’ In the father he never knew, that of modesty and manliness. Combine these three in just proportions–two virtues with a certain sweetness–and we have a manly man most certainly. Sweetly tempered indeed is the manly man who knows and uses and refrains from using his own powers. But then let us not in haste forget the raised cups: the libations, our eloquent tokens of thanksgiving.