that duty with the utmost punctuality.

_Scaevola_. Yes, indeed, Laelius, I am often asked the question
mentioned by Fannius. But I answer in accordance with what I
have observed: I say that you bear in a reasonable manner the grief
which you have sustained in the death of one who was at once a
man of the most illustrious character and a very dear friend. That
of course you could not but be affected-anything else would have
been wholly unnatural in a man of your gentle nature-but that the
cause of your non-attendance at our college meeting was illness,
not melancholy.

_Laelius_. Thanks, Scaevola! You are quite right; you spoke the
exact truth. For in fact I had no right to allow myself to be
withdrawn from a duty which I had regularly performed, as long as
I was well, by any personal misfortune; nor do I think that anything
that can happen will cause a man of principle to intermit a duty.
As for your telling me, Fannius, of the honourable appellation
given me (an appellation to which I do not recognise my title, and
to which I make no claim), you doubtless act from feelings of
affection; but I must say that you seem to me to do less than justice
to Cato. If any one was ever "wise,"-of which I have my doubts,-he
was. Putting aside everything else, consider how he bore his son's
death! I had not forgotten Paulus; I had seen with my own eyes
Gallus. But they lost their sons when mere children; Cato his
when he was a full-grown man with an assured reputation. Do not
therefore be in a hurry to reckon as Cato's superior even that same
famous personage whom Apollo, as you say, declared to be "the
wisest." Remember the former's reputation rests on deeds, the
latter's on words.