memories and conversation of mankind, now that he has gone from our
sight.

I wished to write to you on many other subjects, but my whole mind is
given up to and fixed on this one subject of thought. I keep thinking
of Virginius, I dream of him, and, though my dreams are illusory, they
are so vivid that I seem to hear his voice, to speak to him, to embrace
him. It may be that we have other citizens like him in his virtues, and
shall continue to have them, but there is none to equal with him in
glory. Farewell.


2.II.--TO PAULINUS.

I am angry with you; whether I ought to be I am not quite sure, but I am
angry all the same. You know how affection is often biassed, how it is
always liable to make a man unreasonable, and how it causes him to flare
up on even small provocation. But I have serious grounds for my anger,
whether they are just or not, and so I am assuming that they are as just
as they are serious, and am downright cross with you because you have
not sent me a line for such a long time. There is only one way that you
can obtain forgiveness, and that is by your writing me at once a number
of long letters. That will be the only excuse I shall take as genuine;
any others you may send I shall regard as false. For I won't listen to
such stuff as "I was away from Rome," or "I have been fearfully busy."
As for the plea, "I have not been at all well," I hope Providence has
been too kind to let you write that. I am at my country house, enjoying
study and idleness in turns, and both of these delights are born of
leisure-hours. Farewell.