own words, if his real words be in our possession. In doing so, we are
bound to remember how strong will be the bias of every man's mind in
his own favor, and for that reason a judicious reader will discount a
man's praise of himself. But the reader, to get at the truth, if he be
indeed judicious, will discount them after a fashion conformable with
the nature of the man whose character he is investigating. A reader
will not be judicious who imagines that what a man says of his own
praises must be false, or that all which can be drawn from his own
words in his own dispraise must be true. If a man praise himself for
honor, probity, industry, and patriotism, he will at any rate show
that these virtues are dear to him, unless the course of his life has
proved him to be altogether a hypocrite in such utterances. It has not
been presumed that Cicero was a hypocrite in these utterances. He was
honest and industrious; he did appreciate honor and love his country.
So much is acknowledged; and yet it is supposed that what good he has
told us of himself is false. If a man doubt of himself constantly; if
in his most private intercourse and closest familiar utterances he
admit occasionally his own human weakness; if he find himself to have
failed at certain moments, and says so, the very feelings that have
produced such confessions are proof that the highest points which
have not been attained have been seen and valued. A man will not
sorrowfully regret that he has won only a second place, or a
third, unless he be alive to the glory of the first. But Cicero's
acknowledgments have all been taken as proof against himself. All
manner of evil is argued against him from his own words, when an ill
meaning can be attached to them; but when he speaks of his great
aspirations, he is ridiculed for bombast and vanity. On the strength
of some perhaps unconsidered expression, in a letter to Atticus, he
is condemned for treachery, whereas the sentences in which he has
thoughtfully declared the purposes of his very soul are counted as