say, as to the character of the man, but of the estimation in which
he was held by those who came shortly after him in his own country;
having shown, as I profess that I have shown, that his name was always
treated with singular dignity and respect, not only by the lovers of
the old Republic but by the minions of the Empire; having found
that no charge was ever made against him either for insincerity or
cowardice or dishonesty by those who dealt commonly with his name, am
I not justified in saying that they who have in later days accused him
should have shown their authority? Their authority they have always
found in his own words. It is on his own evidence against himself that
they have depended--on his own evidence, or occasionally on their
own surmises. When we are told of his cowardice, because those human
vacillations of his, humane as well as human, have been laid bare to
us as they came quivering out of his bosom on to his fingers! He is
a coward to the critics because they have written without giving
themselves time to feel the true meaning of his own words. If we had
only known his acts and not his words--how he stood up against the
judges at the trial of Verres, with what courage he encountered the
responsibility of his doings at the time of Catiline, how he joined
Pompey in Macedonia from a sense of sheer duty, how he defied Antony
when to defy Antony was probable death--then we should not call him a
coward! It is out of his own mouth that he is condemned. Then surely
his words should be understood. Queen Christina says of him, in one of
her maxims, that "Cicero was the only coward that was capable of great
actions." The Queen of Sweden, whose sentences are never worth very
much, has known her history well enough to have learned that Cicero's
acts were noble, but has not understood the meaning of words
sufficiently to extract from Cicero's own expressions their true
bearing. The bravest of us all, if he is in high place, has to doubt
much before he can know what true courage will demand of him; and