him ginger was always hot in the mouth, whether it was the spice of
politics, or of social delight, or of intellectual enterprise. When
in his deep sorrow at the death of his daughter, when for a time the
Republic was dead to him, and public and private life were equally
black, he craved employment. Then he took down his Greek manuscripts
and amused himself as best he might by writing this way or that. It
was a matter on which his intellect could work and his energies be
employed, though the theory of his life was in no way concerned in it.
Such was one class of his Philosophy. The other consisted of a code of
morals which he created for himself by his own convictions, formed on
the world around him, and which displayed itself in essays, such
as those De Officiis--on the duties of life; De Senectute, De
Amicitia--on old age and friendship, and the like, which were not only
intended for use, but are of use to any man or woman who will study
them up to this day. There are others, treatises on law and on
government and religion, which have all been lumped together, for the
misguidance of school-boys, under the name of Cicero's Philosophy. But
they, be they of one class or the other, require an understanding of
the man's character before they can be enjoyed.

For these reasons I think that there are incidents in the life, the
character, and the work of Cicero which ought to make his biography
interesting. His story is fraught with energy, with success, with
pathos, and with tragedy. And then it is the story of a man human as
men are now. No child of Rome ever better loved his country, but no
child of Rome was ever so little like a Roman. Arms and battles were
to him abominable, as they are to us. But arms and battles were the
delight of Romans. He was ridiculed in his own time, and has been
ridiculed ever since, for the alliterating twang of the line in which
he declared his feeling: