aspirations and convictions, I intend to put him forth as a faultless
personage in history. He was much too human to be perfect. Those who
love the cold attitude of indifference may sing of Cato as perfect.
Cicero was ambitious, and often unscrupulous in his ambition. He was
a loving husband and a loving father; but at the end of his life he
could quarrel with his old wife irrecoverably, and could idolize
his daughter, while he ruined his son by indulgence. He was very great
while he spoke of his country, which he did so often; but he was
almost as little when he spoke of himself--which he did as often.
In money-matters he was honest--for the times in which he lived,
wonderfully honest; but in words he was not always equally
trustworthy. He could flatter where he did not love. I admit that
it was so, though I will not admit without a protest that the word
insincere should be applied to him as describing his character
generally. He was so much more sincere than others that the protest is
needed. If a man stand but five feet eleven inches in his shoes, shall
he be called a pygmy? And yet to declare that he measures full six
feet would be untrue.

Cicero was a busybody. Were there anything to do, he wished to do it,
let it be what it might. "Cedant arma togae." If anything was written
on his heart, it was that. Yet he loved the idea of leading an army,
and panted for a military triumph. Letters and literary life were dear
to him, and yet he liked to think that he could live on equal terms
with the young bloods of Rome, such as Coelius. As far as I can judge,
he cared nothing for luxurious eating and drinking, and yet he wished
to be reckoned among the gormands and gourmets of his times. He was so
little like the "budge doctors of the stoic fur," of whom it was his
delight to write when he had nothing else to do, that he could not
bear any touch of adversity with equanimity. The stoic requires to be