our
conjugal piety very well rewarded.----As for what you write to me
about selling your estate, consider (my dear Terentia), consider,
alas! what would be the event of it. If our present fortune
continues to oppress us, what will become of our poor boy? My tears
flow so fast, that I am not able to write any further; and I would
not willingly make you weep with me.----Let us take care not to
undo the child that is already undone: if we can leave him
anything, a little virtue will keep him from want, and a little
fortune raise him in the world. Mind your health, and let me know
frequently what you are doing.----Remember me to Tulliola and
Cicero."

II.

"Don't fancy that I write longer letters to any one than to
yourself, unless when I chance to receive a longer letter from
another, which I am indispensably obliged to answer in every
particular. The truth of it is, I have no subject for a letter at
present: and as my affairs now stand, there is nothing more painful
to me than writing. As for you and our dear Tulliola, I cannot
write to you without abundance of tears, for I see both of you
miserable, whom I always wished to be happy, and whom I ought to
have made so.----I must acknowledge, you have done everything for
me with the utmost fortitude, and the utmost affection; nor indeed
is it more than I expected from you; though at the same time it is
a great aggravation of my ill fortune, that the afflictions I
suffer can be relieved only by those which you undergo for my sake.
For honest Valerius has written me a letter, which I could not read
without weeping very bitterly; wherein he gives me an account of
the public procession which you have made for me at Rome. Alas! my
dearest life, must then Terentia, the darling of my soul, whose
favour and recommendations have been so often sought by others;
must my Terentia droop under the weight of sorrow, appear in the
habit of a mourner, pour out floods of tears, and all this for my
sake; for my sake, who have undone my family, by consulting the
safety of others!----As for what you write about selling your
house, I am very much afflicted, that what is laid out upon my
account may any way reduce you to misery and want. If we can bring
about our design, we may indeed recover everything; but if