-that in the confusion and turmoil which followed he
should have been somewhat roughly told that it behooved him to take the
lead and to come forth as the new commander; that there should be a time
at last in which no moment should be allowed him for doubt, but that he
should doubt, and, after more or less of reticence, pass on. Young
Pompey would have it so. What name would be so good to bind together the
opponents of Caesar as that of Cicero? But Cicero would not be led. It
seems that he was petulant and out of sorts at the time; that he had
been led into the difficulty of the situation by his desire to be true
to Pompey, and that he was only able to escape from it now that Pompey
was gone. We can well imagine that there should be no man less able to
fight against Caesar, though there was none whose name might be so
serviceable to use as that of Cicero. At any rate, as far as we are
concerned, there was silence on the subject on his part. He wrote not a
word to any of the friends whom Pompey had left behind him, but returned
to Italy dispirited, silent, and unhappy. He had indeed met many men
since the battle of the Pharsalus, but to none of whom we are conversant
had he expressed his thoughts regarding that great campaign.

Here we part from Pompey, who ran from the fighting-ground of Macedonia
to meet his doom in the roads of Alexandria. Never had man risen so high
in his youth to be extinguished so ingloriously in his age. He was born
in the same year with Cicero, but had come up quicker into the
management of the world's affairs, so as to have received something from
his equals of that which was due to age. Habit had given him that ease
of manners which enabled him to take from those who should have been his
compeers the deference which was due not to his age but to his
experience. When Cicero was entering the world, taking up the cudgels to
fight against Sulla, Pompey had already won his spurs, in spite of Sulla
but by means of Sulla. Men in these modern days learn, as they grow old
in public life, to carry themselves with indifference among the
backslidings of the world. In reading the life of Cicero, we see that it
was so then. When defending Amerinus, we find the same character of man
as was he who afterward took Milo's part. There is the same readiness,
the same ingenuity, and the same high indignation; but there is not the
same indifference as to results. With Amerinus it is as though all the
world depended o