isciple.
The words fly about with delightful power, so as to leave upon our minds
an idea that Torquatus is persuading his audience; for it is Cicero's
peculiar gift, in whosesoever mouth he puts his words, to make him argue
as though he were the victor. We feel sure that, had he in his hand held
a theory contrary to that of Torquatus, had he in truth cared about it,
he could not have made Torquatus speak so well. But the speaker comes to
an end, and assures his hearers that his only object had been to
hear--as he had never heard before--what Cicero's own opinion might be
on the matter.

The second book is a continuation of the same meeting. The word is taken
up by Cicero, and he refutes Torquatus. It seems to us, however, that
poor Epicurus is but badly treated--as has been generally the case in
the prose works which have come down to us. We have, indeed, the poem of
Lucretius, and it is admitted that it contains fine passages. But I was
always told when young that the writing of it had led him to commit
suicide--a deed on his part which seems to have been painted in black
colors, though Cato and Brutus, the Stoics, did the same thing very
gloriously. The Epicureans are held to be sensualists, because they have
used the word "pleasure" instead of "happiness," and Cicero is hard upon
them. He tells a story of the dying moments of Epicurus, quoting a
letter written on his death-bed. "While I am writing," he says, "I am
living my last hour, and the happiest. I have so bad a pain in my
stomach that nothing can be worse. But I am compensated for it all by
the joy I feel as I think of my philosophical discourses."[284] Cicero
then goes on to declare that, though the saying is very noble, it is
unnecessary; he should not, in truth, have required compensation. But
whenever an opinion is enunciated, the reader feels it to be
unnecessary. He does not want opinion. He is satisfied with the
language in which Cicero writes about the opinions of others, and with
the amusing manner in which he deals with things of themselves heavy and
severe.

In the third book he, some time afterward, discusses the Stoic doctrine
with Cato at the Tusculan villa of Lucullus, near to his own. He had
walked over, and finding Cato there by chance, had immediately gone to
work to demolish Cato's philosophical doctrines. He tells us what a
glutton Cato was over his books, taking them even into the Senate with
him. Cicero asks for certain volumes of Aris