death
was no evil? And did he despise pain, or make any attempt at showing his
disregard of it? You can hardly answer this question by looking for a
man's indifference when undergoing it. It would be to require too much
from philosophy to suppose that it could console itself in agony by
reasoning. It would not be fair to insist on arguing with Cato in the
gout. The clemency of human nature refuses to deal with philosophy in
the hard straits to which it may be brought by the malevolence of evil.
But when you find a man peculiarly on the alert to avoid the recurrence
of pain, when you find a man with a strong premeditated antipathy to a
condition as to which he pretends an indifference, then you may fairly
assert that his indifference is only a matter of argument. And this was
always Cicero's condition. He knew that he must at any rate lose the
time passed by him under physical annoyance. His health was good, and by
continued care remained so to the end; but he was always endeavoring to
avoid sea-sickness. He was careful as to his baths, careful as to his
eyes, very careful as to his diet. Was there ever a man of whom it might
be said with less truth that he was indifferent as to pain?

The third position is that sorrow may be abolished. Read his letters to
Atticus about his daughter Tullia, written at the very moment he was
proving this. He was a heart-broken, sorrow-stricken man. It will not
help us now to consider whether in this he showed strength or weakness.
There will be doubt about it, whether he gained or lost more by that
deep devotion to another creature which made his life a misery to him
because that other one had gone; whether, too, he might not have better
hidden his sorrow than have shown it even to his friend. But with him,
at any rate, it was there. He can talk over it, weep over it, almost
laugh over it; but if there be a thing that he cannot do, it is to treat
it after the manner of a Stoic.

His passions should be conquered. Look back at every period of his life,
and see whether he has ever attempted it. He has always been indignant,
or triumphant, or miserable, or rejoicing. Remember the incidents of his
life before and after his Consulship--the day of his election and the
day of his banishment--and ask the philosophers why he had not
controlled his passion. I shall be told, perhaps, that here was a man
over whom, in spite of his philosophy, his passion had the masterhood.
But what attempt did he ev