rgumentation.")
--Cicero, De Nat. Deor., iii. 4.]

and, as if every one saw as clearly into me as I do myself, instead of
retiring from an accusation, I step up to meet it, and rather give it
some kind of colour by an ironical and scoffing confession, if I do not
sit totally mute, as of a thing not worth my answer. But such as look
upon this kind of behaviour of mine as too haughty a confidence, have as
little kindness for me as they who interpret the weakness of an
indefensible cause; namely, the great folks, towards whom want of
submission is the great fault, harsh towards all justice that knows and
feels itself, and is not submissive humble, and suppliant; I have often
knocked my head against this pillar. So it is that at what then befell
me, an ambitious man would have hanged himself, and a covetous man would
have done the same. I have no manner of care of getting;

"Si mihi, quod nunc est, etiam minus; et mihi vivam
Quod superest aevi, si quid superesse volent dii:"

["If I may have what I now own, or even less, and may live for
myself what of life remains, if the gods grant me remaining years."
--Horace, Ep., i. 18, 107.]

but the losses that befall me by the injury of others, whether by theft
or violence, go almost as near my heart as they would to that of the most
avaricious man. The offence troubles me, without comparison, more than
the loss. A thousand several sorts of mischiefs fell upon me in the neck
of one another; I could more cheerfully have borne them all at once.

I was already considering to whom, amongst my friends, I might commit a
necessitous and discredited old age; and having turned my eyes quite
round, I found myself bare. To let one's self fall plump down, and from
so great a height, it ought to be in the arms of a solid, vigorous, and
fortunate friendship: these are very rare, if there be any. At last, I
saw that it was safest for me to trust to myself in my necessity; and if
it should so fall out, that I should be but upon cold terms in Fortune's
favour, I should so much the more pressingly recommend me to my own, and
attach myself and look to myself all the more closely. Men on all
occasions throw themselves upon foreign assistance to spare their own,
which is alone certain and sufficient to him who knows how therewith to
arm himself. Every one runs elsewhere, and to the future, forasmuch as
no one is arrived at himself. And I was satisf