p: well, this was the
disgrace of those honours, and not of Cato. No one can be despised by
another until he has learned to despise himself. The man who has learned
to triumph over sorrow wears his miseries as though they were sacred
fillets upon his brow, and nothing is so entirely admirable as a man
bravely wretched. Such men inflict disgrace upon disgrace itself. Some
indeed say that death is preferable to contempt; to whom I reply that he
who is great when he falls is great in his prostration, and is no more
an object of contempt than when men tread on the ruins of sacred
buildings, which men of piety venerate no less than if they stood.

"On my behalf therefore, dearest mother; you have no cause for endless
weeping: nor have you on your own. You cannot grieve for me on selfish
grounds, in consequence of any personal loss to yourself; for you were
ever eminently unselfish, and unlike other women in all your dealings
with your sons, and you were always a help and a benefactor to them
rather than they to you. Nor should you give way out of a regret and
longing for me in my absence. We have often previously been separated,
and, although it is natural that you should miss that delightful
conversation, that unrestricted confidence, that electrical sympathy of
heart and intellect that always existed between us, and that boyish glee
wherewith your visits always affected me, yet, as you rise above the
common herd of women in virtue, the simplicity, the purity of your life,
you must abstain from feminine tears as you have done from all feminine
follies. Consider how Cornelia, who had lost ten children by death,
instead of wailing for her dead sons, thanked fortune that had made her
sons _Gracchi_. Rutilia followed her son Cotta into exile so dearly did
she love him, yet no one saw her shed a tear after his burial. She had
shown her affection when it was needful, she restrained her sorrow when
it was superflous. Imitate the example of these great women as you have
imitated their virtues. I want you not to _beguile_ your sorrow by
amusements or occupations, but to _conquer_ it. For you may now return
to those philosophical studies in which you once showed yourself so apt
a proficient, and which formerly my father checked. They will gradually
sustain and comfort you in your hour of grief.

"And meanwhile consider how many sources of consolation already exist
for you. My brothers are still with you; the dignity of Gallio, the
l