--to complain within one's own breast that this or that thing
has been an injustice--to hesitate within one's self, not quite knowing
which way honor may require us to go--to be indignant even at fancied
wrongs--to rise in wrath against another, and then, before the hour has
passed, to turn that wrath against one's self--that is not to be a
coward. To know what duty requires, and then to be deterred by fear of
results--that is to be a coward; but the man of many scruples may be the
greatest hero of them all. Let the law of things be declared clearly so
that the doubting mind shall no longer doubt, so that scruples may be
laid at rest, so that the sense of justice may be satisfied--and he of
whom I speak shall be ready to meet the world in arms against him. There
are men, very useful in their way, who shall never doubt at all, but
shall be ready, as the bull is ready, to encounter any obstacles that
there may be before them. I will not say but that for the coarse
purposes of the world they may not be the most efficacious, but I will
not admit that they are therefore the bravest. The bull, who has no
imagination to tell him what the obstacle may do to him, is not brave.
He is brave who, fully understanding the potentiality of the obstacle,
shall, for a sufficient purpose, move against it.

This Cicero always did. He braved the murderous anger of Sulla when, as
a young man, he thought it well to stop the greed of Sulla's minions. He
trusted himself amid the dangers prepared for him, when it was necessary
that with extraordinary speed he should get together the evidence needed
for the prosecution of Verres. He was firm against all that Catiline
attempted for his destruction, and had courage enough for the
responsibility when he thought it expedient to doom the friends of
Catiline to death. In defending Milo, whether the cause were good or
bad, he did not blench.[267] He joined the Republican army in Macedonia
though he distrusted Pompey and his companions. When he thought that
there was a hope for the Republic, he sprung at Antony with all the
courage of a tigress protecting her young; and when all had failed and
was rotten around him, when the Republic had so fallen that he knew it
to be gone--then he was able to give his neck to the swordsman with all
the apparent indifference of life which was displayed by those
countrymen of our own whom I have named.

But why did he write so piteously when he was driven into exile? Why