great man's bounty (as
he says in another place) should be a common sanctuary for the needy. "To
ransom captives and enrich the meaner folk is a nobler form of generosity
than providing wild beasts or shows of gladiators to amuse the mob".
Charity should begin at home; for relations and friends hold the first
place in our affections; but the circle of our good deeds is not to
be narrowed by the ties of blood, or sect, or party, and "our country
comprehends the endearments of all". We should act in the spirit of the
ancient law--"Thou shalt keep no man from the running stream, or from
lighting his torch at thy hearth". Our liberality should be really
liberal,--like that charity which Jeremy Taylor describes as "friendship
to all the world".

Another component principle of this honour is courage, or "greatness of
soul", which (continues Cicero) has been well defined by the Stoics as
"a virtue contending for justice and honesty"; and its noblest form is a
generous contempt for ordinary objects of ambition, not "from a vain or
fantastic humour, but from solid principles of reason". The lowest and
commoner form of courage is the mere animal virtue of the fighting-cock.

But a character should not only be excellent,--it should be graceful. In
gesture and deportment men should strive to acquire that dignified grace
of manners "which adds as it were a lustre to our lives". They should
avoid affectation and eccentricity; "not to care a farthing what people
think of us is a sign not so much of pride as of immodesty". The want of
tact--the saying and doing things at the wrong time and place--produces
the same discord in society as a false note in music; and harmony of
character is of more consequence than harmony of sounds. There is a grace
in words as well as in conduct: we should avoid unseasonable jests, "and
not lard our talk with Greek quotations".[1]

[Footnote 1: This last precept Cicero must have considered did not apply
to letter-writing, otherwise he was a notorious offender against his own
rule.]

In the path of life, each should follow the bent of his own genius, so far
as it is innocent--

"Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part--there all the honour lies".

Nothing is so difficult (says Cicero) as the choice of a profession,
inasmuch as "the choice has commonly to be made when the judgment is
weakest". Some tread in their father's steps, others beat out a fresh line
of their own; and