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Updated: May 16, 2025
He did not write for the original thinkers, the Catos, the Varros, and the Scaevolas; he wrote for the great mass of intelligent men, men of the world, whom he wished to interest in the lofty problems of which philosophy treats. He therefore above all things strove to make philosophy eloquent.
But we do not expect this from the Pompeys and Cæsars and Catos of Rome, perhaps because we do not know them as we know Cicero. It is odd, however, that we should have no word of love for his boys, as to Pompey; no word of love for his daughter, as to Cæsar. But Cicero's love for his wife, his brother, his son, his nephew, especially for his daughter, was unbounded.
To such an extent do books govern the world, that those who command to-day in the city of the Scipios and the Catos have desired that the books of their law should be only for them; it is their sceptre; they have made it a crime of lèse-majesté for their subjects to look there without express permission. In other countries it has been forbidden to think in writing without letters patent.
When they saw him sitting, without saying anything, on his baggage, they set him down at once as a person of no consequence, who did not venture to make any demand. Sometimes, on such occasions, he would call them to him and tell them, "Foolish people, lay aside this inhospitality. All your visitors will not be Catos. Use your courtesy, to take off the sharp edge of power.
Reader, have you ever approached the Eternal City? have you ever, from the dreary solitudes of the Campagna, seen the dome of St. Peter's for the first time? and have the monuments of the greatest men and the mightiest deeds that ever the earth witnessed have the names of the Caesars, and the Catos, and the Scipios, excited a curiosity amounting to a sensation almost too intense to be borne?
Sometimes, when teased to death by ambitious people, who pretended to be Catos, or wonderfully devout, he took part against a Minister against whom he was prepossessed; then relapsed into his accustomed state of inactivity and ennui.
"Boys, take my advice, the stage is not the question, But whether at three score you'll all have my digestion. Why yearn for plays, to pose as Brutuses or Catos in, When you may get a garden to grow the best potatoes in? You see that at my age by Nature's shocks unharmed I am! Tho' if I sneeze but thrice, good heavens, how alarmed I am!
Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress it. "Laugh and be fat." Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic notions yet too prevalent on this subject. General remarks. A prevalent mistake. A hint to fathers. Few Catos. Everything left to mothers. Hour for Repose.
Then, cautious, watch the vacant hour, When Bacchus reigns in all his pow'r; When, crowned with rosy chaplets gay, Catos might read my frolic lay."61 Do you not think that the poet who wrote of me in such terms deserved some friendly marks of my bounty then, and of my sorrow now? For he gave me the very best he had to bestow, and would have given more had it been in his power.
The author claims to write “neither for surly Catos nor for those fond of vulgar jests and smutty books,” but for those who will laugh. At the close of his preface he confesses the source of his inspiration: “In order to inspire myself with something of the spirit of a Sterne, I
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