Messala.That, methinks, is strange.
Brutus. Why ask you? hear you aught of her in yours?
Messala. No. my lord.
Brutus. Now, as you are a Roman, tell me true.
Messala. Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell:
For certain she is dead, and by strange manner.
Brutus. Why, farewell, Portia.
(IV. iii. 181.)
Now Brutus had received earlier tidings. He may profess ignorance to save himself the pain of explanation, though surely it would have been simpler to say, “I know all.” But the effect is undoubtedly to bring his self-control into fuller relief in presence of Messala and Titinius even than in the presence of Cassius a few minutes before; for then he was announcing what he already knew, here he would seem in the eyes of his informants to be encountering the first shock. Too much must not be made of this, for Cassius who is aware of the circumstances, is no less impressed than the others, and Cassius would have detected any hollow ring. But at the least it savours of a willingness to give a demonstration, so to speak, in Clinical Ethics.
A man like this whose desires are set on building up a virtuous character, but who is not free from the self-consciousness and self-confidence of the specialist in virtue, is exposed to peculiar dangers. His interests and equipment are in the first place for the inward life, and his chief concern is the well-being of his soul. But precisely such an one knows that he cannot save his own soul alone. It is not open to him to disregard the claims of his fellows or the needs of the world, so he is driven to take in hand matters for which he has no inclination or aptitude. He may be quite aware of his unfitness for the work and shrink from investing himself with qualities which he knows he does not possess. All the same, if the call comes, the logic of his nature will force him to essay the ungrateful and impossible task; and he will be apt to imagine a call when there is none. So it is with Brutus. It is true that many of the best respect do look up to him and designate him as their leader: it is none the less true that the unsigned instigations which he takes for the voice of Rome, are the fabrications of a single schemer. He would not be Brutus if he suspected or shirked the summons. This votary of duty cannot acknowledge a merely fugitive and cloistered virtue; this platonic theorist can easily be hood-winked by the practised politician. So Brutus, who is so at home in his study with his book, who is so exemplary in all the private relations of friend, master and husband; predestined, one would say, for the serene labours of philosophic thought and the gracious offices of domestic affection, sweeps from his quiet anchorage to face the storms of political strife, which such as he are not born to master but which they think they must not avoid.