Well, do you think that I have just reasons for living here, for passing my time here, and for loving a retreat for which your mouth must be watering, unless you are a confirmed town-bird? I wish that your mouth did water! If it did, the many great charms of my little villa would be enhanced in the highest degree by your company. Farewell.
2.XVIII.—TO MAURICUS.
No, you could not have given me a pleasanter commission than to find a teacher of rhetoric for your brother's children. For, thanks to you, I go to school again, and, as it were, enjoy once more the happiest days of my life. I sit among young people, as I used to do, and I can judge what authority I have among them owing to my literary pursuits. Just recently in a full class-room, before a number of members of our order, the boys were joking among themselves quite loudly; the moment I entered they were quiet as mice. I should not mention the incident except that it redounded more to their credit than to mine, and that I wish you to feel sure that your brother's sons can attend the lectures to their advantage. Moreover, when I have heard all the lectures, I will write and tell you what I think about each one of them, and so—as far as I can by a letter—I will make you think that you have heard them all yourself. I owe this to you, and I owe it to the memory of your brother to deal loyally by him and take this interest, especially on such an important subject. For what can touch you more closely than that these children—I should say your children, but that you love them more than if they were your own—should be found worthy of such a father and such an uncle as yourself. Even if you had not asked me to look after them, I should have done so on my own account. I do not forget that in choosing a public teacher one is apt to give offence, but on behalf of your brother's sons I must risk giving offence and even incurring animosity with as little compunction as a parent would in looking after his own children. Farewell.
2.XIX.—TO CERIALIS.
You urge me to recite my speech before a company of my friends. I will do so, because you ask me to, but I am exceedingly doubtful of the wisdom of the step. For I cannot help remembering that speeches which are recited lose all their spirit and passion and almost the right to the name of speeches—which are properly enhanced and fired by the bench of judges, the crowds of supporters, the waiting for the verdict, the reputation of the various counsel, and the divided partisanship of the audience. Besides all this, there are the gestures of the pleader, his moving to and fro, even his hurried strides, and every movement of his body which corresponds to some thought passing through his mind. Hence it is that those who plead sitting down, although they have practically the same environment as those who plead standing, are not so impressive and telling just because they happen to be seated. But when a man recites a speech, his eyes and hands—which are the most important aids to expression—are otherwise occupied, and so it is no wonder that the attention of the audience becomes languid, when there are no external graces to charm them and no thrills to stimulate them. Moreover, the address I am talking about is a fighting speech and full of contentious matter, and Nature has so ordained it that we think, if a subject has given us trouble to write, it will give an audience trouble to listen to it. How few conscientious listeners there are who prefer a stiff, closely-reasoned argument to honeyed and sonorous eloquence! It is wrong, I know, that there should be a difference of taste between judge and listener, but there is such a difference and it constantly crops up. The audience want one thing and the judges another, whereas, on the contrary, a listener ought to be impressed just by those points which would make most impression on him if he were judge. However, it is possible that in spite of these difficulties the speech may be recommended by a certain novelty—a novelty that is quite Roman,—for though the Greeks have a custom which does bear a remote resemblance to it, it is really quite different. For just as it was their practice, in showing that a law was opposed to earlier laws, to prove that it was so by comparing it with the others, so I had to show that my accusation was covered by the law against extortion by comparing it with other laws as well as by proving it from the law itself. Such a subject, though far from having any charm for the ears of the man in the street, ought to be as interesting to the learned as it is uninteresting to the unlearned. But if I make up my mind to recite the speech, I shall invite all the learned people to hear it. However, please think it over by all means and tell me whether you still consider that I ought to recite it; place on either side all the considerations I have raised, and choose the conclusion which has the weight of argument in its favour. It is from you, not from me, that a reason will be required; my apology will be that I did as I was told. Farewell.
2.XX.—TO CALVISIUS.
Get ready your penny and I will tell you a golden story, nay, more than one, for the new one has reminded me of some old tales, and it does not matter with which I begin. Verania, the wife of Piso, was lying very ill—I mean the Piso who was adopted by Galba. Regulus paid her a visit. First mark the impudence of the man in coming to see the invalid, for he had been her husband's bitter enemy and she loathed and detested him. However, that might pass if he had only called, but he actually sat down beside her on the couch and asked her on what day and at what hour she had been born. On being told he puts on a grave look, fixes his eyes hard, moves his lips, works his fingers and makes his reckoning, but says nothing. Then after keeping the poor lady on the tenter-hooks, wondering what he would say, he exclaims: "You are passing through a critical time, but you will pull through. Still, just to reassure you, I will go and consult a soothsayer with whom I have often had dealings." He goes off at once; offers the sacrifice and swears that the appearance of the entrails corresponds with the warning of the stars. She, with all the credulity of an invalid, calls for her tablets and writes down a legacy for Regulus; subsequently she grows worse and exclaims as she dies, "What a rascal, what a lying and worse than perjured wretch, thus to have sworn falsely on the head of his son!"
That is Regulus's trick, and he has recourse to the scandalous device constantly, for he calls down the anger of the gods, whom he daily outrages, upon the head of his luckless son. Velleius Blaesus, the rich Consular, was stricken with the illness which carried him off, and was desirous of changing his will. Regulus, who was capable of hoping for anything from an alteration of the will because he had lately begun to haunt him on the chance of a legacy, begged and prayed of the doctors to prolong Blaesus's life by hook or by crook. But when the will was signed he took quite a different line. He changed his tone and said to the same doctors: "How long do you intend to torture the poor man? Why do you grudge him an easy death when you cannot give him life?" Blaesus dies, and, as though he had heard every word, he leaves Regulus not a brass farthing. Two stories are quite enough. Or do you ask for a third, on the rhetoricians' principle? Well, I have one for you. When Aurelia, a lady of great means, was about to make her will, she put on for the occasion her most handsome tunics. When Regulus came to witness the signing he said, "I beg you to leave me these." Aurelia thought the man was joking, but he was serious and pressed the matter. Well, to cut the story short, he compelled the poor woman to open the tablets and leave to him the tunics she was wearing at the time. He watched her as she wrote, and looked to see whether she had written it rightly. Aurelia still lives, but he forced her to make that legacy as if she had been on the point of death. Yet this is the fellow who receives inheritances and legacies as though he deserved them.
But why do I worry myself when I live in a country where villainy and rascality have long been getting not less but far more handsome rewards than modesty and virtue? Look at Regulus, for example, who, from being a pauper and without a shilling, has now become such a rich man by sheer villainy that he once told me that, when he was consulting the omens as to how soon he would be worth sixty millions of sesterces, he found double sets of entrails, which were a token that he would be worth 120 millions. So he will too, if only he goes on, as he has begun, dictating wills which are not their own to the very people who are making their wills, which is about the most disgraceful kind of forgery imaginable. Farewell.