me; it still looks fondly back upon me, though it has gone assuredly into those abodes where he knew that I myself should follow. And this my great loss I seemed to bear with calmness; not that I bore it undisturbed, but that I still consoled myself with the thought that the separation between us could not be for long. And if I err in this—in that I believe the spirits of men to be immortal—I err willingly; nor would I have this mistaken belief of mine uprooted so long as I shall live. But if, after I am dead, I shall have no consciousness, as some curious philosophers assert, then I am not afraid of dead philosophers laughing at my mistake."
The essay on 'Friendship' is dedicated by the author to Atticus—an appropriate recognition, as he says, of the long and intimate friendship which had existed between themselves. It is thrown, like the other, into the form of a dialogue. The principal speaker here is one of the listeners in the former case—Lælius, surnamed the Wise—who is introduced as receiving a visit from his two sons-in-law, Fannius and Scævola (the great lawyer before mentioned[1]), soon after the sudden death of his great friend, the younger Scipio Africanus. Lælius takes the occasion, at the request of the young men, to give them his views and opinions on the subject of Friendship generally. This essay is per-
- ↑ P. 6.
live in an inverted order. They who ought to have succeeded me have gone before me: they who should have been to me as posterity are in the place of ancestors."
