avoid unseasonable jests, "and not lard our talk with Greek quotations."[1]
In the path of life, each should follow the bent of his own genius, so far as it is innocent—
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 (he adds, perhaps not without a personal reference) this is generally the case with those born of mean parents, who propose to carve their own way in the world. But the parvenu of Arpinum—the 'new man,' as aristocratic jealousy always loved to call him—is by no means insensible to the true honours of ancestry. "The noblest inheritance," he says, "that can ever be left by a father to his son, far excelling that of lands and houses, is the fame of his virtues and glorious actions;" and saddest of all sights is that of a noble house dragged through the mire by some degenerate descendant, so as to be a by-word among the populace,—"which may" (he concludes) "be justly said of but too many in our times.”
The Roman's view of the comparative dignity of professions and occupations is interesting, because his prejudices (if they be prejudices) have so long main-
- ↑ This last precept Cicero must have considered did not apply to letter-writing, otherwise he was a notorious offender against his own rule.
