made copies of it. I assure you that there is no more efficacious consolation. I write all day long, not that I do any good, but for a while I experience a kind of check, or, if not quite that—for the violence of my grief is overpowering—yet I get some relaxation, and I try with all my might to recover composure, not of heart, yet, if possible, of countenance. When doing that I sometimes feel myself to be doing wrong, sometimes that I shall be doing wrong if I don't. Solitude does me some good, but it would have done me more good, if you after all had been here: and that is my only reason for quitting this place, for it does very well in such miserable circumstances. And even this suggests another cause of sorrow. For you will not be able to be to me now what you once were: everything you used to like about me is gone. I wrote to you before about Brutus's letter to me: it contained a great deal of good sense, but nothing to give me any comfort. As to his asking in his letter to you whether I should like him to come to see me—by all means: he would be sure to give me some help, considering his strong affection for me. If you have any news, pray write and tell me, especially as to when Pansa goes.[1] I am sorry about Attica: yet I believe in Craterus. Tell Pilia not to be anxious: my sorrow is enough for us all.
DXLVI (A XII, 15)
TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)
Astura (9 March)
Since you do not approve of a standing plea of ill-health,
please see that my excuse is made each day to Appuleius.[2]
In this lonely place I have no one with whom to converse,
