count the "Hierosolymarius." We do not quite believe that
Bibulus never left the house while an enemy was to be seen; but we think
that a man may be expected to tell the truth of himself; at any rate, to
tell no untruth against himself. We think that Cicero of all men may be
left to do so--Cicero, who so well understood the use of words, and
could use them in his own defence so deftly. I maintain that it has been
that very deftness which has done him all the harm. Not one of those
letters of the last years would have been written as it is now had
Cicero thought, when writing it, that from it would his conduct have
been judged after two thousand years. "No," will say my readers, "that
is their value; they would not have otherwise been true, as they are. We
should not then have learned his secrets." I reply, "It is a hard
bargain to make: others do not make such bargains on the same terms. But
be sure, at any rate, that you read them aright: be certain that you
make the necessary allowances. Do not accuse him of falsehood because he
unsays on a Tuesday the words he said on the Monday. Bear in mind on his
behalf all the temporary ill that humanity is heir to. Could you, living
at Brundisium during the summer months, 'when you were scarcely able to
endure the weight of the sun,'[138] have had all your intellects about
you, and have been able always to choose your words?" No, indeed! These
letters, if truth is to be expected from them, have to be read with all
the subtle distinctions necessary for understanding the frame of mind in
which they were written. His anger boils over here, and he is hot. Here
tenderness has mastered him, and the love of old days. He is weak in
body just now, and worn out in spirit; he is hopeless, almost to the
brink of despair; he is bright with wit, he is full of irony, he is
purposely enigmatic--all of which require an Atticus who knew him and
the people among whom he had lived, and the times in which the events
took place, for their special reading. Who is there can read them now so
as accurately to decipher every intended detail? Then comes some critic
who will not even attempt to read them--who rushes through them by the
light of some foregone conclusion, and missing the point at which the
writer subtly aims, tells us of some purpose of which he was altogether
innocent! Because he jokes about the augurship, we are told how
miserably base he was, and how ready to sell his country!

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