t, drink and enjoy life temperately. He was
tested in the troublous times of Domitian. By living quietly, by
adroitly parrying pointed and dangerous questions, by avoiding public
life, he managed to pass through a very difficult reign; for it was a
difficult time under an emperor who spared not even flies: certainly
it was the only way in which he ever battled with Beelzebub. Now
we hold that had C.P.C. Secundus been anything beyond an amateur
epicure--if he had been a _gourmand_--he would have fatally said or
done something that would have prevented his ever writing any more
letters to friends or to General Trajanus. To be a well-balanced eater
is, _cceteris paribus_, to be a well-balanced man. Perhaps Pliny was
too fastidious to be a proper epicure even--too fastidious in other
directions, we mean. And he had learned some habits from his early
training which would interfere materially with habitual attention to
the pleasures of the table. But we protest we did not intend, even
as a first object, to bring up the table as the main proof of Pliny's
enjoyment of the good things of this life. We wanted to show you,
courteous reader, something of how he lived, and it is necessary to
learn his habits in order to decide whether he enjoyed the things
which Providence had given him. He had learned of his uncle the bad
habit of reading or of being read to at meal-times. He did not indulge
in it, he says, when he had company, but only when his family was
present. His protestation does not avail him: this plea rather
aggravated the rudeness. For, however formal etiquette may be laid
aside in the bosom of his family, a _paterfamilias_ is none the less
bound to observe the laws of courtesy. But it yet leads us to notice
that C.P.C. loved his wife and children. His wife was the daughter of
one Fabatus, who would most undoubtedly have been long since forgotten
but that his son-in-law wrote him model letters, sometimes on
business, sometimes on his health, sometimes about visits that had
been delayed--generally complimentary, always short, always implying
high reverence for the father of a well-loved wife. But he carried the
family passion for reading to excess. One of his regrets is that his
favorite reader is consumptive, and, despite a season in Egypt for his
health, was still suffering. So he sends him to the country-seat of
a friend, to see if the country air and good nursing will not restore
him. It was an accomplishment to read w