one with whom I may
discuss all my anxieties, someone with whom I may speak quite frankly
and without pretences. My brother, who is all candour and kindness, is
away. Metellus is empty as the air, barren as the desert. And you, who
have so often relieved my cares and sorrows by your conversation and
counsel, and have always been my support in politics and my confidant in
all private affairs, the partner of all my thoughts and plans--where are
you?

I am so utterly deserted that I have no other comfort but in my wife and
daughter and dear little Cicero. For those ambitious friendships with
great people are all show and tinsel, and contain nothing that satisfies
inwardly. Every morning my house swarms with visitors; I go down to the
Forum attended by troops of friends; but in the whole crowd there is no
one with whom I can freely jest, or whom I can trust with an intimate
word. It is for you that I wait; I need your presence; I even implore
you to come.

I have a load of anxieties and troubles, of which, if you could listen
to them in one of our walks together, you would go far to relieve me. I
have to keep to myself the stings and vexations of my domestic troubles;
I dare not trust them to this letter and to an unknown courier. I don't
want you to think them greater than they are, but they haunt and worry
me, and there is no friendly counsel to alleviate them. As for the
republic, though my courage and will toward it are not diminished, yet
it has again and again itself evaded remedy. If I were to tell you all
that has happened since you went away, you would certainly say that the
Roman state must be nearing its fall. The Clodian scandal was, I think,
the first episode after your departure. On that occasion, thinking that
I had an opportunity of cutting down and restraining the licentiousness
of the young men, I exerted myself with all my might, and brought into
play every power of my mind, not in hostility to an individual, but in
the hope of correcting and healing the state. But a venal and profligate
verdict in the matter has brought upon the republic the gravest injury.
And see what has taken place since.

A consul has been imposed upon us whom no one, unless a philosopher like
ourselves, can look at without a sigh. What an injury that is! Again,
although a decree of the senate with regard to bribery and corruption
has been passed, no law has been carried through; and the senate has
been harassed beyond endurance