nd affection. Nor is it
only those whom I knew that I long to see; it is those also of whom I
have been told and have read, whom I have myself recorded in my history.
When I am setting out for that, there is certainly no one who will find
it easy to draw me back, or boil me up again like second Pelios. Nay, if
some god should grant me to renew my childhood from my present age and
once more to be crying in my cradle, I would firmly refuse; nor should
I in truth be willing, after having, as it were, run the full course, to
be recalled from the winning--crease to the barriers. For what blessing
has life to offer? Should we not rather say what labour? But granting
that it has, at any rate it has after all a limit either to enjoyment
or to existence. I don't wish to depreciate life, as many men and good
philosophers have often done; nor do I regret having lived, for I have
done so in a way that lets me think that I was not born in vain. But I
quit life as I would an inn, not as I would a home. For nature has given
us a place of entertainment, not of residence.

Oh glorious day when I shall set out to join that heavenly conclave and
company of souls, and depart from the turmoil and impurities of
this world! For I shall not go to join only those whom I have before
mentioned, but also my son Cato, than whom no better man was ever born,
nor one more conspicuous for piety. His body was burnt by me, though
mine ought, on the contrary, to have been burnt by him; but his spirit,
not abandoning, but ever looking back upon me, has certainly gone
whither he saw that I too must come. I was thought to bear that loss
heroically, not that I really bore it without distress, but I found my
own consolation in the thought that the parting and separation between
us was not to be for long.

It is by these means, my dear Scipio,--for you said that you and Laelius
were wont to express surprise on this point,--that my old age sits
lightly on me, and is not only not oppressive but even delightful.
But if I am wrong in thinking the human soul immortal, I am glad to be
wrong; nor will I allow the mistake which gives me so much pleasure
to be wrested from me as long as I live. But if when dead, as some
insignificant philosophers think, I am to be without sensation, I am not
afraid of dead philosophers deriding my errors. Again, if we are not to
be immortal, it is nevertheless what a man must wish--to have his
life end at its proper time. For nature pu