Page:Loeb Classical Library L205N (1958).djvu/303

¹ The announcement of the death of your daughter Tullia,^[1] which I duly received, was, believe me, as it was bound to be, a painful and bitter blow to me, and I regarded it as a calamity to both of us alike. Had I been there, I should not have failed you, and should have convinced you in person of my sympathy. Of course, any consolation of this kind is depressing, and even unpleasantly embarrassing, because the relatives and intimate friends, upon whom lies the duty of tendering it, are themselves bearing a like burden of sorrow, and cannot attempt the task without the shedding of many a tear, so that one would imagine that they themselves need others to console them, rather than that they can possibly discharge what is their own duty to others. But even so I have decided to set down in a short letter to you the thoughts that have occurred to me on the present occasion, not that I imagine they escape you, but because perhaps you are so blinded by grief, that you have a less clear perception of them.

² What reason is there for your being so profoundly distressed by a private sorrow affecting yourself? Consider how fortune has dealt with us hitherto, that we have been robbed of all that should be no less dear to men than their offspring—of country, of an honourable name, of position, of all the preferments of the state. How could this one new loss have added anything to your grief? Or what man's mind trained in such experience ought not now to be