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were very eagerly desirous of seeing me; and while I gladly accept the compliment, I do not yield place to you in that desire. For may all my prayers be answered as surely as it is true that I should like very much to be with you. As a matter of fact, when I had a greater choice of good men and citizens and true friends of mine, there was nobody even then whose company I preferred to yours, and few whose company I so greatly enjoyed; but in these days, when some of them have perished, others are away, and others are estranged, I pledge you my word that I should have greater pleasure in spending[1] a single day with you, than the whole of this time with the majority of those in whose company I am obliged to live. Do not for a moment suppose that even solitude (and yet I am not allowed to enjoy even that) has not a greater charm for me than the conversation of those who frequent my house, with one, or at the most two, exceptions.
2 And so I find a refuge—and I would have you find the same—in my attempts at literature, and also the consciousness of what I have sought to accomplish. For such is my nature, as you at any rate can very easily believe, that I have never done anything for myself rather than for my fellow-citizens; and had not that man,[2] whose friend you never were, because you were mine, been jealous of me, he would himself have prospered, and so would all good citizens. I am he who desired that no autocrat's violence should prevail over peace with honour; it was I, too, when I felt convinced that those very arms I had always dreaded were mightier than that union of good citizens which I again had brought about, it was I who preferred to accept