[27]
This, then, is the part which remains to you—this is the cause
which you have before you; this is what you must now labour at,—to
settle the republic, and to enjoy it yourself as the first of its citizens,
in the greatest tranquillity and peacefulness. And then, if you please when
you have discharged the obligations which you owe to your country, and when
you have satisfied nature herself with the devotion of your life, then you
may say that you have lived long enough. For what is the meaning of this
very word “long” when applied to what has an end? And
when the end comes, then all past pleasure is to be accounted as nothing,
because there is none to come after it. Although that spirit of yours has
never been content with this narrow space which nature has afforded us to
live in; but has always been inflamed with a desire of immortality.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1891.
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