DXXVII (F V, 16)
TO TITIUS
(ROME)
Though of all the world I am by far the least
fitted to offer you1
consolation, because your sorrow has caused me so
much pain that I needed consolation myself; yet
since my sorrow was farther removed from the
acuteness of the deepest grief than your own, I
have resolved that our close connexion and my warm
feelings for you make it incumbent
on me not to be so long silent in what causes you
such deep mourning, but to offer some reasonable
consolation such as may suffice to lighten, if it
could not wholly heal your sorrow. Now there is a
source of consolation-hackneyed indeed to the last
degree—which we ought ever to have on
our lips and in our hearts: we should remember
that we are men, born under the conditions which
expose our life to all the missiles of fortune;
and we must not decline life on the conditions
under which we were born, nor rebel so violently
under mischances which we are unable to avoid by
any precautions; and by recalling what has
happened to others we should reflect that nothing
strange has betided us. But neither these, nor
other sources of consolation, which have been
employed by the greatest philosophers and have
been recorded in literature, ought, it seems, to
be of so much avail, as the position of the state
itself and the disruption of these evil times,
which make those the happiest who have never had
children, and those who have lost them at such a
crisis less miserable than if they had done so
when the Republic was in a good state, or indeed
had any existence at all. But if your own loss
affects you, or if you mourn at the thought of
your own position, I do not think that you will
find that grief easy to remove in its entirety. If
on the other hand what wrings your heart is grief
for the miserable fate of those who have
fallen—a thought more natural to an
affectionate heart—to say nothing of
what I have repeatedly read and heard, that there
is no evil in death, after which if any sensation
remains it is to be regarded as immortality rather
than death, while if it is all lost, it follows
that nothing must be regarded as misery which is
not felt-yet this much I can assert, that
confusions are brewing, disasters preparing and
threatening the Republic, such that whoever has
left them cannot possibly, as it seems to me, be
in the wrong. For what place is there now, I don't
say for conscience, uprightness, virtue, right
feeling, and good qualities, but for bare freedom
and safety? By Heaven, I have never been told of
any young man or boy having died in this most
unhealthy and pestilent year, who did not seem to
me to be rescued by the immortal gods from the
miseries of this world and from a most intolerable
condition of life. Wherefore, if this one idea can
be removed from your mind, so as to
convince you that no evil has happened to those
you loved, your grief will have been very much
lessened. For there will then only be left that
single strain of sorrow which will not be
concerned with them, but will have reference to
yourself alone: in regard to which it is not
consonant with a high character and wisdom such as
you have displayed from boyhood, to show excessive
sorrow for a misfortune that has befallen you,
when it does not at all involve misery or evil to
those whom you have loved. In fact, the qualities
you have displayed both in private and public
business entail the necessity of preserving your
dignity and supporting your character for
consistency. For that which length of time is sure
to bring us of itself—which removes the
bitterest sorrows by the natural process of
decay—we ought to anticipate by
reflexion and wisdom. Why, if there never was a
woman so weak-minded on the death of her children,
as not sooner or later to put a period to her
mourning, certainly we men ought to anticipate by
reflexion what lapse of time is sure to bring, and
not to wait for a cure from time, when we can have
it on the spot from reason. If I have done you any
good by this letter, I think that I have
accomplished a desirable object: but if by chance
it has been of no avail, I hold that I have done
the duty of one who wishes you all that is best
and loves you very dearly. Such a one I would have
you think that I have been, and believe that I
shall be to you in the future.
(ROME)