[13]
Who
then can reproach me or who has any right to be angry with me, if I allow myself as much time
for the cultivation of these studies as some take for the performance of their own business,
or for celebrating days of festival and games, or for other pleasures, or even for the rest
and refreshment of mind and body, or as others devote to early banquets, to playing at dice,
or at ball? And this ought to be permitted to me, because by these studies my power of
speaking and those faculties are improved, which, as far as they do exist in me, have never
been denied to my friends when they have been in peril. And if that ability appears to any one
to be but moderate, at all events I know whence I derive those principles which are of the
greatest value.
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M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1856.
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