Page:Cicero (Collins 1871).djvu/190

178 and friends hold the first place in our affections; but the circle of our good deeds is not to be narrowed by the ties of blood, or sect, or party, and “our country comprehends the endearments of all." We should act in the spirit of the ancient law—"Thou shalt keep no man from the running stream, or from lighting his torch at thy hearth." Our liberality should be really liberal,—like that charity which Jeremy Taylor describes as "friendship to all the world."

Another component principle of this honour is courage, or "greatness of soul," which (continues Cicero) has been well defined by the Stoics as "a virtue contending for justice and honesty;" and its noblest form is a generous contempt for ordinary objects of ambition, not "from a vain or fantastic humour, but from solid principles of reason." The lowest and commoner form of courage is the mere animal virtue of the fighting-cock.

But a character should not only be excellent,—it should be graceful. In gesture and deportment men should strive to acquire that dignified grace of manners "which adds as it were a lustre to our lives." They should avoid affectation and eccentricity; "not to care a farthing what people think of us is a sign not so much of pride as of immodesty." The want of tact—the saying and doing things at the wrong time and place—produces the same discord in society as a false note in music; and harmony of character is of more consequence than harmony of sounds. There is a grace in words as well as in conduct: we should