Page:The Letters of Cicero Shuckburg III.pdf/71

 CCCCXXX

TO ATTICUS (AT ROME)

I am giving this letter to another man's letter-carriers, who are in a hurry to start; that, and the fact that I am about to send my own, accounts for its brevity. My daughter Tullia reached me on the 12th of June, and expatiated at great length on your attention and kindness to her, and gave me three letters. I, however, have not got the pleasure from her own virtue, gentleness, and affection which I ought to get from a matchless daughter, but have even been overwhelmed with extraordinary sorrow, to think that a character like hers should be involved in circumstances of such distress, and that that should occur from no fault of hers, but from my own consummate folly. Accordingly, I am not expecting from you now either consolation, which I see you desire to offer, or advice, which is impossible of adoption; and I understand on many occasions from your previous, as well as from your last letters, that you have tried everything practicable.

I am thinking of sending my son with Sallustius to Cæsar. As for Tullia, I see no motive for keeping her with me any longer in such a sad state of mutual sorrow. Accordingly, I am going to send her back to her mother as soon as she will herself consent to go. In return for the letter which you wrote in the consolatory style, pray consider that I have made the only answer which you will