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And this instability, let us note at once, was not the
restlessness of a jaded _roue_, but the coruscation of a clever mind
wholly without principle, intensely interested in his _monde_, in the
life in which he moved, with all its enjoyment and excitement.
Caelius' father brought his son to Cicero, as soon as he had taken
his toga virilis, to study law and oratory, and Cicero was evidently
attracted by the bright and lively boy; he never deserted him, and
the last letter of Caelius to his old preceptor was written only just
before his own sad end. But Cicero was not the man to keep an unstable
character out of mischief; he loved young men, especially clever ones,
and was apt to take an optimistic view of them, as he did of his own
son and nephew. Caelius, always attracted by novelty, left Cicero and
attached himself to Catiline; and for this vagary, as well as for his
own want of success in controlling his pupil, Cicero rather awkwardly
and amusingly apologises in the early chapters of his speech in his
defence.


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