In his youth, he tells us, he was preparing himself for a righteous
life, in his old age for a noble death.[59] And let us not forget, that
when the hour of crisis came which tested the real calm and bravery of
his soul, he was not found wanting. "With no dread," he writes to
Lucilius, "I am preparing myself for that day on which, laying aside all
artifice or subterfuge, I shall be able to judge respecting myself
whether I merely _speak_ or really _feel_ as a brave man should; whether
all those words of haughty obstinacy which I have hurled against fortune
were mere pretence and pantomime.... Disputations and literary talks,
and words collected from the precepts of philosophers, and eloquent
discourse, do not prove the true strength of the soul. For the mere
_speech_ of even the most cowardly is bold; what you have really
achieved will then be manifest when your end is near. I accept the
terms, I do not shrink from the decision." [60]
[Footnote 57: Ep. 63.]
[Footnote 58: Martha, _Les Moralistes_, p. 61.]
[Footnote 59: Ep. 61.]
[Footnote 60: Ep. 26.]
"_Accipio conditionem, non reformido judicrum_.
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