It must be admitted that he was a vane, turning on a pivot finer than those on which statesmen have generally been made to work.

He had none of the fixed purpose of Caesar, or the unflinching principle of Cato.

They were men cased in brass, whose feelings nothing could hurt.

They suffered from none of those inward flutterings of the heart, doubtful aspirations, human longings, sharp sympathies, dreams of something better than this world, fears of something worse, which make Cicero so like a well-bred, polished gentleman of the present day.

It is because he has so little like a Roman that he is of all the Romans the most attractive.
Still there may be doubt whether, with all the intricacies of his character, his career was such as to justify a further biography at this distance of time.