For we ought to bear with moderation any grief which arises from ourselves, or is endured on our own account, lest we should seem to be too much influenced by self-love.

But should we suspect our departed friends to be under those evils, which they are generally imagined to be, and to be sensible of them, then such a suspicion would give us intolerable pain; and accordingly I wished, for my own sake, to pluck up this opinion by the roots, and on that account I have been perhaps somewhat more prolix than was necessary.
XLVII.

_A._ More prolix than was necessary?
Certainty not, in my opinion.

For I was induced, by the former part of your speech, to wish to die; but, by the latter, sometimes not to be unwilling, and at others to be wholly indifferent about it.

But the effect of your whole argument is, that I am convinced that death ought not to be classed among the evils.
_M._ Do you, then, expect that I am to give you a regular peroration, like the rhetoricians, or shall I forego that art?
_A._ I would not have you give over an art which you have set off to such advantage; and you were in the right to do so, for, to speak the truth, it also has set you off.