Wrap yourself in your own virtue, and seek a friend and your daily bread.

If you have in your own cause grown gray with unbleached honour, bless God and die!" Men inspired by high principles are often required to sacrifice all that they esteem and love rather than fail in their duty.

The old English idea of this sublime devotion to duty was expressed by the loyalist poet to his sweetheart, on taking up arms for his sovereign:-- "I could love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more." [161] And Sertorius has said: "The man who has any dignity of character, should conquer with honour, and not use any base means even to save his life." So St.Paul, inspired by duty and faith, declared himself as not only "ready to be bound, but to die at Jerusalem." When the Marquis of Pescara was entreated by the princes of Italy to desert the Spanish cause, to which he was in honour bound, his noble wife, Vittoria Colonna, reminded him of his duty.

She wrote to him: "Remember your honour, which raises you above fortune and above kings; by that alone, and not by the splendour of titles, is glory acquired--that glory which it will be your happiness and pride to transmit unspotted to your posterity." Such was the dignified view which she took of her husband's honour; and when he fell at Pavia, though young and beautiful, and besought by many admirers, she betook herself to solitude, that she might lament over her husband's loss and celebrate his exploits.

[162] To live really, is to act energetically.