Certainly, if the mind had no
 anticipations of posterity, and if it were to confine all its thoughts within the same limits as
 those by which the space of our lives is bounded, it would neither break itself with such severe
 labours, nor would it be tormented with such cares and sleepless anxiety, nor would it so often
 have to fight for its very life. At present there is a certain virtue in every good man, which
 night and day stirs up the mind with the stimulus of glory, and reminds it that all mention of
 our name will not cease at the same time with our lives, but that our fame will endure to all
 posterity. Do we all who are occupied in the affairs of the state, and who are surrounded by such perils
 and dangers in life, appear to be so narrow-minded, as, though to the last moment of our lives
 we have never passed one tranquil or easy moment, to think that everything will perish at the
 same time as ourselves? Ought we not, when many most illustrious men have with great care
 collected and left behind them statues and images, representations not of their minds but of
 their bodies, much more to desire to leave behind us a copy of our counsels and of our virtues,
 wrought and elaborated by the greatest genius? I thought, at the very moment of performing them,
 that I was scattering and disseminating all the deeds which I was performing, all over the world
 for the eternal recollection of nations. And whether that delight is to be denied to my soul
 after death, or whether, as the wisest men have thought, it will affect some portion of my
 spirit, at all events, I am at present delighted with some such idea and hope.