If for the _Manes_ of the just any place be found; if, as philosophers
hold, great spirits perish not with the body, pleasing be thy repose.
Moreover, recall us thy family from this our weakness in regretting thee,
and from these our effeminate wailings, to the contemplation of thy
virtues, for which it were unjust to lament or to mourn. Let us rather
adorn thy memory with deathless praises and (as far as our infirmities
will allow) by pursuing and adopting thy excellencies. This is true
honour, this the natural duty incumbent upon every near relation. This is
also what I would recommend to thy daughter and thy wife, so to reverence
the memory of a father, and a husband, as to be ever ruminating upon all
his doings, upon all his sayings, and rather to adore his immortal name,
rather the image of his mind than that of his person. Not that I mean to
condemn the use of statues, such as are framed of marble or brass. But as
the persons of men are frail and perishing, so are likewise the
portraitures of men. The form of the soul is eternal, such as you cannot
represent and preserve by the craft of hands or by materials foreign to
its nature, nor otherwise than by a similitude and conformity of manners.
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