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most common sort of men; for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire, than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity."

Happy, indeed, is the man who has such a sanctuary in his own soul. "He who is virtuous is wise; and he who is wise is good; and he who is good is happy."

But we cannot expect to be happy if we do not lead pure and useful lives. To be good company for ourselves we must store our minds well; fill them with happy and pure thoughts; with pleasant memories of the past, and reasonable hopes for the future. We must, as far as may be, protect ourselves from selfreproach, from care, and from anxiety. We shall make our lives. pure and happy by resisting evil, by placing restraint upon our appetites, and perhaps even more by strengthening and developing our tendencies to good. We must be careful, then, how we choose our thoughts. The soul is dyed by its thoughts; we cannot keep our minds pure if we allow them to dwell on detailed accounts of crime and sin. Peace of mind, as Ruskin beautifully observes, "must come in its own time, as the waters settle themselves into clearness as well as quietness; you can no more filter your mind into purity than you can compress it into calmness; you must keep it pure if you would have it pure, and throw no stones into it if you would have it quiet."

Few

The penalty of injustice, said Socrates, is not death or stripes, but the fatal necessity of becoming more and more unjust. men have led a wiser or more virtuous life than Socrates himself, of whom Xenophon gives us the following description: "To me, being such as I have described him, so pious that he did nothing without the sanction of the gods; so just, that he wronged no man even in the most trifling affair, but was of service in the most important matters to those who enjoyed his society; so temperate that he never preferred pleasure to virtue; so wise, that he never erred in distinguishing better from worse; needing no counsel from others, but being sufficient in himself to discriminate between them; so able to explain and settle such questions by argument; and so capable of discerning the character of others, of confuting those who were in error, and of exhorting them to virtue and honor, he seemed to be such as the

best and happiest of men would be. But if any one disapproves of my opinion, let him compare the conduct of others with that of Socrates, and determine accordingly."

Marcus Aurelius again has drawn for us a most instructive lesson in his character of Antoninus: "Do everything as a disciple of Antoninus. Remember his constancy in every act which was conformable to reason, his evenness in all things, his piety, the serenity of his countenance, his sweetness, his disregard of empty fame, and his efforts to understand things; how he would never let anything pass without having first carefully examined it and clearly understood it; how he bore with those who blamed him unjustly without blaming them in return; how he did nothing in a hurry; how he listened not to calumnies, and how exact an examiner of manners and actions he was; not given to reproach people, nor timid, nor suspicious, nor a sophist; with how little he was satisfied, such as lodging, bed, dress, food, servants; how laborious and patient; how sparing he was in his diet; his firmness and uniformity in his friendships; how he tolerated freedom of speech in those who opposed his opinions; the pleasure that he had when any man showed him anything better, and how pious he was without superstition. Imitate all this that thou mayest have as good a conscience, when thy last hour comes, as he had."

Such peace of mind is, indeed, an inestimable boon, a rich reward of duty fulfilled. Well, then, does Epictetus ask, "Is there no reward? Do you seek a reward greater than that of doing what is good and just? At Olympia you wish for nothing more, but it seems to you enough to be crowned at the games. Does it, then, seem to you so small and worthless a thing to be good and happy?"

From "The Pleasures of Life.»

LUCIAN

(c. 120-c. 200 A. D.)

UCIAN, the most interesting of all Greek writers of prose satire, was born at Samosata, in Syria, about 120 A. D. It appears from his own account of himself that his father was poor and that when a boy he served as apprentice to a sculptor, from whom he ran away after receiving a beating. In his old age he lived in Egypt and held office as Keeper of Records or Master of the Rolls in that country. He died probably about the year 200 A. D. This is as doubtful as everything else that concerns his life. His writings which have survived in abundance are almost wholly humorous or satirical. He suggested themes for Swift and the author of "Baron Munchausen" among Moderns, as well as for many who have openly borrowed his style. He excelled in the dialogue, especially in dialogue which enabled him to put into the mouths of famous persons sarcastic or humorous comment on the follies and superstitions of the day. He saw that the polytheism which had been a popular religion in southern Europe and Egypt was decadent and near its end. In his "Dialogues of the Dead" and his "Dialogues of the Gods," he ridicules the religion of the people, while in other Dialogues he is even less merciful towards the professional philosophers who cultivated long beards and attempted to live without work on the strength of their assumed superiority. Lucian is one of the last writers of Greek prose which can be described as classical. He is sometimes criticized severely for impurities of style, but he writes with ease, and, in proof of the interest he has managed to excite and hold, his admirers can point to one hundred and twenty-four of his books and prose treatises which have survived, besides his epigrams and poems.

THAT BIBLIOMANIACS SHOULD READ THEIR OWN BOOKS

How

ow can you be expected to distinguish those books which are old and valuable from those which are not, unless by their being thumbed and worm-eaten; for which purpose you do well to call to your aid a council of moths, otherwise no accurate judgment can ever be formed by you. But, if I should grant that you are not unacquainted with the taste of Callinus, or the

industrious Atticus, of what use, I pray, can those beauties be to you, which you can no more enjoy than a blind man those of his mistress? You examine some authors very carefully, even more than enough, and some you skim slightly over with a single glance of your eye. But what can it all signify, when you can be no judge of the merit or demerit of the work? when you are ignorant of the scope of the writer? what arrangement he has proposed to himself, where he has happily succeeded to a nicety, and where his diction appears vapid and adulterate? Or do you pretend to the art of criticism without any previous study? If so, you must have been presented, like the shepherd, with a branch of laurel from the Muses. But I believe you never once heard the trickling of Helicon, where the goddesses have fixed their abode. You never were a neighbor of theirs in the days of your youth, nor have the least recollection of any such beings. I do not say that the Muses have not condescended to visit a homely shepherd, sunburned, and roughly clad; but to such a person as you (Venus, the goddess of Elegance, will excuse my speaking more plainly), to such a man as you, I am confident, they will never come near. Instead of a present of laurel, you would be more likely to get a good beating with mallow. Their Holmus and their Hippocrene they would choose to keep unpolluted for thirsty flocks and the pure lips of shepherds. Impudent and audacious as you are, you will hardly presume to say that you derive any advantage from education, or have any more than outside acquaintance with authors. I have never heard the name of your schoolmaster, nor of any of your schoolfellows. But all the benefits of education, you think, may be obtained by having plenty of books. Very well; go on; collect all the manuscripts of Demosthenes, to which add the books of Thucydides, which the former is reported to have copied fairly over no less than eight times with his own hand. If you had all the books, which Sylla sent home from Athens, how much wiser, can you suppose, they would make you, even if you should sleep upon them, or wear them round your body? An ape, the proverb says, is still an ape, though decorated with a golden collar. You have always a book in your hand, and are continually reading, but what then? What are you more than the ass moving his ears at the sound of the lyre? Truly if the possession of books would make a man a scholar, they could never be sold for their worth, and we poor fellows going to market would make no figure at all. We could

not pretend to vie in knowledge with the booksellers, because we have not so many books. Yet, if you examine them, you may possibly find some of them hardly more learned than yourself, equally ignorant, and inelegant, scarce seeing any difference between right and wrong. And yet what is your handful of authors, which you purchase of them, when compared to the multitudes, which they are handling night and day? I want to know what good reason you can assign for your conduct; unless you can believe that, when books lie on a shelf, they make the shelf as learned as themselves. Answer me a question or two, if you please. Or rather give me a nod, to show your assent or dissent, when you have heard what I am going to say. If a man unskilled in music should possess the pipes of Timotheus, or those which cost Ismenias five talents at Corinth, would that make him a piper? Being ignorant of their use, the possession of the pipes would be of no avail. Could it? You nod very properly, meaning no. For the pipe of Marsyas, or Olympus, would not enable a man to play without first learning music. The bow and arrows Do you think they

of a Hector would not make a Philoctetes. would? No; you say no. For the very same reason a person ignorant of navigation, though master of the finest ship, and the best appointed, could no more direct it to a port than a man ignorant of the equestrian art can make any figure on horseback, though mounted on the finest steed in the world. You allow what I say to be true. Be candid then, and do the same by what I have further to observe; an illiterate man, like you, by purchasing a great number of books, only makes his ignorance the more conspicuous, and the more an object of derision. What, no nod of assent ? Can you deny it? It is a clear case, for everybody asks what a dog has to do with a bath. Not long ago there was in Asia a rich man who had the misfortune to lose his feet, in consequence, I believe, of having been obliged to travel through the snow. To remedy which loss as well as he could, he procured a pair of wooden feet, which he fastened to the stumps, and made a shift to crawl about by leaning on a servant. But the ridiculous part of the story was, that he made a point of having always the handsomest shoes, and those of the very newest fashion, to adorn his blocks, his feet I mean. I think your conduct is not very unlike his.

From the translation of John Carr, 1779

VII-169

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