" That is the
worst of carrying out the precept, "Set your affections on things
above, not on things of the earth," too literally. It is not so
good a precept, after all, as "If a man love not his brother, whom
he hath seen, how shall he love God, Whom he hath not seen?" It is
somehow an incomplete philosophy to despise the only definite
existence we are certain of possessing. One desires a richer thing
than that, a philosophy that ends in temperance, rather than in a
harsh asceticism.
The handling of life that seems the most desirable is the method
which the Platonic Socrates employed. Perhaps he was an ideal
figure; but yet there are few figures more real. There we have an
elderly man of incomparable ugliness, who is yet delightfully and
perennially youthful, bubbling over with interest, affection,
courtesy, humour, admiration. With what a delicious mixture of
irony and tenderness he treats the young men who surround him! When
some lively sparks made up their minds to do what we now call "rag"
him, dressed themselves up as Furies, and ran out upon him as he
turned a dark corner on his way home, Socrates was not in the least
degree disturbed, but discoursed with them readily on many matters
and particularly on temperance; when at the banquet the topers
disappear, one by one, under the table, Socrates, who, besides
taking his due share of the wine, had filled and drunk the contents
of the wine-cooler, is found cheerfully sitting, crowned with
roses, among the expiring lamps, in the grey of the morning,
discussing the higher mathematics.
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