"What does Plato respond to the inquiries of Phidias?" asked Artaphernes.

The philosopher replied: "Within the holy mysteries of our religion is preserved a pure and deep meaning, as the waters of Arethusa flow uncontaminated beneath the earth and the sea. I do not presume to decide whether all that is believed has the inward significancy. I have ever deemed such speculations unwise. If the chaste daughter of Latona always appears to my thoughts veiled in heavenly purity, it is comparatively unimportant whether I can prove that Acteon was torn by his dogs for looking on the goddess with wanton eyes. Anaxagoras said wisely that material forms lead the contemplative mind to the worship of ideal good, which is in its nature immortal and divine. Homer tells us that the golden chain resting upon Olympus reaches even to the earth. Here we see but a few of the last links, and those imperfectly. We are like men in the subterranean cave, so chained that they can look only forward to the entrance. Far above and behind us is a glowing fire; and beautiful beings, of every form, are moving between the light and us poor fettered mortals. Some of these bright beings are speaking, and others are silent. We see only the shadows cast on the opposite wall of the cavern, by the reflection of the fire above; and if we hear the echo of voices, we suppose it belongs to those passing shadows. The soul, in its present condition, is an exile from the orb of light; its ignorance is forgetfulness; and whatever we can perceive of truth, or imagine of beauty, is but a reminiscence of our former more glorious state of being. He who reverences the gods, and subdues his own passions, returns at last to the blest condition from which he fell. But to talk, or think, about these things with proud impatience, or polluted morals, is like pouring pure water into a miry trench; he who does it disturbs the mud, and thus causes the clear water to become defiled. When Odysseus removed his armor from the walls and carried it to an inner apartment, invisible Pallas moved before him with her golden lamp and filled the place with radiance divine. Telemachus, seeing the light, exclaimed, 'Surely, my father, some of the celestial gods are present.' With deep wisdom, the king of Ithaca replied: 'Be silent. Restrain your intellect, and speak not.'"

"I am rebuked, O Plato," answered Phidias; "and from henceforth, when my mind is dark and doubtful, I will remember that transparent drops may fall into a turbid well. Nor will I forget

that sometimes, when I have worked on my statues by torchlight, I could not perceive their real expression, because I was carving in the shadow of my own hand."

"Little can be learned of the human soul and its connection with the universal mind," said Anaxagoras; "these sublime truths seem vague and remote, as Phœacia appeared to Odysseus like a vast shield floating on the surface of the distant ocean.

"The glimmering uncertainty attending all such speculations has led me to attach myself to the Ionic sect, who devote themselves entirely to the study of outward nature."

"And this is useful," rejoined Plato. "The man who is to be led from a cave will more easily see what the heavens contain by looking to the light of the moon and the stars, than by gazing on the sun at noonday."

From "Philothea. »

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

(106-43 B. C.)

HE astonishing activity of Cicero's intellect made him the greatest essayist, as he was easily the greatest orator of the Roman world. Seneca, who is second only to Cicero as a writer of ethical and philosophical essays, is his inferior both in style and scope. Of Cicero's prose style it can be said without overstatement, that it so deeply influenced the habits of all writers of good prose after him, that until Carlyle wrote "Sartor Resartus," no essayist who wished to be taken seriously ventured to break completely away from its tradition of literary art. Its best modern representative among English writers is undoubtedly Macaulay, as no doubt Taine is among French. It is peculiarly a Latin style in harmony with the genius of French and other Latin languages, but having a tendency to give English sentences a larger number of clauses than Saxon syntax allows. Still, every educated writer who writes English at all must almost necessarily write Ciceronian English. Addison almost escaped it, but what might otherwise have been the revolution in English prose resulting from his essays was checked by Dr. Johnson and Gibbon. The great danger of the Ciceronian sentence is diffuseness and obscurity. The writer can put so many subordinate ideas into his subordinate clauses that the reader often finds difficulty in remembering the beginning of the sentence when the end is reached. Against this disadvantage of the Ciceronian sentence is its unequaled merit- the highest possible flexibility, the greatest possible receptiveness as a vehicle for connected and orderly thought. It belongs to the climax of a high civilization, and while, in one sense, it was the style of all educated writers of prose in the Ciceronian age, in another it belongs peculiarly to Cicero and to the mind in him which made him the representative of all that was best in the civilization of Rome. This eminence belongs to him incontestably. One by one other great Roman writers fall back as they are compared with him. In spite of his weaknesses of character, he stands the test which Cato proposed for the greatness of the orator - he is a great writer because fundamentally and essentially he is a good man. His strength of character is made perfect in weakness, but in spite of this weakness shown in vanity, ambition, and cowardice, we can feel when he discusses virtue that it is because he loves

it; when he preaches to us of the contempt of death that he himself knows how to die nobly and when he tells us of the duties of citizenship that he did not survive the liberties of his country.

It is by virtue of such qualities as these rather than by any trick of syntax that he is the master of the Taines and the Macaulays of ages so remote from his own. In their phalanxed sentences as they wheel clause on clause into orderly and irresistible battalions, we feel the commanding presence of that great intellect which, before Clodia's needle had pierced the tongue that gave it voice to save Rome, had aspired those serene skies from which the vansmen of civilization in all ages are sent down to struggle for the redemption of the earth from a primal and always inherent barbarism. W. V. B.

ON THE CONTEMPT OF DEATH

HERE is a story told of Silenus, who, when taken prisoner by Midas, is said to have made him this present for his ransom,-namely, that he informed him that never to have been born was by far the greatest blessing that could happen to man; and that the next best thing was to die very soon; which very opinion Euripides makes use of in his "Cresphontes," saying:

"When man is born, 'tis fit, with solemn show,
We speak our sense of his approaching woe;
With other gestures and a different eye,
Proclaim our pleasure when he's bid to die."

There is something like this in Crantor's "Consolation"; for he says that Terinæus of Elysia, when he was bitterly lamenting the loss of his son, came to a place of divination to be informed why he was visited with so great affliction, and received in his tablet these verses:

"Thou fool to murmur at Euthynous' death!

The blooming youth to fate resigns his breath:
The fate, whereon your happiness depends,

At once the parent and the son befriends."

On these and similar authorities they affirm that the question has been determined by the gods. Nay, more; Alcidamas, an ancient rhetorician of the very highest reputation, wrote even in praise of death, which he endeavored to establish by an enumer ation of the evils of life; and his "Dissertation" has a great deal of

eloquence in it; but he was unacquainted with the more refined arguments of the philosophers. By the orators, indeed, to die for our country is always considered not only as glorious, but even as happy; they go back as far as Erechtheus, whose very daughters underwent death, for the safety of their fellow-citizens; they instance Codrus, who threw himself into the midst of his enemies, dressed like a common man, that his royal robes might not betray him, because the oracle had declared the Athenians. conquerors, if their king was slain. Menaceus is not overlooked by them, who, in compliance with the injunctions of an oracle, freely shed his blood for his country. Iphigenia ordered herself to be conveyed to Aulis, to be sacrificed, that her blood might be the cause of spilling that of her enemies.

From hence they proceed to instances of a fresher date. Harmodius and Aristogiton are in everybody's mouth; the memory of Leonidas the Lacedæmonian and Epaminondas the Theban is as fresh as ever. Those philosophers were not acquainted with the many instances in our country-to give a list of whom would take up too much time-who, we see, considered death desirable as long as it was accompanied with honor. But, notwithstanding this is the correct view of the case, we must use much persuasion, and speak as if we were endued with some higher authority, in order to bring men to begin to wish. to die, or cease to be afraid of death. For if that last day does not occasion an entire extinction, but a change of abode only, what can be more desirable? And if it, on the other hand, destroys, and absolutely puts an end to us, what can be preferable to the having a deep sleep fall on us, in the midst of the fatigues of life, and being thus overtaken, to sleep to eternity? And, should this really be the case, then Ennius's language is more consistent with wisdom than Solon's; for our Ennius says:

"Let none bestow upon my passing bier
One needless sigh or unavailing tear."

But the wise Solon says,—

"Let me not unlamented die, but o'er my bier
Burst forth the tender sigh, the friendly tear."

But let us, if indeed it should be our fate to know the time which is appointed by the gods for us to die, prepare ourselves for it