awaited the return of his strength, of his consciousness; he dried his face mechanically. Like one who upon awaking finds his bed surrounded by groups of people, in complete oblivion and profound unconsciousness of what he had been doing, he cried, "Well, gentlemen, what's the matter? What are you laughing at? What are you wondering about? What's the matter?"

I. My dear Rameau, let us talk again of music. Tell me how it comes that with the facility you display for appreciating the finest passages of the great masters, for retaining them in your memory, and for rendering them to the delight of others with all the enthusiasm with which the music inspires you, how comes it that you have produced nothing of value yourself?

(Instead of answering me, he tossed his head, and raising his finger towards heaven, cried :-)

The stars, the stars! When nature made Leo, Vinci, Pergolese, Duni, she wore a smile; her face was solemn and commanding when she created my dear uncle Rameau, who for ten years has been called the great Rameau, and who will soon be named no more. But when she scraped his nephew together, she made a face and a face and a face. (And as he spoke he made grimaces, one of contempt, one of irony, one of scorn. He went through the motions of kneading dough, and smiled at the ludicrous forms he gave it. Then he threw the strange pagoda from him.) So she made me and threw me down among other pagodas, some with portly well-filled paunches, short necks, protruding goggle eyes, and an apoplectic appearance; others with lank and crooked necks and emaciated forms, with animated eyes and hawks' noses. These all felt like laughing themselves to death when they saw me, and when I saw them I set my arms akimbo and felt like laughing myself to death, for fools and clowns take pleasure in one another; seek one another out, attract one another. Had I not found upon my arrival in this world the proverb ready-made, that the money of fools is the inheritance of the clever, the world would have owed it to me. I felt that nature had put my inheritance into the purse of the pagodas, and I tried in a thousand ways to recover it.

I. I know these ways. You have told me of them. I have admired them. But with so many capabilities, why do you not try to accomplish something great?

HE. That is exactly what a man of the world said to the

Abbé Le Blanc. The abbé replied: "The Marquise de Pompa dour takes me in hand and brings me to the door of the Academy; then she withdraws her hand; I fall and break both legs."-"You ought to pull yourself together," rejoined the man of the world," and break the door in with your head.”—“I have just tried that," answered the abbé, "and do you know what I got for it? A bump on the head." . . (Then he drank a swallow from what remained in the bottle and turned to his neighbor.) Sir, I beg you for a pinch of snuff. That's a fine snuff-box you have there. You are a musician? No! All the better for you. They are a lot of poor deplorable wretches. Fate made me one of them, me! Meanwhile at Montmartre there is a mill, and in the mill there is perhaps a miller or a miller's lad, who will never hear anything but the roaring of the mill, and who might have composed the most beautiful of songs. Rameau, get you to the mill, to the mill; it's there you belong But it is half-past five. I hear the vesper bell which summons me too. Farewell. It's true, is it not, philosopher, I am always the same Rameau ?

...

I. Yes, indeed. Unfortunately.

HE. Let me enjoy my misfortune forty years longer. He laughs best who laughs last.

3674

LAERTIUS DIOGENES.

DIOGENES, LAERTIUS, the biographer of the Greek philosophers, supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte, in Cilicia, where he was born, and by others from the Roman family of the Laertii, lived, as near as can be determined, just previous to 200 A. D.

Of his youth, education, and general circumstances of his life, very little is known. Even the period in which he wrote - probably during the reign of Septimius Severus (193–121) —is altogether a matter of conjecture, and his personal opinions are equally uncertain. Some good authorities claim that he was a Christian, but from recent researches it is more probable that he was an Epicurean. He is known to have been the author of a biographical work giving an account of the lives and sayings of the Greek philosophers. While the best that can be said of this work is that it is an uncritical and unphilosophical compilation, yet its value, in so far as it gives us an insight into the private life of the Greek sages, is great. The beginning of the work classes the philosophers into the Ionic and Italic Schools, the former class beginning with the biography of Anaximander and ending with Clitomachus, Theophrastus, and Chrysippus; the latter class beginning with Pythagoras and ending with Epicurus.

"The compilation of Diogenes is of incalculable value to us as a source of information concerning the history of Greek philosophy." "It contains a rich store of living features, which serve to illustrate the private life of the Greeks, and a considerable number of fragments of works which are lost."

LIFE OF SOCRATES.

(From the "Lives and Sayings of the Philosophers.”)

SOCRATES was the son of Sophroniscus a sculptor and Phænarete a midwife [as Plato also states in the "Theætetus"], and an Athenian, of the deme Alopeke. He was believed to aid Euripides in composing his dramas. Hence Mnesimachus speaks thus:

"This is Euripides's new play, the 'Phrygians:'
And Socrates has furnished him the sticks."

A-"Why art so solemn, putting on such airs?
B- Indeed I may; the cause is Socrates."

Aristophanes, in the "Clouds," again, remarks:

"And this is he who for Euripides

Composed the talkative wise tragedies."

He was a pupil of Anaxagoras, according to some authorities, but also of Damon, as Alexander states in his "Successions." After the former's condemnation he became a disciple of Archelaus the natural philosopher. But Douris says he was a slave and carried stones. Some say, too, that the Graces on the Acropolis are his; they are clothed figures. Hence, they say, Timon in his "Silli" declares :

"From them proceeded the stone-polisher,
Prater on law, enchanter of the Greeks,
Who taught the art of subtle argument,
The nose-in-air, mocker of orators,
Half Attic, the adept in irony."

For he was also clever in discussion. But the Thirty Tyrants, as Xenophon tells us, forbade him to teach the art of arguing. Aristophanes also brings him on in comedy, making the Worse Argument seem the better. He was moreover the first, with his pupil schines, to teach oratory. He was likewise the first who conversed about life, and the first of the philosophers who came to his end by being condemned to death. We are also told that he lent out money. At least, investing it, he would collect what was due, and then after spending it invest again. But Demetrius the Byzantine says it was Crito who, struck by the charm of his character, took him out of the workshop and educated him.

Realizing that natural philosophy was of no interest to men, it is said, he discussed ethics, in the workshops and in the agora, and used to say he was seeking

"Whatsoever is good in human dwellings, or evil."

And very often, we are told, when in these discussions he conversed too violently, he was beaten or had his hair pulled out, and was usually laughed to scorn. So once when he was kicked, and bore it patiently, some one expressed surprise; but he said, "If an ass had kicked me, would I bring an action against him?"

Foreign travel he did not require, as most men do, except when he had to serve in the army. At other times, remaining in Athens, he disputed in argumentative fashion with those who conversed with him, not so as to deprive them of their belief, but to strive for the ascertainment of truth. They say Euripides gave him the work of Heraclitus, and asked him, "What do you think of it?" And he said, "What I understood is fine; I suppose what I did not understand is, too; only it needs a Delian diver!" He attended also to physical training, and was in excellent condition. Moreover, he went on the expedition to Amphipolis, and when Xenophon had fallen from his horse in the battle of Delium he picked him up and saved him. Indeed, when all the other Athenians were fleeing he retreated slowly, turning about calmly, and on the lookout to defend himself if attacked. He also joined the expedition to Potidea by sea, for the war prevented a march by land; and it was there he was said once to have remained standing in one position all night. There too, it is said, he was pre-eminent in valor, but gave up the prize to Alcibiades, of whom he is stated to have been very fond. Ion of Chios says moreover that when young he visited Samos with Archelaus, and Aristotle states that he went to Delphi. Favorinus again, in the first book of his "Commentaries," says he went to the Isthmus.

He was also very firm in his convictions and devoted to the democracy, as was evident from his not yielding to Critias and his associates when they bade him bring Leon of Salamis, a wealthy man, to them to be put to death. He was also the only one who opposed the condemnation of the ten generals. When he could have escaped from prison, too, he would not. The friends who wept at his fate he reproved, and while in prison he composed those beautiful discourses.

He was also temperate and austere. Once, as Pamphila tells us in the seventh book of her" Commentaries," Alcibiades offered him a great estate, on which to build a house; and he said, "If I needed sandals, and you offered me a hide from which to make them for myself, I should be laughed at if I took it." Often, too, beholding the multitude of things for sale, he would say to