space of years, if it be compared to never-lessening eternity, seems not
short-lived merely, but altogether nothing. But as for you, ye know not
how to act aright, unless it be to court the popular breeze, and win the
empty applause of the multitude--nay, ye abandon the superlative worth
of conscience and virtue, and ask a recompense from the poor words of
others. Let me tell thee how wittily one did mock the shallowness of
this sort of arrogance. A certain man assailed one who had put on the
name of philosopher as a cloak to pride and vain-glory, not for the
practice of real virtue, and added: "Now shall I know if thou art a
philosopher if thou bearest reproaches calmly and patiently." The other
for awhile affected to be patient, and, having endured to be abused,
cried out derisively: "_Now_, do you see that I am a philosopher?" The
other, with biting sarcasm, retorted: "I should have hadst thou held thy
peace." Moreover, what concern have choice spirits--for it is of such
men we speak, men who seek glory by virtue--what concern, I say, have
these with fame after the dissolution of the body in death's last hour?
For if men die wholly--which our reasonings forbid us to believe--there
is no such thing as glory at all, since he to whom the glory is said to
belong is altogether non-existent. But if the mind, conscious of its own
rectitude, is released from its earthly prison, and seeks heaven in free
flight, doth it not despise all earthly things when it rejoices in its
deliverance from earthly bonds, and enters upon the joys of heaven?'



SONG VII.

GLORY MAY NOT LAST.