the market-place, and clamour does duty for government, and Thais
and Lais are names of power--here, Lucian, is room and scope for
you. Can I not imagine a new "Auction of Philosophers," and what
wealth might be made by him who bought these popular sages and
lecturers at his estimate, and vended them at their own?

HERMES: Whom shall we put first up to auction?

ZEUS: That German in spectacles; he seems a highly respectable man.

HERMES: Ho, Pessimist, come down and let the public view you.

ZEUS: Go on, put him up and have done with him.

HERMES: Who bids for the Life Miserable, for extreme, complete,
perfect, unredeemable perdition? What offers for the universal
extinction of the species, and the collapse of the Conscious?

A PURCHASER: He does not look at all a bad lot. May one put him
through his paces?

HERMES: Certainly; try your luck.

PURCHASER: What is your name?

PESSIMIST: Hartmann.

PURCHASER: What can you teach me?

PESSIMIST: That Life is not worth Living.