"Well, all I've got to say is just this," put in Xanthippe: "You
people who get up functions have brought this condition of affairs on
yourselves. You were not satisfied to go ahead and indulge your
passion for lions in a moderate fashion. Take the case of
Demosthenes last winter, for instance. His wife told me that he
dined at home three times during the winter. The rest of the time he
was out, here, there, and everywhere, making after-dinner speeches.
The saving on his dinner bills didn't pay his pebble account, much
less remunerate him for his time, and the fearful expense of nervous
energy to which he was subjected. It was as much as she could do,
she said, to keep him from shaving one side of his head, so that he
couldn't go out, the way he used to do in Athens when he was afraid
he would be invited out and couldn't scare up a decent excuse for
refusing."

"Did he do that?" cried Elizabeth, with a roar of laughter.

"So the cyclopaedias say. It's a good plan, too," said Xanthippe.
"Though Socrates never had to do it. When I got the notion Socrates
was going out too much, I used to hide his dress clothes. Then there
was the case of Rubens. He gave a Carbon Talk at the Sforza's
Thursday Night Club, merely to oblige Madame Sforza, and three weeks
later discovered that she had sold his pictures to pay for her gown!
You people simply run it into the ground. You kill the goose that
when taken at the flood leads on to fortune. It advertises you, does
the lion no good, and he is expected to be satisfied with
confectionery, material and theoretical. If they are getting tired
of candy and compliments, it's because you have forced too much of it
upon them."