fashioned; the first palinodist_ [Footnote: See _Stesichorus_ in
Notes.] _mended words with words for Helen of Troy; but we spoil words
(those words we thought so wise) with deeds._

Such, I imagine, were your inward remarks. And I dare say you will give
me some overt advice to the same effect; well, it will not be ill-timed;
it will illustrate your friendship, and do you credit as a good man and a
philosopher. If I render your part respectably for you, that will do, and
we will pay our homage to the God of words; [Footnote: i.e. Hermes.] if I
fail, you will fill in the deficiency for yourself. There, the stage is
ready; I am to hold my tongue, and submit to any necessary carving and
cauterizing for my good, and you are to plaster me, and have your scalpel
handy, and your iron red-hot. Sabinus takes the word, and thus addresses
me:

_My dear friend, this treatise of yours has quite rightly been earning
you a fine reputation, from its first delivery before the great audience
I had described to me, to its private use by the educated who have
consulted and thumbed it since. For indeed it presents the case
meritoriously; there is study of detail and experience of life in
abundance; your views are the reverse of vague; and above all the book is
practically useful, chiefly but not exclusively to the educated whom it
might save from an unforeseen slavery. However, your mind is changed; the
life you described is now the better; good-bye to freedom; your motto is
that contemptible line:

Give me but gain, I'll turn from free to slave.

Let none hear the lecture from you again, then; see to it that no copy of
it comes under the eyes of any one aware of your present life; ask Hermes