“Wer der nicht bei Wonneglanz
Trauer auch im Herzen hegt,” etc.
“To the wise mean strength is given,
Thus the gods have ruled in heaven.”
This is one of those current common-places of ancient wisdom, which are now so cheap to the ear, but are still as remote from the general temper and the public heart as they were some thousands of years ago, when first promulgated by some prophetic Phemonoe of the Primeval Pelasgi. The great philosopher of common sense, Aristotle, seized this maxim, as the groundwork of practical ethics, some three hundred years before Christ—῾Φθείρεται γαρ, says he, ἡ σωφροσύνη και ἡ ἀνδρεία ὑπὸ τῆς ὑπερβολῆς καὶ τῆς ἐλλειψεως, ὑπὸ δὲ τῆς μεσότητος σώζεται; and Horace, the poet of common sense, preached many a quiet, tuneful sermon to the same ancient text—
“Auream quisquis mediocritatem
Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti
Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda
Sobrius aula.”