Alexander enjoyed the reply so much that he said to his companions, and afterward wrote to Aristotle, "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes," and thus did strenuosity pay its tribute to self-sufficiency.
Aristotle might have assumed important affairs of State, but practical politics were not to his liking. "What Aristotle is in the world of thought I will be in the world of action," said Alexander.
On all of his journeys Alexander found time to keep in touch with his old teacher at home; and we find the ruler of Asia voicing that old request, "Send me something to read," and again, "I live alone with my thoughts, amidst a throng of men, but without companions."
Plutarch gives a copy of a letter sent by Alexander wherein Aristotle is chided for publishing his lecture on oratory. "Now all the world will know what formerly belonged to you and me alone," plaintively cries the young man who sighed for more worlds to conquer, and therein shows he was the victim of a fallacy that will never die—the idea that truth can be embodied in a book. When will we ever learn that inspired books demand inspired readers!
There are no secrets. A book may stimulate thought, but it can never impart it.
Aristotle wrote out the Laws of Oratory. "Alas!" groans Alexander, "everybody will turn orator now." But he was wrong, because Oratory and the Laws of Oratory are totally different things.
A Boston man of excellent parts has just recently given out the Sixteen Perfective Laws of Oratory, and the Nineteen Steps in Evolution.
The real truth is, there are Fifty-seven Varieties of Artistic Vagaries, and all are valuable to the man who evolves them—they serve him as a scaffolding whereby he builds thought. But woe betide Alexander and all rareripe Bostonians who mistake the scaffolding for the edifice.
There are no Laws of Art. A man evolves first, and builds his laws afterward. The style is the man, and a great man, full of the spirit, will express himself in his own way.