“I am really bewildered,” cried Theon, gazing in the philosopher’s, and then in Leontium’s countenance, and then throwing a glance round the circle. “I am really bewildered with astonishment and with shame,” he continued, casting down his eyes, “that I should have listened to that liar Timocrates! What a fool you must think me!”
“No more of a fool than Zeno,” said the sage, laughing. “What a philosopher listened to, I cannot much blame a scholar for believing.”
“Oh! that Zeno knew you!”
“And then he would certainly hate me.”
“You joke.”
“Quite serious. Don’t you know that who quarrels with your doctrine, must always quarrel with your practice? Nothing is so provoking as that a man should preach viciously and act virtuously.”
“But you do not preach viciously.”
“I hope not. But those will call it so, aye! and in honest heart think it so, who preach a different, it need not be a better, doctrine.”
“But Zeno mistakes your doctrine.”
“I have no doubt he expounds it wrong.”