“Does this silence speak conscious guilt, or startled innocence? The last: I will believe the last. Praise be to the gods! praise to our guardian, Minerva! praise to our great, our glorious master, there are yet some sons left to Athens and to Greece, who shall respect, follow, and attain to virtue! Some choice and disciplined souls who shall stand forth the light and ornament of their age, and whose names shall be in honor with those yet unborn. Rouse, rouse up your energies! Oh! be firm to Zeno, and to virtue! I tell you not—Zeno tells you not, that virtue is found in pleasure’s repose. Resistance, energy, watchfulness, patience, and endurance—these, these must be your practice, must be your habit, ere you can reach the perfection of your nature. The ascent is steep, is long, is arduous. To-day you must ascend a step, and to-morrow a step, and to-morrow, and to-morrow—and yet shall you be far from the summit, from rest, and from security. Does this appal you? Does this disgust you? Go then to the Gardens! Go to the man of Gargettium—he who calls himself philosopher, and who loves and teaches folly! Go, go to him, and he shall encourage and soothe you. He shall end your pursuit, and give you your ambition! He shall show you virtue robed in pleasures, and lolling in ease! He shall teach you wisdom in a song, and happiness in impiety!—But I am told, that Timocrates hath lied; that Epicurus is not a libertine; nor Leontium a prostitute; nor the youth of the Garden the ministers to their lusts. Be it so. Timocrates must answer to himself, whether his tale be the outpourings of indignant truth, or the subtle inventions of malevolence: with his own conscience be the secret: to us it matters nothing. We, who have nought to do with the doctrines of Epicurus, have nought to do with his practice. Let him who would vindicate the one, vindicate the other: let him come forth and say, that the master in the Gardens is not only pure in action, but perfect in theory. Let him say, that he worships virtue as virtue, and shuns vice as vice. Let him say that he arms the soul with fortitude, ennobles it with magnanimity, chastens it with temperance, enlarges it with beneficence, perfects it with justice;—and let him moreover say, that he does this, not that the soul so schooled and invigorated may lie in the repose of virtue, but that it may exult in its honor, and be fitted for its activity. Fie on that virtue which prudence alone directs! Which teaches to be just that the laws may not punish, or our neighbors revenge:—to be enduring—because complainings were useless, and weakness would bring on us insult and contempt:—to be temperate—that our body may keep its vigor, our appetites retain their acuteness, and our gratifications and sensualities their zest:—to serve our friends—that they may serve us;—our country—because its defence and well-being comprehends our own. Why all this is well—but is there nothing more? Is it our ease alone we shall study, and not our dignity?—Though all my fellow-men were swept away, and not a mortal nor immortal eye were left to approve or condemn—should I not here—within this breast, have a judge to dread, and a friend to conciliate? Prudence and pleasure! Was it from such principles as these that the virtue of Solon, of Miltiades, of Aristides, of Socrates, of Plato, of Xenophon, of all our heroes and all our sages, had its spring and its nourishment? Was it such virtue as this that in Lycurgus put by the offered crown?—that in Leonidas stood at Thermopylæ?—that in the dying Pericles gloried that he had never caused a citizen to mourn? Was it such virtue as this—that spoke in Socrates before his judges?—that sustained him in his prison—and when the door was open, and the sails of the ready ship unfurled, made him prefer death to flight; his dignity to his existence?”
Again the young orator paused, but his indignant soul seemed still to speak from his flashing eyes. His cheeks glowed as fire, and the big drops rolled from his forehead. At this moment the circle behind him gave way. Zeno advanced into the midst: he stood by the head and shoulders above the crowd: his breast, broad and manly: his limbs, cast in strength and symmetry: his gait, erect, calm, and dignified: his features, large, grand, and regular, seemed sculptured by the chisel for a colossal divinity: the forehead, broad and serene, was marked with the even lines of wisdom and age; but no harsh wrinkles, nor playing muscles disturbed the repose of his cheeks, nor had sixty years touched with one thread of silver his close black hair; the eyes, dark and full, fringed with long straight lashes, looked in severe and steady wisdom from under their correct and finely arched brows: the nose came from the forehead, straight and even: the mouth and chin, were firm and silent. Wisdom undisturbable, fortitude unshakeable, self-respect, self-possession, and self-knowledge perfected, were in his face, his carriage, and his tread.
He stopped before the youth, who had turned at his approach. “My son,” fixing his calm gaze on the working countenance of his pupil, “what hath disturbed thy soul?” Cleanthes laid a hand on his laboring breast: he made one violent effort for composure and speech: it failed. The hot blood forsook his cheeks: it rushed again: again it fled: he gasped, and dropped fainting at the feet of his Master.
CHAPTER VI.
Theon rushed forward: He knelt; he raised the head of his friend: Breathless, agitated, terrified, he called his name with the piercing cry of agony and despair. All was commotion and confusion. The scholars pressed forward tumultuously; but Zeno, raising his arm, and looking steadily round, cried “Silence!” The crowd fell back, and the stillness of night succeeded. Then motioning the circle towards the street, to give way and admit the air, he stooped and assisted Theon to support his reviving pupil. Cleanthes raised his head, turned his eyes wildly around, and then fixed them on his master.
“Gently,” said Zeno, as the youth struggled in their arms for recollection, “gently, my son.” But he made the effort: he gained his feet, and throwing out his arm to a pillar near him, turned his head aside, and for some moments combated with his weakness in silence. His limbs still trembled, and his face had yet the hues of death, when, pressing his hand with convulsive strength against the pillar, he proudly drew up his form, turned his eyes again upon his master, and mustering his broken respiration, “Blame me, but do not despise me.”
“I shall do neither, my son: the weakness was in the body, not the mind.”
“There has been want of command in both. I ask not to be excused.” Then turning round to his companions, “I may be a warning if not an example. The Spartans expose the drunkenness of their Helots to confirm their youth in sobriety: let the weakness of Cleanthes teach the sons of Zeno equanimity; and let them say, If in the portico weakness be found, what shall it be in the Gardens? But,” he continued, addressing his master, “will Zeno pardon the scholar who, while enforcing his nervous doctrines on others, has swerved from them himself?”
“Thou judgest thy fault as thou shouldst judge it,” returned Zeno; “but comfort, my son! He who knows, and knowing can acknowledge his deficiency, though his foot be not on the summit, yet hath he his eye there. But say the cause, and surely it must be a great one, that could disturb the self-possession of my disciple.”
“The cause was indeed a great one; no less than the apostacy of a scholar from Zeno to Epicurus.”