“But standing there you have at least looked within and seen the glories, and will not that encourage you to advance? Who that hath seen virtue doth not love her, and pant after her possession?”
“True, true; I have seen virtue in her noblest form—Alas! so noble, that my eyes have been dazzled by the contemplation. I have looked upon Zeno with admiration and despair.”
“Learn rather to look with love. He who but admires virtue, yields her but half her due. She asks to be approached, to be embraced—not with fear, but with confidence—not with awe but with rapture.”
“Yet who can gaze on Zeno and ever hope to rival him?”
“You, my young friend: Why should you not? You have innocence; you have sensibility; you have enthusiasm; you have ambition—With what better promise could Zeno begin his career? Courage! courage! my son!” stopping, for they had insensibly walked towards the city during the dialogue, and laying his hand on Theon’s head, “We want but the will to be as great as Zeno.”
Theon had drawn his breath for a sigh, but his action and the look that accompanied it, changed the sigh to a smile. “You would make me vain.”
“No; but I would make you confident. Without confidence Homer had never written his Iliad—No; nor would Zeno now be worshipped in his portico.”
“Do you then think confidence would make all men Homers and Zenos?”
“Not all; but a good many. I believe thousands to have the seeds of excellence in them, who never discover the possession. But we were not speaking of poetry and philosophy, only of virtue—all men certainly cannot be poets or philosophers, but all men may be virtuous.”
“I believe,” returned the youth with a modest blush, “if I might walk with you each day on the borders of Cephisus, I should sometimes play truant at the portico.”