“In the original?”
“Yes, sir; but not very readily. I am a poor Greek scholar. But my copy has a rough Latin translation on the opposite page, and that helps me out. It’s not difficult. You would think nothing of it if it had been Cornelius Nepos, or Cordery’s Colloquies. It’s only a better, not a more difficult book.”
“I don’t know about that. It’s not every one who can read Greek that can understand Epictetus. Tell me what you have learned from him?”
“That would be hard to do. A man is very ready to forget how he came first to think of the things he loves best. You see they are as much a necessity of your being as they are of the man’s who thought them first. I can no more do without the truth than Plato. It is as much my needful food and as fully mine to possess as his. His having it, Mr Graham says, was for my sake as well as his own. —It’s just like what Sir Thomas Browne says about the faces of those we love—that we cannot retain the idea of them because they are ourselves. Those that help the world must be served like their master and a good deal forgotten, I fancy. Of course they don’t mind it.—I remember another passage I think says something to the same purpose—one in Epictetus himself,” continued Malcolm, drawing the little book from his pocket and turning over the leaves, while Lenorme sat waiting, wondering, and careful not to interrupt him.
He turned to the forty-second chapter, and began to read from the Greek.
“I’ve forgotten all the Greek I ever had,” said Lenorme.
Then Malcolm turned to the opposite page and began to read the Latin.
“Tut! tut!” said Lenorme, “I can’t follow your Scotch pronunciation.”
“That’s a pity,” said Malcolm: “it’s the right way.”
“I don’t doubt it. You Scotch are always in the right! But just read it off in English—will you?”