'Is it not to-morrow that the games begin?'
'Yes, master,' responded the armor bearer.
'And does it not—it seems to me that I promised to my friends a banquet upon the previous night. If I did not, I meant to have done so. Go, therefore, and bid them at once come hither! Tell the poet Emilius—and Bassus—and the rest. You know all whom I would have. Let them know that I hold revel here, and that not one must dare to stay away! Tell my cooks to prepare a feast for the gods! Go! Despatch!'
The giant grinned his knowledge of all that his master's tastes would require, and left the room to prepare for his errand. And in a moment more Sergius also departed, without another thought of the Greek girl, who stood shrinking from his notice in the shadow of the farthest corner.
APHORISMS.—NO. XII.
Knowledge and Action.—It is a common fault of our humanity, when not sunk too low in the scale of intellect, to seek knowledge rather than attempt any laborious application of it. We love to add to our stock of ideas, facts, or even notions of things, provided moderate pains will suffice; but to put our knowledge in practice is too often esteemed servile, or eschewed as mere drudgery. Useful activities flatter pride, and gratify the imagination, too little. But of what avail, ordinarily, is the possession of truth, unless as light to direct us in the ways of beneficent labor, for ourselves and for our fellow men? There are, indeed, objects of knowledge which elevate the soul in the mere act of contemplation; but, in most cases, if what we learn is brought into no definite relation to the practice of life, the acquisition is barren, and the labor of making it apparently a loss of time and strength.
This is no censure upon the course of learning as a process of mental discipline; for this in itself is one of the most productive forms of human activity.