Now that I am forty, and a trifle less
elastic in my movements, with patches of gray about my ears which give me
a more venerable appearance, I certainly have a tendency to look at the
world as through a glass. Yet not altogether darkly be it said. That
is, I trust I am no cynic like that fellow Diogenes who set the fashion
centuries ago of turning up the nose at everything. I have a natural
sunniness of disposition which would, I believe, be proof against the
sardonic fumes of contemplation even though I were a real philosopher.
However, just as the mongoose of the bag-man's story was not a real
mongoose, neither am I a real philosopher.
You will remember that Diogenes, who was a real philosopher, occupied a
tub as a permanent residence. He would roll in hot sand during the heat
of summer, and embrace a statue of snow in winter, just to show his
superiority to ordinary human conventions and how much wiser he was than
the rest of the world. The real philosophers of the present day are not
quite so peculiar; but they are apt to be fearfully and wonderfully
superior to the weaknesses of humanity. For the most part they are to be
found in the peaceful environs of a university or on some mountain top a
Sabbath day's journey from the hum of civilization, where they eschew
nearly everything which the every-day mortal finds requisite to comfort
and convenience, unless it be whiskey and water.
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