Miss Blimber, the school teacher in Dickens's _Dombey and Son_,
could have died happily had she known Cicero. Even if such a thing were
possible I should have no great desire to know Cicero, but I should be
glad to listen to a lecture by Zeno in the portico of the Poecilé at
Athens, or to Epicurus's meditations in his garden.
My ignorance of history has prevented me from becoming deeply interested
in Greece, although now this begins to embarrass me, as a curiosity
about and sympathy for classical art stirs within me. If I were a young
man and had the leisure, I might even begin the study of Greek.
As it is, I feel that there are two Greeces: one of statues and temples,
which is academic and somewhat cold; the other of philosophers and
tragedians, who convey to my mind more of an impression of life and
humanity.
Apart from the Greek, which I know but fragmentarily, I have no great
admiration for ancient literatures. The _Old Testament_ never
aroused any devotion in me. Except for _Ecclesiastes_ and one or
two of the shorter books, it impresses me as repulsively cruel and
antipathetic.
Among the Greeks, I have enjoyed Homer's _Odyssey_ and the comedies
of Aristophanes. I have read also Herodotus, Plutarch and Diogenes
Laertius. I am not an admirer of academic, well written books, so I
prefer Diogenes Laertius to Plutarch. Plutarch impresses me as having
composed and arranged his narratives; not so Diogenes Laertius. Plutarch
forces the morality of his personages to the fore; Diogenes gives
details of both the good and the bad in his. Plutarch is solid and
systematic; Diogenes is lighter and lacks system. I prefer Diogenes
Laertius to Plutarch, and if I were especially interested in any of the
illustrious ancients of whom they write, I should vastly prefer the
letters of the men themselves, if any existed, or otherwise the gossip
of their tentmakers or washerwomen, to any lives written of them by
either Diogenes Laertius or Plutarch.