Theon rushed forward: He knelt; he raised the head of his friend:
Breathless, agitated, terrified, he called his name with the piercing
cry of agony and despair. All was commotion and confusion. The scholars
pressed forward tumultuously; but Zeno, raising his arm, and looking
steadily round, cried “Silence!” The crowd fell back, and the stillness
of night succeeded. Then motioning the circle towards the street, to
give way and admit the air, he stooped and assisted Theon to support his
reviving pupil. Cleanthes raised his head, turned his eyes wildly
around, and then fixed them on his master.
“Gently,” said Zeno, as the youth struggled in their arms for
recollection, “gently, my son.” But he made the effort: he gained his
feet, and throwing out his arm to a pillar near him, turned his head
aside, and for some moments combated with his weakness in silence. His
limbs still trembled, and his face had yet the hues of death, when,
pressing his hand with convulsive strength against the pillar, he
proudly drew up his form, turned his eyes again upon his master, and
mustering his broken respiration, “Blame me, but do not despise me.”
“I shall do neither, my son: the weakness was in the body, not the
mind.”
“There has been want of command in both. I ask not to be excused.” Then
turning round to his companions, “I may be a warning if not an example.
The Spartans expose the drunkenness of their Helots to confirm their
youth in sobriety: let the weakness of Cleanthes teach the sons of Zeno
equanimity; and let them say, If in the portico weakness be found, what
shall it be in the Gardens? But,” he continued, addressing his master,
“will Zeno pardon the scholar who, while enforcing his nervous doctrines
on others, has swerved from them himself?”
“Thou judgest thy fault as thou shouldst judge it,” returned Zeno; “but
comfort, my son! He who knows, and knowing can acknowledge his
deficiency, though his foot be not on the summit, yet hath he his eye
there. But say the cause, and surely it must be a great one, that could
disturb the self-possession of my disciple.”
“The cause was indeed a great one; no less than the apostacy of a
scholar from Zeno to Epicurus.”
Zeno turned his eyes round the circle: there was no additional severity
in them, and no change in his manner, or in his deep, sonorous voice,
when, addressing them, he said, “If one or more, or all of my disciples
be wearied of virtue, let them depart. Let them not fear upbraidings or
exhortations; the one were useless to you, the other unworthy of me. He
who sighs for pleasure, the voice of wisdom can never reach, nor the
power of virtue touch. In this Portico truth will never be softened to
win a sickly ear; nor the severity of virtue, will it ever be veiled to
win a feeble heart. He who obeys in act and not in thought; he who
disciplines his body and not his mind; he who hath his foot in the
Portico, and his heart in the Gardens; he hath no more to do with Zeno,
than a wretch sunk in all the effeminacy of a Median, or the gross
debauchery of a Scythian. There is no midway in virtue; no halting place
for the soul but perfection. You must be all, or you may be nothing. You
must determine to proceed to the utmost, or I encourage ye not to begin.
I say to ye, one and all, give me your ears, your understandings, your
souls, and your energies, or _depart_!” Again he looked round upon his
scholars. A long and deep silence succeeded: when young Theon, breaking
through his awe, and his timidity, advanced into the centre, and craving
sufferance with his hand, addressed the assembly.
“Though I should forfeit the esteem of Zeno and the love of his
disciples, I have no choice but to speak. Honor and justice demand this
of me: first, to remove suspicion from this assembly; next, to vindicate
the character of a sage whom the tongue of a liar hath traduced; and,
lastly, to conciliate my own esteem, which I value beyond even the
esteem of the venerated Zeno, and of my beloved Cleanthes.” He paused;
and turning to Zeno,—“With permission of the master, I would speak.”
“Speak, my son: we attend.” Zeno retreated among his disciples; and
Cleanthes, anxious and agitated for his friend, placed himself behind
the screen of a pillar. With a varying cheek and a tremulous voice, the
youth began:—
“In addressing an assembly accustomed to the manly elocution of a Zeno,
and the glowing eloquence of a Cleanthes, I know I shall be forgiven by
my companions, and I hope even by my severe master, the blushes and
hesitations of timidity and inexperience. I open my mouth for the first
time in public; and in what a public is it? Let not, therefore, my
confusion be thought the confusion of guilt; but, as it truly is, of
bashful inexperience. First, to remove suspicion from this assembly:—let
not the scholars look with doubt on each other; let not the master look
with doubt on his scholars. I am he who have communed with the son of
Neocles;—I am he who have entered the gardens of pleasure;—I am he whom
Cleanthes hath pointed at as the apostate from Zeno to Epicurus.” A
tumult arose among the scholars. Surprise, indignation, and scorn,
variously looked from their faces, and murmured from their tongues.
“Silence!” cried Zeno, casting his severe glance round the circle.
“Young man, proceed.”
This burst of his audience rather invigorated than dashed the youth. He
freely threw forth his arm; his eyes lighted with fire, and the ready
words flowed from his lips:—“I merit not the hiss of scorn, nor the
burst of indignation. Desist, my brothers, till my artless tale be
told;—till you have heard, not my apology, but my justification.
Yesterday, at this hour, I left the Portico, heated to fury by the
philippic of Timocrates against Epicurus and his disciples; indignant at
the city that did not drive such a teacher from its walls; against the
gods who did not strike him with their thunders. Thus venting my
feelings in soliloquy, after a long ramble I seated myself on the banks
of Cephisus, and was awakened from a reverie by the approach of a
stranger: his aspect had the wisdom of a sage, and the benignity of a
divinity. I yielded him the homage of youthful respect and admiration:
he condescended to address me. He gave me the precepts of virtue with
the gentle and honied tongue of kindness and persuasion. I listened, I
admired, and I loved. We did not conclude our walk until sunset: he bade
me to his supper. I entered his house, and he told me I beheld Epicurus.
Could I have drawn back? _Should_ I have drawn back? No: my heart
answers, no. Your sufferance, my friends! Do not interrupt me! Do not
call me an apostate! In the presence of the gods; in the presence of my
master, whom I fear as them; in the presence of my own conscience, which
I fear more than both, I swear that I am not so! I mean not to explain
or to justify the philosophy of Epicurus: I know but little of it. I
only know—I only affirm, that his tongue has given new warmth to my love
of virtue, and new vigor to my pursuit of it:—I only affirm, that
persuasion, simple, ungarnished persuasion, is in his lips; benevolence
in his aspect; urbanity in his manners: generosity, truth, and candor in
his sentiments:—I only affirm, that order, innocence, and content, are
in his halls and his gardens; peace and brotherly love with his
disciples; and that, in the midst of these, he is himself the
philosopher, the parent, and the friend. I see the sneer of contempt
upon your lips, my brothers; alas! even on the unperturbed countenance
of my master I read displeasure.”
“No, my son,” said Zeno, “thou dost not. Continue thy artless tale. If
there be error, it lies with the deceiver, not the deceived. And you, my
sons and disciples, banish from your faces and your breasts every
expression and every thought unworthy of your honest companion, and your
upright sect. For remember, if to abhor falsehood and vice be noble, to
distrust truth and innocence is mean. My son, proceed.”
“Thanks for your noble confidence, my master: it makes me proud, for I
deserve it. Yes! even should I, as I perceive you apprehend, be
deceived, I feel that this open confession of my present perfect
conviction is honorable both to myself and to Zeno.—It proves that in
his school I have learnt candor, though I have yet to learn discernment.
And yet, methinks, however imperfect my youthful discernment, it is not
now in error. If ever I saw simple, unadorned goodness; if ever I heard
simple, unadorned truth; it is in—it is from Epicurus. Again your
sufferance, my friends! Again your sufferance, my master! I am not—I
wish not to be, a disciple of the Gardens: virtue may be in them—excuse
me, virtue is in them, but there is a virtue in the Portico which I
shall worship to my latest hour. Here, here I first learned—here I first
saw to what a glorious height of greatness a mortal might ascend—how
independent he might be of fortune; how triumphant over fate! Young,
innocent, and inexperienced, I came to Athens in search of wisdom and
virtue. ‘Attend all the schools, and fix with that which shall give you
the noblest aims,’ said my father, when he gave me his parting blessing.
He being an academician, I had, of course, somewhat imbibed the
principles of Plato, and conceived a love for his school: On first
hearing Crates, therefore, I thought myself satisfied. Accident made me
acquainted with a young Pythagorean: I listened to his simple precepts;
I loved his virtues, and almost fell into his superstitions. From these
Theophrastus awakened me; and I was nearly fixed as a Peripatetic, when
I met the eloquent, enthusiastic Cleanthes. He brought me to the
Portico, where I found all the virtues of all the schools united, and
crowned with perfection. But when I preferred Zeno, I did not despise my
former masters. I still sometimes visit the Lycæum and the Academy, and
still the young Pythagorean is my friend. A pure mind should, I think,
respect virtue wherever it be found: and if then in the Lycæum and the
Academy, why not the Gardens? Zeno, in teaching austerity, does not
teach intolerance; much less, I am sure, does he teach ingratitude: and
if I did not feel for the sage of Gargettium both respect and love, I
were the most ungrateful soul in Athens; and if feeling both, I feared
to acknowledge both, I were the meanest. And now, my brothers, ask
yourselves what would be your indignation at the youth, who for his
vices being driven from this Portico, should run to the Lycæum, and
accuse, to the sons of Aristotle, our great Zeno of that sensuality and
wickedness which had here wrought his own disgrace, and his own
banishment? Would ye not hate such a wretch? Would ye not loathe him?
Would ye not curse him? My brothers! this day have I learned such a
wretch to be Timocrates. Is he here?—I hope he is: I hope he hears me
denounce him for a defamer and an ingrate.”
“’Tis false!” cried Timocrates, bursting in fury from the crowd. “’Tis
false! I swear”—
“Beware of perjury!” said a clear, silver voice, from without the
circle. “Give way, Athenians! ’Tis for me to take up this quarrel.”
The crowd divided. Every eye turned towards the opening. Theon shouted
with triumph, Timocrates stood blank with dismay—for they recognised the
voice and the form of the son of Neocles.