Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1875-04-13
Contributed to the Times.l
SOMETHING ABOUT SOCRATES.

but, in the technical sense, he was
no philosopher. He found philos-
ophy tedious, fruitless stuff con-
tinent of mist-clouds, and protested
against its trash and waste. He said
the topics that men should study
were, "human nature," why man
is here" and "what is the path of
noblenesS ?''
"Know thyself," was his perpet-
ual injunction. He never wrote a
book. He was not a student. He
was home missionary. His
method of instruction was by direct
conversation, and his field was
wherever he could get into easy,
natural relations with men. He did
not look like philosopher. To the
Athenians he seemed like disso-
Lutte and loafing jester-an embodied
joke. His head was pumpkin
shaped, his eyes protruded, so that
he boasted he could look both ways
at once. He had an odd way, when
he said good thing, of holding his
head quite still and rolling his huge
ewes round upon his listeners to
drink in its effect. He went bare
footed, with slouching gate and a
seedy dress. But he had thews of
brass, sinews of oak. He could sit
out the night over warm discus
sion, and rising with the sun, pro-
ceed upon his rounds.
To discover the true relations of
Socrates to the Athenians, just i'm
agine him here to day. AT IL, see
him stop counsellor who, with
brief in hand, is just fidgeting to
get punctually to court, to inquire
whether it is proper to save even a
friend from justice, and to remind
him that there will be no eminent
counsel for villains at the last assize.
At IL, he would be dropping in
among the merchants upon Main
street. At l, you would be sure to
see him turning into chop-house,
and dropping into seat by the side
of friend, who is stirring the
dressing for salad; he orders
nothing for himself, but falls to
arguing that eating is not desirable
occupation; that to cultivate an ap-
petite is like contracting an itch for
the pleasure of scratching; that a
man would as sensibly wish for an
erysipelas, that he might have the
pleasure of rubbing it down with
teal duck and venison, and that if
he insisted in making so much of
his dinner, he deserved, in future
state, to be set fillinga colander with
a SIEVE. At 2, he would visit our
Postmaster, and eXpound to him the
principles OF the ms and the Outs,
setting forth the difference between
the love of country and the love Of
the treasury of the country-in the
latter case part being mistaken for
the whole. AT 5, he would be visit
ing the saloon-keepers, expatiating
upon the evils of drinking; the ex-
ample to the rising generation; the
wicked adulterations of liquors, and
the drain upon the mental and
day. At twilight, he would call
upon our Schoolmaster, to inquire
whether ignorance was bliss in some
circumstances of life, or if virtue
ever was inculcated by words, or
really in any other way than by
example. At Z, he would be inter-
viewing Uncle Johnny G., to
learn the losses and gains in the
stock operations of the day, and if
the great bonanza was really all that
had been represented. He would
advance the proposition that stock
operators were gamblers, and that
gambling was not an employment,
but the most infamous idleness.
At 10, he would appear barefooted;
an uninvited guest of supper party
on the hill-the life of the company,
making the table roar with his
mirth, till near the close, when, by
some charming allegory or myth,
he pushes home the great duties of
temperance, piety and devotion to
duty.
At last, however, the people of
Athens began to tire of him-he was
becoming a bore. Inc Inlrty ~
rants who tried him he thanked,
for sending him to hold confer
ence with Orpheus and Ajax and the
rich society of the dead. While he
Law fettered in prison, Critic, by
bribes, had provided means OF
escape, but Socrates declined to flee
he was about leaving for a more
fertile country. The thoughts that
urged him to lie still and await his
end tuned in his ears like the swell
ing music of flutes. He drank the
hemlock slowly, rolling his huge
eyes on his friends the while. Then,
as he telt his limbs grow heavy, he
me said: "We owe cock to Escu-
lapius," and died.
The good man died martyr for
the right; but whittier went his
pure spirit? He had never seen
our Bible; never heard the name
of Jesus, never read an Evangelical
creed, never been baptized, never
Joined church, never repeated the
Lords prayer; yet this sanity hea'