of Socrates is represented, we see the great master "smile while all around him weep." But often Plato's humour is genuinely playful; as when Socrates is drawing out, with solemn gravity and politeness, the pompous folly of Euthyphro (though even here we feel sadly that the same folly is shared by the Athenian people, and will procure the teacher's death); or in those descriptions in the Republic of the several characters in men, which correspond to the several kinds of political constitution. Still more open fun is to be found in the Symposium, as, for instance, in that unrivalled speech in which Aristophanes describes the Origin of Man. The same dialogue contains a very celebrated passage in which wit and humour are combined in their highest forms: wit, in the felicity of the comparison; humour, in the contrast between the playful words and the deep sad truth which they convey. "I shall praise Socrates," says Alcibiades, "in a figure which will appear to him to be a caricature, and yet I do not mean to laugh at him, but only to speak the truth. I say then, that he is exactly like the masks of Silenus, which may be seen sitting in the statuaries' shops, having pipes and flutes in their mouths; and they are made to open in the middle, and there are images of gods inside. Mankind are nothing to him; all his life is spent in mocking and flouting at them. But when I opened him, and looked within at his serious purpose, I saw in him divine and golden images of fascinating beauty." A similar combination of wit and humour with earnest and high meaning was found in Addison, and in him it was perfect as far as it went, but on a smaller scale than Plato's. Plato is stronger and bolder. However, in the vision of Mirza, and other papers like it, Addison is not unlike the Greek. This leads us to that excellence of Plato in which the English reader will perhaps find most pleasure,-his imagination. Into his most abstruse discussions are introduced, as illustrations, visions of the other world or tales of earthly heroes. We see thrones set in heaven, and spirits coming up for judg ment; or ghosts of the dead travelling on through unknown regions, or meeting after long ages in some spacious mead of heaven: we watch the chariot of the soul as its eager horses thunder along the circles of the sky no flight of fancy is too bold, no limits of time or space confine it; and yet all is chastened and deliberate; there is that definiteness of description which we admire in Dante, and that careful symbolism which is found in the Pilgrim's Progress. Upon imagination depends descriptive power; and few writers, of any age, have shown this more than Plato. He takes us into the crowded market-place, where all men are acquaintance; to the gay palæstra with its games and its loves and its learned conversation, or wanders with us by nymph-haunted river-sides, and shows us rest beneath the plane-trees of Ilissus. The fiery restlessness of the Sophist, the old man's contented superstition, the beautiful boy's ingenuous modesty, Alcibiades generous and thoughtless, Agathon graceful and conceited, every form of character or phase of emotion is set before us with unfailing portraiture. With wonderful dramatic power he gives an individual life to each speaker in his dialogue, and by their remarks or questions brings out the meaning of each event described. And so no writer teaches us more of the life and customs of his countrymen. Nothing is more remarkable about his dialogues than this; that while they are concerned, in the first instance, with questions of philosophy, though the dramatic element is very small, and the scene in which all take place might seem to be unimportant, yet each piece has, as it were, a distinct setting, and gives us some new picture of Attic life and manners. But Plato tells us not only what the world was, but what, as he thought, it should be. Borne into a very fairyland of noble lives and scenes of beauty, we see "Virtue in her shape, how lovely," and art is shown us always in perfection. Rulers who have no selfish aim; castes between which there is no feud; poets who sing only of the good; workmen who make only what is lovely, -such is the happy society among which he makes us dwell. And here we come to the point; to the question which must really meet us on the threshold of any study of Plato, or of other philosophers of the ideal philosophy. Is it worth while to spend our time-our hours so fully occupied by the crowd and pressure of passing facts-in thinking, or, as a man may call it, dreaming, of worlds in which, desirable as they may be, we do not live? Made, as we are, to be mere receptacles of impressions from outward things, so that our eyes are incessantly drinking in sights and our ears sounds, and each other sense constantly besieged by innumerable trains of facts, all clamouring to be recognized, while our minds are ever busy, working even now beyond their strength, in trying to bring these scattered impressions into order, to class and to name them,—is it reasonable that we should turn away from all these, and forget the great world that is insisting on our notice, and wander off to try to live in the society of insensible and spiritual forms, of whose existence we have no certain knowledge? Such a question is asked, undoubtedly, by the commonsense of our day, and there is much that is true in the answer which it expects. It Yet this very process of continual arrangement of the facts of sense, being an endeavour to accommodate them to systems which are not found in them, and to learn from them laws which are not among them, but beyond them, is itself a search for these ideal forms. is just for this that Wordsworth, in his great ode on Intimations of Immortality, is thankful. It is a kind of "those obstinate questionings of sense and outward things;" one of the indications of that "high instinct" which cannot be contented without believing in objects not known by sense, and yearns after glimpses of another world which the mind feels to be its true home ;—a home which, dimly knowing, yet not seeing, it seems to remember as something lost or left. Gladly would we try to show how Socrates, in Plato, demonstrates to men of every trade and character, that, in their daily talk, belief in this ideal world is implied; that all eager pursuit of business or luxurious desire of pleasure derives its spring from the love of an unseen, eternal gain; that all that is true among the things of sense is so by sharing in the eternal truth, and all earthly things are good only by sharing in the eternal goodness; how by comparing what is good in the several things which we value here, we may gain a knowledge of that goodness which they all partake; learning first, it may be, from pleasant things what pleasure is, and then from just things what is justice, and then from friends what is friendship, and from lovers what is love; and then comparing together this pleasure and this justice and this friendship and this love, till we perceive what is the excellence common to them all, which makes them all desirable; and so climbing step by step to the beatific vision of that Absolute Goodness, by which all things that here are true and lovely "live, and move, and have their being." But Plato cannot be abridged. His art is so perfect, that any change would spoil the harmony. It must be enough to have said that it is there. Again, although we should not dream but do, yet for our doing we must have an end to aim at, and we cannot well have too high an aim, or see it too clearly. We have been taught the use of imagination in Science, how it enables the inquirer to think definitely, and see clearly with what facts he is dealingfor imagination is always the foe of vagueness and so in morals, too, imagination has its place. For the heathen there was on earth no perfect type in which he could see the working out of moral precept, see to what each rule would lead, test the excellence of rival systems; and so the heathen could not but demand of the teacher who recommended justice or self-denial: "Show me these principles at work; draw me a plan of the building you advise me to construct; paint for me the ideal world of which you wish to realize a copy upon earth." Accordingly, Plato's Republic is not a wild sport of fancy, but a sober statement of doctrine; and there is more than a generous sanguineness, more even than a noble faith, there is a definite and intelligent certainty hidden under those quiet words of Socrates, when to one who asked, "But where can you expect to find such a city?" he replied, "Perhaps in heaven there is laid up a pattern of it." Yes, and in one transient flash of conjecture that never settled into hope, it is thought of for a moment as not quite impossible that this absolute Reason, from which all truth and beauty flow, might come down some day from heaven, and reveal itself as an example to mankind. The transient conjecture never settled into hope, but for us Christians it has been realized; we have our Example; yet we may still learn something from Plato's noble attempt to supply His place, especially in observing the many points in which Plato anticipated the Christian ideal. Great men have traced the influence of Platonic thought in determining the expression of Christian truth, and the form of the Church; and in his principles of asceticism and com munism, and a thousand other points, abundant interest may be found. But to many it is not his theories or his artistic and historical value that most will make Plato dear; it is the high thoughts that centre in the name of Socrates. Our feeble muse already has "loitered in the master's field too long, to attempt now by any words to darken so high a theme; but this may be said, that the opposition to a material view of things, which we have mentioned as forming Plato's peculiar value now, is embodied, so to speak, in the person of Socrates. This has been, as it promised, a faltering eulogy, rather than a wellinformed guide to the study of Plato. But it is something to be reminded how happily, and how rationally too, a man may seek a resting-place from time to time in the calm regions of ideal truth. Though material things so importunately press around us, we may yet do well sometimes to turn away and fix our minds on objects which, though unseen, are eternal. So In a season of calm weather, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Can in a moment travel thither- 88 CHAPTER XXXI. NUNA'S LETTER. PATTY. MISS MATTHEWS felt unusually excited when Mr. Bright left her. Something in Will's manner warned her that he had a special purpose in going to look for Nuna. It seemed to Elizabeth that the marriage was certain, and then her calm, practical mind began to calculate how soon the affair could be settled. For the question of marriage presented itself to Miss Matthews in what Nuna would have called upside-down fashion. Ways and means, all the machinery of arrangement and possibility and prudence, had first to be taken into account, and then sentiment between two people, or that which Miss Matthews called love, might come in when all the rest was settled. It seemed to her that in this affair of Will Bright there had been a superabundance of sentiment already; the attachment had gone on quite long enough. She watched eagerly for Nuna's return, but Nuna came in so quietly, that Miss Matthews missed her. At dinner-time Nuna was too preoccupied to notice anything, but Miss Matthews saw that the Rector was suffering from unusual disquiet. These symptoms in father and daughter indicated some confidence from which she was excluded. There was no active spirit of intrigue in Elizabeth's nature; she would have considered it ill-bred to indulge such a spirit, but she meant to be all in all to Mr. Beaufort, and to be this she must know all his secrets. And yet she could not question him; delicacy and refinement alike kept her from asking the cause of his fretful looks and captious silence. She passed an anxious evening, and her placid face still looked perplexed when she came in to breakfast next morning. She had been in the garden gathering flowers for the Rector's writing-table, and Nuna and her father had had time to open their letters before she came in. Miss Matthews looked from one to the other, and she saw that something unusual was happening. Nuna's face had flushed, and she was putting her letter away seemingly to avoid observation. Her father held an open letter in his hand, but he was not looking at it. He was frowning most severely for him-frowning at Nuna. While Miss Matthews sat studying the two faces, Nuna looked up suddenly and met her father's eyes. Her blush deepened, but it seemed to Elizabeth that the girl looked happy, spite of her evident confusion. Whatever did it all mean? She watched and waited, but neither father nor daughter gave her the least clue to their secret. The doubt of the previous day had now become a certainty to Miss Matthews; she was sure that some secret existed of which she was ignorant. The Rector was summoned to his study on parish business, and Nuna disappeared suddenly. Elizabeth's curiosity grew. Later on in the morning she arrived, as she thought, at the gist of the whole She saw Mr. Bright ride by the parsonage without turning his head. matter. the Rector, so evidently vexed that she ventured to express her sympathy. "I'm afraid you are worried,"—she spoke in the purring, child-like way that goes straight to the confidence of some men," and worry is not good for you, is it? I wish I could be of any use to you; but I am afraid women can only soothe; they have not brains enough to be of real assistance to wise men like you." Elizabeth looked positively sweet. "I don't know; I don't know, I'm sure; perhaps not, and yet this is a woman's matter. My nerves have gone through an amount of exhaustion within the last four-and-twenty hours which it will take weeks to counteract the effect of. No one who has not studied the subject as I have done, can conceive how great is the waste of physical energy and health caused by the slightest irritation to the nerves. People are called touchy and ill-tempered and various other things, and all the time, if the state of their nerves had been duly regarded by those among whom they live, the result might have been a most unbroken placidity. Come into my study, will you, a moment, and I will just tell you how I am situated." Elizabeth's heart went a little quicker; he had begun to lean on her already, then; and when Mr. Beaufort placed a chair for her beside his writing-table, she felt herself mistress at the Rectory. "Perhaps I ought to say that I believe I know how Nuna has behaved to Mr. Bright," she said, sympathisingly. "To Will-what do you mean?" and the frown bent on her was so very decided that she told him her guess about Nuna's refusal. The Rector thought a few minutes. "You may be mistaken: I am inclined to think you are. I do not think Nuna has had any talk of this kind lately with Will. Will Bright is exactly the man Nuna ought to marry—and I shall tell her so; he is very kind and excellent, but he is thoroughly practical and free from extravagant, high-flown notions-no romance about Will. No, I was not thinking about him; it is quite another person altogether—a strangeran artist, who really has scarcely seen Nuna, and yet he has proposed for her. I told him I could not entertain his proposal for a moment, but he won't listen to me. I meant to take no notice to Nuna, but I feel sure he has written to her; that letter she got this morning was from him-I'm sure of it-and I must forbid the thing altogether." Miss Matthews' light, colourless hair stood almost on end, and her eyes and her lips rose in simultaneous protest. "An artist! But, dear Mr. Beaufort, how did Nuna make the acquaintance of such a person ?" "There's nothing remarkable in that," -Miss Matthews' horrified tone annoyed him "he is a gentleman, and a very remarkable person altogether, but still not suited to Nuna. I am not puzzled about him, he went back to London yesterday; it is Nuna who perplexes me: I don't know how to deal with her. My own idea is that these subjects are best left alone; opposition is sure to make girls contradictory and love-sick; and yet I must stop this writing. I really don't know what to do," he said, plaintively; and then his vexation got vent at last. "Can't you suggest something? You ought to know how to deal with Nuna, Elizabeth," he said, irritably, "she was with you long enough." Miss Matthews thought so too. She did not trouble herself about the fact that she never had been able to win her young cousin's confidence and affection; she was conscious that she had judged Nuna thoroughly, and that the girl's only safety lay in a prudent, well-considered marriage. It seemed, therefore, to her, that now the matter was put in her hands, Nuna's future must be safe. She "I think I should say as little as possible,"she thoughtawhile before she spoke," and then I should take an early opportunity of telling Nuna your wish that she should marry Mr. Bright. is flighty, but I really think she is dutiful; and besides, if she has seen this gentleman so seldom, she can hardly care much for him, I think." “Well, no-no, perhaps not." The |