It is this masculine type of beauty, whether summed up in a physical form or translated by imagery into the realm of the spirit, that Isocrates (a very good mouthpiece for average enlightened opinion) praises in language which strains even his facile rhetoric. “[Beauty] is the first of all things in majesty, honor, and divineness. Nothing devoid of beauty is prized; the admiration of virtue itself comes to this, that of all manifestations of life, virtue is the most beautiful. The supremacy of beauty over all things can be seen in our own disposition toward it, and toward them. Other things we merely seek to attain as we need them, but beautiful things inspire us with love, _love_ which is as much stronger than _wish_ as its object is better. To the beautiful alone, as to the gods, we are never tired of doing homage; delighting to be their slaves rather than to be the rulers of others.” Could we put to all the heterogeneous crowd in the wide gymnasium the question, “What things do you desire most?” the answer “To be physically beautiful” (not “handsome” merely, but “beautiful”) would come among the first wishes. There is a little song, very popular and very Greek. It tells most of the story. The best of gifts to mortal man is health; The next the bloom of beauty’s matchless flower; The third is blameless and unfraudful wealth; The fourth with friends to spend youths’ joyous hour.[*] [*] Translation by Milman. The exact date of this Greek poem is uncertain, but its spirit is entirely true to that of Athens in the time of this sketch. Health and physical beauty thus go before wealth and the passions of friendship,—a true Greek estimate! 144. The Detestation of Old Age.—Again, we are quick to learn that this “beauty” is the beauty of youth. It is useless to talk to an Athenian of a “beautiful old age.” Old age is an evil to be borne with dignity, with resignation if needs be, to be fought against by every kind of bodily exercise; but to take satisfaction in it?—impossible. It means a diminishing of those keen powers of physical and intellectual enjoyment which are so much to every normal Athenian. It means becoming feeble, and worse than feeble, ridiculous. The physician’s art has not advanced so far as to prevent the frequent loss of sight and hearing in even moderate age. No hope of a future renewal of noble youth in a happier world gilds the just man’s sunset. Old age must, like the untimely passing of loved ones, be endured in becoming silence, as one of the fixed inevitables; but it is gloomy work to pretend to find it cheerful. Only the young can find life truly happy. Euripides in _The Mad Heracles_ speaks for all his race:— Tell me not of the Asian tyrant, Or of palaces plenished with gold; For such bliss I am not an aspirant, If _youth_ I might only behold:— Youth that maketh prosperity higher, And ever adversity lighter.[*]