My father was now warm in the subject he had started, and soared miles away from Riccabocca and "My Novel." "And observe," he exclaimed--"observe with what gravity this eminent Platonist pleads guilty to the charge of having a mirror. 'Why, what,' he exclaims, 'more worthy of the regards of a human creature than his own image' (_nihil respectabilius homini quam formam suam!_) Is not that one of our children the most dear to us who is called 'the picture of his father?' But take what pains you will with a picture, it can never be so like you as the face in your mirror! Think it discreditable to look with proper attention on one's self in the glass! Did not Socrates recommend such attention to his disciples--did he not make a great moral agent of the speculum? The handsome, in admiring their beauty therein, were admonished that handsome is who handsome does; and the more the ugly stared at themselves, the more they became naturally anxious to hide the disgrace of their features in the loveliness of their merits. Was not Demosthenes always at his speculum? Did he not rehearse his causes before it as before a master in the art? He learned his eloquence from Plato, his dialectics from Eubulides; but as for his delivery--there, he came to the mirror! "Therefore," concluded Mr. Caxton, returning unexpectedly to the subject--"therefore it is no reason to suppose that Dr. Riccabocca is averse to cleanliness and decent care of the person, because he is a philosopher; and, all things considered, he never showed himself more a philosopher than when he left off his spectacles and looked his best." "Well," said my mother, kindly, "I only hope it may turn out happily. But I should have been better pleased if Pisistratus had not made Dr. Riccabocca so reluctant a wooer." "Very true," said the Captain; "the Italian does not shine as a lover. Throw a little more fire into him, Pisistratus--something gallant and chivalrous." "Fire--gallantry--chivalry!" cried my father, who had taken Riccabocca under his special protection--"why, don't you see that the man is described as a philosopher?--and I should like to know when a philosopher ever plunged into matrimony without considerable misgivings and cold shivers. Indeed, it seems that--perhaps before he was a philosopher--Riccabocca _had_ tried the experiment, and knew what it was. Why, even that plain-speaking, sensible, practical man, Metellus Numidicus, who was not even a philosopher, but only a Roman Censor, thus expressed himself in an exhortation to the People to perpetrate matrimony--'If, O Quirites, we could do without wives, we should all dispense with that subject of care (_eâ molestiâ careremus_); but since nature has so managed it, that we can not live with women comfortably, nor without them at all, let us rather provide for the human race than our own temporary felicity."