"Everything has its own limits," says Hazlitt, "a little centre of its own, round which it moves; so that our true wisdom lies in our keeping in our own walk in life, however humble or obscure, and being satisfied if we can succeed in it. The best of us can do no more, and we shall only become ridiculous or unhappy by attempting it. We are ashamed because we are at a loss in things to which we have no pretensions, and try to remedy our mistakes by committing greater. An overweening vanity or self-opinion is, in truth, often at the bottom of this weakness; and we shall be most likely to conquer the one by eradicating the other, or restricting it within due and moderate bounds." In the Imaginary Conversations, Aspasia asks Pericles: "Is there any station so happy as an uncontested place in a small community, where manners are simple, where wants are few, where respect is the tribute of probity, and love is the guerdon of beneficence?" "From my tutor," said the good emperor Marcus Aurelius, "I learnt endurance of labor, and to want little, and to work with my own hands, and not to meddle with other people's affairs, and not to be ready to listen to slander." "Ah!" exclaimed the Attic Philosopher, "if men but knew in what a small dwelling joy can live, and how little it costs to furnish it!... Does a man drink more when he drinks from a large glass? From whence comes that universal dread of mediocrity, the fruitful mother of peace and liberty? Ah! there is the evil which, above every other, it should be the aim of both public and private education to anticipate! If that were got rid of, what treasons would be spared, what baseness avoided, what a chain of excess and crime would be forever broken! We award the palm to charity, and to self-sacrifice: but, above all, let us award it to moderation, for it is the great social virtue. Even when it does not create the others, it stands instead of them." Socrates used to say that the man who ate with the greatest appetite had the least need of delicacies; and that he who drank with the greatest appetite was the least inclined to look for a draught which is not at hand; and that those who want fewest things are nearest to the gods. Milton says that the lyric poet may drink wine and live generously, but the epic poet, he who shall sing of the gods, and their descent unto men, must drink water out of a golden bowl. "Have you never noticed," said Hiero, "all the multitudinous contrivances which are set before tyrants, acid, and harsh, and sour; and whatsoever else there can be of the same kind?" "To be sure I have," said Simonides; "and all these things appeared to me to be very contrary to the natural taste of any man." "And do you think," said Hiero, "that these dishes are anything else but the fancies of a diseased and vitiated taste; since those who eat with appetite, you well know, have no need of these contrivances and provocatives?" Michel