It would hardly be extravagant to say that this delightful old proser, in whom his native Boeotia is only too apparent at times, and whose mind, in some respects, was strictly provincial, had been more operative (if we take the "Lives" and the "Morals" together) in the thought and action of men than any other single author, ancient or modern. And on the whole it must be allowed that his influence has been altogether good, has insensibly enlarged and humanized his readers, winning them over to benevolence, moderation, and magnanimity. And so wide was his own curiosity that they must be few who shall not find somewhat to their purpose in his discursive pages. For he was equally at home among men and ideas, open-eared to the one and open-minded to the other. His influence, too, it must be remembered, begins earlier than that of any other ancient author except Aesop. To boys he has always been the Robinson Crusoe of classic antiquity, making what had hitherto seemed a remote island sequestered from them by a trackless flood of years, living and real. Those obscure solitudes which their imagination had peopled with spectral equestrian statues, are rescued by the sound of his cheery voice as part of the familiar and daylight world. We suspect that Agesilaus on his hobby-horse first humanized antiquity for most of us. Here was the human footprint which persuaded us that the past was inhabited by creatures like ourselves. A PLEA FOR FREEDOM FROM SPEECH AND FIGURES OF SPEECH-MAKERS A PLEA FOR FREEDOM FROM SPEECH AND FIGURES OF SPEECH-MAKERS I must beg allowance to use the first person singular. I cannot, like old Weller, spell myself with a We. Ours is, I believe, the only language that has shown so much sense of the worth of the individual (to himself) as to erect the first personal pronoun into a kind of votive column to the dignity of human nature. Other tongues have, or pretend, a greater modesty. I What a noble letter it is! In it every reader sees himself as in a glass. As for me, without my I's, I should be as poorly off as the great mole of Hadrian, which, being the biggest, must be also, by parity of reason, the blindest in the world. When I was in college, I confess I always liked those passages best in the choruses of the Greek drama which were well sprinkled with _ai ai_, they were so grandly simple. The force of great men is generally to be found in their intense individuality,--in other words, it is all in their I. The merit of this essay will be similar. What I was going to say is this.