this is best, the best in present circumstances is to come as near as possible to this, and this occurs when we obtain the beloved that is by nature meet for us.” There is no reason to suppose that Aspasia had any romantic notions in regard to love or the destiny of woman. She was, on the whole, practical, and thought that woman should find her satisfaction in work, not in dreams. She did not imagine that one could have only one love, and that if she did not get that, or lost it, she should repine and turn from life. She was in the world to be an active being, and, accordingly, when Pericles died, she formed a connexion with Lysicles, a sheep-seller, believing him to be the best citizen she could obtain, and made him, though not a bright man, the foremost politician in Athens for a time.[52] The entire activity of Aspasia, her speculations, her intercourse with men whose opinions were novel and daring, and who were believed, like Anaxagoras and Socrates, to be unsparing innovators; her own hold over the noblest married women in Athens, and her introduction of greater social liberty among them, were all calculated to outrage the conventional spirit. Almost all the prominent members of her coterie were assailed. The greatest sculptor of all ages was meanly and falsely accused of theft, and died in a prison. The outspoken Anaxagoras was charged with impiety, and had to flee. And at length Aspasia was brought to trial on the same accusation. It was easy to get up such an accusation against her. She might have visited some temple, and taken part in some religious ceremony, impelled by truly pious motives; but such an act on the part of a stranger, whatever her motives might be, would have been deemed a great impiety by orthodox Athenians; or she may have induced some Athenian citizen-ladies to go with her and engage in some foreign worship. The Athenians permitted foreigners to observe their own religious rites in their city, without let or hindrance, but they had strong objections to genuine Athenian women becoming converts to any foreign worship. The Athenian ladies did not look on religious matters with the same eyes as the men. They yearned to have the benefit of the more enthusiastic worships which came from Asia Minor; and, accordingly, if Aspasia had been inclined to lead them that way, she would no doubt have had many eager followers. Or, finally, and most probably, she may have been supposed to share the opinions of the philosophers with whom she was on such intimate terms, and to have aided and abetted their opposition to the national creed. What were the grounds of the charge we do not know. All we know is that she was acquitted, but that she owed her acquittal to the earnest pleading of Pericles, who on this one occasion accompanied his entreaties with tears.