"My dear Hippias," (replies Sokrates) "you are a happy man, since you know what pursuits a man ought to follow, and have yourself followed them, as you say, with good success. But I, as it seems, am under the grasp of an unaccountable fortune: for I am always fluctuating and puzzling myself, and when I lay my puzzle before you wise men, I am requited by you with hard words. I am told just what you have now been telling me, that I busy myself about matters silly, petty, and worthless. When on the contrary, overborne by your authority, I declare as you do, that it is the finest thing possible to be able to set out well and beautifully a regular discourse before the public assembly, and bring it to successful conclusion--then there are other men at hand who heap upon me bitter reproaches: especially that one man, my nearest kinsman and inmate, who never omits to convict me. When on my return home he hears me repeat what you have told me, he asks, if I am not ashamed of my impudence in talking about beautiful (honourable) pursuits, when I am so manifestly convicted upon this subject, of not even knowing what the Beautiful (Honourable) is. How can you (he says), being ignorant what the Beautiful is, know _who_ has set out a discourse beautifully and _who_ has not--_who_ has performed a beautiful exploit and _who_ has not? Since you are in a condition so disgraceful, can you think life better for you than death? Such then is my fate--to hear disparagement and reproaches from you on the one side, and from him on the other. Necessity however perhaps requires that I should endure all these discomforts: for it will be nothing strange if I profit by them. Indeed I think that I have already profited both by your society, Hippias, and by his: for I now think that I know what the proverb means--Beautiful (Honourable) things are difficult."[42] [Footnote 41: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 304 A.] [Footnote 42: Plat. Hipp. Maj. 304 D-E.] [Side-note: Rhetoric against Dialectic.]