to revile prince and peasant alike; so shall men take notice of you, and hold you for a brave man. Moreover, let your speech be rough, and your voice harsh, and in fact like a dog's growl; and your countenance rigid, and your gait corresponding to it, and your manner generally brute-like and savage. All modesty and gentleness and moderation put far from you; the faculty of blushing you must eradicate utterly. Seek the most crowded haunts of men; but when there, keep solitary, and hold converse with none; address neither friend nor stranger, for that would be the ruin of your empire. Do in sight of all what others are almost ashamed to do alone. At the last, if you choose, choke yourself with a raw polypus, or an onion.[1] And this happy consummation I devoutly wish you.
Cust. (recovering from some astonishment). Get out with you! what abominable and unnatural principles!
Diog. But very easy to carry out, mind you, and not at all difficult to learn. One needs no education, or reading, or such nonsense, for this system; it's the real short cut to reputation. Be you the most ordinary person,—cobbler, sausagemonger, carpenter, pawn-
- ↑ The first mode of suicide was said to have been adopted by the philosopher Democritus.
the month of Hippolytus in his play (Hipp. 612) as a defence of perjury,—
"My tongue hath sworn it—but my thought was free"—
was a never-failing subject of parody to his critics and satirists.
