such a termination to a philosophical and literary symposium?
HERMOTIMUS
This Dialogue, between the author himself as Lycinus and a disciple of the Stoic school, though rather of graver cast than either of the preceding, has yet a great deal of quiet humour in it, and bears token of careful finish. It is a good-humoured blow at the Stoics, and through them at the theories of philosophers generally: but it seems to convey also a graver lesson, which was probably often present to a mind like Lucian's,—that wisdom is hard to find, and that human life is not long enough for the successful pursuit of her.
Lycinus meets Hermotimus going to one of his master's lectures. The student walks with a meditative air, repeating mentally his lesson of yesterday: for, as he explains, he must lose no time; "life is short, and art is long," as said the great Hippocrates; and if it were true of physic, still more true is it of philosophy. Lycinus remarks that as, to his certain knowledge, Hermotimus has been studying hard for the last twenty years, much to the detriment of his health and his complexion, he should have conceived that he must by this time be very near the attainment of the goal of happiness—if that be synonymous with wisdom. "Nay," replies the other; "Virtue, as Hesiod tells us, dwells afar off, and the road to her is long, and very steep and rough, and costs no small toil to them that travel it." He himself is as yet only at the toot of the mountain. And when does he hope to get to the
