Excerpt from Philopolis, Vol. 4: October 25, 1909 September 25, 1910 UT Of mine own fancy the gentler arts have always been pictured as standing between man's rough usages and his intellectual being. Plutarch thought but little Of these; but that springs from the slight taint of vanity that comes Of some philosophies. Of what avail is killing rats, and tripping coxcombs, and begetting an extended waistband, orabsorbing much learning about things around, if man's setting is not pretty to the eye, if the sounds around are not sweet to the ear. Far better that the Prince should pipe and paint even badly - than spout and strut and murder innocence in a neighboring province, for the glory of it. There is little in the thinking. Any ape may smother his senses in contemplation to Oblivion of a marching crowd. And for this, the shoemaker Often comes truer in philosophy than thoughtful idleness. Hand and mind travel in company, or nothing comes but rats and cox combs. Still hand and mind together Often bring ill. Quoth the king's counsellor to the king: There are as many as twenty and five thieves hung on London's gib bets every morning and yet there is no end; it would seem there is no end to the number of thieves in the land. Sure, returned the king's jester, maybe you have missed hanging the right ones. The king chided the jester, and the counsellor frowned. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.