A dignified defence of philosophy for an old man! Perhaps you will say too that it is a good enough reason for pursuing it, if it will keep us from worse employments. Were our original expectations from philosophy at all of a different nature, by the way? did they contemplate anything beyond a more decent behaviour than the average 2? Why this obstinate silence?

Hermotimus Oh, why but that I could cry like a baby? It cuts me to the heart, it is all so true; it is too much for me, when I think of my wretched, wasted years—paying all that money for iny own labour, too! I am sober again after a debauch, I see what the object of my maudlin affection is like, and what it has brought upon me.