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And I am delighted with Diogenes, who, when
he saw his host in Sparta preparing with much ado
for a certain festival, said, ‘Does not a good man
consider every day a festival?’ And a very
splendid one, to be sure, if we are sound of mind.
For the universe is a most holy temple and most
worthy of a god ; into it man is introduced through
birth as a spectator, not of hand-made or immovable
images, but of those sensible representations of
knowable things that the divine mind, says Plato,1 has
revealed, representations which have innate within
themselves the beginnings of life and motion, sun and
moon and stars, rivers which ever discharge fresh
water, and earth which sends forth nourishment for
plants and animals. Since life is a most perfect
initiation into these things and a ritual celebration of
them, it should be full of tranquillity and joy, and not
in the manner of the vulgar, who wait for the festivals
of Cronus2 and of Zeus and the Panathenaea and
other days of the kind, at which to enjoy and refresh
themselves, paying the wages of hired laughter to
mimes and dancers. It is true that we sit there on
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those occasions decorously in reverent silence, for no
one wails while he is being initiated or laments as he
watches the Pythian games or as he drinks at the
festival of Cronus ; but by spending the greater part
of life in lamentation and heaviness of heart and
carking cares men shame the festivals with which the
god supplies us and in which he initiates us. And
though men delight in sweetly sounding instruments
and singing birds, and take pleasure in seeing animals
romping and frisking, and, on the contrary, are displeased when they howl and bellow and look fierce ;
yet though they see that their own life is unsmiling
and dejected and ever oppressed and afflicted by the
most unpleasant experiences and troubles and unending cares, they not only do not provide themselves with some alleviation or ease-from what
source could they do so? - but even when others urge
them, they do not accept a word of admonition by
following which they would acquiesce in the present
without fault-finding, remember the past with thankfulness, and meet the future without fear or suspicion,
with their hopes cheerful and bright.