Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/102

66 I will turn this lack of gold to account, and out of it I will mint for you young men a coin of true and weighty metal. For may not a precious lesson in life, set forth in ingenious and attractive form, be compared to a piece of full-weighted golden currency?—

Hear then, if you have a mind to. Was it not said that certain men had rushed eagerly down to the Piraeus? Who are they, these eager ones? Far be it from me to mention names; they call themselves lovers and teachers of wisdom. Let us betake ourselves in thought to the Piraeus. What is passing there at this moment, even as I stand here in this circle of kindly listeners? I will tell you what is passing. Those men who give themselves out as lovers and dispensers of wisdom, are crowding upon the gangway, jostling, wrangling, biting, forgetting all decorum, and throwing dignity to the winds. And why? To be the first in the field,—to pounce upon the best dressed youths, to lead them home, to entertain them, hoping in the end to make profit out of them in all possible ways. What a shamefaced, empty awakening, as after a debauch, if it should presently appear—ha-ha-ha!—that these youths have scarcely brought with them the wherewithal to pay for their supper of welcome! Learn from this, young men, how ill it becomes a lover of wisdom, and how little it profits him, to run after good things other than the truth.

Oh, my Libanius, when I listen to you with closed eyes, I seem lapped in the sweet dream that Diogenes has once more arisen in our midst