s up actually more ingredients than the
cook himself prescribes, which is extravagant; and secondly, he has the
audacity to commingle what the chef holds incongruous, whereby if the
cooks are right in their method he is wrong in his, and consequently the
destroyer of their art. Now is it not ridiculous first to procure the
greatest virtuosi to cook for us, and then without any claim to their
skill to take and alter their procedure? But there is a worse thing in
store for the bold man who habituates himself to eat a dozen dishes at
once: when there are but few dishes served, out of pure habit he will
feel himself half starved, whilst his neighbour, accustomed to send his
sop down by help of a single relish, will feast merrily, be the dishes
never so few.

(13) {psomos}, a sop or morsel of bread (cf. {psomion}, N. T., in mod.
Greek = "bread").

(14) Huckleberry Finn (p. 2 of that young person's "Adventures")
propounds the rationale of the system: "In a barrel of odds and
ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of
swaps around, and the things go better."

He had a saying that {euokheisthai}, to "make good cheer," (15) was
in Attic parlance a synonym for "eating," and the affix {eu} (the
attributive "good") connoted the eating of such things as would not
trouble soul or body, and were not far to seek or hard to find. So
that to "make good cheer" in his vocabulary applied to a modest and
well-ordered style of living. (16)

(15) {euokheisthai}, cf. "Cyrop." IV. v. 7; "Pol. Ath." ii. 9; Kuhner
cf. Eustah. "ad Il." ii. p. 212, 37, {'Akhaioi ten trophen okhen
legousin oxutonos}. Athen. viii. 363 B. See "Hipparch," viii. 4,
of horses. Cf. Arist. "H. A." viii. 6.

(16) See "Symp." vi. 7; and for similar far-fetched etymologies, Plat.
"Crat." passim.

BOOK IV

I

Such was Socrates; so helpful under all circumstances and in every
way that no observer, gifted with ordinary sensibility, could fail to
appreciate the fact, that to be with Socrates, and to spend long time
in his society (no matter where or what the circumstances), was indeed
a priceless gain. Even the recollection of him, when he was no longer
present, was felt as no small benefit by those who had grown accustomed
to be with him, and who accepted him. Nor indeed was he less helpful to
his acquaintance in his lighter than in his graver moods.

Let us take as an example that saying of his, so oft