ree cheers for Socrates, and see where you'll be. Mandeville
ought to be a missionary, and read Robert Browning to the Fijis.

THE FIRE-TENDER. How do you account for the alleged personal regard for
Socrates?

THE PARSON. Because the world called Christian is still more than half
heathen.

MANDEVILLE. He was a plain man; his sympathies were with the people; he
had what is roughly known as "horse-sense," and he was homely. Franklin
and Abraham Lincoln belong to his class. They were all philosophers of
the shrewd sort, and they all had humor. It was fortunate for Lincoln
that, with his other qualities, he was homely. That was the last
touching recommendation to the popular heart.

THE MISTRESS. Do you remember that ugly brown-stone statue of St.
Antonio by the bridge in Sorrento? He must have been a coarse saint,
patron of pigs as he was, but I don't know any one anywhere, or the
homely stone image of one, so loved by the people.

OUR NEXT DOOR. Ugliness being trump, I wonder more people don't win.
Mandeville, why don't you get up a "centenary" of Socrates, and put up
his statue in the Central Park? It would make that one of Lincoln in
Union Square look beautiful.

THE PARSON. Oh, you'll see that some day, when they have a museum there
illustrating the "Science of Religion."

THE FIRE-TENDER. Doubtless, to go back to what we were talking of,
the world has a fondness for some authors, and thinks of them with an
affectionate and half-pitying familiarity; and it may be that this
grows out of something in their lives quite as much as anything in
their writings. There seems to be more disposition of personal liking
to Thackeray than to Dickens, now both are dead,--a result that would
hardly have been predicted when the world was crying over Little Nell,
or agreeing to hate Becky Sharp.

THE YOUNG LADY. What was that you were telling about Charles Lamb,
the other day, Mandeville? Is not the popular liking for him somewhat
independent of his writings?

MANDEVILLE. He is a striking example of an author who is loved. Very
likely the remembrance of his tribulations has still something to do
with the tenderness felt for him. He supported no dignity and permitted
a familiarity which indicated no self-appreciation of his real rank in
the world of letters. I have heard that his acquaintances familiarly
called him "Charley."

OUR NEXT DOOR. It's a relief to know that! Do you happen to know what
Socrates was called?

MANDE