ur or of strong practical
conviction. And when we read the letters of the younger Pliny, we
perceive a genuine admiration for men of thought and a genuine liking
for "things of the mind," but we also discern that his dealing with
philosophers and philosophy is strictly such as he deems "fit for a
gentleman."

In his own way and for his own ends the Roman could be intensely
studious. He was eager to know and to possess information; but his
native taste was for information of a positive kind, for definite
facts more or less encyclopaedic--the facts of history, of science, of
art, of literature, or even of grammar. His natural bent was not
towards pure speculation. The elder Pliny was in his prime in the
later days of Nero, and though he is perhaps an extreme type, he is
nevertheless a type worth contemplating. His nephew writes a letter to
a friend in which he gives a formidable list of works which the uncle
had written or rather compiled, culminating in that huge miscellany
known as his _Natural History_--a book dealing, not only with
geography, anthropology, physiology, zoology, botany, mineralogy, but
also with fine art. How did he lead the ordinary Roman official life
and yet accomplish all this before he was fifty-six? Here is the
explanation. "He had a keen intellect, incredible zeal, and the
greatest capacity for wakefulness. The end of August had not come
before he began to work by lamplight long before dawn; in winter he
began as early as one or two o'clock in the morning. It is true that
he could readily command sleep, which visited and left him even during
his studies. Before daylight he used to go to the emperor
Vespasian--who also worked before day--and thence to his appointed
duty. Returning home he gave the remainder of his time to his studies.
After his _dejeuner_--which, like any other food that he took in the
daytime, was light and digestible in the old-fashioned style--if it
was summer, some leisure moments were spent in lying in the sun; a
book was read, and he marked passages or made extracts. He never read
anything without making excerpts, for he used to say that no book was
so bad as to contain no part that was useful. After sunning himself he
generally took a cold bath. He then took a snack and a very brief
siesta, subsequently reading till dinner-time as if it were a new day.
During dinner a book was read and marked, all very rapidly. I recall
an occasion on which a certain passage had been badly