of mountains all about
and about, making you giddy; and then Scotland afar off, and the border
countries so famous in song and ballad! It was a day that will stand
out, like a mountain, I am sure, in my life. But I am returned (I have
now been come home near three weeks; I was a month out), and you cannot
conceive the degradation I felt at first, from being accustomed to
wander free as air among mountains, and bathe in rivers {109} without
being controlled by any one, to come home and _work_. I felt very
_little_, I had been dreaming I was a very great man. But that is
going off, and I find I shall conform in time to that state of life to
which it has pleased God to call me. Besides, after all, Fleet Street
and the Strand are better places to live in for good and all than
amidst Skiddaw. Still, I turn back to those great places where I
wandered about, participating in their greatness. After all, I could
not _live_ in Skiddaw. I could spend a year, two, three years among
them, but I must have a prospect of seeing Fleet Street at the end of
that time, or I should mope and pine away, I know. Still, Skiddaw is a
fine creature. . . I fear my head is turned with wandering. I shall
never be the same acquiescent being. Farewell. Write again quickly,
for I shall not like to hazard a letter, not knowing where the fates
have carried you. Farewell, my dear fellow.

C. LAMB.

(_Letters_.)

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 1775-1864

DIOGENES AND PLATO

_Diogenes_. The bird of wisdom flies low, and seeks her food under
hedges: the eagle himself would be starved if he always soared aloft
and against the sun. The sweetest fruit grows near the ground, and the
plants that bear it require ventilation and lopping. Were this not to
be done in thy garden, every walk and alley, every {110} plot and
border, would be covered with runners and roots, with boughs and
suckers. We want no poets or logicians or metaphysicians to govern us:
we want practical men, honest men, continent men, unambitious men,
fearful to solicit a trust, slow to accept, and resolute never to
betray one. Experimentalists may be the best philosophers; they are
always the worst politicians. Teach people their duties, and they will
know their interests. Change as little as possible, and correct as
much.

Philosophers are absurd from many causes, but principally from laying
out unthriftily their distinctions. They set up four virtues:
fortitude, pruden