ii USELESS KNOWLEDGE 19 



reckon time) after the first memorable occasion when he 

 discoursed to me concerning the adaptation of the Ideal 

 State to our present circumstances l that I succeeded in 

 sufficiently arousing my soul to raise it once again to that 

 supernal Academe where the divine Plato meditates in 

 holy groves beside a fuller and more limpid stream than 

 the Attic Ilissus. 



When I was breathlessly projected into his world, Plato 

 was reclining gracefully beside a moss-grown boulder and 

 listening attentively to a lively little man who was dis 

 coursing with an abundance of animation and gesticulation. 

 When he observed me, he stopped his companion, who 

 immediately came hurrying towards me, and after politely 

 greeting me, amiably declared that the Master would be 

 delighted to converse with me. I noticed that he was a 

 dapper little man, apparently in the prime of life, though 

 beginning to grow rather bald about the temples. He 

 was carefully robed, and his beard and his hair, such as it 

 was, were scented. One could not help being struck by 

 his refined, intelligent countenance, and his quick, observant 

 eyes. 



As soon as Plato had welcomed me, his companion 

 went off to get, he said, a garden chair from a gleaming 

 marble temple (it turned out to be a shrine of the Muses) 

 at a little distance, and I naturally inquired of Plato who 

 the obliging little man was. 



Why, don t you know ? he replied, don t you re 

 cognise my famous pupil, Aristotle ? 



Aristotle ! No, I should never have supposed he was 

 like that. 



What then would you have expected ? 



Well, I should have expected a bigger man for one 

 thing, and one far less agreeable. To tell the truth, I 

 should have expected Aristotle to be very bumptious and 

 conceited. 



You are not quite wrong, said Plato with an indulgent 

 smile, he was all you say, when he first came hither. 



1 The contents of this interview have not yet been divulged, for reasons which 

 will appear from the course of the present narrative. 



