Thus shalt thou
do them good: but vent not upon them thine own evil humour!
CIII
Even as bad actors cannot sing alone, but only in chorus: so some cannot
walk alone.
Man, if thou art aught, strive to walk alone and hold converse with
thyself, instead of skulking in the chorus! at length think; look around
thee; bestir thyself, that thou mayest know who thou art!
CIV
You would fain be victor at the Olympic games, you say. Yes, but weigh
the conditions, weigh the consequences; then and then only, lay to your
hand--if it be for your profit. You must live by rule, submit to diet,
abstain from dainty meats, exercise your body perforce at stated hours,
in heat or in cold; drink no cold water, nor, it may be, wine. In a
word, you must surrender yourself wholly to your trainer, as though to a
physician.
Then in the hour of contest, you will have to delve the ground, it may
chance dislocate an arm, sprain an ankle, gulp down abundance of yellow
sand, be scourge with the whip--and with all this sometimes lose the
victory. Count the cost--and then, if your desire still holds, try the
wrestler's life. Else let me tell you that you will be behaving like a
pack of children playing now at wrestlers, now at gladiators; presently
falling to trumpeting and anon to stage-playing, when the fancy takes
them for what they have seen.
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