Mitchell Starrett Buck

“ Look at these women! A whole people mad with luxury and lust, to snatch the pleasures of a moment. While, in the schools, priests and philosophers deliberate the essence of the soul and the manifestations of the gods!"
The two men had turned from the crowded promenade along a wide street and into the cool green of the Gardens.
"All these abuses," remarked Nisos, "are lamentable. Yet unhappiness, or disbelief in the gods, will not mend them. With sorrows and abuses, there are also beauties in life, if one can see them." ”

“ Others will question nothing. These men live by faith alone, and the inscrutable condescension of deity, thanking the gods for every breath they draw, for everything and anything which comes to them, their eyes turned continually toward the heavens or their quaking forms prostrate before the altars in the sanctuaries. ”

“ The grasses and vines overwhelm them and unite with the hair of their heads and, in the end, they die—in silence. How strange such men are to our instinct! Others say the object of life is life itself and that each day should be lived for what it is, for whatever it brings us. ”

“ Thou shouldst build thyself a new dwelling, at the border of a forest where silence holds no corruption. And, with the nymphs, thou shouldst sacrifice to other gods, at a flat rock lit by slanting rays of sunlight through the trees. ”

“ I have seen people starving, begging on their knees for even a piece of bread, that they might sustain themselves yet a little longer for future misfortunes. Men are slain in the night, for a piece of silver. ”

“ They expect us there, to teach them how to understand our philosophers, how to appreciate our statues, how to copy our architecture; but they hate us for the birthright they can never have, yet which is ours without asking. ”

“ Some say that nothing is real to us except our souls, all else being a delusion born of ignorance. These men sit for untold years in silent, motionless meditation, fed by the charity of passers-by, watching without emotion their limbs consumed by ulcers and sores. ”

“ Is it less present because we cannot understand, because we have seen the grain broken by hail and the grapes torn from the vines by bellowing winds?
"These very gardens are a place of worship for that Aphrodite whose ways displease thee but of whom thou really knowest nothing. Her spirit is in all things and in all creatures. The most wretched prostitute is not ignorant of her, nor the richest and most voluptuous empress and queen. The very beasts of the fields warm to her touch ”