It is all but the Silenus-mask which conceals the features of the god within; for if you remove the covering, how shall I describe to you, my friends and boon companions, the excellence of the beauty you will find within! Whether any of you have seen Socrates in his serious mood, when he has thrown aside the mask and disclosed the divine features beneath it, is more than I know.

But I have seen them, and I can tell you that they seemed to me glorious and marvellous, and, truly, godlike in their beauty."' Well, now, I gather out of all that this great lesson: that it is, to begin with, a mere matter of temperament, or what William Law would call a mere matter of complexion and sensibility, whether, to begin with, a man is hard, and dry, and narrow, and stiff, and proud, and scornful, and cruel; or again, whether he is soft and tender, broad and open, and full of sympathy and of the milk of human kindness.

At first, and to begin with, there is neither praise nor blame as yet in the matter.

A man is hard just as a stone is hard; it is his nature.

Or he is soft as clay is soft; it is again his nature.