You didn’t make me his chaperon.” This was the defence of philosophy that the old man gave. Would you too agree, Hermotimus, that it is enough that we study philosophy in order to keep out of mischief? Or was it with other hopes that we thought it worth while to study philosophy in the first place, not so that in our goings and comings we should present a fairer face than the layman? Why do you not answer this as well?

Only because I could almost weep. Your argument is true, and I’m driven to this: I’m in anguish at the time I’ve wasted like a fool, and at all the money I’ve paid for my labours, too. I was drunk and now I am sober and am seeing just what it was that I loved and what I have gone through for it.

Why tears, honest friend? There’s a deal of sense, I think, in that fable of Aesop’s where a man sits on the shore by the water’s edge to count the waves. When he fails he is hurt and takes it badly, until the Fox comes up to him and says: “Why are you worrying about those that have gone, my noble sir? Let them go and begin your count from here.” And so with you; since that is your view, you will do better in the future to make up your mind to join in the common life. Share in the city life of everyday, and give up your hopes of the strange and puffed-up. You will not be ashamed, if you are wise, to learn afresh in your old age and make a change for the better.