The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Opinions of a Philosopher, by Robert
Grant, Illustrated by W. H. Hyde

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Opinions of a Philosopher

Author: Robert Grant

Release Date: October 9, 2006 [eBook #19509]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OPINIONS OF A PHILOSOPHER***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustration.
See 19509-h.htm or 19509-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/9/5/0/19509/19509-h/19509-h.htm)
or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/9/5/0/19509/19509-h.zip)

THE OPINIONS OF A PHILOSOPHER.

by

ROBERT GRANT

With an Etching by W. H. Hyde

[Frontispiece: Etching by W. H. Hyde]

New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1895
Copyright, 1893, 1895, by
Charles Scribner's Sons

THE OPINIONS OF A PHILOSOPHER

I

My wife Josephine declares that I have become a philosopher in my old
age, and perhaps she is right. Now that I am forty, and a trifle less
elastic in my movements, with patches of gray about my ears which give me
a more venerable appearance, I certainly have a tendency to look at the
world as through a glass. Yet not altogether darkly be it said. That
is, I trust I am no cynic like that fellow Diogenes who set the fashion
centuries ago of turning up the nose at everything. I have a natural
sunniness of disposition which would, I believe, be proof against the
sardonic fumes of contemplation even though I were a real philosopher.

However, just as the mongoose of the bag-man's story was not a real
mongoose, neither am I a real philosopher.

You will remember that Diogenes, who was a real philosopher, occupied a
tub as a permanent residence. He would roll in hot sand during the heat
of summer, and embrace a statue of snow in winter, just to show his
superiority to ordinary human conventions and how much wiser he was than
the rest of the world. The real philosophers of the present day are not
quite so peculiar; but they are apt to be fearfully and wonderfully
superior to the weaknesse