who patronizes--he
wants something, and the particular thing that Dionysius wanted was to
have Plato hold a colored light upon the performances of His Altruistic,
Beneficent, Royal Jackanapes. But Plato was a simple, honest and direct
man: he had caught the habit from Socrates.

Charles Ferguson says that the simple life does not consist in living in
the woods and wearing overalls and sandals, but in getting the cant out
of one's cosmos and eliminating the hypocrisy from one's soul.

Plato lived the simple life. When he spoke he stated what he thought. He
discussed exploitation, war, taxation, and the Divine Right of Kings.
Kings are very unfortunate--they are shut off and shielded from truth
on every side. They get their facts at second hand and are lied to all
day long. Consequently they become in time incapable of digesting truth.
A court, being an artificial fabric, requires constant bracing. Next to
capital, nothing is so timid as a king. Heine says that kings have to
draw their nightcaps on over their crowns when they go to bed, in order
to keep them from being stolen, and that they are subject to insomnia.

Walt Whitman, with nothing to lose--not even a reputation or a hat--was
much more kingly walking bareheaded past the White House than Nicholas
of Russia or Alfonso of Spain can ever possibly be.

Dionysius thought that he wanted a philosophic court, but all he wanted
was to make folks think he had a philosophic court. Plato supplied him
the genuine article, and very naturally Plato was soon invited to
vacate.

After he had gone, Dionysius, fearful that Plato would give him a bad
reputation in Athens--somewhat after the manner and habit of the
"escaped nun"--sent a fast-rowing galley after him. Plato was arrested
and sold into slavery on his own isle of AEgina.

This all sounds very tragic, but the real fact is it was a sort of
comedy of errors--as a king's doings are when viewed from a safe and
convenient distance. De Wolf Hopper's kings are the real thing.
Dionysius claimed that Plato owed him money, and so he got out a
body-attachment, and sold the philosopher to the highest bidder.

This was a perfectly legal proceeding, being simply peonage, a thing
which exists in some parts of the United States today. I state the fact
without prejudice, merely to show how hard custom dies.

Plato was too big a man conveniently either to secrete or kill. Certain
people in Athens plagiarized Doctor Johnson who, on