The Benefactor
mon, so that one of you can be no richer than the other, if you say truly that you are friends.'
"They assented, and at that moment Menexenus was called away by some one who came and said that the master of the gymnasia wanted him."[1]
This is all. To Plato's way of thinking, the situation explained itself. The two boys could not share their beauty nor their strength, but money was a thing to pass from hand to hand. It was not, and it never could be, a matter for competition. The last lesson taught an Athenian youth was the duty of outstripping his neighbour in the hard race for wealth.
And where shall we turn for a practical illustration of friendship, as conceived by Emerson and Plato? Where shall we see the level waters, the "mine is thine" which we think too exalted for plain living? No need to search far, and no need to search amid the good and great. It is
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