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"If, Aglaitadas," said one of the officers who had related the anecdotes, "we had told you melancholy stories to make you gloomy and wretched, you might have been justly displeased; but you certainly ought not to complain of us for making you merry." "Yes," said Aglaitadas, "I think I may. To make a man laugh is a very insignificant and useless thing. It is far better to make him weep.
Upon this, a certain one of the guests who was present, named Aglaitadas, a gloomy and austere-looking man, who had not joined at all in the merriment which the conversation had caused, asked Cyrus if he believed those stories to be true. "Why?" asked Cyrus; "what do you think of them?" "I think," said Aglaitadas, "that these officers invented them to make the company laugh.
His repeated misfortunes. Amusement of the party. The awkward squad. Merriment of the company. The file-leader and the letters. Remark of Cyrus. Animadversion version of Aglaitadas. Aglaitadas's argument for melancholy. Defense of the officers. General character of Xenophon's Cyropædia.
There must be a prodigious deal of laughter in you, for none ever comes out. You neither use nor expend it yourself, nor do you afford it to your friends." "Then," said Aglaitadas, "why do you attempt to draw it from me?" "It is preposterous!" said another of the company; "for one could more easily strike fire out of Aglaitadas than get a laugh from him!"
Aglaitadas could not help smiling at this comparison; upon which Cyrus, with an air of counterfeited gravity, reproved the person who had spoken, saying that he had corrupted the most sober man in the company by making him smile, and that to disturb such gravity as that of Aglaitadas was carrying the spirit of mirth and merriment altogether too far. These specimens will suffice.
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