[25] The best course, therefore, that I can take under all these conditions is to set before you what I think about the last attempts[31] to arouse prejudice against me and then proceed to speak on the subject which I had in mind from the first. For I think that if I succeed by my writing in bringing out and making clear what my views are about education and about the poets, I shall stop my enemies from fabricating false charges and speaking utterly at random.