f they existed in sufficient numbers,
would devastate the universe. We alone, we Athenians, with less
military skill perhaps, and certainly less rigid abstinence from
voluptuousness and luxury, have set before it the only grand example
of social government and of polished life. From us the seed is
scattered; from us flow the streams that irrigate it; and ours are the
hands, O Leontion, that collect it, cleanse it, deposit it, and convey
and distribute it sound and weighty through every race and age.
Exhausted as we are by war, we can do nothing better than lie down and
doze while the weather is fine overhead, and dream (if we can) that we
are affluent and free.

O sweet sea air! how bland art thou and refreshing! Breathe upon
Leontion! breathe upon Ternissa! bring them health and spirits and
serenity, many springs and many summers, and when the vine-leaves have
reddened and rustle under their feet!

These, my beloved girls, are the children of Eternity: they played
around Theseus and the beauteous Amazon; they gave to Pallas the bloom
of Venus, and to Venus the animation of Pallas. Is it not better to
enjoy by the hour their soft, salubrious influence, than to catch by
fits the rancid breath of demagogues; than to swell and move under it
without or against our will; than to acquire the semblance of
eloquence by the bitterness of passion, the tone of philosophy by
disappointment, or the credit of prudence by distrust? Can fortune,
can industry, can desert itself, bestow on us anything we have not
here?

_Leontion._ And when shall those three meet? The gods have never
united them, knowing that men would put them asunder at the first
appearance.

_Epicurus._ I am glad to leave the city as often as possible, full as
it is of high and glorious reminiscences, and am inclined much rather
to indulge in quieter scenes, whither the Graces and Friendship lead
me. I would not contend even with men able to contend with me. You,
Leontion, I see, think differently, and have composed at last your
long-meditated work against the philosophy of Theophrastus.

_Leontion._ Why not? he has been praised above his merits.

_Epicurus._ My Leontion! you have inadvertently given me the reason
and origin of all controversial writings. They flow not from a love of
truth or a regard for science, but from envy and ill-will. Setting
aside the evil of malignity--always hurtful to ourselves, not always
to others--there is weakness in the argumen