the summer insects in his agony, had wearied his flaccid arm,
hanging down beside him.

_Ternissa._ Do you imagine, then, I thought him a living man?

_Epicurus._ The sentiment was both more delicate and more august from
being indistinct. You would have done it, even if he _had_ been a
living man; even if he could have clasped you in his arms, imploring
the deities to resemble you in gentleness, you would have done it.

_Ternissa._ He looked so abandoned by all, and so heroic, yet so
feeble and so helpless! I did not think of turning around to see if
any one was near me; or else, perhaps----

_Epicurus._ If you could have thought of looking around, you would no
longer have been Ternissa. The gods would have transformed you for it
into some tree.

_Leontion._ And Epicurus had been walking under it this day, perhaps.

_Epicurus._ With Leontion, the partner of his sentiments. But the walk
would have been earlier or later than the present hour; since the
middle of the day, like the middle of certain fruits, is good for
nothing.

_Leontion._ For dinner, surely?

_Epicurus._ Dinner is a less gratification to me than to many: I dine
alone.

_Ternissa._ Why?

_Epicurus._ To avoid the noise, the heat, and the intermixture both of
odours and of occupations. I cannot bear the indecency of speaking
with a mouth in which there is food. I careen my body (since it is
always in want of repair) in as unobstructed a space as I can, and I
lie down and sleep awhile when the work is over.

_Leontion._ Epicurus! although it would be very interesting, no doubt,
to hear more of what you do after dinner--[_Aside to him._] now don't
smile: I shall never forgive you if you say a single word--yet I would
rather hear a little about the theatre, and whether you think at last
that women should frequent it; for you have often said the contrary.

_Epicurus._ I think they should visit it rarely; not because it
excites their affections, but because it deadens them. To me nothing
is so odious as to be at once among the rabble and among the heroes,
and, while I am receiving into my heart the most exquisite of human
sensations, to feel upon my shoulder the hand of some inattentive and
insensible young officer.

_Leontion._ Oh, very bad indeed! horrible!

_Ternissa._ You quite fire at the idea.

_Leontion._ Not I: I don't care about it.

_Ternissa._ Not about what is very bad indeed? quite horrible?

_Leontion._ I seldom go thither.