_Leontion._ By very slow ones, Epicurus! I have no patience with you; tell us directly. _Epicurus._ It is very material what kind of recipient you bring with you. Enchantresses use a brazen one; silver and gold are employed in other arts. _Leontion._ I will bring any. _Ternissa._ My mother has a fine golden one. She will lend it me; she allows me everything. _Epicurus._ Leontion and Ternissa, those eyes of yours brighten at inquiry, as if they carried a light within them for a guidance. _Leontion._ No flattery! _Ternissa._ No flattery! Come, teach us! _Epicurus._ Will you hear me through in silence? _Leontion._ We promise. _Epicurus._ Sweet girls! the calm pleasures, such as I hope you will ever find in your walks among these gardens, will improve your beauty, animate your discourse, and correct the little that may hereafter rise up for correction in your dispositions. The smiling ideas left in our bosoms from our infancy, that many plants are the favourites of the gods, and that others were even the objects of their love--having once been invested with the human form, beautiful and lively and happy as yourselves--give them an interest beyond the vision; yes, and a station--let me say it--on the vestibule of our affections. Resign your ingenuous hearts to simple pleasures; and there is none in man, where men are Attic, that will not follow and outstrip their movements. _Ternissa._ O Epicurus! _Epicurus._ What said Ternissa? _Leontion._ Some of those anemones, I do think, must be still in blossom. Ternissa's golden cup is at home; but she has brought with her a little vase for the filter--and has filled it to the brim. Do not hide your head behind my shoulder, Ternissa; no, nor in my lap. _Epicurus._ Yes, there let it lie--the lovelier for that tendril of sunny brown hair upon it. How it falls and rises! Which is the hair? which the shadow? _Leontion._ Let the hair rest. _Epicurus._ I must not, perhaps, clasp the shadow! _Leontion._ You philosophers are fond of such unsubstantial things. Oh, you have taken my volume! This is deceit. You live so little in public, and entertain such a contempt for opinion, as to be both indifferent and ignorant what it is that people blame you for. _Epicurus._ I know what it is I should blame myself for, if I attended to them. Prove them to be wiser and more disinterested in their wisdom than I am, and I will then go down to them and listen to them. When I have well considered a thing, I deliver it--regardless of what those think who neither take the time nor possess the faculty of considering anything well, and who have always lived far remote from the scope of our speculations. _Leontion._ In the volume you snatched away from me so slyly, I have defended a position of yours which many philosophers turn into ridicule--namely, that politeness is among the virtues. I wish you yourself had spoken more at large upon the subject.