Imaginary Conversations and Poems Part 24

_Ternissa._ Oh, what a pleasant thing it is to walk in the green light of the vine trees, and to breathe the sweet odour of their invisible flowers!

_Epicurus._ The scent of them is so delicate that it requires a sigh to inhale it; and this, being accompanied and followed by enjoyment, renders the fragrance so exquisite. Ternissa, it is this, my sweet friend, that made you remember the green light of the foliage, and think of the invisible flowers as you would of some blessing from heaven.

_Ternissa._ I see feathers flying at certain distances just above the middle of the promontory: what can they mean?

_Epicurus._ Cannot you imagine them to be the feathers from the wings of Zethes and Calais, who came hither out of Thrace to behold the favourite haunts of their mother Oreithyia? From the precipice that hangs over the sea a few paces from the pinasters she is reported to have been carried off by Boreas; and these remains of the primeval forest have always been held sacred on that belief.

_Leontion._ The story is an idle one.

_Ternissa._ Oh no, Leontion! the story is very true.

_Leontion._ Indeed!

_Ternissa._ I have heard not only odes, but sacred and most ancient hymns upon it; and the voice of Boreas is often audible here, and the screams of Oreithyia.

_Leontion._ The feathers, then, really may belong to Calais and Zethes.

_Ternissa._ I don't believe it; the winds would have carried them away.

_Leontion._ The G.o.ds, to manifest their power, as they often do by miracles, could as easily fix a feather eternally on the most tempestuous promontory, as the mark of their feet upon the flint.

_Ternissa._ They could indeed; but we know the one to a certainty, and have no such authority for the other. I have seen these pinasters from the extremity of the Piraeus, and have heard mention of the altar raised to Boreas: where is it?

_Epicurus._ As it stands in the centre of the platform, we cannot see it from hence; there is the only piece of level ground in the place.

_Leontion._ Ternissa intends the altar to prove the truth of the story.

_Epicurus._ Ternissa is slow to admit that even the young can deceive, much less the old; the gay, much less the serious.

_Leontion._ It is as wise to moderate our belief as our desires.

_Epicurus._ Some minds require much belief, some thrive on little.

Rather an exuberance of it is feminine and beautiful. It acts differently on different hearts; it troubles some, it consoles others; in the generous it is the nurse of tenderness and kindness, of heroism and self-devotion; in the ungenerous it fosters pride, impatience of contradiction and appeal, and, like some waters, what it finds a dry stick or hollow straw, it leaves a stone.

_Ternissa._ We want it chiefly to make the way of death an easy one.

_Epicurus._ There is no easy path leading out of life, and few are the easy ones that lie within it. I would adorn and smoothen the declivity, and make my residence as commodious as its situation and dimensions may allow; but princ.i.p.ally I would cast under-foot the empty fear of death.

_Ternissa._ Oh, how can you?

_Epicurus._ By many arguments already laid down: then by thinking that some perhaps, in almost every age, have been timid and delicate as Ternissa; and yet have slept soundly, have felt no parent's or friend's tear upon their faces, no throb against their b.r.e.a.s.t.s: in short, have been in the calmest of all possible conditions, while those around were in the most deplorable and desperate.

_Ternissa._ It would pain me to die, if it were only at the idea that any one I love would grieve too much for me.

_Epicurus._ Let the loss of our friends be our only grief, and the apprehension of displeasing them our only fear.

_Leontion._ No apostrophes! no interjections! Your argument was unsound; your means futile.

_Epicurus._ Tell me, then, whether the horse of a rider on the road should not be spurred forward if he started at a shadow.

_Leontion._ Yes.

_Epicurus._ I thought so: it would, however, be better to guide him quietly up to it, and to show him that it was one. Death is less than a shadow: it represents nothing, even imperfectly.

_Leontion._ Then at the best what is it? why care about it, think about it, or remind us that it must befall us? Would you take the same trouble, when you see my hair entwined with ivy, to make me remember that, although the leaves are green and pliable, the stem is fragile and rough, and that before I go to bed I shall have many knots and entanglements to extricate? Let me have them; but let me not hear of them until the time is come.

_Epicurus._ I would never think of death as an embarra.s.sment, but as a blessing.

_Ternissa._ How? a blessing?

_Epicurus._ What, if it makes our enemies cease to hate us? what, if it makes our friends love us the more?

_Leontion._ Us? According to your doctrine we shall not exist at all.

_Epicurus._ I spoke of that which is consolatory while we are here, and of that which in plain reason ought to render us contented to stay no longer. You, Leontion, would make others better; and better they certainly will be, when their hostilities languish in an empty field, and their rancour is tired with treading upon dust. The generous affections stir about us at the dreary hour of death, as the blossoms of the Median apple swell and diffuse their fragrance in the cold.

_Ternissa._ I cannot bear to think of pa.s.sing the Styx, lest Charon should touch me; he is so old and wilful, so cross and ugly.

_Epicurus._ Ternissa! Ternissa! I would accompany you thither, and stand between. Would you not too, Leontion?

_Leontion._ I don't know.

_Ternissa._ Oh, that we could go together!

_Leontion._ Indeed!

_Ternissa._ All three, I mean--I said--or was going to say it. How ill-natured you are, Leontion, to misinterpret me; I could almost cry.

_Leontion._ Do not, do not, Ternissa! Should that tear drop from your eyelash you would look less beautiful.

_Epicurus._ If it is well to conquer a world, it is better to conquer two.

_Ternissa._ That is what Alexander of Macedon wept because he could not accomplish.

_Epicurus._ Ternissa! we three can accomplish it; or any one of us.

_Ternissa._ How? pray!

_Epicurus._ We can conquer this world and the next; for you will have another, and nothing should be refused you.

_Ternissa._ The next by piety: but this, in what manner?

_Epicurus._ By indifference to all who are indifferent to us; by taking joyfully the benefit that comes spontaneously; by wis.h.i.+ng no more intensely for what is a hair's-breadth beyond our reach than for a draught of water from the Ganges; and by fearing nothing in another life.

_Ternissa._ This, O Epicurus! is the grand impossibility.

_Epicurus._ Do you believe the G.o.ds to be as benevolent and good as you are? or do you not?

_Ternissa._ Much kinder, much better in every way.