Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection
_Epicurus._ I am certain you have done it with spirit and eloquence,
dear Leontion; and there are but two words in it I would wish you to
erase.
_Leontion._ Which are they?
_Epicurus._ Theophrastus and Epicurus. If you love me, you will do
nothing that may make you uneasy when you grow older; nothing that may
allow my adversary to say, 'Leontion soon forgot her Epicurus.' My
maxim is, never to defend my systems or paradoxes; if you undertake
it, the Athenians will insist that I impelled you secretly, or that my
philosophy and my friendship were ineffectual on you.
_Leontion._ They shall never say that.
_Epicurus._ I am not unmoved by the kindness of your intentions. Most
people, and philosophers, too, among the rest, when their own conduct
or opinions are questioned, are admirably prompt and dexterous in the
science of defence; but when another's are assailed, they parry with
as ill a grace and faltering a hand as if they never had taken a
lesson in it at home. Seldom will they see what they profess to look
for; and, finding it, they pick up with it a thorn under the nail.
They canter over the solid turf, and complain that there is no corn
upon it; they canter over the corn, and curse the ridges and furrows.
All schools of philosophy, and almost all authors, are rather to be
frequented for exercise than for freight; but this exercise ought to
acquire us health and strength, spirits and good-humour. There is none
of them that does not supply some truth useful to every man, and some
untruth equally so to the few that are able to wrestle with it. If
there were no falsehood in the world, there would be no doubt; if
there were no doubt, there would be no inquiry; if no inquiry, no
wisdom, no knowledge, no genius: and Fancy herself would lie muffled
up in her robe, inactive, pale, and bloated. I wish we could
demonstrate the existence of utility in some other evils as easily as
in this.
_Leontion._ My remarks on the conduct and on the style of Theophrastus
are not confined to him solely. I have taken at last a general view of
our literature, and traced as far as I am able its deviation and
decline. In ancient works we sometimes see the mark of the chisel; in
modern we might almost suppose that no chisel was employed at all, and
that everything was done by grinding and rubbing. There is an
ordinariness, an indistinctness, a generalization, not even to be
found in a flock of sheep. As most reduce what is sand into dust, the
few that avoid it run to a contrary extreme, and would force us to
believe that what is original must be unpolished and uncouth.
_Epicurus._ There have been in all ages, and in all there will be,
sharp and slender heads made purposely and peculiarly for creeping
into the crevices of our nature. While we contemplate the magnificence
of the universe, and mensurate the fitness and adaptation of one part
to another, the small philosopher hangs upon a hair or creeps within a
wrinkle, and cries out shrilly from his elevation that we are blind
and superficial. He discovers a wart, he pries into a pore; and he
calls it knowledge of man. Poetry and criticism, and all the fine
arts, have generated such living things, which not only will be
co-existent with them but will (I fear) survive them. Hence history
takes alternately the form of reproval and of panegyric; and science
in its pulverized state, in its shapeless and colourless atoms,
assumes the name of metaphysics. We find no longer the rich succulence
of Herodotus, no longer the strong filament of Thucydides, but
thoughts fit only for the slave, and language for the rustic and the
robber. These writings can never reach posterity, nor serve better
authors near us; for who would receive as documents the perversions of
venality and party? Alexander we know was intemperate, and Philip both
intemperate and perfidious: we require not a volume of dissertation on
the thread of history, to demonstrate that one or other left a
tailor's bill unpaid, and the immorality of doing so; nor a supplement
to ascertain on the best authorities which of the two it was. History
should explain to us how nations rose and fell, what nurtured them in
their growth, what sustained them in their maturity; not which orator
ran swiftest through the crowd from the right hand to the left, which
assassin was too strong for manacles, or which felon too opulent for
crucifixion.
_Leontion._ It is better, I own it, that such writers should amuse our
idleness than excite our spleen.
_Ternissa._ What is spleen?
_Epicurus._ Do not ask her; she cannot tell you. The spleen, Ternissa,
is to the heart what Arimanes is to Oromazes.
_Ternissa._ I am little the wiser yet. Does he ever use such hard
words with you?
_Leontion._ He means the evil Genius and the good Genius, in the
theogony of the Persians: and would perhaps tell you, as he hath told
me, that the heart in itself is free from evil, but very capable of
receiving and too tenacious of holding it.
_Epicurus._ In our moral system, the spleen hangs about the heart and
renders it sad and sorrowful, unless we continually keep it in
exercise by kind offices, or in its proper place by serious
investigation and solitary questionings. Otherwise, it is apt to
adhere and to accumulate, until it deadens the principles of sound
action, and obscures the sight.
_Ternissa._ It must make us very ugly when we grow old.
_Leontion._ In youth it makes us uglier, as not appertaining to it: a
little more or less ugliness in decrepitude is hardly worth
considering, there being quite enough of it from other quarters: I
would stop it here, however.
_Ternissa._ Oh, what a thing is age!
_Leontion._ Death without death's quiet.
_Ternissa._ Leontion said that even bad writers may amuse our idle
hours: alas! even good ones do not much amuse mine, unless they record
an action of love or generosity. As for the graver, why cannot they
come among us and teach us, just as you do?
_Epicurus._ Would you wish it?
_Ternissa._ No, no! I do not want them: only I was imagining how
pleasant it is to converse as we are doing, and how sorry I should be
to pore over a book instead of it. Books always make me sigh, and
think about other things. Why do you laugh, Leontion?
_Epicurus._ She was mistaken in saying bad authors may amuse our
idleness. Leontion knows not then how sweet and sacred idleness is.
_Leontion._ To render it sweet and sacred, the heart must have a
little garden of its own, with its umbrage and fountains and
perennial flowers--a careless company! Sleep is called sacred as well
as sweet by Homer; and idleness is but a step from it. The idleness of
the wise and virtuous should be both, it being the repose and
refreshment necessary for past exertions and for future; it punishes
the bad man, it rewards the good; the deities enjoy it, and Epicurus
praises it. I was indeed wrong in my remark; for we should never seek
amusement in the foibles of another, never in coarse language, never
in low thoughts. When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it
grows corrupt and grovelling, and seeks in the crowd what ought to be
found at home.
_Epicurus._ Aspasia believed so, and bequeathed to Leontion, with
every other gift that Nature had bestowed upon her, the power of
delivering her oracles from diviner lips.
_Leontion._ Fie! Epicurus! It is well you hide my face for me with
your hand. Now take it away; we cannot walk in this manner.
_Epicurus._ No word could ever fall from you without its weight; no
breath from you ought to lose itself in the common air.
_Leontion._ For shame! What would you have?
_Ternissa._ He knows not what he would have nor what he would say. I
must sit down again. I declare I scarcely understand a single
syllable. Well, he is very good, to tease you no longer. Epicurus has
an excellent heart; he would give pain to no one; least of all to you.
_Leontion,_ I have pained him by this foolish book, and he would only
assure me that he does not for a moment bear me malice. Take the
volume; take it, Epicurus! tear it in pieces.
_Epicurus._ No, Leontion! I shall often look with pleasure on this
trophy of brave humanity; let me kiss the hand that raises it!
_Ternissa._ I am tired of sitting: I am quite stiff: when shall we
walk homeward?
_Epicurus._ Take my arm, Ternissa!
_Ternissa._ Oh! I had forgotten that I proposed to myself a trip as
far up as the pinasters, to look at the precipice of Oreithyia. Come
along! come along! how alert does the sea air make us! I seem to feel
growing at my feet and shoulders the wings of Zethes or Calaeis.
_Epicurus._ Leontion walks the nimblest to-day.
_Ternissa._ To display her activity and strength, she runs before us.
Sweet Leontion, how good she is! but she should have stayed for us: it
would be in vain to try to overtake her.
No, Epicurus! Mind! take care! you are crushing these little
oleanders--and now the strawberry plants--the whole heap. Not I,
indeed. What would my mother say, if she knew it? And Leontion! she
will certainly look back.
_Epicurus._ The fairest of the Eudaimones never look back: such are
the Hours and Love, Opportunity and Leontion.
_Ternissa._ How could you dare to treat me in this manner? I did not
say again I hated anything.
_Epicurus._ Forgive me!
_Ternissa._ Violent creature!
_Epicurus._ If tenderness is violence. Forgive me; and say you love
me.
_Ternissa._ All at once? could you endure such boldness?
_Epicurus._ Pronounce it! whisper it.
_Ternissa._ Go, go. Would it be proper?
_Epicurus._ Is that sweet voice asking its heart or me? let the
worthier give the answer.
_Ternissa._ O Epicurus! you are very, very dear to me; and are the
last in the world that would ever tell you were called so.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] The Attic month of Puanepsion had its commencement in the latter
days of October; its name is derived from +puana+, the legumes
which were offered in sacrifice to Apollo at that season.
[8] The thirteenth of Elaphebolion was the tenth of April.
DANTE AND BEATRICE
_Dante._ When you saw me profoundly pierced with love, and reddening
and trembling, did it become you, did it become you, you whom I have
always called _the most gentle Bice_, to join in the heartless
laughter of those girls around you? Answer me. Reply unhesitatingly.
Requires it so long a space for dissimulation and duplicity? Pardon!
pardon! pardon! My senses have left me; my heart being gone, they
follow.
_Beatrice._ Childish man! pursuing the impossible.
_Dante._ And was it this you laughed at? We cannot touch the hem of
God's garment; yet we fall at His feet and weep.
_Beatrice._ But weep not, gentle Dante! fall not before the weakest of
His creatures, willing to comfort, unable to relieve you. Consider a
little. Is laughter at all times the signal or the precursor of
derision? I smiled, let me avow it, from the pride I felt in your
preference of me; and if I laughed, it was to conceal my sentiments.
Did you never cover sweet fruit with worthless leaves? Come, do not
drop again so soon so faint a smile. I will not have you grave, nor
very serious. I pity you; I must not love you: if I might, I would.
_Dante._ Yet how much love is due to me, O Bice, who have loved you,
as you well remember, even from your tenth year. But it is reported,
and your words confirm it, that you are going to be married.
_Beatrice._ If so, and if I could have laughed at that, and if my
laughter could have estranged you from me, would you blame me?
_Dante._ Tell me the truth.
_Beatrice._ The report is general.
_Dante._ The truth! the truth! Tell me, Bice.
_Beatrice._ Marriages, it is said, are made in heaven.
_Dante._ Is heaven then under the paternal roof?
_Beatrice._ It has been to me hitherto.