every one," interrupted Barine, "believes that people like the
wealthy Isidorus, whose object in life is to take every pleasure which
his wealth can procure, are the real Epicureans. My mother would not
have confided me long to a teacher by whose associates 'pleasure' was
deemed the chief good."

"The daughter of a philosopher," replied Archibius, gently shaking his
head, "ought to understand what pleasure means in the sense of Epicurus,
and no doubt you do. True, those who are further removed from these
things cannot know that the master forbids yearning for individual
pleasure. Have you an idea of his teachings? No definite one? Then
permit me a few words of explanation. It happens only too often that
Epicurus is confounded with Aristippus, who places sensual pleasure
above intellectual enjoyment, as he holds that bodily pain is harder
to endure than mental anguish. Epicurus, on the contrary, considers
intellectual pleasure to be the higher one; for sensual enjoyment, which
he believes free to every one, can be experienced only in the present,
while intellectual delight extends to both the past and the future. To
the Epicureans the goal of life, as has already been mentioned, is to
attain the chief blessings, peace of mind, and freedom from pain. He is
to practise virtue only because it brings him pleasure; for who could
remain virtuous without being wise, noble, and just?--and whoever is all
these cannot have his peace of mind disturbed, and must be really happy
in the exact meaning of the master. I perceived long since the peril
lurking in this system of instruction, which takes no account of moral
excellence; but at that time it seemed to me also the chief good.

"How all this charmed the mind of the thoughtful child, still untouched
by passion! It was difficult to supply her wonderfully vigorous
intellect with sufficient sustenance, and she really felt that to enrich
it was the highest pleasure. And to her, who could scarcely endure
to have a rude hand touch her, though a small grief or trivial
disappointment could not be averted, the freedom from pain which the
master had named as the first condition for the existence of every
pleasure, and termed the chief good, seemed indeed the first condition
of a happy life.

"Yet this child, whom my father once compared to a thinking flower, bore
without complaint her sad destiny--her father's banishment, her mother's
death, her sister Berenike's profligacy. Even to me, i