e.
Having now ended, kiss me, Ternissa!

_Ternissa._ Impudent man! in the name of Pallas, why should I kiss
you?

_Epicurus._ Because you expressed hatred.

_Ternissa._ Do we kiss when we hate?

_Epicurus._ There is no better end of hating. The sentiment should not
exist one moment; and if the hater gives a kiss on being ordered to do
it, even to a tree or a stone, that tree or stone becomes the monument
of a fault extinct.

_Ternissa._ I promise you I never will hate a tree again.

_Epicurus._ I told you so.

_Leontion._ Nevertheless, I suspect, my Ternissa, you will often be
surprised into it. I was very near saying, 'I hate these rude square
stones!' Why did you leave them here, Epicurus?

_Epicurus._ It is true, they are the greater part square, and seem to
have been cut out in ancient times for plinths and columns; they are
also rude. Removing the smaller, that I might plant violets and
cyclamens and convolvuluses and strawberries, and such other herbs as
grow willingly in dry places, I left a few of these for seats, a few
for tables and for couches.

_Leontion._ Delectable couches!

_Epicurus._ Laugh as you may, they will become so when they are
covered with moss and ivy, and those other two sweet plants whose
names I do not remember to have found in any ancient treatise, but
which I fancy I have heard Theophrastus call 'Leontion' and
'Ternissa'.

_Ternissa._ The bold, insidious, false creature!

_Epicurus._ What is that volume, may I venture to ask, Leontion? Why
do you blush?

_Leontion._ I do not blush about it.

_Epicurus._ You are offended, then, my dear girl.

_Leontion._ No, nor offended. I will tell you presently what it
contains. Account to me first for your choice of so strange a place to
walk in: a broad ridge, the summit and one side barren, the other a
wood of rose-laurels impossible to penetrate. The worst of all is, we
can see nothing of the city or the Parthenon, unless from the very
top.

_Epicurus._ The place commands, in my opinion, a most perfect view.

_Leontion._ Of what, pray?

_Epicurus._ Of itself; seeming to indicate that we, Leontion, who
philosophize, should do the same.

_Leontion._ Go on, go on! say what you please: I will not hate
anything yet. Why have you torn up by the root all these little
mountain ash-trees? This is the season of their beauty: come,
Ternissa, let us make ourselves necklaces and armlets, such as may
captivate old Sylvanus and Pan; you