“The following morning my father saw several country people assembled before the secluded garden; but he did not have time to inquire what they wanted; for Timagenes, who shared the instruction in history—­you know he was afterwards taken to Rome as a prisoner of war—­rushed up to him, holding out a tablet which bore the inscription Epicurus had written on the gate of his garden:  ’Stranger, here you will be happy; here is the chief good, pleasure.’

“Cleopatra had written this notice in large letters on the top of a small table before sunrise, and a slave had secretly fastened it on the gate for her.

“This prank might have easily proved fatal to our beautiful companionship, but it had been done merely to make our game exactly like the model.

“My father did not forbid our continuing this pastime, but strictly prohibited our calling ourselves ‘Epicureans’ outside of the garden, for this noble name had since gained among the people a significance wholly alien.  Epicurus says that true pleasure is to be found only in peace of mind and absence of pain.”

“But 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.