16 Imaginary Conversation their apprehensions of it are founded, but certainly they sadly fear it. POLYBIUS. For us. I wish I could as easily make you smile today, O Emilianus, as I shall our good-tempered and liberal Panetius ; a philosopher, as we have experienced, less in- clined to speak ill or ludicrously of others, be the sect what it may, than any other I know or have heard of. In my early days, one of a different kind, and whose alarms at luxury were (as we discovered) subdued in some degree, in some places, was invited by Critolaus to dine with a party of us, all then young officers, on our march from Achaia into Elis. His florid and open countenance made liis company very acceptable ; and the more so, as w^e were informed by Critolaus that he never was importunate with his morality at dinner-time. Philosophers, if they deserve the name, are by no means indifferent as to the places in which it is their intention to sow the seeds of virtue. They choose the ingenuous, the modest, the sensible, the obedient. We thought rather of where we should place our table. The cistus, the pomegranate, the myrtle, the serpolet, bloomed over our heads and beside us ; for we had chosen a platform where a projecting rock, formerly a stone-quarry, shaded us^ and where a little rill, of which the spring was there, bedimmed our goblets with the purest water. The awnings we had brought with us to protect us from the sun, were unnecessary for that purpose : we rolled them therefor into two long seats, filling them with moss, which grew profusely a few paces below. When our guest ar- rives, said Critolaus, every one of these Jlowers will serve him for some moral illustration ; every shrub will be the rod of Mercury iii his hands. We were impatient for the time of his coming. Thelymnia, the beloved of Critolaus, had been instructed by him in a stratagem, to subvert, or shake at least and stagger, the philosophy of Euthymedes. Has the name escaped me ! no matter . . . perhaps he is dead . . . if living, he would smile at a recoverable lapse, as easily as we did.
