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Imaginary Conversation, 19 SCIPIO. The dithyrambics, I do assure you, Panetius, are not of my composing. We are both in danger from the same thyrsus : we will parry it as well as we can, or bend our heads before it. PANETIUS. Come, Polybius, we must follow you then, I see, or fly you. POLYBIUS. Would you rather hear the remainder another time ? PANETIUS. By Hercules ! I have more curiosity than becomes me. POLYBIUS. No doubt, in the course of the conversation, Euthvmedes had made the discovery we hoped to obviate. Never was his philosophy more amiable or more impressive. Pleasure was treated as a friend, not as a master : many things were found innocent that had long been doubtful : excesses alone were condemned. Thelymnia was enchanted by the frank- ness and liberality of her philosopher, altho, when it was her he addressed, more purity and perhaps more rigour were dis- cernible. His delicacy was exquisite. When his eyes met hers, they did not retire with rapidity and confusion, but softly and complacently, and as tho it were the proper time and season of reposing, from the splendours they had encoun- tered. Hers from the beginning were less governable : when she found that they were so, she contrived scheme after scheme for diverting them from the table, and entertaining his unob- servedly. The higher part of the quarry, which had protected us always from the western sun, was covered with birch and hazel, the lower with innumerable shrubs, principally the arbutus and myrtle. Look at those goats above us^ said Thelymnia. What has tangled their hair so? they seem wet. They have been lyifig on the cistns i7t the plain., replied Euthymedes ; many of its broken flowers are sticking upon