of the life to which I intended to rise; in reality, fell. We collected
within the limits of this bit of earth everything which can delight the
senses; not a single one is omitted in this narrow space, whose crowded
maze of pleasures fairly impede freedom of movement. Yet in your home,
and guided by your wise father, I had learned to be content with so
little, and commenced the struggle to attain peace. That painless peace
--our chief good--whence came it? Through me it was lost to you both
But the children--I made them begin their lives in an arena of every
disturbing influence; and now I see how their own healthy natures yearn
to escape from the dazzling wealth of colour, the stupefying fragrance,
the bewildering songs and twittering. They long to return to the
untilled earth, where the life of struggling mortals began.

"The boy casts away the baubles, to test his own creative powers. The
girl follows his example, and clings fast only to the doll in which she
sees the living child, in order to do justice to the maternal instinct,
the token of her sex. But what they so eagerly desire is right, and
shall be granted. When I was ten years old, like the twins, my life and
efforts were already directed towards one fixed goal. They are still
blindly following the objects set before them. Let them return to the
place whence their mother started, where she received everything good
which is still hers. They shall go to the garden of Epicurus, no matter
whether it is the old one in Kanopus or elsewhere. All that their mother
beheld in vivid dreams, which she often strove with wanton extravagance
to realize, has surrounded them from their birth and early satiated them.
When they enter life, they will scorn what merely stirs and dazzles the
senses, and cling to the aspiration for painless peace of mind, if a wise
guide directs them and protects them from the dangers which the teachings
of Epicurus contain for youth. I have found this guide, and you, too,
will trust him--I mean your brother Archibius."