He who has gained it may be robbed of it the next moment." The last sentence had fallen from the Queen's lips slowly and thoughtfully, but Barine, remembering Archibius's tale, said modestly, "You are thinking of the chief good mentioned by Epicurus--perfect peace of mind." Cleopatra's eyes sparkled with a brighter light as she asked eagerly, "Do you, the granddaughter of a philosopher, know the system of the master ?" "Very superficially, your Majesty.

My intellect is far inferior to yours.

It is difficult for me thoroughly to comprehend all the details of any system of philosophy." "Yet you have attempted it ?" "Others endeavoured to introduce me into the doctrines of the Stoics.
I have forgotten most of what I learned; only one thing lingered in my memory, and I know why--because it pleased me." "And that ?" "Was the wise law of living according to the dictates of our own natures.

The command to shun everything contradictory to the simple fundamental traits of our own characters pleased me, and wherever I saw affectation, artificiality, and mannerism I was repelled, while from my grandfather's teaching I drew the principle that I could do nothing better than to remain, so far as life would permit, what I had been as a child ere I had heard the first word of philosophy, or felt the constraint which society and its forms impose." "So the system of the Stoics leads to this end also!" cried the Queen gaily, and, turning to the companion of her own studies, she added: "Did you hear, Charmian?
If we had only succeeded in perceiving the wisdom and calm, purposeful order of existence which the Stoics, amid so much that is perverse, unhealthy, and provocative of contradiction, nevertheless set above everything else! How can I, in order to live wisely, imitate Nature, when in her being and action I encounter so much that is contradictory to my human reason, which is a part of the divine ?" Here she hesitated, and the expression of her face suddenly changed.
She had advanced close to Barine and, while standing directly in front of her, her eyes had rested on the gem which adorned her arm above the elbow.
Was it this which agitated Cleopatra so violently that her voice lost its bewitching melody, as she went on in a harsh, angry tone?
--"So that is the source of all this misfortune.

Even as a child I detested that sort of arbitrary judgment which passes under the mask of stern morality.