"I am grieved that you are unable to value the blessing offered you. Consider the glorious life we shall enjoy, when together with our bodies we shall have laid aside our infirmities. We shall undoubtedly soon become the two wisest persons upon earth, we shall attain to contemplations hitherto beyond the reach of mortal reason, and shall every day make fresh discoveries in nature."
"One of us is sufficient for all this: you can make discoveries while I stay in my body, and then you can tell me what you have found."
"And do you imagine that you, a composition of dust, will be able to comprehend the conceptions of a pure spirit?"
"I must be content, then, with as many of them as are suitable to my capacity."
Aristus was greatly mortified by this obstinacy of his wife; and being determined to enforce his advice, he turned towards her, as he imagined, with a look not to be disputed, but suddenly remembered that he had no longer a face to be stern with, and that this invisible anger could have but little efficacy. Finding, therefore, that his wife began already to have less veneration for him, now that he was out of sight, he became more than ever desirous of obtaining the resignation of her body, and continued to remonstrate against her perverseness. She persisted, however, in refusing the release that he offered, and also reproached him with his folly, lamenting her loss very bitterly, and declaring that nothing could reconcile her to the change of his character.
Aristus endeavoured to prove to her that his efficacy was not at all diminished, the mind constituting a rational creature, and the body being an insignificant addition. While he was thus labouring to vindicate himself, a friend of his, named Polemo, entered the room, and inquired whether Aristus was at home.
"Oh, Polemo!" exclaimed Cleopatra, weeping vehemently, "you are come to receive sad intelligence of your friend: you will never see him again."
Polemo, supposing him to be dead, expressed the greatest sorrow, and asked what disease or accident had caused this unexpected calamity.
"Aristus can best relate his misfortune to you himself," answered Cleopatra; "for I scarcely understand what has happened to him."