THE WORKS OF
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 FREDERIC THOMAS BLANCHARD 
 
 FOR THE 
 ENGLISH READING ROOM
 
 "The prettiest hands in Alexandria seized 
 on Orestes." 
 
 "Hypatia," 
 Vol. //, /. /7
 
 THE BIDEFORD EDITION 
 
 NOVELS, POEMS &" LETTERS 
 OF CHARLES KINGSLEY 
 
 HYPATIA 
 
 VOLUME I 
 BY CHARLES [KINGSLEY 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 THE CO-OPERATIVE 
 PUBLICATION SOCIETY
 
 Copyright, 1899 
 BY J. F. TAYLOR & COMPANY 
 
 Hypatl*. 
 Volume I
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 PREFACE zi 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. THE LAURA ". i 
 
 II. THE DYING WORLD 18 
 
 III. THE GOTHS 43 
 
 IV. MIRIAM 61 
 
 V. A DAY IN ALEXANDRIA 79 
 
 VI. THE NEW DIOGENES 112 
 
 VII. THOSE BY WHOM OFFENCES COMB 125 
 
 VIII. THE EAST WIND 147 
 
 IX. THE SNAPPING OF THE Bow 169 
 
 X. THE INTERVIEW 182 
 
 XI. THE LAURA AGAIN 199 
 
 XII. THE BOWER OF ACRASIA 214 
 
 XIII. THE BOTTOM OF THE ABYSS 229 
 
 XIV. THE ROCKS OF THE SIRENS 261 
 
 XV. NEPHELOCOCCUGUIA 271 
 
 XVI. VENUS AND PALLAS 285 
 
 A Vol. VI
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 TO MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER 
 
 MY DEAR PARENTS: 
 
 WHEN you shall have read this book, and considered 
 the view of human relationships which is set forth in it, you 
 will be at no loss to discover why I have dedicated it to you, 
 as one paltry witness of an union and of a debt which, 
 though they may seem to have begun with birth, and to 
 have grown with your most loving education, yet cannot 
 die with death : but are spiritual, indefeasible, eternal in the 
 heavens with that God from whom every fatherhood in 
 heaven and earth is named. 
 
 C Kc
 
 PREFACE 
 
 \ PICTURE of life in the fifth century must 
 XJL needs contain much which will be painful 
 to any reader, and which the young and innocent 
 will do well to leave altogether unread. It has to 
 represent a very hideous, though a very great, 
 age ; one of those critical and cardinal eras in the 
 history of the human race in which virtues and 
 vices manifest themselves side by side even, at 
 times, in the same person with the most startling 
 openness and power. One who writes of such 
 an era labors under a troublesome disadvantage. 
 He dare not tell how evil people were ; he will not 
 be believed if he tells how good they were. In 
 the present case that disadvantage is doubled ; for 
 while the sins of the Church, however heinous, 
 were still such as admit of being expressed in 
 words, the sins of the heathen world, against which 
 she fought, were utterly indescribable; and the 
 Christian apologist is thus compelled, for the sake 
 of decency, to state the Church's case far more 
 weakly than the facts deserve. 
 
 Not, be it ever remembered, that the slightest 
 suspicion of immorality attaches either to the 
 heroine of this book, or to the leading philosophers 
 of her school, for several centuries. Howsoever 
 base and profligate their disciples, or the Mani-
 
 xii Preface 
 
 chees, may have been, the great Neo-PIatonists 
 were, as Manes himself was, persons of the most 
 rigid and ascetic virtue. 
 
 For a time had arrived in which no teacher who 
 did not put forth the most lofty pretensions to 
 righteousness could expect a hearing. That Divine 
 Word, who is " The Light who lighteth every man 
 which cometh into the world," had awakened in 
 the heart of mankind a moral craving never be- 
 fore felt in any strength, except by a few isolated 
 philosophers or prophets. The Spirit had been 
 poured out on all flesh ; and from one end of the 
 Empire to the other, from the slave in the mill to 
 the emperor on his throne, all hearts were either 
 hungering and thirsting after righteousness, or 
 learning to do homage to those who did so. And 
 He who excited the craving, was also furnishing 
 that which would satisfy it ; and was teaching man- 
 kind, by a long and painful education, to distin- 
 guish the truth from its innumerable counterfeits, 
 and to find, for the first time in the world's life, a 
 good news not merely for the select few, but for all 
 mankind without respect of rank or race. 
 
 For somewhat more than four hundred years, 
 the Roman Empire and the Christian Church, born 
 into the world almost at the same moment, had 
 been developing themselves side by side as two 
 great rival powers, in deadly struggle for the pos- 
 session of the human race. The weapons of the 
 Empire had been not merely an overwhelming 
 physical force, and a ruthless lust of aggressive
 
 Preface xiii 
 
 conquest: but, even more powerful still, an un- 
 equalled genius for organization, and a uniform 
 system of external law and order. This was gen- 
 erally a real boon to conquered nations, because it 
 substituted a fixed and regular spoliation for the 
 fortuitous and arbitrary miseries of savage warfare : 
 but it arrayed, meanwhile, on the side of the Em- 
 pire the wealthier citizens of every province, by 
 allowing them their share in the plunder of the 
 laboring masses below them. These, in the coun- 
 try districts, were utterly enslaved ; while in the 
 cities, nominal freedom was of little use to masses 
 kept from starvation by the alms of the govern- 
 ment, and drugged into brutish good-humor by a 
 vast system of public spectacles, in which the realms 
 of nature and of art were ransacked to glut the 
 wonder, lust, and ferocity of a degraded populace. 
 
 Against this vast organization the Church had 
 been fighting for now four hundred years, armed 
 only with its own mighty and all-embracing mes- 
 sage, and with the manifestation of a spirit of 
 purity and virtue, of love and self-sacrifice, which 
 had proved itself mightier to melt and weld 
 together the hearts of men, than all the force and 
 terror, all the mechanical organization, all the 
 sensual baits with which the Empire had been 
 contending against that Gospel in which it had 
 recognized instinctively and at first sight, its inter- 
 necine foe. 
 
 And now the Church had conquered. The weak 
 things of this world had confounded the strong.
 
 xiv Preface 
 
 In spite of the devilish cruelties of persecutors; 
 in spite of the contaminating atmosphere of sin 
 which surrounded her ; in spite of having to form 
 herself, not out of a race of pure and separate 
 creatures, but by a most literal " new birth " out 
 of those very fallen masses who insulted and per- 
 secuted her ; in spite of having to endure within 
 herself continual outbursts of the evil passions in 
 which her members had once indulged without 
 check ; in spite of a thousand counterfeits which 
 sprang up around her and within her, claiming to 
 be parts of her, and alluring men to themselves by 
 that very exclusiveness and party arrogance which 
 disproved their claim; in spite of all, she had 
 conquered. The very emperors had arrayed them- 
 selves on her side. Julian's last attempt to restore 
 paganism by imperial influence had only proved 
 that the old faith had lost all hold upon the hearts 
 of the masses ; at his death the great tide-wave of 
 new opinion rolled on unchecked, and the rulers 
 of earth were fain to swim with the stream; to 
 accept, in words at least, the Church's laws as 
 theirs ; to acknowledge a King of kings to whom 
 even they owed homage and obedience; and to 
 call their own slaves their " poorer brethren," and 
 often, too, their " spiritual superiors." 
 
 But if the emperors had become Christian, the 
 Empire had not. Here and there an abuse was 
 lopped off ; or an edict was passed for the visitation 
 of prisons and for the welfare of prisoners ; or a 
 Theodosius was recalled to justice and humanity
 
 Preface xv 
 
 for a while by the stern rebukes of an Ambrose. 
 But the Empire was still the same : still a great 
 tyranny, enslaving the masses, crushing national 
 life, fattening itself and its officials on a system of 
 world-wide robbery ; and while it was paramount, 
 there could be no hope for the human race. Nay, 
 there were even those among the Christians who 
 saw, like Dante afterwards, in the " fatal gift of 
 Constantine," and the truce between the Church 
 and the Empire, fresh and more deadly danger. 
 Was not the Empire trying to extend over the 
 Church itself that upas shadow with which it had 
 withered up every other form of human existence ; 
 to make her, too, its stipendiary slave-official, to be 
 pampered when obedient, and scourged whenever 
 she dare assert a free will of her own, a law beyond 
 that of her tyrants ; to throw on her, by a refined 
 hypocrisy, the care and support of the masses on 
 whose life-blood it was feeding? So thought many 
 then, and, as I believe, not unwisely. 
 
 But if the social condition of the civilized world 
 was anomalous at the beginning of the fifth cen- 
 tury, its spiritual state was still more so. The uni- 
 versal fusion of races, languages, and customs, 
 which had gone on for four centuries under the 
 Roman rule, had produced a corresponding fusion 
 of creeds, an universal fermentation of human 
 thought and faith. All honest belief in the old 
 local superstitions of paganism had been long dying 
 out before the more palpable and material idolatry 
 of Empetor-worship ; and the gods of the nations,
 
 xvi Preface 
 
 unable to deliver those who had trusted in them, 
 became one by one the vassals of the " Divus 
 Caesar," neglected by the philosophic rich, and only 
 worshipped by the lower classes, where the old 
 rites still pandered to their grosser appetites, or 
 subserved the wealth and importance of some 
 particular locality. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the minds of men, cut adrift 
 from their ancient moorings, wandered wildly over 
 pathless seas of speculative doubt, and especially 
 in the more metaphysical and contemplative East, 
 attempted to solve for themselves the questions of 
 man's relation to the unseen by those thousand 
 schisms, heresies, and theosophies (it is a disgrace 
 to the word philosophy to call them by it), on the 
 records of which the student now gazes bewildered, 
 unable alike to count or to explain their fantasies. 
 
 Yet even these, like every outburst of free hu- 
 man thought, had their use and their fruit They 
 brought before the minds of churchmen a thousand 
 new questions which must be solved, unless the 
 Church was to relinquish for ever her claims as the 
 great teacher and satisfier of the human soul. To 
 study these bubbles, as they formed and burst on 
 every wave of human life ; to feel, too often by sad 
 experience, as Augustine felt, the charm of their 
 allurements; to divide the truths at which they 
 aimed from the falsehood which they offered as its 
 substitute ; to exhibit the Catholic Church as pos- 
 sessing, in the great facts which she proclaimed, full 
 satisfaction, even for the most subtle metaphysical
 
 Preface xvii 
 
 cravings of a diseased age ; that was the work of 
 the time ; and men were sent to do it, and aided in 
 their labor by the very causes which had produced 
 the intellectual revolution. The general inter- 
 mixture of ideas, creeds, and races, even the mere 
 physical facilities for intercourse between different 
 parts of the Empire, helped to give the great 
 Christian fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries a 
 breadth of observation, a depth of thought, a large- 
 hearted and large-minded patience and tolerance, 
 such as, we may say boldly, the Church has since 
 beheld but rarely, and the world never ; at least, 
 if we are to judge those great men by what they 
 had, and not by what they had not, and to believe, 
 as we are bound, that had they lived now, and not 
 then, they would have towered as far above the 
 heads of this generation as they did above the 
 heads of their own. And thus an age, which, to 
 the shallow insight of a sneerer like Gibbon, seems 
 only a rotting and aimless chaos of sensuality and 
 anarchy, fanaticism and hypocrisy, produced a 
 Clement and an Athanase, a Chrysostom and an 
 Augustine ; absorbed into the sphere of Christian- 
 ity all which was most valuable in the philosophies 
 of Greece and Egypt, and in the social organization 
 of Rome, as an heirloom for nations yet unborn ; 
 and laid in foreign lands, by unconscious agents, 
 the foundations of all European thought and 
 ethics. 
 
 But the health of a Church depends, not merely 
 on the creed which it professes, not even on the
 
 xviii Preface 
 
 wisdom and holiness of a few great ecclesiastics, 
 but on the faith and virtue of its individual mem- 
 bers. The mens sana must have a corpus sanum 
 to inhabit And even for the Western Church, the 
 lofty future which was in store for it would have 
 been impossible, without some infusion of new and 
 healthier blood into the veins of a world drained 
 and tainted by the influence of Rome. 
 
 And the new blood, at the era of this story, was 
 at hand. The great tide of those Gothic nations, 
 of which the Norwegian and the German are the 
 purest remaining types, though every nation of 
 Europe, from Gibraltar to St. Petersburg, owes to 
 them the most precious elements of strength, was 
 sweeping onward, wave over wave, in a steady 
 southwestern current, across the whole Roman ter- 
 ritory, and only stopping and recoiling when it 
 reached the shores of the Mediterranean. Those 
 wild tribes were bringing with them into the magic 
 circle of the Western Church's influence the very 
 materials which she required for the building up 
 of a future Christendom, and which she could find 
 as little in the Western Empire, as in the Eastern ; 
 comparative purity of morals ; sacred respect for 
 women, for family life, law, equal justice, individual 
 freedom, and, above all, for honesty in word and 
 deed ; bodies untainted by hereditary effeminacy, 
 hearts earnest though genial, and blest with a 
 strange willingness to learn, even from those whom 
 they despised ; a brain equal to that of the Roman 
 in practical power, and not too far behind that
 
 Preface xix 
 
 of the Eastern in imaginative and speculative 
 acuteness. 
 
 And their strength was felt at once. Their van- 
 guard, confined with difficulty for three centuries 
 beyond the Eastern Alps, at the expense of san- 
 guinary wars, had been adopted, wherever it was 
 practicable, into the service of the Empire; and 
 the heart's core of the Roman legion was com- 
 posed of Gothic officers and soldiers. But now 
 the main body had arrived. Tribe after tribe was 
 crowding down to the Alps, and trampling upon 
 each other on the frontiers of the Empire. The 
 Huns, singly their inferiors, pressed them from 
 behind with the irresistible weight of numbers; 
 Italy, with her rich cities and fertile lowlands, 
 beckoned them on to plunder; as auxiliaries, they 
 had learned their own strength and Roman weak- 
 ness ; a casus belli was soon found. How iniqui- 
 tous was the conduct of the sons of Theodosius, in 
 refusing the usual bounty, by which the Goths were 
 bribed not to attack the Empire! The whole 
 pent-up deluge burst over the plains of Italy, and 
 the Western Empire became from that day forth a 
 dying idiot, while the new invaders divided Europe 
 among themselves. The fifteen years before the 
 time of this tale had decided the fate of Greece ; 
 the last four that of Rome itself. The countless 
 treasures which five centuries of rapine had ac- 
 cumulated round the Capitol had become the prey 
 of men clothed in sheepskins and horsehide ; and 
 the sister of an emperor had found her beauty.
 
 xx Preface 
 
 virtue, and pride of race, worthily matched by 
 those of the hard-handed Northern hero who led 
 her away from Italy as his captive and his bride, to 
 found new kingdoms in South France and Spain, 
 and to drive the newly-arrived Vandals across the 
 Straits of Gibraltar into the then blooming coast- 
 land of Northern Africa. Everywhere the man- 
 gled limbs of the Old World were seething in the 
 Medea's caldron, to come forth whole, and young, 
 and strong. The Longbeards, noblest of their 
 race, had found a temporary resting-place upon 
 the Austrian frontier, after long southward wander- 
 ings from the Swedish mountains, soon to be 
 dispossessed again by the advancing Huns, and, 
 crossing the Alps, to give their name for ever to 
 the plains of Lombardy. A few more tumultuous 
 years, and the Franks would find themselves lords 
 of the Lower Rhineland ; and before the hairs of 
 Hypatia's scholars had grown gray, the mythic 
 Hengst and Horsa would have landed on the 
 shores of Kent, and an English nation have begun 
 its world-wide life. 
 
 But some great Providence forbade to our race, 
 triumphant in every other quarter, a footing be- 
 yond the Mediterranean, or even in Constantinople, 
 which to this day preserves in Europe the faith 
 and manners of Asia. The Eastern World seemed 
 barred, by some stern doom, from the only influence 
 which could have regenerated it. Every attempt 
 of the Gothic races to establish themselves beyond 
 the sea, whether in the form of an organized king-
 
 Preface xxi 
 
 dom, as the Vandals attempted in Africa ; or of a 
 mere band of brigands, as did the Goths in Asia 
 Minor under Gainas ; or of a praetorian guard, as 
 did the Varangens of the middle age ; or as reli- 
 gious invaders, as did the Crusaders, ended only in 
 the corruption and disappearance of the colonists. 
 That extraordinary reform in morals, which, ac- 
 cording to Salvian and his contemporaries, the 
 Vandal conquerors worked in North Africa, availed 
 them nothing; they lost more than they gave. 
 Climate, bad example, and the luxury of power 
 degraded them in one century into a race of help- 
 less and debauched slaveholders, doomed to utter 
 extermination before the semi-Gothic armies of 
 Belisarius ; and with them vanished the last chance 
 that the Gothic races would exercise on the East- 
 ern World the same stern yet wholesome discipline 
 under which the Western had been restored to life. 
 The Egyptian and Syrian Churches, therefore, 
 were destined to labor not for themselves, but 
 for us. The signs of disease and decrepitude were 
 already but too manifest in them. That very pecu- 
 liar turn of the Graeco-Eastern mind, which made 
 them the great thinkers of the then world, had 
 the effect of drawing them away from practice to 
 speculation; and the races of Egypt and Syria 
 were effeminate, over-civilized, exhausted by cen- 
 turies during which no infusion of fresh blood had 
 come to renew the stock. Morbid, self-conscious, 
 physically indolent, incapable then, as now, of per- 
 sonal or political freedom, they afforded material
 
 xxii Preface 
 
 out of which fanatics might easily be made, but 
 not citizens of the kingdom of God. The very 
 ideas of family and national life those two divine 
 roots of the Church, severed from which she is 
 certain to wither away into that most godless and 
 most cruel of spectres, a religious world had 
 perished in the East from the evil influence of the 
 universal practice of slaveholding, as well as from 
 the degradation of that Jewish nation which had 
 been for ages the great witness for those ideas; 
 and all classes, like their forefather Adam like, 
 indeed, "the old Adam" in every man and in every 
 age were shifting the blame of sin from their 
 own consciences to human relationships and duties 
 and therein, to the God who had appointed them ; 
 and saying as of old, " The woman whom thou 
 gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and 
 I did eat." The passionate Eastern character, like 
 all weak ones, found total abstinence easier than 
 temperance, religious thought more pleasant than 
 godly action ; and a monastic world grew up all 
 over the East, of such vastness that in Egypt it was 
 said to rival in numbers the lay population, pro- 
 ducing, with an enormous decrease in the actual 
 amount of moral evil, an equally great enervation 
 and decrease of the population. Such a people 
 could offer no resistance to the steadily-increasing 
 tyranny of the Eastern Empire. In vain did such 
 men as Chrysostom and Basil oppose their per- 
 sonal influence to the hideous intrigues and vil- 
 lanies of the Byzantine court; the ever-downward
 
 Preface 
 
 XXlll 
 
 career of Eastern Christianity went on unchecked 
 for two more miserable centuries, side by side with 
 the upward development of the Western Church ; 
 and, while the successors of the great Saint Greg- 
 ory were converting and civilizing a new-born 
 Europe, the Churches of the East were vanishing 
 before Mohammedan invaders, strong by living 
 trust in that living God, whom the Christians, while 
 they hated and persecuted each other for argu- 
 ments about Him, were denying and blaspheming 
 in every action of their lives. 
 
 But at the period whereof this story treats, the 
 Grseco-Eastern mind was still in the middle of its 
 great work. That wonderful metaphysic subtlety, 
 which, in phrases and definitions too often un- 
 meaning to our grosser intellect, saw the symbols 
 of the most important spiritual realities, and felt 
 that on the distinction between homoousios and 
 homoiousios might hang the solution of the whole 
 problem of humanity, was set to battle in Alexan- 
 dria, the ancient stronghold of Greek philosophy, 
 with the effete remains of the very scientific thought 
 to which it owed its extraordinary culture. Monas- 
 tic isolation from family and national duties espe- 
 cially fitted the fathers of that period for the task, 
 by giving them leisure, if nothing else, to face 
 questions with a lifelong earnestness impossible to 
 the more social and practical Northern mind. Our 
 duty is, instead of sneering at them as pedantic 
 dreamers, to thank Heaven that men were found, 
 just at the time when they were wanted, to do for
 
 xxiv Preface 
 
 us what we could never have done for ourselves ; 
 to leave to us, as a precious heirloom, bought most 
 truly with the life-blood of their race, a metaphysic 
 at once Christian and scientific, every attempt to 
 improve on which has hitherto been found a fail- 
 ure; and to battle victoriously with that strange 
 brood of theoretic monsters begotten by effete 
 Greek philosophy upon Egyptian symbolism, 
 Chaldee astrology, Parsee dualism, Brahminic 
 spiritualism graceful and gorgeous phantoms, 
 whereof somewhat more will be said in the coming 
 chapters. 
 
 I have, in my sketch of Hypatia and her fate, 
 closely followed authentic history, especially Soc- 
 rates's account of the closing scene, as given in 
 Book vii. 15, of his "Ecclesiastical History." I 
 am inclined, however, for various historical reasons, 
 to date her death two years earlier than he does. 
 The tradition that she was the wife of Isidore, the 
 philosopher, I reject, with Gibbon, as a palpable 
 anachronism of at least fifty years (Isidore's mas- 
 ter, Proclus, not having been born till the year be- 
 fore Hypatia's death), contradicted, moreover, by 
 the very author of it, Photius, who says distinctly, 
 after comparing Hypatia and Isidore, that Isidore 
 married a certain " Domna." No hint, moreover, 
 of her having been married, appears in any con- 
 temporary authors ; and the name of Isidore no- 
 where occurs among those of the many mutual 
 friends to whom Synesius sends messages in his 
 letters to Hypatia, in which, if anywhere, we should
 
 Preface xxv 
 
 find mention of a husband, had one existed. To 
 Synesius's most charming letters, as well as to 
 those of Isidore, the good Abbot of Pelusium, I 
 beg leave to refer those readers who wish for 
 further information about the private life of the 
 fifth century. 
 
 I cannot hope that these pages will be altogether 
 free from anachronisms and errors. I can only say 
 that I have labored honestly and industriously to 
 discover the truth, even in its minutest details, and 
 to sketch the age, its manners and its literature, 
 as I found them, altogether artificial, slipshod, 
 effete, resembling far more the times of Louis 
 Quinze than those of Sophocles and Plato. And 
 so I send forth this little sketch, ready to give my 
 hearty thanks to any reviewer, who, by exposing 
 my mistakes, shall teach me and the public some- 
 what more about the last struggle between the 
 Young Church and the Old World.
 
 HYPATIA 
 
 OR 
 
 NEW FOES WITH AN OLD FACE
 
 HYPATIA; 
 
 OR, 
 
 NEW FOES WITH AN OLD FACE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE LAURA 
 
 IN the four hundred and thirteenth year of the 
 Christian Era, some three hundred miles above 
 Alexandria, the young monk Philammon was sitting 
 on the edge of a low range of inland cliffs, crested 
 with drifting sand. Behind him the desert sand- 
 waste stretched, lifeless, interminable, reflecting its 
 lurid glare on the horizon of the cloudless vault of 
 blue. At his feet the sand dripped and trickled, 
 in yellow rivulets, from crack to crack and ledge 
 to ledge, or whirled past him in tiny jets of yellow 
 smoke, before the fitful summer airs. Here and 
 there, upon the face of the cliffs which walled in the 
 opposite side of the narrow glen below, were cav- 
 ernous tombs, huge old quarries, with obelisks and 
 half-cut pillars, standing as the workmen had left 
 them centuries before ; the sand was slipping down 
 and piling up around them, their heads were frosted 
 with the arid snow ; everywhere was silence, deso- 
 lation the grave of a dead nation, in a dying 
 land. And there he sat musing above it all, full of 
 
 B Vol. VI
 
 2 Hypatia 
 
 life and youth and health and beauty a young 
 Apollo of the desert. His only clothing was a 
 ragged sheepskin, bound with a leathern girdle. 
 His long black locks, unshorn from childhood, 
 waved and glistened in the sun ; a rich dark 
 down on cheek and chin showed the spring of 
 healthful manhood; his hard hands and sinewy 
 sunburnt limbs told of labor and endurance; his 
 flashing eyes and beetling brow, of daring, fancy, 
 passion, thought, which had no sphere of action 
 in such a place. What did his glorious young 
 humanity alone among the tombs ? 
 
 So perhaps he, too, thought, as he passed his 
 hand across his brow, as if to sweep away some 
 gathering dream, and sighing, rose and wandered 
 along the cliffs, peering downward at every point 
 and cranny, in search of fuel for the monastery 
 from whence he came. 
 
 Simple as was the material which he sought, con- 
 sisting chiefly of the low arid desert shrubs with 
 now and then a fragment of wood from some 
 deserted quarry or ruin, it was becoming scarcer 
 and scarcer round Abbot Pambo's Laura at Seeds ; 
 and long before Philammon had collected his daily 
 quantity, he had strayed farther from his home than 
 he had ever been before. 
 
 Suddenly, at a turn of the glen, he came upon a 
 sight new to him ... a temple carved in the sand- 
 stone cliff; and in front a smooth platform, strewn 
 with beams and mouldering tools, and here and 
 there a skull bleaching among the sand, perhaps 
 of some workman slaughtered at his labor in one 
 of the thousand wars of old. The abbot, his spirit- 
 ual father indeed, the only father whom he knew, 
 for his earliest recollections were of the Laura and
 
 The Laura 3 
 
 the old man's cell had strictly forbidden him to 
 enter, even to approach any of those relics of 
 ancient idolatry: but a broad terrace-road led 
 down to the platform from the table-land above ; 
 the plentiful supply of fuel was too tempting to be 
 passed by. . . . He would go down, gather a few 
 sticks, and then return, to tell the abbot of the 
 treasure which he had found, and consult him as to 
 the propriety of revisiting it. 
 
 So down he went, hardly daring to raise his eyes 
 to the alluring iniquities of the painted imagery 
 which, gaudy in crimson and blue, still blazed out 
 upon the desolate solitude, uninjured by that rain- 
 less air. But he was young, and youth is curious ; 
 and the devil, at least in the fifth century, busy with 
 young brains. Now Philammon believed most 
 utterly in the devil, and night and day devoutly 
 prayed to be delivered from him; so he crossed 
 himself, and ejaculated, honestly enough, " Lord, 
 turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity ! " . . . 
 and looked nevertheless. . . . 
 
 And who could have helped looking at those 
 four colossal kings, who sat there grim and motion- 
 less, their huge hands laid upon their knees in 
 everlasting self-assured repose, seeming to bear up 
 the mountain on their stately heads? A sense of 
 awe, weakness, all but fear, came over him. He 
 dare not stoop to take up the wood at his feet, their 
 great stern eyes watched him so steadily. 
 
 Round their knees and round their thrones were 
 mystic characters engraven, symbol after symbol, 
 line below line the ancient wisdom of the Egyp- 
 tians, wherein Moses the man of God was learned 
 of old why should not he know it too ? What 
 awful secrets might not be hidden there about the
 
 4 Hypatia 
 
 great world, past, present, and future, of which he 
 knew only so small a speck ? Those kings who sat 
 there, they had known it all ; their sharp lips seem 
 parting, ready to speak to him. . . . Oh that they 
 would speak for once ! . . . and yet that grim 
 sneering smile, that seemed to look down on him 
 from the heights of their power and wisdom, with 
 calm contempt . . . him, the poor youth, picking 
 up the leaving and rags of their past majesty. . . . 
 He dared look at them no more. 
 
 So he looked past them into the temple halls ; 
 into a lustrous abyss of cool green shade, deepen- 
 ing on and inward, pillar after pillar, vista after 
 vista, into deepest night. And dimly through the 
 gloom he could descry, on every wall and column, 
 gorgeous arabesques, long lines of pictured story ; 
 triumphs and labors ; rows of captives in foreign 
 and fantastic dresses, leading strange animals, bear- 
 ing the tributes of unknown lands ; rows of ladies 
 at feasts, their heads crowned with garlands, the 
 fragrant lotus-flower in every hand, while slaves 
 brought wine and perfumes, and children sat upon 
 their knees, and husbands by their side ; and danc- 
 ing girls, in transparent robes and golden girdles, 
 tossed their tawny limbs wildly among the 
 throng. . . . What was the meaning of it all? 
 Why had it all been ? Why had it gone on thus, 
 the great world, century after century, millennium 
 after millennium, eating and drinking, and marry- 
 ing and giving in marriage, and knowing nothing 
 better . . . how could they know anything better? 
 Their forefathers had lost the light ages and ages 
 before they were born. . . . And Christ had not 
 come for ages and ages after they were dead. . . . 
 How could they know? . . . And yet they were
 
 The Laura 5 
 
 all in hell . . . every one of them. Every one of 
 these ladies who sat there, with her bushy locks, 
 and garlands, and jewelled collars, and lotus-flowers, 
 and gauzy dress, displaying all her slender limbs -* 
 who, perhaps, when she was alive, smiled so 
 sweetly, and went so gaily, and had children, and 
 friends, and never once thought of what was going 
 to happen to her what must happen to her. . . . 
 She was in hell. . . . Burning for ever, and ever, and 
 ever, there below his feet. He stared down on the 
 rocky floors. If he could but see through them . . . 
 and the eye of faith could see through them ... he 
 should behold her writhing and twisting among the 
 flickering flame, scorched, glowing ... in everlast- 
 ing agony, such as the thought of enduring for a mo- 
 ment made him shudder. He had burnt his hands 
 once, when a palm-leaf hut caught fire. . . . He 
 recollected what that was like. . . . She was en- 
 during ten thousand times more than that for 
 ever. . . . He should hear her shrieking in vain for 
 a drop of water to cool her tongue. . . . He had 
 never heard a human being shriek but once ... a 
 boy bathing on the opposite Nile bank, whom a 
 crocodile had dragged down . . . and that scream, 
 faint and distantas it came across the mighty tide, had 
 rung intolerable in his ears for days . . . and to think 
 of all which echoed through those vaults of fire for 
 ever ! Was the thought bearable ! was it possi- 
 ble ! Millions upon millions burning for ever for 
 Adam's fall. . . . Could God be just in that? . . . 
 It was the temptation of a fiend ! He had entered 
 the unhallowed precincts, where devils still lingered 
 about their ancient shrines; he had let his eyes 
 devour the abominations of the heathen, and given 
 place to the devil. He would flee home to confess
 
 6 Hypatia 
 
 it all to his father. He would punish him as he 
 deserved, pray for him, forgive him. And yet 
 could he tell him all? Could he, dare he confess 
 to him the whole truth the insatiable craving to 
 know the mysteries of learning to see the great 
 roaring world of men, which had been growing up 
 in him slowly, month after month, till now it had 
 assumed this fearful shape? He could stay no 
 longer in the desert. This world which sent all 
 souls to hell was it as bad as monks declared it 
 was ? It must be, else how could such be the fruit 
 of it ? But it was too awful a thought to be taken 
 on trust. No ; he must go and see. 
 
 Filled with such fearful questionings, half-inar- 
 ticulate and vague, like the thoughts of a child, 
 the untutored youth went wandering on, till he 
 reached the edge of the cliff below which lay his 
 home. 
 
 It lay pleasantly enough, that lonely Laura, or 
 lane of rude Cyclopean cells, under the perpetual 
 shadow of the southern wall of crags, amid its 
 grove of ancient date-trees. A branching cavern 
 in the cliff supplied the purposes of a chapel, a 
 store-house, and a hospital; while on the sunny 
 slope across the glen lay the common gardens of 
 the brotherhood, green with millet, maize, and 
 beans, among which a tiny streamlet, husbanded 
 and guided with the most thrifty care, wandered 
 down from the cliff foot, and spread perpetual ver- 
 dure over the little plot which voluntary and 
 fraternal labor had painfully redeemed from the 
 inroads of the all-devouring sand. For that gar- 
 den, like everything else in the Laura, except each 
 brother's seven feet of stone sleeping-hut, was the 
 common property, and therefore the common care
 
 The Laura 7 
 
 and joy of all. For the common good, as well as 
 for his own, each man had toiled up the glen with 
 his palm-leaf basket of black mud from the river 
 Nile, over whose broad sheet of silver the glen's 
 mouth yawned abrupt. For the common good, 
 each man had swept the ledges clear of sand, and 
 sown in the scanty artificial soil, the harvest of 
 which all were to share alike. To buy clothes, 
 books, and chapel-furniture for the common neces- 
 sities, education, and worship, each man sat, day 
 after day, week after week, his mind full of high 
 and heavenly thoughts, weaving the leaves of their 
 little palm-copse into baskets, which an aged monk 
 exchanged for goods with the more prosper- 
 ous and frequented monasteries of the opposite 
 bank. Thither Philammon rowed the old man 
 over, week by week, in a light canoe of papyrus, 
 and fished, as he sat waiting for him, for the com- 
 mon meal. A simple, happy, gentle life was that 
 of the Laura, all portioned out by rules and methods, 
 which were held hardly less sacred than those of 
 the Scriptures, on which they were supposed (and 
 not so wrongly either) to have been framed. Each 
 man had food and raiment, shelter on earth, friends 
 and counsellors, living trust in the continual care 
 of Almighty God ; and, blazing before his eyes, by 
 day and night, the hope of everlasting glory be- 
 yond all poets' dreams. . . . And what more would 
 man have had in those days? Thither they had 
 fled out of cities, compared with which Paris is 
 earnest and Gomorrah chaste, out of a rotten, 
 infernal, dying world of tyrants and slaves, hypo- 
 crites and wantons, to ponder undisturbed on 
 duty and on judgment, on death and eternity, 
 heaven and hell ; to find a common creed, a com-
 
 8 Hypatia 
 
 mon interest, a common hope, common duties, 
 pleasures, and sorrows. . . . True, they had many 
 of them fled from the post where God had placed 
 them, when they fled from man into the Thebaid 
 waste. . . . What sort of post and what sort of 
 an age they were, from which those old monks 
 fled, we shall see, perhaps, before this tale is told 
 out. 
 
 " Thou art late, son," said the abbot, steadfastly 
 working away at his palm-basket, as Philammon 
 approached. 
 
 " Fuel is scarce, and I was forced to go far." 
 " A monk should not answer till he is questioned. 
 I did not ask the reason. Where didst thou find 
 that wood?" 
 
 " Before the temple, far up the glen." 
 " The temple ! What didst thou see there ? " 
 No answer. Pambo looked up with his keen 
 black eye. 
 
 " Thou hast entered it, and lusted after its abomi- 
 nations." 
 
 "I I did not enter ; but I looked " 
 
 " And what didst thou see ? Women ? " 
 Philammon was silent. 
 
 " Have I not bidden you never to look on the 
 face of women? Are they not the first fruits of 
 the devil, the authors of all evil, the subtlest of all 
 Satan's snares? Are they not accursed for ever, 
 for the deceit of their first mother, by whom sin 
 entered into the world? A woman first opened 
 the gates of hell ; and, until this day, they are the 
 portresses thereof. Unhappy boy! What hast 
 thou done?" 
 
 " They were but painted on the walls." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the abbot, as if suddenly relieved
 
 The Laura 9 
 
 from a heavy burden. "But how knewest thou 
 them to be women, when thou hast never yet, un- 
 less thou liest which I believe not of thee seen 
 the face of a daughter of Eve ? " 
 
 " Perhaps perhaps," said Philammon, as if 
 suddenly relieved by a new suggestion " perhaps 
 they were only devils. They must have been, I 
 think, for they were so very beautiful." 
 
 " Ah ! how knowest thou that devils are beauti- 
 ful?" 
 
 " I was launching the boat, a week ago, with 
 Father Aufugus ; and on the bank, . . . not very 
 near, . . . there were two creatures . . . with long 
 hair, and striped all over the lower half of their 
 bodies with black, and red, and yellow . . . and 
 they were gathering flowers on the shore. Father 
 Aufugus turned away ; but I ... I could not help 
 thinking them the most beautiful things that I had 
 ever seen ... so I asked him why he turned 
 away ; and he said that those were the same sort 
 of devils which tempted the blessed St. Anthony. 
 Then I recollected having heard it read aloud, how 
 Satan tempted Anthony in the shape of a beautiful 
 woman. . . . And so ... and so ... those figures 
 on the wall were very like . . . and I thought they 
 might be . . ." 
 
 And the poor boy, who considered that he was 
 making confession of a deadly and shameful sin, 
 blushed scarlet, and stammered, and at last 
 stopped. 
 
 "And thou thoughtest them beautiful? Oh 
 utter corruption of the flesh ! oh subtilty of 
 Satan ! The Lord forgive thee, as I do, my poor 
 child : henceforth thou goest not beyond the garden 
 walls."
 
 I o Hypatia 
 
 " Not beyond the walls ? Impossible ! I cannot ! 
 If thou wert not my father, I would say, I will not ! 
 > I must have liberty ! I must see for myself 
 I must judge for myself, what this world is of which 
 you all talk so bitterly. I long for no pomps and 
 vanities. I will promise you this moment, if you 
 will, never to re-enter a heathen temple to hide 
 my face in the dust whenever I approach a woman. 
 But I must I must see the world ; I must see the 
 great mother-church in Alexandria, and the patri- 
 arch, and his clergy. If they can serve God in the 
 city, why not I ? I could do more for God there 
 than here. . . . Not that I despise this work not 
 that I am ungrateful to you oh, never, never 
 that ! but I pant for the battle. Let me go ! I 
 am not discontented with you, but with myself. 
 I know that obedience is noble; but danger is 
 nobler still. If you have seen the world, why 
 should not I ? If you have fled from it because 
 you found it too evil to live in, why should not I, 
 and return to you here of my own will, never to 
 kave you? . . . And yet Cyril and his clergy have 
 not fled from it . . ." 
 
 Desperately and breathlessly did Philammon 
 drive this speech out of his inmost heart; and 
 then waited, expecting the good abbot to strike 
 him on the spot. If he had, the young man would 
 have submitted patiently ; so would any man, how- 
 ever venerable, in that monastery. Why not? 
 Duly, after long companionship, thought, and 
 prayer, they had elected Pambo for their abbot 
 abba father the wisest, eldest-hearted and 
 headed of them if he was that, it was time that 
 he should be obeyed. And obeyed he was, with a 
 loyal, reasonable love, and yet with an implicit,
 
 The Laura 1 1 
 
 soldier-like obedience, which many a king and 
 conqueror might envy. Were they cowards and 
 slaves? The Roman legionaries should be good 
 judges on that point. They used to say that no 
 armed barbarian, Goth or Vandal, Moor or Span- 
 iard, was so terrible as the unarmed monk of the 
 Thebaid. 
 
 Twice the old man lifted his staff to strike; 
 twice he laid it down again ; and then, slowly ris- 
 ing, left Philammon kneeling there, and moved 
 away deliberately, and with eyes fixed on the 
 ground, to the house of the brother Aufugus. 
 
 Every one in the Laura honored Aufugus. 
 There was a mystery about him which heightened 
 the charm of his surpassing sanctity, his childlike 
 sweetness and humilty. It was whispered when 
 the monks seldom and cautiously did whisper 
 together in their lonely walks that he had been 
 once a great man ; that he had come from a great 
 city perhaps from Rome itself. And the simple 
 monks were proud to think that they had among 
 them a man who had seen Rome. At least, 
 Abbot Pambo respected him. He was never 
 beaten; never even reproved perhaps he never 
 required it ; but still it was the meed of all ; and 
 was not the abbot a little partial? Yet, certainly, 
 when Theophilus sent up a messenger from Alex- 
 andria, rousing every Laura with the news of the 
 sack of Rome by Alaric, did not Pambo take him 
 first to the cell of Aufugus, and sit with him there 
 three whole hours in secret consultation, before he 
 told the awful story to the rest of the brotherhood ? 
 And did not Aufugus himself give letters to the 
 messenger, written with his own hand, containing, 
 as was said, deep secrets of worldly policy, known
 
 1 2 Hypatia 
 
 only to himself? So, when the little lane of holy 
 men, each peering stealthily over his plaiting-work 
 from the doorway of his sandstone cell, saw the 
 abbot, after his unwonted passion, leave the cul- 
 prit kneeling, and take his way toward the sage's 
 dwelling, they judged that something strange and 
 delicate had befallen the common weal, and each 
 wished, without envy, that he were as wise as the 
 man whose counsel was to solve the difficulty. 
 
 For an hour or more the abbot remained there, 
 talking earnestly and low; and then a solemn 
 sound as of the two old men praying with sobs and 
 tears; and every brother bowed his head, and 
 'whispered a hope that He whom they served might 
 guide them for the good of the Laura, and of His 
 Church, and of the great heathen world beyond ; 
 and still Philammon knelt motionless, awaiting his 
 sentence; his heart filled who can tell how? 
 " The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a 
 stranger intermeddleth not with its joy." So 
 thought he as he knelt ; and so think I, too, know- 
 ing that in the pettiest character there are un- 
 fathomable depths, which the poet, all-seeing 
 though he may pretend to be, can never analyze, 
 but must only dimly guess at, and still more dimly 
 sketch them by the actions which they beget. 
 
 At last Pambo returned, deliberate, still, and 
 slow, as he had gone, and seating himself within 
 his cell, spoke: 
 
 "And the youngest said, Father, give me the 
 portion of goods that falleth to my share. . . . And 
 he took his journey into a far country, and there 
 wasted his substance with riotous living. Thou 
 shalt go, my son. But first come after me, and 
 speak with Aufugus."
 
 The Laura 13 
 
 Philammon, like every one else, loved Aufugus ; 
 and when the abbot retired and left the two alone 
 together, he felt no dread or shame about unbur- 
 dening his whole heart to him. Long and pas- 
 sionately he spoke, in answer to the gentle 
 questions of the old man, who, without the rigidity 
 or pedantic solemnity of the monk, interrupted the 
 youth, and let himself be interrupted in return, 
 gracefully, genially, almost playfully. And yet 
 there was a melancholy about his tone as he 
 answered to the youth's appeal: 
 
 " Tertullian, Origen, Clement, Cyprian all 
 these moved in the world; all these and many 
 more beside, whose names we honor, whose prayers 
 we invoke, were learned in the wisdom of the 
 heathen, and fought and labored, unspotted, in the 
 world ; and why not I ? Cyril the Patriarch him- 
 self, was he not called from the caves of Nitria to 
 sit on the throne of Alexandria?" 
 
 Slowly the old man lifted his hand, and putting 
 back the thick locks of the kneeling youth, gazed, 
 with soft pitying eyes, long and earnestly into his 
 face. 
 
 "And thou wouldst see the world, poor fool? 
 And thou wouldst see the world ? " 
 
 " I would convert the world ! " 
 
 " Thou must know it first. And shall I tell thee 
 what that world is like, which seems to thee so 
 easy to convert? Here I sit, the poor unknown 
 old monk, until I die, fasting and praying, if per- 
 haps God will have mercy on my soul : but little 
 thou knowest how I have seen it. Little thou 
 knowest, or thou wouldst be well content to rest 
 here till the end. I was Arsenius. . . . Ah ! vain 
 old man that I am ! Thou hast never heard that
 
 1 4 Hypatia 
 
 name, at which once queens would whisper and 
 grow pale. Vanitas vanitatum! omnia vanitasl 
 And yet he, at whose frown half the world trem- 
 bles, has trembled himself at mine. I was the 
 tutor of Arcadius." 
 
 "The Emperor of Byzantium ?" 
 
 " Even so, my son, even so. There I saw the 
 world which thou wouldst see. And what saw I? 
 Even what thou wilt see. Eunuchs the tyrants of 
 their own sovereigns. Bishops kissing the feet of 
 parricides and harlots. Saints tearing saints in 
 pieces for a word, while sinners cheer them on to 
 the unnatural fight. Liars thanked for lying, 
 hypocrites taking pride in their hypocrisy. The 
 many sold and butchered for the malice, the 
 caprice, the vanity of the few. The plunderers of 
 the poor plundered in their turn by worse de- 
 vourers than themselves. Every attempt at reform 
 the parent of worse scandals ; every mercy beget- 
 ting fresh cruelties; every persecutor silenced, 
 only to enable others to persecute him in their 
 turn : every devil who is exorcised, returning with 
 seven others worse than himself; falsehood and 
 selfishness, spite and lust, confusion seven times 
 confounded, Satan casting out Satan everywhere 
 from the emperor who wantons on his throne, to 
 the slave who blasphemes beneatk his fetters." 
 
 " If Satan cast out Satan, his kingdom shall not 
 stand." 
 
 " In the world to come. But in this world it 
 shall stand and conquer, even worse and worse, 
 until the end. These are the last days spoken of 
 by the prophets, the beginning of woes such as 
 never have been on the earth before 'On earth 
 distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts
 
 The Laura 15 
 
 failing them for fear, and for the dread of those 
 things which are coming on .the earth.' I have 
 seen it long. Year after year I have watched them 
 coming nearer and ever nearer in their course, like 
 the whirling sand-storms of the desert, which sweep 
 past the caravan, and past again, and yet over- 
 whelm it after all that black flood of the northern 
 barbarians. I foretold it; I prayed against it; 
 but, like Cassandra's of old, my prophecy and my 
 prayers were alike unheard. My pupil spurned my 
 warnings. The lusts of youth, the intrigues of 
 courtiers, were stronger than the warning voice of 
 God ; then I ceased to hope ; I ceased to pray for 
 the glorious city, for I knew that her sentence was 
 gone forth; I saw her in the spirit, even as St. 
 John saw her in the Revelations; her, and her 
 sins, and her ruin. And I fled secretly at night, 
 and buried myself here in the desert, to await the 
 end of the world. Night and day I pray the Lord 
 to accomplish His elect, and to hasten His king- 
 dom. Morning by morning I look up trembling, 
 and yet in hope, for the sign of the Son of man in 
 heaven, when the sun shall be turned into dark- 
 ness, and the moon into blood, and the stars shall 
 fall from heaven, and the skies pass away like a 
 scroll, and the fountains of the nether fire burst up 
 around our feet, and the end of all shall come. And 
 thou wouldst go into the world from which I fled ? " 
 
 "If the harvest be at hand, the Lord needs 
 laborers. If the times be awful, I should be doing 
 awful things in them. Send me, and let that day 
 find me, where I long to be, in the forefront of the 
 battle of the Lord." 
 
 " The Lord's voice be obeyed ! Thou shalt go. 
 Here are letters to Cyril the patriarch. He will
 
 1 6 Hypatia 
 
 love thee for my sake : and for thine own sake, too, 
 I trust. Thou goest of our free will as well as 
 thine own. The abbot and I have watched thee 
 long, knowing that the Lord had need of such as 
 thee elsewhere. We did but prove thee, to see by 
 thy readiness to obey, whether thou wert fit to 
 rule. Go, and God be with thee. Covet no man's 
 gold or silver. Neither eat flesh nor drink wine, 
 but live as thou hast lived a Nazarite of the 
 Lord. Fear not the face of man ; but look not on 
 the face of woman. In an evil hour came they 
 into the world, the mothers of all mischiefs which 
 I have seen under the sun. Come ; the abbot waits 
 for us at the gate." 
 
 With tears of surprise, joy, sorrow, almost of 
 dread, Philammon hung back. 
 
 " Nay come. Why shouldst thou break thy 
 brethren's hearts and ours by many leave-takings ! 
 Bring from the store-house a week's provision of 
 dried dates and millet. The papyrus boat lies at 
 the ferry; thou shalt descend in it. The Lord 
 will replace it for us when we need it. Speak 
 with no man on the river except the monks of 
 God. When thou hast gone five days' journey 
 downward, ask for the mouth of the canal of 
 Alexandria. Once in the city, any monk will 
 guide thee to the archbishop. Send us news of 
 thy welfare by some holy mouth. Come." 
 
 Silently they paced together down the glen to 
 the lonely beach of the great stream. Pambo was 
 there already, his white hair glittering in the rising 
 moon, as with slow and feeble arms he launched 
 the light canoe. Philammon flung himself at the 
 old men's feet, and besought, with many tears, their 
 forgiveness and their blessing.
 
 The Laura 17 
 
 "We have nothing to forgive. Follow thou 
 thine inward call. If it be of the flesh, it will 
 avenge itself; if it be of the Spirit, who are we 
 that we should fight against God? Farewell." 
 
 A few minutes more, and the youth and his canoe 
 were lessening down the rapid stream in the golden 
 summer twilight. Again a minute, and the swift 
 southern night had fallen, and all was dark but 
 the cold glare of the moon on the river, and on 
 the rock-faces, and on the two old men, as they 
 knelt upon the beach, and with their heads upon 
 each other's shoulders, like two children, sobbed 
 and prayed together for the lost darling of their 
 age.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE DYING WORLD 
 
 IN the upper story of a house in the Museum 
 Street of Alexandria, built and fitted up on 
 the old Athenian model, was a small room. It had 
 been chosen by its occupant, not merely on account 
 of its quiet; for though it was tolerably out of 
 hearing of the female slaves who worked, and 
 chattered, and quarrelled under the cloisters of the 
 women's court on the south side, yet it was exposed 
 to the rattle of carriages and the voices of passengers 
 in the fashionable street below, and to strange 
 bursts of roaring, squealing, and trumpeting from 
 the Menagerie, a short way off, on the opposite 
 side of the street. The attraction of the situation 
 lay, perhaps, in the view which it commanded over 
 the wall of the Museum gardens, of flower-beds, 
 shrubberies, fountains, statues, walks, and alcoves, 
 which had echoed for nearly seven hundred years 
 to the wisdom of the Alexandrian sages and poets. 
 School after school, they had all walked, and 
 taught, and sung there, beneath the spreading 
 planes and chestnuts, figs and palm-trees. The 
 place seemed fragrant with all the riches of Greek 
 thought and song, since the days when Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus walked there with Euclid and Theo- 
 critus, Callimachus and Lycophron. 
 
 On the left of the garden stretched the lofty 
 eastern front of the Museum itself, with its picture
 
 The Dying World 19 
 
 galleries, halls of statuary, dining-halls, and lecture- 
 rooms; one huge wing containing that famous 
 library, founded by the father of Philadelphus, 
 which held in the time of Seneca, even after the 
 destruction of a great part of it in Caesar's siege, 
 four hundred thousand manuscripts. There it 
 towered up, the wonder of the world, its white roof 
 bright against the rainless blue; and beyond it, 
 among the ridges and pediments of noble build- 
 ings, a broad glimpse of the bright blue sea. 
 
 The room was fitted up in the purest Greek 
 style, not without an affectation of archaism, in the 
 severe forms and subdued half-tints of the frescoes 
 which ornamented the walls with scenes from the 
 old myths of Athene. Yet the general effect, even 
 under the blazing sun which poured in through 
 the mosquito nets of the courtyard windows, was 
 one of exquisite coolness, and cleanliness, and 
 repose. The room had neither carpet nor fire- 
 place; and the only movables in it were a sofa- 
 bed, a table, and an arm-chair, all of such delicate 
 and graceful forms, as may be seen on ancient 
 vases of a far earlier period than that whereof we 
 write. But, most probably, had any of us entered 
 that room that morning, we should not have been 
 able to spare a look either for the furniture, or the 
 general effect, or the Museum gardens, or the 
 sparkling Mediterranean beyond; but we should 
 have agreed that the room was quite rich enough 
 for human eyes, for the sake of one treasure which 
 it possessed, and, beside which, nothing was worth 
 a moment's glance. For in the light arm-chair, 
 reading a manuscript which lay on the table, sat a 
 woman, of some five-and-twenty years, evidently 
 the tutelary goddess of that little shrine, dressed in
 
 2O Hypatia 
 
 perfect keeping with the archaism of the chamber, 
 in a simple old snow-white Ionic robe, falling to the 
 feet and reaching to the throat, and of that pecu- 
 liarly severe and graceful fashion in which the 
 upper part of the dress falls downward again from 
 the neck to the waist in a sort of cape, entirely 
 hiding the outline of the bust, while it leaves the 
 arms and the point of the shoulders bare. Her 
 dress was entirely without ornament, except the two 
 narrow purple stripes down the front, which marked 
 her rank as a Roman citizen, the gold-embroidered 
 shoes upon her feet, and the gold net, which looped 
 back, from her forehead to her neck, hair the 
 color and gloss of which were hardly distinguish- 
 able from that of the metal itself, such as Athene 
 herself might have envied for tint, and mass, and 
 ripple. Her features, arms, and hands were of the 
 severest and grandest type of old Greek beauty, 
 at once showing everywhere the high development 
 of the bones, and covering them with that firm, 
 round, ripe outline, and waxy morbidezza of skin, 
 which the old Greeks owed to their continual use 
 not only of the bath and muscular exercise, but 
 also of daily unguents. There might have seemed 
 to us too much sadness in that clear gray eye ; too 
 much self-conscious restraint in those sharp curved 
 lips ; too much affectation in the studied severity 
 of her posture as she read, copied, as it seemed, 
 from some old vase or bas-relief. But the glorious 
 grace and beauty of every line of face and figure 
 would have excused, even hidden those defects, 
 and we should have only recognized the marked 
 resemblance to the ideal portraits of Athene which 
 adorned every panel of the walls. 
 
 She has lifted her eyes off her manuscript ; she
 
 The Dying World 21 
 
 is looking out with kindling countenance over the 
 gardens of the Museum; her ripe curling Greek 
 lips, such as we never see now, even among our 
 own wives and sisters, open. She is talking to 
 herself. Listen ! 
 
 " Yes. The statues there are broken. The libra- 
 ries are plundered. The alcoves are silent. The 
 oracles are dumb. And yet who says that the 
 old faith of heroes and sages is dead? The beautiful 
 can never die. If the gods have deserted their 
 oracles, they have not deserted the souls who 
 aspire to them. If they have ceased to guide 
 nations, they have not ceased to speak to their 
 own elect. If they have cast off the vulgar herd, 
 they have not cast off Hypatia. 
 
 " Ay. To believe in the old creeds, while every 
 one else is dropping away from them. ... To 
 believe in spite of disappointments. . . . To hope 
 against hope. . . . To show oneself superior to 
 the herd, by seeing boundless depths of living 
 glory in myths which have become dark and dead 
 to them. . . . To struggle to the last against the 
 new and vulgar superstitions of a rotting age, for 
 the faith of my forefathers, for the old gods, the 
 old heroes, the old sages who gauged the myste- 
 ries of heaven and earth and perhaps to conquer 
 at least to have my reward ! To be welcomed 
 into the celestial ranks of the heroic to rise to 
 the immortal gods, to the ineffable powers, onward, 
 upward ever, through ages and through eternities, 
 till I find my home at last, and vanish in the glory 
 of the Nameless and the Absolute One ! . . ." 
 
 And her whole face flashed out into wild glory, 
 and then sank again suddenly into a shudder of some-
 
 22 Hypatia 
 
 thing like fear and disgust, as she saw, watching 
 her from under the wall of the gardens opposite, a 
 crooked, withered Jewish crone, dressed out in the 
 most gorgeous and fantastic style of barbaric finery. 
 
 " Why does that old hag haunt me ? I see her 
 everywhere till the last month at least and 
 here she is again ! I will ask the prefect to find 
 out who she is, and get rid of her, before she 
 fascinates me with that evil eye. Thank the gods, 
 there she moves away ! Foolish ! foolish of me, 
 a philosopher. I, to believe, against the authority 
 of Porphyry himself, too, in evil eyes and magic! 
 But there is my father, pacing up and down in the 
 library." 
 
 As she spoke, the old man entered from the 
 next room. He was a Greek, also, but of a more 
 common, and, perhaps, lower type; dark and 
 fiery, thin and graceful; his delicate figure and 
 cheeks, wasted by meditation, harmonized well with 
 the staid and simple philosophic cloak which he wore 
 as a sign of his profession. He paced impatiently 
 up and down the chamber, while his keen, glitter- 
 ing eyes and restless gestures betokened intense 
 inward thought. . . . 
 
 ..." I have it. ... No ; again it escapes it 
 contradicts itself. Miserable man that I am ! If 
 there is faith in Pythagoras, the symbol should be 
 an expanding series of the powers of three ; and 
 yet that accursed binary factor will introduce itself. 
 Did not you work the sum out once, Hypatia?" 
 
 " Sit down, my dear father, and eat. You have 
 tasted no food yet this day." 
 
 " What do I care for food ! The inexpressible 
 must be expressed, the work must be done if it 
 cost me the squaring of the circle. How can he,
 
 The Dying World 23 
 
 whose sphere lies above the stars, stoop every 
 moment to earth?" 
 
 " Ay," she answered, half bitterly, " and would 
 that we could live without food, and imitate 
 perfectly the immortal gods. But while we are 
 in this prison-house of matter, we must wear our 
 chain; even wear it gracefully, if we have the 
 good taste ; and make the base necessities of this 
 body of shame symbolic of the divine food of the 
 reason. There is fruit, with lentils and rice, 
 waiting for you in the next room; and bread, 
 unless you despise it too much." 
 
 " The food of slaves ! " he answered. " Well, I 
 will eat, and be ashamed of eating. Stay, did I 
 tell you? Six new pupils in the mathematical 
 school this morning. It grows ! It spreads ! We 
 shall conquer yet ! " 
 
 She sighed. " How do you know that they have 
 not come to you, as Critias and Alcibiades did to 
 Socrates, to learn a merely political and mundane 
 virtue ? Strange ! that men should be content to 
 grovel, and be men, when they might rise to the 
 rank of gods ! Ah, my father ! That is my 
 bitterest grief; to see those who have been pre- 
 tending in the morning lecture-room to worship 
 every word of mine as an oracle, lounging in the 
 afternoon round Pelagia's litter ; and then at night 
 
 for I know that they do it the dice, and the 
 wine, and worse. That Pallas herself should be 
 conquered every day by Venus Pandemos ! That 
 Pelagia should have more power than I ! Not 
 that such a creature as that disturbs me : no 
 created thing, I hope, can move my equanimity; 
 but if I could stoop to hate I should hate her 
 
 hate her."
 
 24 Hypatia 
 
 And her voice took a tone which made it some- 
 what uncertain whether, in spite of all the lofty 
 impassibility which she felt bound to possess, she 
 did not hate Pelagia with a most human and 
 mundane hatred. 
 
 But at that moment the conversation was cut 
 short by the hasty entrance of a slave-girl, who, 
 with fluttering voice, announced : 
 
 " His excellency, madam, the prefect ! His 
 chariot has been at the gate for these five minutes, 
 and he is now coming upstairs." 
 
 " Foolish child ! " answered Hypatia, with some 
 affectation of indifference. " And why should that 
 disturb me? Let him enter." 
 
 The door opened, and in came, preceded by the 
 scent of half-a-dozen different perfumes, a florid, 
 delicate-featured man, gorgeously dressed out in 
 senatorial costume, his fingers and neck covered 
 with jewels. 
 
 " The representative of the Caesars honors him- 
 self by offering at the shrine of Athene Polias, and 
 rejoices to see in her priestess as lovely a likeness 
 as ever of the goddess whom she serves. . . . Don't 
 betray me, but I really cannot help talking sheer 
 paganism whenever I find myself within the influ- 
 ence of your eyes." 
 
 " Truth is mighty," said Hypatia, as she rose to 
 greet him with a smile and a reverence. 
 
 "Ah, so they say Your excellent father has 
 vanished. He is really too modest honest, 
 though about his incapacity for state secrets. 
 After all, you know it was your Minervaship which 
 I came to consult. How has this turbulent 
 Alexandrian rascaldom been behaving itself in my 
 absence ? "
 
 The Dying World 25 
 
 " The herd has been eating, and drinking, and 
 marrying, as usual, I believe," answered Hypatia, 
 in a languid tone. 
 
 "And multiplying, I don't doubt. Well, there 
 will be less loss to the empire if I have to crucify a 
 dozen or two, as I positively will, the next riot. It 
 is really a great comfort to a statesman that the 
 masses are so well aware that they deserve hang- 
 ing and therefore so careful to prevent any danger 
 of public justice depopulating the province. But 
 how go on the schools?" 
 
 Hypatia shook her head sadly. 
 
 " Ah, boys will be boys. ... I plead guilty my- 
 self. Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. You 
 must not be hard on us. ... Whether we obey 
 you or not in private life, we do in public ; and if 
 we enthrone you queen of Alexandria, you must 
 allow your courtiers and body-guards a few court 
 licenses. Now don't sigh, or I shall be inconsol- 
 able. At all events, your worst rival has betaken 
 herself to the wilderness, and gone to look for the 
 city of the gods above the cataracts." 
 
 "Whom do you mean?" asked Hypatia, in a 
 tone most unphilosophically eager. 
 
 "Pelagia, of course. I met that prettiest and 
 naughtiest of humanities half-way between here and 
 Thebes, transformed into a perfect Andromache of 
 chaste affection." 
 
 "And to whom, pray?" 
 
 "To a certain Gothic giant. What men those 
 barbarians do breed ! I was afraid of being crushed 
 under the elephant's foot at every step I took with 
 him ! " 
 
 " What ! " asked Hypatia, " did your excellency 
 condescend to converse with such savages ? " 
 
 C Vol. VI
 
 26 Hypatia 
 
 " To tell you the truth, he had some forty stout 
 countrymen of his with him, who might have been 
 troublesome to a perplexed prefect ; not to men- 
 tion that it is always as well to keep on good terms 
 with these Goths. Really, after the sack of Rome, 
 and Athens cleaned out like a beehive by wasps, 
 things begin to look serious. And as for the great 
 brute himself, he has rank enough in his way, 
 boasts of his descent from some cannibal god or 
 other, really hardly deigned to speak to a paltry 
 Roman governor, till his faithful and adoring bride 
 interceded for me. Still, the fellow understood 
 good living, and we celebrated our new treaty of 
 friendship with noble libations but I must not 
 talk about that to you. However, I got rid of 
 them; quoted all the geographical lies I had 
 ever heard, and a great many more; quickened 
 their appetite for their fool's errand notably, and 
 started them off again. So now the star of Venus 
 is set, and that of Pallas in the ascendant. Where- 
 fore tell me what am I to do with Saint Fire- 
 brand?" 
 
 "Cyril?" 
 
 " Cyril." 
 
 " Justice." 
 
 " Ah, Fairest Wisdom, don't mention that horrid 
 word out of the lecture-room. In theory it is all 
 very well ; but in poor imperfect earthly practice, a 
 governor must be content with doing very much 
 what comes to hand. In abstract justice, now, I 
 ought to nail up Cyril, deacons, district visitors, and 
 all, in a row, on the sand-hills outside. That is 
 simple enough ; but, like a great many simple and 
 excellent things, impossible." 
 
 " You fear the people ? "
 
 The Dying World 27 
 
 " Well, my dear lady, and has not the villanous 
 demagogue got the whole mob on his side ? Am I 
 to have the Constantinople riots re-enacted here? 
 I really cannot face it; I have not nerve for it; 
 perhaps I am too lazy. Be it so." 
 
 Hypatia sighed. " Ah, that your excellency but 
 saw the great duel which depends on you alone 1 
 Do not fancy that the battle is merely between 
 Paganism and Christianity " 
 
 " Why, if it were, you know, I, as a Christian, 
 under a Christian and sainted emperor, not to men- 
 tion his august sister " 
 
 "We understand," interrupted she, with an im- 
 patient wave of her beautiful hand. "Not even 
 between them ; not even between philosophy and 
 barbarianism. The struggle is simply one between 
 the aristocracy and the mob, between wealth, 
 refinement, art, learning, all that makes a nation 
 great, and the savage herd of child-breeders below, 
 the many ignoble, who were meant to labor for 
 the noble few. Shall the Roman empire command 
 or obey her own slaves ? is the question which you 
 and Cyril have to battle out; and the fight must 
 be internecine." 
 
 " I should not wonder if it became so, really," 
 answered the prefect, with a shrug of his shoulders. 
 " I expect every time I ride, to have my brains 
 knocked out by some mad monk." 
 
 "Why not? In an age when, as has been well 
 and often said, emperors and consulars crawl to the 
 tombs of a tent-maker and a fisherman, and kiss 
 the mouldy bones of the vilest slaves ? Why not, 
 among a people whose God is the crucified son of 
 a carpenter ? Why should learning, authority, antiq- 
 uity, birth, rank, the system of empire which has
 
 28 Hypatia 
 
 been growing up, fed by the accumulated wisdom 
 of ages, why, I say, should any of these things 
 protect your life a moment from the fury of any 
 beggar who believes that the Son of God died for 
 him as much as for you, and that he is your equal, 
 if not your superior in the sight of his low-born and 
 illiterate deity ! " l 
 
 " My most eloquent philosopher, this may be 
 and perhaps is all very true. I quite agree that 
 there are very great practical inconveniences of this 
 kind in the new I mean the Catholic faith ; but 
 the world is full of inconveniences. The wise man 
 does not quarrel with his creed for being disagree- 
 able, any more than he does with his finger for 
 aching: he cannot help it, and must make the 
 best of a bad matter. Only tell me how to keep 
 the peace." 
 
 " And let philosophy be destroyed ? " 
 
 " That it never will be, as long as Hypatia lives 
 to illuminate the earth; and, as far as I am con- 
 cerned, I promise you a clear stage and a great 
 deal of favor; as is proved by my visiting you 
 publicly at this moment, before I have given 
 audience to one of the four hundred bores, great 
 and small, who are waiting in the tribunal to tor- 
 ment me. Do help me and advise me. What am 
 I to do?" 
 
 " I have told you." 
 
 " Ah, yes, as to general principles. But out of 
 the lecture-room I prefer a practical expedient: 
 for instance, Cyril writes to me here plague on 
 him ! he would not let me even have a week's 
 
 1 These are the arguments and the language which were com- 
 monly employed by Porphyry, Julian, and the other opponents of 
 Christianity.
 
 The Dying World 29 
 
 hunting in peace that there is a plot on the part 
 of the Jews to murder all the Christians. Here is 
 the precious document do look at it, in pity. 
 For aught I know or care, the plot may be an 
 exactly opposite one, and the Christians intend to 
 murder all the Jews. But I must take some notice 
 of the letter." 
 
 " I do not see that, your excellency." 
 
 " Why, if anything did happen, after all, con- 
 ceive the missives which would be sent flying off to 
 Constantinople against me ! " 
 
 " Let them go. If you are secure in the con- 
 sciousness of innocence, what matter?" 
 
 " Consciousness of innocence ? I shall lose my 
 prefecture ! " 
 
 ** Your danger would be just as great if you 
 took notice of it. Whatever happened, you would 
 be accused of favoring the Jews." 
 
 " And really there might be some truth in the 
 accusation. How the finances of the provinces 
 would go on without their kind assistance, I dare 
 not think. If those Christians would but lend me 
 their money, instead of building almshouses and 
 hospitals with it, they might burn the Jews' quarter 
 to-morrow, for aught I care. But now . . ." 
 
 " But now, you must absolutely take no notice 
 of this letter. The very tone of it forbids you, for 
 your own honor, and the honor of the empire. 
 Are you to treat with a man who talks of the 
 masses at Alexandria as ' the flock whom the King 
 of kings has committed to his rule and care'? 
 Does your excellency, or this proud bishop, 
 govern Alexandria?" 
 
 " Really, my dear lady, I have given up in- 
 quiring."
 
 30 Hypatia 
 
 " But he has not. He comes to you as a per- 
 son possessing an absolute authority over two- 
 thirds of the population, which he does not scruple 
 to hint to you is derived from a higher source than 
 your own. The consequence is clear. If it be 
 from a higher source than yours, of course it ought 
 to control yours ; and you will confess that it ought 
 to control it you will acknowledge the root and 
 ground of every extravagant claim which he makes, 
 if you deign to reply." 
 
 " But I must say something, or I shall be pelted 
 in the streets. You philosophers, however raised 
 above your own bodies you may be, must really 
 not forget that we poor worldlings have bones to 
 be broken." 
 
 " Then tell him, and by word of mouth merely, 
 that as the information which he sends you comes 
 from his private knowledge, and concerns not him 
 as bishop, but you as magistrate, you can only 
 take it into consideration when he addresses you 
 as a private person, laying a regular information at 
 your tribunal." 
 
 " Charming ! queen of diplomatists as well as 
 philosophers ! I go to obey you. Ah ! why were 
 you not Pulcheria? No, for then Alexandria had 
 been dark, and Orestes missed the supreme happi- 
 ness of kissing a hand which Pallas, when she 
 made you, must have borrowed from the workshop 
 of Aphrodite." 
 
 " Recollect that you are a Christian," answered 
 Hypatia, half smiling. 
 
 So the prefect departed; and passing through 
 the outer hall, which was already crowded with 
 Hypatia's aristocratic pupils and visitors, bowed 
 his way out past them, and regained his chariot,
 
 The Dying World 31 
 
 chuckling over the rebuff which he intended to 
 administer to Cyril, and comforting himself with 
 the only text of Scripture of the inspiration of 
 which he was thoroughly convinced " Sufficient 
 for the day is the evil thereof." 
 
 At the door was a crowd of chariots, slaves with 
 their masters' parasols, and the rabble of on- 
 looking boys and market-folk, as usual in Alex- 
 andria then,- as in all great cities since, who were 
 staring at the prefect, and having their heads 
 rapped by his guards, and wondering what sort of 
 glorious personage Hypatia might be, and what 
 sort of glorious house she must live in, to be fit 
 company for the great governor of Alexandria. 
 Not that there was not many a sulky and lowering 
 face among the mob, for the great majority of 
 them were Christians, and very seditious and tur- 
 bulent politicians, as Alexandrians, " men of Mace- 
 donia," were bound to be ; and there was many a 
 grumble among them, all but audible, at the pre- 
 fect's going in state to the heathen woman's house 
 heathen sorceress, some pious old woman called 
 her before he heard any poor soul's petition in 
 the tribunal, or even said his prayers in church. 
 
 Just as he was stepping into his curricle, a tall 
 young man, as gorgeously bedizened as himself, 
 lounged down the steps after him, and beckoned 
 lazily to the black boy who carried his parasol. 
 
 " Ah, Raphael Aben-Ezra ! my excellent friend, 
 what propitious deity ahem! martyr brings 
 you to Alexandria just as I want you ! Get up 
 by my side, and let us have a chat on our way 
 to the tribunal." 
 
 The man addressed came slowly forward with 
 an ostentatiously low salutation, which could not
 
 3 2 Hypatia 
 
 hide, and indeed was not intended to hide, the 
 contemptuous and lazy expression of his face; 
 and asked in a drawling tone : 
 
 " And for what kind purpose does the repre- 
 sentative of the Caesars bestow such an honor 
 on the humblest of his, etc. etc. your pene- 
 tration will supply the rest." 
 
 " Don't be frightened ; I am not going to 
 borrow money of you," answered Orestes, laugh- 
 ingly, as the Jew got into the curricle. 
 
 " I am glad to hear it. Really one usurer in a 
 family is enough. My father made the gold, and if 
 I spend it, I consider that I do all that is required 
 of a philosopher." 
 
 " A charming team of white Nisaeans, is not 
 this? And only one gray foot among all the 
 four." 
 
 "Yes . . . horses are a bore, I begin to find, 
 like everything else. Always falling sick, or run- 
 ning away, or breaking one's peace of mind in 
 some way or other. Besides, I have been pestered 
 out of my life there in Cyrene, by commissions for 
 dogs and horses and bows from that old Episcopal 
 Nimrod, Synesius." 
 
 " What, is the worthy man as lively as ever? " 
 
 " Lively? He nearly drove me into a nervous 
 fever in three days. Up at four in the morning, 
 always in the most disgustingly good health and 
 spirits, farming, coursing, shooting, riding over 
 hedge and ditch after rascally black robbers; 
 preaching, intriguing, borrowing money; bap- 
 tizing and excommunicating ; bullying that bully, 
 Andronicus; comforting old women, and giving 
 pretty girls dowries ; scribbling one half-hour on 
 philosophy, and the next on farriery; sitting up
 
 The Dying World 33 
 
 all night writing hymns and drinking strong 
 liquors; off again on horseback at four the next 
 morning; and talking by the hour all the while 
 about philosophic abstraction from the mundane 
 tempest. Heaven defend me from all two-legged 
 whirlwinds ! By the by, there was a fair daughter 
 of my nation came back to Alexandria in the 
 same ship with me, with a cargo that may suit 
 your highness." 
 
 " There are a great many fair daughters of your 
 nation who might suit me, without any cargo at 
 all." 
 
 " Ah, they have had good practice, the little 
 fools, ever since the days of Jeroboam the son 
 of Nebat. But I mean old Miriam you know. 
 She has been lending Synesius money to fight 
 the black fellows with; and really it was high 
 time. They had burnt every homestead for miles 
 through the province. But the daring old girl 
 must do a little business for herself; so she went 
 off, in the teeth of the barbarians, right away 
 to the Atlas, bought all their lady prisoners, and 
 some of their own sons and daughters, too, of them, 
 for beads and old iron ; and has come back with 
 as pretty a cargo of Lybian beauties as a prefect 
 of good taste could wish to have the first choice of. 
 You may thank me for that privilege." 
 
 " After, of course, you had suited yourself, my 
 cunning Raphael ? " 
 
 " Not I. Women are bores, as Solomon found 
 out long ago. Did I never tell you ? I began, as 
 he did, with the most select harem in Alexandria. 
 But they quarrelled so, that one day I went out, 
 and sold them all but one, who was a Jewess so 
 there were objections on the part of the Rabbis.
 
 34 Hypatia 
 
 Then I tried one, as Solomon did ; but my ' garden 
 shut up/ and my ' sealed fountain ' wanted me to 
 be always in love with her, so I went to the law- 
 yers, allowed her a comfortable maintenance, and 
 now I am as free as a monk, and shall be happy 
 to give your excellency the benefit of any good 
 taste or experience which I may possess." 
 
 " Thanks, worthy Jew. We are not yet as ex- 
 alted as yourself, and will send for the old Erictho 
 this very afternoon. Now listen a moment to base, 
 earthly, and political business. Cyril has written 
 to me, to say that you Jews have plotted to murder 
 all the Christians." 
 
 " Well why not ? I most heartily wish it were 
 true, and think, on the whole, that it very pro- 
 bably is so." 
 
 "By the immortal saints, man! you are not 
 serious?" 
 
 " The four archangels forbid ! It is no concern 
 of mine. All I say is, that my people are great 
 fools, like the rest of the world; and have, for 
 aught I know or care, some such intention. They 
 won't succeed, of course ; and that is all you have 
 to care for. But if you think it worth the trouble 
 which I do not I shall have to go to the 
 synagogue on business in a week or so, and then 
 I would ask some of the Rabbis." 
 
 " Laziest of men ! and I must answer Cyril 
 this very day." 
 
 " An additional reason for asking no questions 
 of our people. Now you can honestly say that 
 you know nothing about the matter." 
 
 " Well, after all, ignorance is a stronghold for 
 poor statesmen. So you need not hurry your- 
 self."
 
 The Dying World 35 
 
 " I assure your excellency I will not." 
 
 " Ten days hence, or so, you know." 
 
 " Exactly, after it is all over." 
 
 "And can't be helped. What a comfort it is, 
 now and then, that Can't be helped ! " 
 
 "It is the root and marrow of all philosophy. 
 Your practical man, poor wretch, will try to help 
 this and that, and torment his soul with ways and 
 means, and preventives and forestallings : your 
 philosopher quietly says It can't be helped. If 
 it ought to be, it will be : if it is, it ought to be. 
 We did not make the world, and we are not respon- 
 sible for it. There is the sum and substance of 
 all true wisdom, and the epitome of all that has 
 been said and written thereon from Philo the Jew 
 to Hypatia the Gentile. By the way, here 's Cyril 
 coming down the steps of the Caesareum. A very 
 handsome fellow, after all, though he is looking 
 as sulky as a bear." 
 
 " With his cubs at his heels. What a scoundrelly 
 visage that tall fellow deacon, or reader, or 
 whatever he is by his dress has ! " 
 
 " There they are whispering together. Heaven 
 give them pleasant thoughts and pleasanter faces ! " 
 
 " Amen ! " quoth Orestes, with a sneer : and he 
 would have said Amen in good earnest, had he been 
 able to take the liberty which we shall and 
 listen to Cyril's answer to Peter, the tall reader. 
 
 " From Hypatia's, you say? Why, he only re- 
 turned to the city this morning." 
 
 " I saw his four-in-hand standing at her door, as 
 I came down the Museum Street hither, half-an- 
 hour ago." 
 
 " And twenty carriages besides, I don't doubt? " 
 
 " The street was blocked up with them. There i
 
 36 Hypatia 
 
 Look round the corner now. Chariots, litters, 
 slaves, and fops. When shall we see such a con- 
 course as that where it ought to be ? " 
 
 Cyril made no answer; and Peter went on: 
 " Where it ought to be, my father in front of 
 your door at the Serapeium ? " 
 
 " The world, the flesh, and the devil know their 
 own, Peter : and as long as they have their own to 
 go to, we cannot expect them to come to us." 
 
 " But what if their own were taken out of the 
 way?" 
 
 " They might come to us for want of better 
 amusement . . . devil and all. Well if I could 
 get a fair hold of the two first, I would take the 
 third into the bargain, and see what could be done 
 with him. But never, while these lecture-rooms 
 last these Egyptian chambers of imagery 
 these theatres of Satan, where the devil transforms 
 himself into an angel of light, and apes Christian 
 virtue, and bedizens his ministers like ministers of 
 righteousness, as long as that lecture-room stands, 
 and the great and the powerful flock to it, to learn 
 excuses for their own tyrannies and atheisms, so 
 long will the kingdom of God be trampled under 
 foot in Alexandria; so long will the princes of 
 this world, with their gladiators, and parasites, 
 and money-lenders, be masters here, and not the 
 bishops and priests of the living God." 
 
 It was now Peter's turn to be silent ; and as the 
 two, with their little knot of district-visitors behind 
 them, walk moodily along the great esplanade which 
 overlooked the harbor, and then vanish suddenly 
 up some dingy alley into the crowded misery of 
 the sailors' quarter, we will leave them to go about 
 their errand of mercy, and, like fashionable people,
 
 The Dying World 37 
 
 keep to the grand parade, and listen again to our 
 two fashionable friends in the carved and gilded 
 curricle with four white blood-horses. 
 
 "A fine sparkling breeze outside the Pharos, 
 Raphael fair for the wheat-ships too." 
 
 "Are they gone yet?" 
 
 Yes why? I sent the first fleet off three 
 days ago ; and the rest are clearing outwards 
 to-day." 
 
 " Oh ah so ! Then you have not heard 
 from Heraclian ? " 
 
 " Heraclian ? What the blessed saints has the 
 Count of Africa to do with my wheat-ships ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing. It 's no business of mine. Only 
 he is going to rebel. . . . But here we are at your 
 door." 
 
 " To what? " asked Orestes, in a horrified tone. 
 
 " To rebel, and attack Rome." 
 
 " Good gods God I mean. A fresh bore ! 
 Come in, and tell a poor miserable slave of 
 a governor speak low, for heaven's sake ! I 
 hope these rascally grooms have n't overheard 
 you." 
 
 " Easy to throw them into the canal, if they 
 have," quoth Raphael, as he walked coolly through 
 hall and corridor after the perturbed governor. 
 
 Poor Orestes never stopped till he reached a 
 little chamber of the inner court, beckoned the Jew 
 in after him, locked the door, threw himself into an 
 arm-chair, put his hands on his knees, and sat, 
 bending forward, staring into Raphael's face with a 
 ludicrous terror and perplexity. 
 
 " Tell me all about it. Tell me this instant." 
 
 "I have told you all I know," quoth Raphael, 
 quietly seating himself on a sofa, and playing with
 
 38 Hypatia 
 
 a jewelled dagger. " I thought, of course, that you 
 were in the secret, or I should have said nothing. 
 It 's no business of mine, you know." 
 
 Orestes, like most weak and luxurious men, 
 Romans especially, had a wild-beast vein in him 
 and it burst forth. 
 
 " Hell and the furies ! You insolent provincial 
 slave you will carry these liberties of yours too 
 far ! Do you know who I am, you accursed Jew? 
 Tell me the whole truth, or, by the head of the 
 emperor, I '11 twist it out of you with red-hot 
 pincers ! " 
 
 Raphael's countenance assumed a dogged ex- 
 pression, which showed that the old Jewish blood 
 still beat true, under all its affected shell of Neo- 
 Platonist nonchalance ; and there was a quiet un- 
 pleasant earnest in his smile, as he answered : 
 
 " Then, my dear governor, you will be the first 
 man on earth who ever yet forced a Jew to say or 
 do what he did not choose." 
 
 " We '11 see ! " yelled Orestes. " Here, slaves ! " 
 And he clapped his hands loudly. 
 
 "Calm yourself, your excellency," quoth Ra- 
 phael, rising. " The door is locked ; the mosquito 
 net is across the window; and this dagger is 
 poisoned. If anything happens to me, you will 
 offend all the Jew money-lenders, and die in about 
 three days in a great deal of pain, having missed 
 our assignation with old Miriam, lost your pleasant- 
 est companion, and left your own finances and 
 those of the prefecture in a considerable state of 
 embarrassment. How much better to sit down, 
 hear all I have to say philosophically, like a true 
 pupil of Hypatia, and not expect a man to tell you 
 what he really does not know."
 
 The Dying World 39 
 
 Orestes, after looking vainly round the room 
 for a place to escape, had quietly subsided into 
 his chair again ; and by the time that the slaves 
 knocked at the door, he had so far recovered his 
 philosophy as to ask, not for the torturers, but 
 for a page and wine. 
 
 " Oh, you Jews ! " quoth he, trying to laugh off 
 matters. " The same incarnate fiends that Titus 
 found you ! " 
 
 " The very same, my dear prefect. Now for 
 this matter, which is really important at least 
 to Gentiles. Heraclian will certainly rebel. Syne- 
 sius let out as much to me. He has fitted 
 out an armament for Ostia, stopped his own 
 wheat-ships, and is going to write to you to stop 
 yours, and to starve out the Eternal City, Goths, 
 senate, emperor, and all. Whether you will 
 comply with his reasonable little request depends 
 of course on yourself." 
 
 " And that again very much on his plans." 
 
 " Of course. You cannot be expected to we 
 will euphemize unless it be made worth your 
 while." 
 
 Orestes sat buried in deep thought. 
 
 " Of course not," said he at last, half uncon- 
 sciously. And then, in sudden dread of having 
 committed himself, he looked up fiercely at the 
 Jew. 
 
 " And how do I know that this is not some 
 infernal trap of yours? Tell me how you found 
 out all this, or by Hercules [he had quite forgotten 
 his Christianity by this time] by Hercules and 
 the twelve gods, I '11 " 
 
 "Don't use expressions unworthy of a philoso- 
 pher. My source of information was very simple
 
 40 Hypatia 
 
 and very good. He has been negotiating a loan 
 from the Rabbis at Carthage. They were either 
 frightened, or loyal, or both, and hung back. He 
 knew as all wise governors know when they allow 
 themselves time that it is no use to bully a Jew ; 
 and applied to me. I never lend money it is 
 unphilosophical : but I introduced him to old 
 Miriam, who dare do business with the devil 
 himself; and by that move, whether he has the 
 money or not, I cannot tell : but this I can tell, 
 that we have his secret and so have you now ; 
 and if you want more information, the old woman, 
 who enjoys an intrigue as much as she does 
 Falernian, will get it you." 
 
 " Well, you are a true friend, after all." 
 
 " Of course I am. Now, is not this method of 
 getting at the truth much easier and pleasanter 
 than setting a couple of dirty negroes to pinch 
 and pull me, and so making it a point of honor 
 with me to tell you nothing but lies ? Here comes 
 Ganymede with the wine, just in time to calm 
 your nerves, and fill you with the spirit of divina- 
 tion. ... To the goddess of good counsels, my 
 lord? What wine this is ! " 
 
 " True Syrian fire and honey ; fourteen years 
 old next vintage, my Raphael. Out, Hypocorisma ! 
 See that he is not listening. The impudent 
 rascal ! I was humbugged into giving two thou- 
 sand gold pieces for him two years ago, he was 
 so pretty they said he was only just rising 
 thirteen and he has been the plague of my life 
 ever since, and is beginning to want the barber 
 already. Now, what is the count dreaming of ! " 
 
 " His wages for killing Stilicho." 
 
 " What, is it not enough to be Count of Africa? "
 
 The Dying World 41 
 
 " I suppose he sets off against that his services 
 during the last three years." 
 
 " Well, he saved Africa." 
 
 "And thereby Egypt also. And you too, as 
 well as the emperor, may be considered as owing 
 him somewhat." 
 
 "My good friend, my debts are far too numer- 
 ous for me to think of paying any of them. But 
 what wages does he want ? " 
 
 "The purple." 
 
 Orestes started, and then fell into thought. 
 Raphael sat watching him a while. 
 
 "Now, most noble lord, may I depart? I have 
 said all I have to say ; and unless I get home to 
 luncheon at once, I shall hardly have time to find 
 old Miriam for you, and get through our little 
 affair with her before sunset." 
 
 " Stay. What force has he ? " 
 
 " Forty thousand already, they say. And those 
 Donatist ruffians are with him to a man, if he can 
 but scrape together wherewith to change their 
 bludgeons into good steel." * 
 
 " Well, go. . . . So. A hundred thousand might 
 do it," said he, meditating, as Raphael bowed him- 
 self out. " He won't get them. I don't know, 
 though ; the man has the head of a Julius. Well 
 that fool Attalus talked of joining Egypt to the 
 Western Empire. . . . Not such a bad thought 
 either. Anything is better than being governed by 
 an idiot child and three canting nuns. I expect to 
 be excommunicated every day for some offence 
 against Pulcheria's prudery. . . . Heraclian empe- 
 ror at Rome . . . and I lord and master on this 
 side the sea ... the Donatists pitted again fairly 
 against the orthodox, to cut each other's throats
 
 42 Hypatia 
 
 in peace ... no more of Cyril's spying and tale- 
 bearing to Constantinople. . . . Not such a bad 
 dish of fare. . . . But then it would take so 
 much trouble ! " 
 
 With which words, Orestes went into his third 
 warm bath for that day.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GOTHS 
 
 FOR two days the young monk held on, pad- 
 dling and floating rapidly down the Nile- 
 stream, leaving city after city to right and left with 
 longing eyes, and looking back to one villa after 
 another, till the reaches of the banks hid them 
 from his sight, with many a yearning to know 
 what sort of places those gay buildings and gar- 
 dens would look like on a nearer view, and what 
 sort of life the thousands led who crowded the 
 busy quays, and walked and drove, in an endless 
 stream, along the great highroads which ran along 
 either bank. He carefully avoided every boat that 
 passed him, from the gilded barge of the wealthy 
 landlord or merchant, to the tiny raft buoyed up 
 with empty jars, which was floating down to be 
 sold at some market in the Delta. Here and 
 there he met and hailed a crew of monks, drawing 
 their nets in a quiet bay, or passing along the 
 great watery highway from monastery to monas- 
 tery : but all the news he received from them was, 
 that the canal of Alexandria was still several days' 
 journey below him. It seemed endless, that 
 monotonous vista of the two high clay banks, with 
 their sluices and water-wheels, their knots of palms 
 and date-trees; endless seemed that wearisome 
 succession of bars of sand and banks of mud, every 
 one like the one before it, every one dotted with
 
 44 Hypatia 
 
 the same line of logs and stones strewn along the 
 water's edge, which turned out as he approached 
 them, to be basking crocodiles and sleeping peli- 
 cans. His eye, wearied with the continual confine- 
 ment and want of distance, longed for the boundless 
 expanse of the desert, for the jagged outlines of 
 those far-off hills, which he had watched from boy- 
 hood rising mysteriously at morn out of the eastern 
 sky, and melting mysteriously into it again at 
 even, beyond which dwelt a whole world of won- 
 ders, elephants and dragons, satyrs and anthro- 
 pophagi, ay, and the phoenix itself. Tired and 
 melancholy, his mind returned inward to prey on 
 itself, and the last words of Arsenius rose again 
 and again to his thoughts. " Was his call of the 
 spirit or of the flesh?" How should he test that 
 problem? He wished to see the world . . . that 
 might be carnal. True; but, he wished to con- 
 vert the world ... was not that spiritual ? Was he 
 not going on a noble errand? . . . thirsting for toil, 
 for saintship, for martyrdom itself, if it would but 
 come and cut the Gordian knot of all temptations, 
 and save him for he dimly felt that it would save 
 him a whole sea of trouble in getting safe and 
 triumphant out of that world into which he had not 
 yet entered . . . and his heart shrunk back from 
 the untried homeless wilderness before him. But 
 no ! the die was cast, and he must down and on- 
 ward, whether in obedience to the spirit or the 
 flesh. Oh, for one hour of the quiet of that dear 
 Laura and the old familiar faces ! 
 
 At last, a sudden turn of the bank brought him 
 in sight of a gaudily-painted barge, on board of 
 which armed men, in uncouth and foreign dresses, 
 were chasing with barbaric shouts some large
 
 The Goths 45 
 
 object in the water. In the bows stood a man of 
 gigantic stature, brandishing a harpoon in his right 
 hand, and in his left holding the line of a second, 
 the head of which was fixed in the huge purple sides 
 of a hippopotamus, who foamed and wallowed a few 
 yards down the stream. An old grizzled warrior 
 at the stern, with a rudder in either hand, kept the 
 boat's head continually towards the monster, in 
 spite of its sudden and frantic wheelings; and 
 when it dashed madly across the stream, some 
 twenty oars flashed through the water in pursuit. 
 All was activity and excitement; and it was no 
 wonder if Philammon's curiosity had tempted him 
 to drift down almost abreast of the barge, ere he 
 descried, peeping from under a decorated awning 
 in the afterpart, some dozen pair of languishing 
 black eyes, turned alternately to the game and to 
 himself. The serpents ! chattering and smiling, 
 with pretty little shrieks and shaking of glossy 
 curls and gold necklaces, and fluttering of muslin 
 dresses, within a dozen yards of him ! Blushing 
 scarlet, he knew not why, he seized his paddle, and 
 tried to back out of the snare . . . but somehow, 
 his very efforts to escape those sparkling eyes 
 diverted his attention from everything else: the 
 hippopotamus had caught sight of him, and furious 
 with pain, rushed straight at the unoffending canoe ; 
 the harpoon line became entangled round his 
 body, and in a moment he and his frail bark were 
 overturned, and the monster, with his huge white 
 tusks gaping wide, close on him, as he struggled in 
 the stream. 
 
 Luckily Philammon, contrary to the wont of 
 monks, was a bather, and swam like a water-fowl : 
 fear he had never known: death from childhood
 
 46 Hypatia 
 
 had been to him, as to the other inmates of the 
 Laura, a contemplation too perpetual to have any 
 paralyzing terror in it, even then, when life seemed 
 just about to open on him anew. But the monk 
 was a man, and a young one, and had no intention 
 of dying tamely or unavenged. In an instant he 
 had freed himself from the line ; drawn the short 
 knife which was his only weapon ; and diving sud- 
 denly, avoided the monster's rush, and attacked 
 him from behind with stabs, which, though not 
 deep, still dyed the waters with gore at every 
 stroke. The barbarians shouted with delight. 
 The hippopotamus turned furiously against his 
 new assailant, crushing, alas ! the empty canoe to 
 fragments with a single snap of his enormous jaws ; 
 but the turn was fatal to him ; the barge was close 
 upon him, and as he presented his broad side to 
 the blow, the sinewy arm of the giant drove a har- 
 poon through his heart, and with one convulsive 
 shudder the huge blue mass turned over on its 
 side and floated dead. 
 
 Poor Philammon! He alone was silent, amid 
 the yells of triumph ; sorrowfully he swam round 
 and round his little paper wreck ... it would not 
 have floated a mouse. Wistfully he eyed the dis- 
 tant banks, half minded to strike out for them, and 
 escape, . . . and thought of the crocodiles, . . . and 
 paddled round again, . . . and thought of the basi- 
 lisk eyes ; ... he might escape the crocodiles, but 
 who could escape women ? . . . and he struck out 
 valiantly for shore . . . when he was brought to a 
 sudden stop by finding the stem of the barge close 
 on him, a noose thrown over him by some friendly 
 barbarian, and himself hauled on board, amid the 
 laughter, praise, astonishment, and grumbling of
 
 The Goths 47 
 
 the good-natured crew, who had expected him, as a 
 matter of course, to avail himself at once of their 
 help, and could not conceive the cause of his 
 reluctance. 
 
 Philammon gazed with wonder on his strange 
 hosts, their pale complexions, globular heads and 
 faces, high cheek-bones, tall and sturdy figures; 
 their red beards, and yellow hair knotted fantas- 
 tically above the head; their awkward dresses, 
 half Roman or Egyptian, and half of foreign fur, 
 soiled and stained in many a storm and fight, but 
 tastelessly bedizened with classic jewels, brooches 
 and Roman coins, strung like necklaces. Only the 
 steersman, who had come forward to wonder at the 
 hippopotamus, and to help in dragging the un- 
 wieldy brute on board, seemed to keep genuine 
 and unornamented the costume of his race, the 
 white linen leggings, strapped with thongs of deer- 
 skin, the quilted leather cuirass, the bear's-fur 
 cloak, the only ornaments of which were the fangs 
 and claws of the beast itself, and a fringe of griz- 
 zled tufts, which looked but too like human hair. 
 The language which they spoke was utterly unin- 
 telligible to Philammon, though it need not be so 
 to us. 
 
 " A well-grown lad and a brave one, Wulf the 
 son of Ovida," said the giant to the old hero of the 
 bearskin cloak; "and understands wearing skins, 
 in this furnace-mouth of a climate, rather better 
 than you do." 
 
 " I keep to the dress of my forefathers, Amalric 
 the Amal. What did to sack Rome in, may do to 
 find Asgard in." 
 
 The giant, who was decked out with helmet, 
 cuirass, and senatorial boots, in a sort of mongrel
 
 48 Hypatia 
 
 mixture of the Roman military and civil dress, his 
 neck wreathed with a dozen gold chains, and 
 every finger sparkling with jewels, turned away 
 with an impatient sneer. 
 
 " Asgard Asgard ! If you are in such a hurry 
 to get to Asgard up this ditch in the sand, you had 
 better ask the fellow how far it is thither." 
 
 Wulf took him quietly at his word, and addressed 
 a question to the young monk, which he could 
 only answer by a shake of the head. 
 
 " Ask him in Greek, man." 
 
 " Greek is a slave's tongue. Make a slave talk 
 to him in it, not me." 
 
 " Here some of you girls ! Pelagia ! you 
 understand this fellow's talk. Ask him how far it 
 is to Asgard." 
 
 " You must ask me more civilly, my rough hero," 
 replied a soft voice from underneath the awning. 
 " Beauty must be sued, and not commanded." 
 
 "Come, then, my olive-tree, my gazelle, my 
 lotus-flower, my what was the last nonsense you 
 taught me? and ask this wild man of the sands 
 how far it is from these accursed endless rabbit- 
 burrows to Asgard." 
 
 The awning was raised, and lying luxuriously on 
 a soft mattress, fanned with peacock's feathers, and 
 glittering with rubies and topazes, appeared such a 
 vision as Philammon had never seen before. 
 
 A woman of some two-and-twenty summers, 
 formed in the most voluptuous mould of Grecian 
 beauty, whose complexion showed every violet 
 vein through its veil of luscious brown. Her little 
 bare feet, as they dimpled the cushions, were more 
 perfect than Aphrodite's, softer than a swan's 
 bosom. Every swell of her bust and arms showed
 
 The Goths 49 
 
 through the thin gauze robe, while her lower limbs 
 were wrapped in a shawl of orange silk, embroid- 
 ered with wreaths of shells and roses. Her dark 
 nair lay carefully spread out upon the pillow, in a 
 thousand ringlets entwined with gold and jewels ; 
 her languishing eyes blazed like diamonds from a 
 cavern, under eyelids darkened and deepened with 
 black antimony ; her lips pouted of themselves, by 
 habit or by nature, into a perpetual kiss ; slowly 
 she raised one little lazy hand ; slowly the ripe lips 
 opened; and in most pure and melodious Attic, 
 she lisped her huge lover's question to the monk, 
 and repeated it before the boy could shake off the 
 spell, and answer . . . 
 
 " Asgard ? What is Asgard ? " 
 
 The beauty looked at the giant for further 
 instructions. 
 
 " The city of the immortal gods," interposed the 
 old warrior, hastily and sternly, to the lady. 
 
 " The city of God is in heaven," said Philammon 
 to the interpreter, turning his head away from 
 those gleaming, luscious, searching glances. 
 
 His answer was received with a general laugh by 
 all except the leader, who shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 u It may as well be up in the skies as up the 
 Nile. We shall be just as likely, I believe, to 
 reach it by flying, as by rowing up this big ditch. 
 Ask him where the river comes from, Pelagia." 
 
 Pelagia obeyed . . . and thereon followed a con- 
 fusion worse confounded, composed of all the im- 
 possible wonders of that mythic fairy-land with 
 which Philammon had gorged himself from boy- 
 hood in his walks with the old monks, and of the 
 equally trustworthy traditions which the Goths 
 had picked up at Alexandria. There was nothing 
 
 D Vol. VI
 
 50 Hypatia 
 
 which that river did not do. It rose in the Cau- 
 casus. Where was the Caucasus! He did not 
 know. In Paradise in Indian ./Ethiopia in 
 ^Ethiopian India. Where were they? He did not 
 know. Nobody knew. It ran for a hundred and 
 fifty days' journey through deserts where nothing 
 but flying serpents and satyrs lived, and the very 
 lions' manes were burnt off by the heat. . . . 
 
 " Good sporting there, at all events, among these 
 dragons," quoth Smid the son of Troll, armorer 
 to the party. 
 
 " As good as Thor's when he caught Snake Mid- 
 gard with the bullock's head," said Wulf. 
 
 It turned to the East for a hundred days' jour- 
 ney more, all round Arabia and India, among 
 forests full of elephants and dog-headed women. 
 
 "Better and better, Smid!" growled Wulf, 
 approvingly. 
 
 "Fresh beef cheap there, Prince Wulf, eh?" 
 quoth Smid ; " I must look over the arrow-heads." 
 
 To the mountains of the Hyperboreans, where 
 there was eternal night, and the air was full of 
 feathers, . . . That is, one-third of it came from 
 thence, and another third came from the Southern 
 ocean, over the Moon mountains, where no one 
 had ever been, and the remaining third from the 
 country where the phoenix lived, and nobody 
 knew where that was. And then there were the 
 cataracts, and the inundations and and and 
 above the cataracts, nothing but sand-hills and 
 ruins, as full of devils as they could hold . . . and 
 as for Asgard, no one had ever heard of it ... till 
 every face grew longer and longer, as Pelagia went 
 on interpreting and misinterpreting; and at last 
 the giant smote his hand upon his knee, and swore
 
 The Goths 51 
 
 a great oath that Asgard might rot till the twilight 
 of the gods before he went a step farther up the 
 Nile. 
 
 " Curse the monk 1 " growled Wulf. " How 
 should such a poor beast know anything about the 
 matter?" 
 
 " Why should not he know as well as that ape oi 
 a Roman governor?" asked Smid. 
 
 " Oh, the monks know everything," said Pelagia. 
 " They go hundreds and thousands of miles up the 
 river, and cross the deserts among fiends and mon- 
 sters, where any one else would be eaten up, or go 
 mad at once." 
 
 " Ah, the dear holy men ! It 's all by the sign 
 of the blessed cross ! " exclaimed all the girls to- 
 gether, devoutly crossing themselves, while two or 
 three of the most enthusiastic were half-minded to 
 go forward and kneel to Philammon for his bless- 
 ing; but hesitated, their Gothic lovers being 
 heathenishly stupid and prudish on such points. 
 
 " Why should he not know as well as the pre- 
 fect? Well said, Smid 1 I believe that prefect's 
 quill-driver was humbugging us when he said 
 Asgard was only ten days' sail up." 
 
 "Why?" asked Wulf. 
 
 " I never give any reasons. What 's the use of 
 being an Amal, and a son of Odin, if one has 
 always to be giving reasons like a rascally Roman 
 lawyer? I say the governor looked like a liar; 
 and I say this monk looks like an honest fellow; 
 and I choose to believe him, and there is an end 
 of it." 
 
 " Don't look so cross at me, Prince Wulf; I 'm 
 sure it 's not my fault ; I could only say what the 
 monk told me," whispered poor Pelagia.
 
 52 * Hypatia 
 
 "Who looks cross at you, my queen?" roared 
 the Amal. " Let me have him out here, and by 
 Thor's hammer, I '11 " 
 
 "Who spoke to you, you stupid darling?" an- 
 swered Pelagia, who lived in hourly fear of thunder- 
 storms. " Who is going to be cross with any one, 
 except I with you, for mishearing and misunder- 
 standing, and meddling, as you are always doing? 
 I shall do as I threatened, and run away with 
 Prince Wulf, if you are not good. Don't you see 
 that the whole crew are expecting you to make 
 them an oration?" 
 
 Whereupon the Amal rose. 
 
 "See you here, Wulf the son of Ovida, and 
 warriors all ! If we want wealth, we sha'n't find 
 it among the sand-hills. If we want women, we 
 shall find nothing prettier than these among 
 dragons and devils. Don't look angry, Wulf. 
 You have no mind to marry one of those dog- 
 headed girls the monk talked of, have you? 
 Well, then, we have money and women; and if 
 we want sport, it's better sport killing men than 
 killing beasts ; so we had better go where we shall 
 find most of that game, which we certainly shall 
 not up this road. As for fame and all that, though 
 I 've had enough, there 's plenty to be got any- 
 where along the shores of that Mediterranean. 
 Let's burn and plunder Alexandria: forty of 
 us Goths might kill down all those donkey-riders 
 in two days, and hang up that lying prefect who 
 sent us here on this fool's errand. Don't answer, 
 Wulf. I knew he was humbugging us all along, 
 but you were so open-mouthed to all he said, that 
 I was bound to let my elders choose for me. 
 Let 's go back ; send over for any of the tribes j
 
 The Goths 53 
 
 send to Spain for those Vandals they have 
 had enough of Adolf by now, curse him ! 
 I '11 warrant them ; get together an army, and 
 take Constantinople. I'll be Augustus, and 
 Pelagia, Augusta; you and Smid here, the two 
 Caesars ; and we '11 make the monk the chief of 
 the eunuchs, eh ? anything you like for a quiet 
 life; but up this accursed kennel of hot water 
 I go no farther. Ask your girls, my heroes, and 
 I '11 ask mine. Women are all prophetesses, every 
 one of them." 
 
 " When they are not harlots," growled Wulf to 
 himself. 
 
 " I will go to the world's end with you, my 
 king!" sighed Pelagia; "but Alexandria is cer- 
 tainly pleasanter than this." 
 
 Old Wulf sprang up fiercely enough. 
 
 " Hear me, Amalric the Amal, son of Odin, 
 and heroes all ! When my fathers swore to be 
 Odin's men, and gave up the kingdom to the Holy 
 Amals, the sons of the ^Esir, what was the bond 
 between your fathers and mine? Was it not 
 that we should move and move, southward and 
 southward ever, till we came back to Asgard, the 
 city where Odin dwells for ever, and gave into 
 his hands the kingdom of all the earth? And did 
 we not keep our oath? Have we not held to the 
 Amals? Did we not leave Adolf, because we 
 would not follow a Balth, while there was an Amal 
 to lead us? Have we not been true men to you, 
 son of the ^Esir?" 
 
 "No man ever saw Wulf, the son of Ovida, 
 fail friend or foe." 
 
 "Then why does his friend fail him? Why 
 does his friend fail himself? If the bison-bull lie
 
 54 Hypatia 
 
 down and wallow, what will the herd do for a 
 leader? If the king-wolf lose the scent, how will 
 the pack hold it? If the Yngling forgets the song 
 of Asgard, who will sing it to the heroes?" 
 
 " Sing it yourself, if you choose. Pelagia sings 
 quite well enough for me." 
 
 In an instant the cunning beauty caught at the 
 hint, and poured forth a soft, low, sleepy song : 
 
 " Loose the sail, rest the oar, float away down, 
 
 Fleeting and gliding by tower and town ; 
 Life is so short at best ! snatch, while thou can'st, thy rest, 
 Sleeping by me ! " 
 
 " Can you answer that, Wulf ? " shouted a dozen 
 voices. 
 
 " Hear the song of Asgard, warriors of the 
 Goths ! Did not Alaric the king love it well ! 
 Did I not sing it before him in the palace of the 
 Caesars, till he swore, for all the Christian that he 
 was, to go southward in search of the holy city? 
 And when he went to Valhalla, and the ships were 
 wrecked off Sicily, and Adolf the Balth turned 
 back like a lazy hound, and married the daughter 
 of the Romans, whom Odin hates, and went north- 
 ward again to Gaul, did not I sing you all the song 
 of Asgard in Messina there, till you swore to 
 follow the Amal through fire and water until we 
 found the hall of Odin, and received the mead-cup 
 from his own hand? Hear it again, warriors of 
 the Goths!" 
 
 " Not that song ! " roared the Amal, stopping 
 his ears with both his hands. " Will you drive us 
 blood-mad again, just as we are settling down into 
 our sober senses, and finding out what our lives 
 were given us for?"
 
 The Goths 55 
 
 " Hear the song of Asgard ! On to Asgard, 
 wolves of the Goths ! " shouted another ; and a 
 Babel of voices arose. 
 
 " Have n't we been fighting and marching these 
 seven years ? " 
 
 "Haven't we drank blood enough to satisfy 
 Odin ten times over? If he wants us, let him 
 come himself and lead us ! " 
 
 " Let us get our winds again before we start 
 afresh?" 
 
 " Wulf the Prince is like his name, and never 
 tires; he has a winter-wolf's legs under him; 
 that is no reason why we should have." 
 
 "Haven't you heard what the monk says? 
 we can never get over those cataracts." 
 
 " We '11 stop his old-wives' tales for him, and 
 then settle for ourselves," said Smid ; and spring- 
 ing from the thwart where he had been sitting, 
 he caught up a bill with one hand, and seized 
 Philammon's throat with the other ... in a 
 moment more, it would have been all ove; with 
 him . . . 
 
 For the first time in his life Philammon felt a 
 hostile gripe upon him, and a new sensation rushed 
 through every nerve, as he grappled with the 
 warrior, clutched with his left hand the uplifted 
 wrist, and with his right the girdle, and com- 
 menced without any definite aim, a fierce struggle, 
 which, strange to say, as it went on, grew abso- 
 lutely pleasant. 
 
 The women shrieked to their lovers to part the 
 combatants, but in vain. 
 
 "Not for worlds! A very fair match and a 
 very fair fight ! Take your long legs back, Itho, 
 or they will be over you ! That 's right, my Srnid,
 
 56 Hypatia 
 
 don't use the knife ! They will be overboard in a 
 moment! By all the Valkyrs, they are down I 
 and Smid undermost 1 " 
 
 There was no doubt of it; and in another 
 moment Philammon would have wrenched the bill 
 out of his opponent's hand, when, to the utter 
 astonishment of the on-lookers, he suddenly loosed 
 his hold, shook himself free by one powerful 
 wrench, and quietly retreated to his seat, con- 
 science-stricken at the fearful thirst for blood 
 which had suddenly boiled up within him as he 
 felt his enemy under him. 
 
 The on-lookers were struck dumb with astonish- 
 ment ; they had taken for granted that he would, 
 as a matter of course, have used his right of split- 
 ting his vanquished opponent's skull an event 
 which they would of course have deeply deplored, 
 but with which, as men of honor, they could not 
 on any account interfere, but merely console them- 
 selves for the loss of their comrade by flaying his 
 conqueror alive, " carving him into the blood-eagle," 
 or any other delicate ceremony which might serve 
 as a vent for their sorrow and a comfort to the soul 
 of the deceased. 
 
 Smid rose, with a bill in his hand, and looked 
 round him perhaps to see what was expected 
 of him. He half lifted his weapon to strike. . . . 
 Philammon, seated, looked him calmly in the 
 face. ... The old warrior's eye caught the bank, 
 which was now receding rapidly past them; and 
 when he saw that they were really floating down- 
 wards again, without an effort to stem the stream, 
 he put away his bill, and sat himself down delib- 
 erately in his place, astonishing the on-lookers 
 quite as much as Philammon had done.
 
 The Goths 57 
 
 " Five minutes' good fighting, and no one killed ! 
 This is a shame ! " quoth another. " Blood we 
 must see, and it had better be yours, master monk, 
 than your betters'," and therewith he rushed on 
 poor Philammon. 
 
 He spoke the heart of the crew; the sleeping 
 wolf in them had been awakened by the struggle, 
 and blood they would have; and not frantically, 
 like Celts or Egyptians, but with the cool, humor- 
 ous cruelty of the Teuton, they rose altogether, 
 and turning Philammon over on his back, delib- 
 erated by what death he should die. 
 
 Philammon quietly submitted if submission 
 have anything to do with that state of mind in 
 which sheer astonishment and novelty have broken 
 up all the custom of man's nature, till the strangest 
 deeds and sufferings are taken as matters of 
 course. His sudden escape from the Laura, the 
 new world of thought and action into which he 
 had been plunged, the new companions with whom 
 he had fallen in, had driven him utterly from his 
 moorings, and now anything and everything might 
 happen to him. He who had promised never to 
 look upon woman found himself, by circumstances 
 over which he had no control, amid a boatful 
 of the most objectionable species of that most 
 objectionable genus and the utterly worst hav- 
 ing happened, everything else which happened 
 must be better than the worst. For the rest, he 
 had gone forth to see the world and this was 
 one of the ways of it. So he made up his mind 
 to see it, and be filled with the fruit of his own 
 devices. 
 
 And he would have been certainly filled with 
 the same in five minutes more, in some shape
 
 5 8 Hypatia 
 
 too ugly to be mentioned: but, as even sinful 
 women have hearts in them, Pelagia shrieked 
 out: 
 
 " Amalric t Amalric f do not let them ! I can- 
 not bear it!" 
 
 "The warriors are free men, my darling, and 
 know what is proper. And what can the life of 
 such a brute be to you ! " 
 
 Before he could stop her, Pelagia had sprung 
 from her cushions, and thrown herself into the 
 midst of the laughing ring of wild beasts. 
 
 " Spare him ! Spare him for my sake ! " shrieked 
 she. 
 
 "Oh, my pretty lady! you mustn't interrupt 
 warriors' sport ! " 
 
 In an instant she had torn off her shawl, and 
 thrown it over Philammon ; and as she stood, with 
 all the outlines of her beautiful limbs revealed 
 through the thin robe of spangled gauze : 
 
 " Let the man who dares, touch him beneath 
 that shawl ! though it be a saffron one ! " 
 
 The Goths drew back. For Pelagia herself 
 they had as little respect as the rest of the world 
 had. But for a moment she was not the Messalina 
 of Alexandria, but a woman ; and true to the old 
 woman-worshipping instinct, they looked one and 
 all at her flashing eyes, full of noble pity and 
 indignation, as well as of mere woman's terror 
 and drew back, and whispered together. 
 
 Whether the good spirit or the evil one would 
 conquer, seemed for a moment doubtful, when 
 Pelagia felt a heavy hand on her shoulder, and 
 turning, saw Wulf the son of Ovida. 
 
 " Go back, pretty woman ! Men, I claim the 
 boy. Smid, give him to me. He is your man.
 
 The Goths 59 
 
 You could have killed him if you had chosen, and 
 did not; and no one else shall." 
 
 " Give him us, Prince Wulf ! We have not 
 seen blood for many a day ! " 
 
 " You might have seen rivers of it, if you had 
 had the hearts to go onward. The boy is mine, 
 and a brave boy. He has upset a warrior fairly 
 this day, and spared him; and we will make a 
 warrior of him in return." 
 
 And he lifted up the prostrate monk. 
 
 " You are my man now. Do you like fighting? " 
 
 Philammon, not understanding the language in 
 which he was addressed, could only shake his head 
 though if he had known what its import was, he 
 could hardly in honesty have said, No. 
 
 " He shakes his head ! He does not like it ! 
 He is craven ! Let us have him ! " 
 
 "I had killed kings when you were shooting 
 frogs," cried Smid. " Listen to me, my sons ! A 
 coward grips sharply at first, and loosens his hand 
 after a while, because his blood is soon hot and 
 soon cold. A brave man's gripe grows the firmer 
 the longer he holds, because the spirit of Odin 
 comes upon him. I watched the boy's hands on 
 my throat ; and he will make a man ; and I will 
 make him one. However, we may as well make 
 him useful at once ; so give him an oar." 
 
 " Well," answered his new protector, " he can as 
 well row us as be rowed by us ; and if we are to go 
 back to a cow's death and the pool of Hela, the 
 quicker we go the better." 
 
 And as the men settled themselves again to their 
 oars, one was put into Philammon's hand, which he 
 managed with such strength and skill, that his late 
 tormentors, who, in spite of an occasional inclina-
 
 60 Hypatia 
 
 tion to robbery and murder, were thoroughly 
 good-natured, honest fellows, clapped him on the 
 back, and praised him as heartily as they had just 
 jiow heartily intended to torture him to death, and 
 then went fonvard, as many of them as were not 
 rowing, to examine the strange beast which they 
 had just slaughtered, pawing him over from tusks 
 to tail, putting their heads into his mouth, trying 
 their knives on his hide, comparing him to all 
 beasts, like and unlike, which they had ever seen, 
 and laughing and shoving each other about with 
 the fun and childish wonder of a party of school- 
 boys; till Smid, who was the wit of the party, 
 settled the comparative anatomy of the subject for 
 them: 
 
 " Valhalla ! I Ve found out what he 's most 
 like ! One of those big blue plums, which gave 
 us all the stomach-ache when we were encamped 
 in the orchards above Ravenna ! "
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MIRIAM 
 
 ONE morning in the same week, Hypatia's 
 favorite maid entered her chamber with a 
 somewhat terrified face. 
 
 " The old Jewess, madam the hag who has 
 been watching so often lately under the wall 
 opposite. She frightened us all out of our senses 
 last evening by peeping in. We all said she had 
 the evil eye, if any one ever had " 
 
 "Well, what of her?" 
 
 " She is below, madam, and will speak with you. 
 Not that I care for her ; I have my amulet on. I 
 hope you have?" 
 
 " Silly girl ! Those who have been initiated as 
 I have in the mysteries of the gods, can defy 
 spirits and command them. Do you suppose that 
 the favorite of Pallas Athene will condescend to 
 charms and magic? Send her up." 
 
 The girl retreated, with a look half of awe, half 
 of doubt at the lofty pretensions of her mistress, 
 and returned with old Miriam, keeping, however, 
 prudently behind her, in order to test as little as 
 possible the power of her own amulet by avoiding 
 the basilisk eye which had terrified her. 
 
 Miriam came in, and advancing to the proud 
 beauty, who remained seated, made an obeisance 
 down to the very floor, without, however, taking 
 her eyes for an instant off Hypatia's face.
 
 62 Hypatia 
 
 Her countenance was haggard and bony, with 
 broad sharp-cut lips, stamped with a strangely 
 mingled expression of strength and sensuality. 
 But the feature about her which instantly fixed 
 Hypatia's attention, and from which she could not 
 in spite of herself withdraw it, was the dry, glitter- 
 ing, coal-black eye which glared out from under- 
 neath the gray fringe of her swarthy brows, between 
 black locks covered with gold coins. Hypatia 
 could look at nothing but those eyes; and she 
 reddened, and grew all but unphilosophically 
 angry, as she saw that the old woman intended her 
 to look at them, and feel the strange power which 
 she evidently wished them to exercise. 
 
 After a moment's silence, Miriam drew a letter 
 from her bosom, and with a second low obeisance 
 presented it. 
 
 " From whom is this ? " 
 
 " Perhaps the letter itself will tell the beautiful 
 lady, the fortunate lady, the discerning lady," 
 answered she, in a fawning, wheedling tone. 
 " How should a poor old Jewess know great folks' 
 secrets?" 
 
 "Great folks? " 
 
 Hypatia looked at the seal which fixed a silk 
 cord round the letter. It was Orestes'; and so 
 was the handwriting. . . . Strange that he should 
 have chosen such a messenger! What message 
 could it be which required such secrecy? 
 
 She clapped her hands for the maid. " Let this 
 woman wait in the ante-room." Miriam glided 
 out backwards, bowing as she went. As Hypatia 
 looked up over the letter to see whether she was 
 alone, she caught a last glance of that eye still 
 fixed upon her, and an expression in Miriam's face
 
 Miriam 63 
 
 which made her, she knew not why, shudder and 
 turn chill. 
 
 " Foolish that I am ! What can that witch be 
 to me ? But now for the letter." 
 
 " To the most noble and most beautiful, the mistress 
 of philosophy, beloved of Athene, her pupil and slave 
 sends greeting." . . . 
 
 " My slave ! and no name mentioned ! " 
 
 " There are those who consider that the favorite hen 
 of Honorius, which bears the name of the Imperial City, 
 would thrive better under a new feeder ; and the Count 
 of Africa has been despatched by himself and by the 
 immortal gods to superintend for the present the poultry- 
 yard of the Caesars at least during the absence of 
 Aldolf and Placidia. There are those also who consider 
 that in his absence the Numidian lion might be pre- 
 vailed on to become the yoke-fellow of the Egyptian 
 crocodile ; and a farm which, ploughed by such a pair, 
 should extend from the upper cataract to the pillars of 
 Hercules, might have charms even for a philosopher. 
 But while the ploughman is without a nymph, Arcadia is 
 imperfect. What were Dionusos without his Ariadne, 
 Ares without Aphrodite, Zeus without Here? Even 
 Artemis has her Endymion; Athene alone remains 
 unwedded ; but only because Hephaestus was too rough 
 a wooer. Such is not he who now offers to the repre- 
 sentative of Athene the opportunity of sharing that 
 which may be with the help of her wisdom, which with- 
 out her is impossible. Quvavra. (rweroio-iv. Shall Eros, 
 invincible for ages, be balked at last of the noblest 
 game against which he ever drew his bow? " . . . 
 
 If Hypatia's color had faded a moment before 
 under the withering glance of the old Jewess, 
 it rose again swiftly enough, as she read line after
 
 64 Hypatia 
 
 line of this strange epistle ; till at last, crushing it 
 together in her hand, she rose and hurried into the 
 adjoining library, where Theon sat over his books. 
 
 " Father, do you know anything of this ? Look 
 what Orestes has dared to send me by the hands 
 of some base Jewish witch ! " And she spread 
 the letter before him, and stood impatient, her 
 whole figure dilated with pride and anger, as the old 
 man read it slowly and carefully, and then looked 
 up, apparently not ill pleased with the contents. 
 
 "What, father? " asked she, half reproachfully. 
 "Do not you, too, feel the insult which has been 
 put upon your daughter? " 
 
 " My dear child," with a puzzled look, " do you 
 not see that he offers you " 
 
 " I know what he offers me, father. The Empire 
 of Africa. ... I am to descend from the mountain 
 heights of science, from the contemplation of the 
 unchangeable and ineffable glories, into the foul 
 fields and farmyards of earthly practical life, and 
 become a drudge among political chicanery, and 
 the petty ambitions, and sins, and falsehoods of 
 the earthly herd. . . . And the price which he 
 offers me me, the stainless me, the virgin 
 me, the untamed, is his hand ! Pallas Athene I 
 dost thou not blush with thy child ? " 
 
 " But, my child my child, an empire " 
 
 "Would the empire of the world restore my 
 lost self-respect my just pride? Would it save 
 my cheek from blushes every time I recollected 
 that I bore the hateful and degrading name of 
 wife? The property, the puppet of a man 
 submitting to his pleasure bearing his children 
 wearing myself out with all the nauseous cares 
 of wifehood no longer able to glory in myself,
 
 Miriam 65 
 
 pure and self-sustained, but forced by day and 
 night to recollect that my very beauty is no longer 
 the sacrament of Athene's love for me, but the 
 plaything of a man ; and such a man as that ! 
 Luxurious, frivolous, heartless courting my soci- 
 ety, as he has done for years, only to pick up and 
 turn to his own base earthly uses the scraps which 
 fall from the festal table of the gods ! I have en- 
 couraged him too much vain fool that I have 
 been! No, I wrong myself! It was only I 
 thought I thought that by his being seen at 
 our doors, the cause of the immortal gods would 
 gain honor and strength in the eyes of the multi- 
 tude. ... I have tried to feed the altars of heaven 
 with earthly fuel. . . . And this is my just reward ! 
 I will write to him this moment ; return by 
 the fitting messenger which he has sent, insult 
 for insult ! " 
 
 "In the name of Heaven, my daughter! for 
 your father's sake ! for my sake ! Hypatia ! 
 my pride, my joy, my only hope ! have pity on 
 my gray hairs ! " 
 
 And the poor old man flung himself at her feet, 
 and clasped her knees imploringly. 
 
 Tenderly she lifted him up, and wound her long 
 arms round him, and laid his head on her white 
 shoulder, and her tears fell fast upon his gray 
 hair ; but her lip was firm and determined. 
 
 "Think of my pride my glory in your glory; 
 think of me. . . . Not for myself! You know I 
 never cared for myself ! " sobbed out the old man. 
 " But to die seeing you empress ! " 
 
 " Unless I died first in childbed, father, as many 
 a woman dies who is weak enough to become a 
 slave., and submit to tortures only fit for slaves."
 
 66 Hypatia 
 
 " But but " said the old man, racking his 
 
 bewildered brains for some argument far enough 
 removed from nature and common sense to have 
 an effect on the beautiful fanatic " but the cause 
 of the gods ! What you might do for it ! ... 
 Remember Julian ! " 
 
 Hypatia's arms dropped suddenly. Yes ; it was 
 true ! The thought flashed across her mind with 
 mingled delight and terror. . . . Visions of her 
 childhood rose swift and thick temples sacri- 
 fices priesthoods colleges museums ! What 
 might she not do? What might she not make 
 Africa! Give her ten years of power, and the 
 hated name of Christian might be forgotten, and 
 Athene Polias, colossal in ivory and gold, watch- 
 ing in calm triumph over the harbors of a heathen 
 Alexandria. . . . But the price I 
 
 And she hid her face in her hands, and bursting 
 into bitter tears, walked slowly away into her own 
 chamber, her whole body convulsed with the inter- 
 nal struggle. 
 
 The old man looked after her, anxiously and 
 perplexed, and then followed, hesitating. She was 
 sitting at the table, her face buried in her hands. 
 He did not dare to disturb her. In addition to all 
 the affection, the wisdom, the glorious beauty, on 
 which his whole heart fed day by day, he believed 
 her to be the possessor of those supernatural 
 powers and favors to which she so boldly laid 
 claim. And he stood watching her in the door- 
 way, praying in his heart to all gods and demons, 
 principalities and powers, from Athene down to 
 his daughter's guardian spirit, to move a deter- 
 mination which he was too weak to gainsay, and 
 yet too rational to approve.
 
 Miriam 67 
 
 At last the struggle was over, and she looked up, 
 clear, calm, and glorious again. 
 
 "It shall be. For the sake of the immortal 
 gods for the sake of art, and science, and learn- 
 ing, and philosophy. ... It shall be. If the gods 
 demand a victim, here am I. If a second time in 
 the history of the ages the Grecian fleet cannot 
 sail forth, conquering and civilizing, without the 
 sacrifice of a virgin, I give my throat to the 
 knife. Father, call me no more Hypatia : call me 
 Iphigenia ! " 
 
 " And me Agamemnon ? " asked the old man, 
 attempting a faint jest through his tears of joy. 
 "I dare say you think me a very cruel father; 
 but " 
 
 " Spare me, father I have spared you." 
 
 And she began to write her answer. 
 
 " I have accepted his offer conditionally, that 
 is. And on whether he have courage or not to 
 
 fulfil that condition depends Do not ask me 
 
 what it is. While Cyril is leader of the Christian 
 mob, it may be safer for you, my father, that you 
 should be able to deny all knowledge of my an- 
 swer. Be content. I have said this that if he 
 will do as I would have him do, I will do as you 
 would have me do." 
 
 " Have you not been too rash? Have you not 
 demanded of him something which, for the sake of 
 public opinion, he dare not grant openly, and yet 
 which he may allow you to do for yourself when 
 once " 
 
 " I have. If I am to be a victim, the sacrificing 
 priest shall at least be a man, and not a coward 
 and a time-server. If he believes this Christian 
 faith, let him defend it against me ; for either it or
 
 68 Hypatia 
 
 I shall perish. If he does not as he does not 
 let him give up living in a lie, and taking on his 
 lips blasphemies against the immortals, from which 
 his heart and reason revolt ! " 
 
 And she clapped her hands again for the maid- 
 servant, gave her the letter silently, shut the doors 
 of her chamber, and tried to resume her Com- 
 mentary on Plotinus. Alas! what were all the 
 wire-drawn dreams of metaphysics to her in that 
 real and human struggle of the heart? What 
 availed it to define the process by which individual 
 souls emanated from the universal one, while her 
 own soul had, singly and on its own responsibility, 
 to decide so terrible an act of will? or to write fine 
 words with pen and ink about the immutability of 
 the supreme Reason, while her own reason was 
 left there to struggle for its life amid a roaring 
 shoreless waste of doubts and darkness ? Oh, how 
 grand, and clear, and logical it had all looked half 
 an hour ago ! And how irrefragably she had been 
 deducing from it all, syllogism after syllogism, the 
 non-existence of evil ! how it was but a lower 
 form of good, one of the countless products of the 
 one great all-pervading mind which could not err 
 or change, only so strange and recondite in its 
 form as to excite antipathy in all minds but that of 
 the philosopher, who learnt to see the stem which 
 connected the apparently bitter fruit with the per- 
 fect root from whence it sprung. Could she see 
 the stem there ? the connection between the 
 pure and supreme Reason, and the hideous caresses 
 of the debauched and cowardly Orestes? was not 
 that evil, pure, unadulterate with any vein of good, 
 past, present, or future? . . . 
 
 True ; she might keep her spirit pure amid it
 
 Miriam 69 
 
 all ; she might sacrifice the base body, and ennoble 
 the soul by the self-sacrifice. . . . And yet, would 
 not that increase the horror, the agony, the evil of 
 it to her, at least, most real evil, not to be 
 explained away and yet the gods required it? 
 Were they just, merciful in that? Was it like 
 them, to torture her, their last unshaken votary? 
 Did they require it? Was it not required of them 
 by some higher power, of whom they were only 
 the emanations, the tools, the puppets ? and re- 
 quired of that higher power by some still higher 
 one some nameless, absolute destiny of which 
 Orestes and she, and all heaven and earth, were 
 but the victims, dragged along in an inevitable 
 vortex, helpless, hopeless, toward that for which 
 each was meant? And she was meant for this! 
 The thought was unbearable ; it turned her giddy. 
 No ! she would not ! She would rebel ! Like 
 Prometheus, she would dare destiny, and brave its 
 worst ! And she sprang up to recall the letter. . . . 
 Miriam was gone; and she threw herself on the 
 floor, and wept bitterly. 
 
 And her peace of mind would certainly not 
 have been improved, could she have seen old 
 Miriam hurry home with her letter to a dingy 
 house in the Jews' quarter, where it was unsealed, 
 read, and sealed up again with such marvellous 
 skill, that no eye could have detected the change ; 
 and finally, still less would she have been com- 
 forted could she have heard the conversation which 
 was going on in a summer-room of Orestes' palace, 
 between that illustrious statesman and Raphael 
 Aben-Ezra, who were lying on two divans opposite 
 each other, whiling away, by a throw or two of dice, 
 the anxious moments which delayed her answer.
 
 70 Hypatia 
 
 " Treys again ! The devil is in you, Raphael ! " 
 
 " I always thought he was," answered Raphael, 
 sweeping up the gold pieces. . . . 
 
 " When will that old witch be back? " 
 
 " When she has read through your letter and 
 Hypatia's answer." 
 
 "Read them?" 
 
 " Of course. You don't fancy she is going to 
 be fool enough to carry a message without know- 
 ing what it is? Don't be angry; she won't tell. 
 She would give one of those two grave-lights 
 there, which she calls her eyes, to see the thing 
 prosper." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Your excellency will know when the letter 
 comes. Here she is ; I hear steps in the cloister. 
 Now, one bet before they enter. I give you two 
 to one she asks you to turn pagan." 
 
 " What in ? Negro-boys ? " 
 
 " Anything you like." 
 
 " Taken. Come in, slaves 1 " 
 
 And Hypocorisma entered, pouting. 
 
 " That Jewish fury is outside with a letter, and 
 has the impudence to say she won't let me bring 
 it in ! " 
 
 " Bring her in then. Quick ! " 
 
 " I wonder what I am here for, if people have 
 secrets that I am not to know," grumbled the 
 spoilt youth. 
 
 " Do you want a blue ribbon round those white 
 sides of yours, you monkey?" answered Orestes. 
 "Because, if you do, the hippopotamus hide hangs 
 ready outside." 
 
 " Let us make him kneel down here for a couple 
 of hours, and use him as a dice-t>oard," said
 
 Miriam 7 1 
 
 Raphael, "as you used to do to the girls in 
 Armenia." 
 
 "Ah, you recollect that? and how the barba- 
 rian papas used to grumble, till I had to crucify one 
 or two, eh ? That was something like life ! I love 
 those out-of-the-way stations, where nobody asks 
 questions : but here one might as well live among 
 the monks in Nitria. Here comes Canidia! Ah, the 
 answer ? Hand it here, my queen of go-betweens ! " 
 
 Orestes read it, and his countenance fell. 
 
 "I have won?" 
 
 " Out of the room, slaves ! and no listening ! " 
 
 "I have won then?" 
 
 Orestes tossed the letter across to him, and 
 Raphael read: 
 
 " The immortal gods accept no divided worship ; and 
 he who would command the counsels of their prophetess 
 must remember that they will vouchsafe to her no illu- 
 mination till their lost honors be restored. If he who 
 aspires to be the lord of Africa dare trample on the hate- 
 ful cross, and restore the Caesareum to those for whose 
 worship it was built if he dare proclaim aloud with his 
 lips, and in his deeds, that contempt for novel and bar- 
 barous superstitions, which his taste and reason have 
 already taught him, then he would prove himself one 
 with whom it were a glory to labor, to dare, to die in a 
 great cause. But till then " 
 
 And so the letter ended. 
 
 "What am I to do?" 
 
 " Take her at her word." 
 
 " Good heavens ! I shall be excommunicated ! 
 And and what is to become of my soul ? " 
 
 " What will become of it in any case, my most 
 excellent lord ? " answered Raphael, blandly.
 
 72 Hypatia 
 
 " You mean I know what you cursed Jews 
 think will happen to every one but yourselves. 
 But what would the world say? I an apostate I 
 And in the face of Cyril and the populace ! I 
 dare n't, I tell you ! " 
 
 " No one asked your excellency to apostatize." 
 
 " Why, what? What did you say just now? " 
 
 "I asked you to promise. It will not be the 
 first time that promises before marriage have not 
 exactly coincided with performance afterwards." 
 
 "I daren't that is, I won't promise. I be- 
 lieve, now, this is some trap of your Jewish intrigue, 
 just to make me commit myself against those 
 Christians, whom you hate." 
 
 " I assure you, I despise all mankind far too pro- 
 foundly to hate them. How disinterested my 
 advice was when I proposed this match to you, 
 you never will know ; indeed, it would be boastful 
 in me to tell you. But really you must make a 
 little sacrifice to win this foolish girl. With all the 
 depth and daring of her intellect to help you, you 
 might be a match for Romans, Byzantines, and 
 Goths at once. And as for beauty why, there is 
 one dimple inside that wrist, just at the setting on 
 of the sweet little hand, worth all the other flesh 
 and blood in Alexandria." 
 
 " By Jove ! you admire her so much, I suspect 
 you must be in love with her yourself. Why don't 
 you marry her? I '11 make you my prime minister, 
 and then we shall have the use of her wits without 
 the trouble of her fancies. By the twelve gods ! 
 If you marry her and help me, I '11 make you what 
 you like ! " 
 
 Raphael rose and bowed to the earth. 
 
 "Your serene high-mightiness overwhelms me.
 
 Miriam 73 
 
 But I assure you, that never having as yet cared 
 for any one's interest but my own, I could not be 
 expected, at my time of life, to devote myself to 
 that of another, even though it were to yours." 
 
 " Candid ! " 
 
 " Exactly so ; and moreover, whosoever I may 
 marry, will be practically, as well as theoreti- 
 cally, my private and peculiar property. . . . You 
 comprehend." 
 
 " Candid again." 
 
 if Exactly so; and waiving the third argument, 
 that she probably might not choose to marry me, 
 I beg to remark that it would not be proper to 
 allow the world to say, that I, the subject, had a 
 wiser and fairer wife than you, the ruler; espe- 
 cially a wife who had already refused that ruler's 
 complimentary offer." 
 
 " By Jove ! and she has refused me in good 
 earnest ! I '11 make her repent it ! I was a fool 
 to ask her at all ! What 's the use of having 
 guards, if one can't compel what one wants? If 
 fair means can't do it, foul shall ! I '11 send for her 
 this moment ! " 
 
 " Most illustrious majesty it will not succeed. 
 You do not know that woman's determination. 
 Scourges and red-hot pincers will not shake her, 
 alive ; and dead, she will be of no use whatsoever 
 to you, while she will be of great use to Cyril." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " He will be most happy to make the whole 
 story a handle against you, give out that she died 
 a virgin-martyr, in defence of the most holy cath- 
 olic and apostolic faith, get miracles worked at her 
 tomb, and pull your palace about your ears on the 
 strength thereof." 
 
 E Vol. VI
 
 74 Hypatia 
 
 " Cyril will hear of it anyhow : that 's another 
 dilemma into which you have brought me, you 
 intriguing rascal ! Why, this girl will be boasting 
 all over Alexandria that I have offered her 
 marriage, and that she has done herself the 
 honor to refuse me ! " 
 
 "She will be much too wise to do anything of 
 the kind; she has sense enough to know that if 
 she did so, you would inform a Christian populace 
 what conditions she offered you, and, with all her 
 contempt for the burden of the flesh, she has no 
 mind to be lightened of that pretty load by being 
 torn in pieces by Christian monks: a very prob- 
 able ending for her in any case, as she herself, in 
 her melancholy moods, confesses ! " 
 
 " What will you have me to do, then ? " 
 
 "Simply nothing. Let the prophetic spirit go 
 out of her, as it will, in a day or two, and then I 
 know nothing of human nature, if she does not 
 bate a little of her own price. Depend on it, for 
 all her ineffabilities, and impassibilities, and all the 
 rest of the seventh-heaven moonshine at which we 
 play here in Alexandria, a throne is far too pretty 
 a bait for even Hypatia the Pythoness to refuse. 
 Leave well alone is a good rule, but leave ill alone 
 is a better. So now another bet before we part, 
 and this time three to one. Do nothing either 
 way, and she sends to you of her own accord 
 before a month is out. In Caucasian mules? 
 Done? Be it so." 
 
 " Well, you are the most charming counsellor 
 for a poor perplexed devil of a prefect ! If I had 
 but a private fortune like you, I could just take 
 the money, and let the work do itself." 
 
 " Which is the true method of successful govern-
 
 Miriam 75 
 
 ment. Your slave bids you farewell. Do not 
 forget our bet. You dine with me to-morrow?" 
 
 And Raphael bowed himself out. 
 
 As he left the prefect's door, he saw Miriam on 
 the opposite side of the street, evidently watching 
 for him. As soon as she saw him, she held her 
 own side, without appearing to notice him, till he 
 turned a corner, and then crossing, caught him 
 eagerly by the arm. 
 
 "Does the fool dare?" 
 
 "Who dare what?" 
 
 " You know what I mean. Do you suppose old 
 Miriam carries letters without taking care to know 
 what is inside them? Will he apostatize? Tell 
 me. I am secret as the grave ! " 
 
 " The fool has found an old worm-eaten rag of 
 conscience somewhere in the corner of his heart, 
 and dare not." 
 
 " Curse the coward ! And such a plot as I had 
 laid ! I would have swept every Christian dog 
 out of Africa within the year. What is the man 
 afraid of?" 
 
 " Hell-fire." 
 
 " Why, he will go there in any case, the accursed 
 Gentile ! " 
 
 "So I hinted to him, as delicately as I could; 
 but, like the rest of the world, he had a sort of 
 partiality for getting thither by his own road." 
 
 "Coward! And whom shall I get now? Oh, 
 if that Pelagia had as much cunning in her whole 
 body as Hypatia has in her little finger, I 'd seat 
 her and her Goth upon the throne of the Caesars. 
 But " 
 
 "But she has five senses, and just enough wit 
 to use them, eh?"
 
 76 Hypatia 
 
 " Don't laugh at her for that, the darling ! I do 
 delight in her, after all. It warms even my old 
 blood to see how thoroughly she knows her 
 business, and how she enjoys it, like a true 
 daughter of Eve." 
 
 " She has been your most successful pupil, cer- 
 tainly, mother. You may well be proud of her." 
 
 The old hag chuckled to herself a while; and 
 then suddenly turning to Raphael: 
 
 " See here ! I have a present for you ; " and she 
 pulled out a magnificent ring. 
 
 " Why, mother, you are always giving me pres- 
 ents. It was but a month ago you sent me this 
 poisoned dagger." 
 
 "Why not, eh? why not? Why should not 
 Jew give to Jew? Take the old woman's ring!" 
 
 " What a glorious opal ! " 
 
 "Ah, that is an opal, indeed ! And the un- 
 speakable name upon it; just like Solomon's own. 
 Take it, I say ! Whosoever wears that never need 
 fear fire, steel, poison, or woman's eye." 
 
 "Your own included, eh?" 
 
 " Take it, I say ! " and Miriam caught his hand, 
 and forced the ring on his finger. " There ! Now 
 you 're safe. And now call me mother again. I 
 like it. I don't know why, but I like it. And 
 Raphael Aben-Ezra don't laugh at me, and call 
 me witch and hag, as you often do. I don't care 
 about it from any one else ; I 'm accustomed to it. 
 But when you do it, I always long to stab you. 
 That 's why I gave you the dagger. I used to wear 
 it; and I was afraid I might be tempted to use it 
 some day, when the thought came across me how 
 handsome you 'd look, and how quiet, when you 
 were dead, and your soul up there so happy in
 
 Miriam 77 
 
 Abraham's bosom, watching all the Gentiles frying 
 and roasting for ever down below. Don't laugh at 
 me, I say; and don't thwart me! I may make 
 you the emperor's prime minister some day. I 
 can if I choose." 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " said Raphael, laughing. 
 
 "Don't laugh. I cast your nativity last night, 
 and I know you have no cause to laugh. A great 
 danger hangs over you, and a deep temptation. 
 And if you weather this storm, you may be cham- 
 berlain, prime minister, emperor, if you will. And 
 you shall be by the four archangels, you shall ! " 
 
 And the old woman vanished down a by-lane, 
 leaving Raphael utterly bewildered. 
 
 " Moses and the prophets ! Does the old lady 
 intend to marry me? What can there be in this 
 very lazy and selfish personage who bears my 
 name, to excite so romantic an affection? Well, 
 Raphael Aben-Ezra, thou hast one more friend in 
 the world beside Bran the mastiff; and therefore 
 one more trouble seeing that friends always ex- 
 pect a due return of affection and good offices and 
 what not. I wonder whether the old lady has 
 been getting into a scrape kidnapping, and wants 
 my patronage to help her out of it. ... Three- 
 quarters of a mile of roasting sun between me and 
 home ! ... I must hire a gig, or a litter, or some- 
 thing, off the next stand . . . with a driver who has 
 been eating onions . . . and of course there is not a 
 stand for the next half-mile. Oh, divine aether ! as 
 Prometheus has it, and ye swift-winged breezes (I 
 wish there were any here), when will it all be over? 
 Three-and-thirty years have I endured already of 
 this Babel of knaves and fools; and with this 
 abominable good health of mine, which won't even
 
 78 Hypatia 
 
 help me with gout or indigestion, I am likely to 
 have three-and-thirty years more of it. ... I know 
 nothing, and I care for nothing, and I expect 
 nothing ; and I actually can't take the trouble to 
 prick a hole in myself, and let the very small 
 amount of wits out, to see something really worth 
 seeing, and try its strength at something really 
 worth doing if, after all, the other side the grave 
 does not turn out to be just as stupid as this 
 one. . . . When will it be all over, and I in Abra- 
 ham's bosom or anyone else's, provided it be 
 not a woman's?"
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A DAY IN ALEXANDRIA 
 
 IN the meanwhile, Philammon, with his hosts, the 
 Goths, had been slipping down the stream. 
 Passing, one after another, world-old cities now 
 dwindled to decaying towns, and numberless canal- 
 mouths, now fast falling into ruin with the fields to 
 which they insured fertility, under the pressure of 
 Roman extortion and misrule, they had entered 
 one evening the mouth of the great canal of 
 Alexandria, slid easily all night across the star- 
 bespangled shadows of Lake Mareotis, and found 
 themselves, when the next morning dawned, among 
 the countless masts and noisy quays of the greatest 
 seaport in the world. The motley crowd of for- 
 eigners, the hubbub of all dialects from the Crimea 
 to Cadiz, the vast pile of merchandise, and heaps 
 of wheat, lying unsheltered in that rainless air, the 
 huge bulk of the corn-ships lading for Rome, 
 whose tall sides rose story over story, like floating 
 palaces, above the buildings of some inner dock 
 these sights, and a hundred more, made the young 
 monk think that the world did not look at first 
 sight a thing to be despised. In front of heaps of 
 fruit, fresh from the market-boats, black groups of 
 glossy negro slaves were basking and laughing on 
 the quay, looking anxiously and coquettishly round 
 in hopes of a purchaser; they evidently did not 
 think the change from desert toil to city luxuries a
 
 80 Hypatia 
 
 change for the worse. Philammon turned away 
 his eyes from beholding vanity ; but only to meet 
 fresh vanity wheresoever they fell. He felt crushed 
 by the multitude of new objects, stunned by the din 
 around ; and scarcely recollected himself enough 
 to seize the first opportunity of escaping from his 
 dangerous companions. 
 
 " Holloa ! " roared Smid the armorer, as he 
 scrambled on to the steps of the slip ; " you are 
 not going to run away without bidding us good- 
 bye?" 
 
 "Stop with me, boy!" said old Wulf. "I 
 saved you ; and you are my man." 
 
 Philammon turned and hesitated. 
 
 " I am a monk, and God's man." 
 
 " You can be that anywhere. I will make you a 
 warrior." 
 
 "The weapons of my warfare are not of flesh 
 and blood, but prayer and fasting," answered poor 
 Philammon, who felt already that he should have 
 ten times more need of the said weapons in Alex- 
 andria than ever he had had in the desert. . . . 
 " Let me go ! I am not made for your life ! I 
 thank you, bless you ! I will pray for you, sir ! 
 but let me go ! " 
 
 " Curse the craven hound ! " roared half-a-dozen 
 voices. "Why did you not let us have our will 
 with him, Prince Wulf? You might have expected 
 such gratitude from a monk." 
 
 " He owes me my share of the sport," quoth 
 Smid. " And here it is ! " And a hatchet, thrown 
 with practised aim, whistled right for Philammon's 
 head he had just time to swerve, and the weapon 
 struck and snapped against the granite wall 
 behind.
 
 A Day in Alexandria 81 
 
 "Well saved!" said Wulf, coolly, while the 
 sailors and market-women above yelled murder, 
 and the custom-house officers, and other con- 
 stables and catchpolls of the harbor, rushed to the 
 place and retired again quietly at the thunder of 
 the Amal from the boat's stern: 
 
 " Never mind, my good fellows ! we 're only 
 Goths ; and on a visit to the prefect, too." 
 
 " Only Goths, my donkey-riding friends ! " echoed 
 Smid, and at that ominous name the whole posse 
 comitatus tried to look unconcerned, aud found 
 suddenly that their presence was absolutely re- 
 quired in an opposite direction. 
 
 " Let him go," said Wulf, as he stalked up the 
 steps. " Let the boy go. I never set my heart on 
 any man yet," he growled to himself in an under 
 voice, "but what he disappointed me and I 
 must not expect more from this fellow. Come, 
 men, ashore, and get drunk ! " 
 
 Philammon, of course, now that he had leave to 
 go, longed to stay at all events, he must go 
 back and thank his hosts. He turned unwillingly 
 to do so, as hastily as he could, and found Pelagia 
 and her gigantic lover just entering a palanquin. 
 With downcast eyes he approached the beautiful 
 basilisk, and stammered out some common- 
 place ; and she, full of smiles, turned to him at 
 once. 
 
 " Tell us more about yourself before we part. 
 You speak such beautiful Greek true Athenian. 
 It is quite delightful to hear one's own accent 
 again. Were you ever at Athens?" 
 
 "When I was a child; I recollect that is, I 
 think " 
 
 "What?" asked Pelagia, eagerly.
 
 8 2 Hypatia 
 
 " A great house in Athens and a great battle 
 there and coming to Egypt in a ship." 
 
 " Heavens ! " said Pelagia, and paused. . . ; 
 " How strange ! Girls, who said he was like me? " 
 
 " I 'm sure we meant no harm, if we did say it in 
 a joke," pouted one of the attendants. 
 
 " Like me ! you must come and see us. I 
 have something to say to you. . . . You must ! " 
 
 Philammon misinterpreted the intense interest of 
 her tone, and if he did not shrink back, gave some 
 involuntary gesture of reluctance. Pelagia laughed 
 aloud. 
 
 " Don't be vain enough to suspect, foolish boy, 
 but come ! Do you think that I have nothing to 
 talk about but nonsense ! Come and see me. It 
 
 may be better for you. I live in ," and she 
 
 named a fashionable street, which Philammon, 
 though he inwardly vowed not to accept the invi- 
 tation, somehow could not help remembering. 
 
 "Do leave the wild man, and come," growled 
 the Amal from within the palanquin. "You are 
 not going to turn nun, I hope ? " 
 
 " Not while the first man I ever met in the world 
 stays in it," answered Pelagia, as she skipped into 
 the palanquin, taking care to show the most lovely 
 white heel and ankle, and, like the Parthian, send 
 a random arrow as she retreated. But the dart 
 was lost on Philammon, who had been already 
 hustled away by the bevy of laughing attendants, 
 amid baskets, dressing-cases, and bird-cages, and 
 was fain to make his escape into the Babel round, 
 and inquire his way to the patriarch's house. 
 
 "Patriarch's house?" answered the man whom 
 he first addressed, a little lean, swarthy fellow, with 
 merry black eyes, who, with a basket of fruit at his
 
 A Day in Alexandria 83 
 
 feet, was sunning himself on a baulk of timber, 
 meditatively chewing the papyrus-cane, and exam- 
 ining the strangers with a look of absurd sagacity. 
 " I know it ; without a doubt I know it ; all Alex- 
 andria has good reason to know it. Are you a 
 monk?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then ask your way of the monks ; you won't 
 go far without rinding one." 
 
 " But I do not even know the right direction : 
 what is your grudge against monks, my good 
 man?" 
 
 " Look here, my youth ; you seem too ingen- 
 uous for a monk. Don't flatter yourself that it 
 will last. If you can wear the sheepskin, and 
 haunt the churches here for a month, without 
 learning to lie, and slander, and clap, and hoot, and 
 perhaps play your part in a sedition-and-murder 
 satyric drama why, you are a better man than I 
 take you for. I, sir, am a Greek, and a philoso- 
 pher ; though the whirlpool of matter may have, 
 and indeed has, involved my ethereal spark in the 
 body of a porter. Therefore, youth," continued 
 the little man, starting up upon his baulk like an 
 excited monkey, and stretching out one oratoric 
 paw, " I bear a treble hatred to the monkish tribe. 
 First, as a man and a husband ; . . . for as for the 
 smiles of beauty, or otherwise, such as I have, I 
 have; and the monks, if they had their wicked 
 will, would leave neither men nor women in the 
 world. Sir, they would exterminate the human 
 race in a single generation, by a voluntary suicide ! 
 Secondly, as a porter; for if all men turned 
 monks, nobody would be idle, and the profession 
 of portering would be annihilated. Thirdly, sir, as
 
 84 Hypatia 
 
 a philosopher; for as the false coin is odious to 
 the true, so is the irrational and animal asceticism 
 of the monk, to the logical and methodic self- 
 restraint of one who, like your humblest of 
 philosophers, aspires to a life according to the 
 pure reason." 
 
 "And pray," asked Philammon, half-laughing, 
 " who has been your tutor in philosophy? " 
 
 " The fountain of classic wisdom, Hypatia her- 
 self. As the ancient sage the name is unimpor- 
 tant to a monk pumped water nightly that he 
 might study by day, so I, the guardian of cloaks 
 and parasols at the sacred doors of her lecture- 
 room, imbibe celestial knowledge. From my 
 youth I felt in me a soul above the matter- 
 entangled herd. She revealed to me the glorious 
 fact, that I am a spark of Divinity itself. A fallen 
 star, I am, sir ! " continued he, pensively, stroking 
 his lean stomach "a fallen star ! fallen, if the 
 dignity of philosophy will allow of the simile, 
 among the hogs of the lower world indeed, even 
 into the hog-bucket itself. Well, after all, I will 
 show you the way to the archbishop's. There is 
 a philosophic pleasure in opening one's treasures 
 to the modest young. Perhaps you will assist me 
 by carrying this basket of fruit?" And the little 
 man jumped up, put his basket on Philammon's 
 head, and trotted off up a neighboring street. 
 
 Philammon followed, half contemptuous, half 
 wondering at what this philosophy might be, 
 which could feed the self-conceit of anything so 
 abject as his ragged little apish guide; but the 
 novel roar and whirl of the street, the perpetual 
 stream of busy faces, the line of curricles, palan- 
 quins, laden asses, camels, elephants, which met
 
 A Day in Alexandria 85 
 
 and passed him, and squeezed him up steps and 
 into doorways, as they threaded their way through 
 the great Moon-gate into the ample street beyond, 
 drove everything from his mind but wondering 
 curiosity, and a vague, helpless dread of that great 
 living wilderness, more terrible than any dead wil- 
 derness of sand which he had left behind. Already 
 he longed for the repose, the silence of the Laura 
 for faces which knew him and smiled upon him ; 
 but it was too late to turn back now. His guide 
 held on for more than a mile up the great main 
 street, crossed in the center of the city, at right 
 angles, by one equally magnificent, at each end of 
 which, miles away, appeared, dim and distant over 
 the heads of the living stream of passengers, the 
 yellow sand-hills of the desert ; while at the end of 
 the vista in front of them gleamed the blue harbor, 
 through a network of countless masts. 
 
 At last they reached the quay at the opposite 
 end of the street ; and there burst on Philammon's 
 astonished eyes a vast semicircle of the blue sea, 
 ringed with palaces and towers. . . . He stopped 
 involuntarily; and his little guide stopped also, 
 and looked askance at the young monk, to watch 
 the effect which that grand panorama should pro- 
 duce on him. 
 
 " There ! Behold our works ! Us Greeks ! 
 
 Us benighted heathens ! Look at it and feel your- 
 self what you are, a very small, conceited, ignorant 
 young person, who fancies that your new religion 
 gives you a right to despise every one else. Did 
 Christians make all this? Did Christians build 
 that Pharos there on the left horn wonder of the 
 world? Did Christians raise that mile-long mole 
 which runs towards the land, with its two draw-
 
 86 Hypatia 
 
 bridges, connecting the two ports ? Did Christians 
 build this esplanade, or this gate of the Sun above 
 our heads? Or that Caesareum on our right here? 
 Look at those obelisks before it ! " And he 
 pointed upwards to those two world-famous ones, 
 one of which still lies on its ancient site, as Cleo- 
 patra's Needle. " Look up ! look up, I say, and 
 feel small very small indeed ! Did Christians 
 raise them, or engrave them from base to point 
 with the wisdom of the ancients ? Did Christians 
 build that Museum next to it, or design its statues 
 and its frescoes now, alas ! re-echoing no more 
 to the hummings of the Attic bee? Did they pile 
 up out of the waves that palace beyond it, or that 
 Exchange, or fill that Temple of Neptune with 
 breathing brass and blushing marble? Did they 
 build that Timonium on the point, where Antony, 
 worsted at Actium, forgot his shame in Cleopatra's 
 arms? Did they quarry out that island ofAntir- 
 rhodus into a nest of docks, or cover those waters 
 with the sails of every nation under heaven? 
 Speak ! Thou son of bats and moles thou six 
 feet of sand thou mummy out of the cliff 
 caverns ! Can monks do works like these?" 
 
 " Other men have labored, and we have entered 
 into their labors," answered Philammon, trying to 
 seem as unconcerned as he could. He was, in- 
 deed, too utterly astonished to be angry at any- 
 thing. The overwhelming vastness, multiplicity, 
 and magnificence of the whole scene ; the range of 
 buildings, such as mother earth never, perhaps, 
 carried on her lap before or since, the extraor- 
 dinary variety of form the pure Doric and Ionic 
 of the earlier Ptolemies, the barbaric and confused 
 gorgeousness of the later Roman, and here and
 
 A Day in Alexandria 87 
 
 there an imitation of the grand elephantine style of 
 old Egypt, its gaudy colors relieving, while they 
 deepened, the effect of its massive and simple out- 
 lines ; the eternal repose of that great belt of stone 
 contrasting with the restless ripple of the glittering 
 harbor, and the busy sails which crowded out into 
 the sea beyond, like white doves taking their flight 
 into boundless space all dazzled, overpowered, 
 saddened him. . . . This was the world. . . . Was it 
 not beautiful ? . . . . Must not the men who made 
 all this have been if not great . . . yet ... he 
 knew not what ? Surely they had great souls and 
 noble thoughts in them ! Surely there was some- 
 thing god-like in being able to create such things 1 
 Not for themselves alone, too ; but for a nation 
 for generations yet unborn. . . . And there was the 
 sea ... and beyond it, nations of men innumer- 
 able. . . . His imagination was dizzy with thinking 
 of them. . . . Were they all doomed lost? . . . 
 Had God no love for them? 
 
 At last, recovering himself, he recollected his 
 errand, and again asked his way to the arch- 
 bishop's house. 
 
 " This way, O youthful nonentity ! " answered 
 the little man, leading the way round the great 
 front of the Caesareum, at the foot of the obelisks. 
 
 Philammon's eye fell on some new masonry in 
 the pediment, ornamented with Christian symbols. 
 
 " How ? Is this a church ? " 
 
 " It is the Caesareum. It has become tempo- 
 rarily a church. The immortal gods have, for the 
 time being, condescended to waive their rights; 
 but it is the Caesareum, nevertheless. This way; 
 down this street to the right. There," said he, 
 pointing to a doorway in the side of the Museum,
 
 88 Hypatia 
 
 "is the last haunt of the Muses the lecture-room 
 of Hypatia, the school of my unworthiness. . . . 
 And here," stopping at the door of a splendid 
 house on the opposite side of the street, " is the 
 residence of that blest favorite of Athene Neith, 
 as the barbarians of Egypt would denominate the 
 goddess we men of Macedonia retain the time- 
 honored Grecian nomenclature. . . . You may put 
 down your basket." And he knocked at the door, 
 and delivering the fruit to a black porter, made a 
 polite obeisance to Philammon, and seemed on the 
 point of taking his departure. 
 
 " But where is the archbishop's house? " 
 
 " Close to the Serapeium. You cannot miss 
 the place : four hundred columns of marble, now 
 ruined by Christian persecutors, stand on an 
 eminence " 
 
 " But how far off ? " 
 
 "About three miles; near the gate of the 
 Moon." 
 
 " Why, was not that the gate by which we 
 entered the city on the other side ? " 
 
 "Exactly so; you will know your way back, 
 having already traversed it" 
 
 Philammon checked a decidedly carnal inclina- 
 tion to seize the little fellow by the throat, and 
 knock his head against the wall, and contented 
 himself by saying : 
 
 " Then do you actually mean to say, you heathen 
 villain, that you have taken me six or seven miles 
 out of my road ? " 
 
 " Good words, young man. If you do me harm, 
 I call for help ; we are close to the Jews' quarter, 
 and there are some thousands there who will swarm 
 out like wasps on the chance of beating a monk to
 
 A Day in Alexandria 89 
 
 death. Yet that which I have done, I have done 
 with a good purpose. First, politically, or accord- 
 ing to practical wisdom in order that you, not 
 I, might carry the basket. Next, philosophically, 
 or according to the intuitions of the pure reason 
 in order that you might, by beholding the magnifi- 
 cence of that great civilization which your fellows 
 wish to destroy, learn that you are an ass, and a 
 tortoise, and a nonentity, and so beholding your- 
 self to be nothing, may be moved to become 
 something." 
 
 And he moved off. 
 
 Philammon seized him by the collar of his 
 ragged tunic, and held him in a grip from which 
 the little man, though he twisted like an eel, could 
 not escape. 
 
 " Peaceably, if you will ; if not, by main force. 
 You shall go back with me, and show me every 
 step of the way. It is a just penalty." 
 
 " The philosopher conquers circumstances by 
 submitting to them. I go peaceably. Indeed, the 
 base necessities of the hog-bucket side of existence 
 compel me of themselves back to the Moon-gate, 
 for another early fruit job." 
 
 So they went back together. 
 
 Now why Philammon's thoughts should have 
 been running on the next new specimen of woman- 
 kind to whom he had been introduced, though 
 only in name, let psychologists tell, but certainly, 
 after he had walked some half-mile in silence, he 
 suddenly woke up, as out of many meditations, and 
 asked : 
 
 " But who is this Hypatia, of whom you talk so 
 much?" 
 
 " Who is Hypatia, rustic ? The queen of Alex -
 
 90 Hypatia 
 
 andria! In wit, Athene; Hera in majesty; in 
 beauty, Aphrodite ! " 
 
 "And who are they?" asked Philammon. 
 
 The porter stopped, surveyed him slowly from 
 foot to head with an expression of boundless pity 
 and contempt, and was in the act of walking off in 
 the ecstasy of his disdain, when he was brought to 
 suddenly by Philammon's strong arm. 
 
 " Ah ! I recollect. There is a compact. . . . 
 Who is Athene? The goddess, giver of wisdom. 
 Hera, spouse of Zeus, queen of the Celestials. 
 Aphrodite, mother of love. . . . You are not ex- 
 pected to understand." 
 
 Philammon did understand, however, so much as 
 this, that Hypatia was a very unique and wonder- 
 ful person in the mind of his little guide; and 
 therefore asked the only further question by 
 which he could as yet test any Alexandrian 
 phenomenon : 
 
 "And is she a friend of the patriarch? " 
 
 The porter opened his eyes very wide, put his 
 middle finger in a careful and complicated fashion 
 between his fore and third finger, and extending it 
 playfully towards Philammon, performed therewith 
 certain mysterious signals, the effect whereof being 
 totally lost on him, the little man stopped, took 
 another look at Philammon's stately figure, and 
 answered : 
 
 " Of the human race in general, my young 
 friend. The philosopher must rise above the in- 
 dividual, to the contemplation of the universal. . . . 
 Aha ! Here is something worth seeing, and the 
 gates are open." And he stopped at the portal of 
 a vast building. 
 
 " Is this the patriarch's house? "
 
 A Day in Alexandria 91 
 
 "The patriarch's tastes are more plebeian. He 
 lives, they say, in two dirty little rooms knowing 
 what is fit for him. The patriarch's house? Its 
 antipodes, my young friend that is, if such 
 beings have a cosmic existence, on which point 
 Hypatia has her doubts. This is the temple of art 
 and beauty ; the Delphic tripod of poetic inspira- 
 tion; the solace of the earthworn drudge; in a 
 word, the theatre; which your patriarch, if he 
 
 could, would convert to-morrow into a but the 
 
 philosopher must not revile. Ah ! I see the pre- 
 fect's apparitors at the gate. He is making the 
 polity, as we call it here ; the dispositions ; settling, 
 in short, the bill of fare for the day, in compliance 
 with the public palate. A facetious pantomime 
 dances here on this day every week admired by 
 some, the Jews especially. To the more classic 
 taste, many of his movements his recoil, espe- 
 cially are wanting in the true antique severity 
 might be called, perhaps, on the whole, indecent. 
 Still the weary pilgrim must be amused. Let us 
 step in and hear." 
 
 But before Philammon could refuse, an uproar 
 arose within, a rush outward of the mob, and in- 
 ward of the prefect's apparitors. 
 
 " It is false ! " shouted many voices. " A Jewish 
 calumny ! The man is innocent ! " 
 
 " There is no more sedition in him than there is 
 in me," roared a fat butcher, who looked as ready 
 to fell a man as an ox. " He was always the first 
 and the last to clap the holy patriarch at sermon." 
 
 " Dear tender soul," whimpered a woman ; " and 
 I said to him only this morning, why don't you 
 flog my boys, Master Hierax? how can you expect 
 them to learn if they are not flogged? And he
 
 92 Hypatia 
 
 said, he never could abide the sight ol a rod, it 
 made his back tingle so." 
 
 " Which was plainly a prophecy ! " 
 
 " And proves him innocent ; for how could he 
 prophesy if he was not one of the holy ones ? " 
 
 " Monks, to the rescue ! Hierax, a Christian, is 
 taken and tortured in the theatre ! " thundered a 
 wild hermit, his beard and hair streaming about his 
 chest and shoulders. 
 
 " Nitria ! Nitria ! For God and the mother of 
 God, monks of Nitria ! Down with the Jewish 
 slanderers ! Down with heathen tyrants ! " And 
 the mob, reinforced as if by magic by hundreds 
 from without, swept down the huge vaulted pass- 
 age, carrying Philammon and the porter with 
 them. 
 
 " My friends," quoth the little man, trying to 
 look philosophically calm, though he was fairly off 
 his legs, and hanging between heaven and earth 
 on the elbows of the bystanders, " whence this 
 tumult?" 
 
 " The Jews got up a cry that Hierax wanted 
 to raise a riot. Curse them and their sabbath, 
 they are always rioting on Saturdays about this 
 dancer of theirs, instead of working like honest 
 Christians ! " 
 
 " And rioting on Sunday instead. Ahem ! sec- 
 tarian differences, which the philosopher " 
 
 The rest of the sentence disappeared with the 
 speaker, as a sudden opening of the mob let him 
 drop, and buried him under innumerable legs. 
 
 Philammon, furious at the notion of persecution, 
 maddened by the cries around him, found himself 
 bursting fiercely through the crowd, till he reached 
 the front ranks, where tall gates of open ironwork
 
 A Day in Alexandria 93 
 
 barred all further progress, but left a full view of 
 the tragedy which was enacting within, where the 
 poor innocent wretch, suspended from a gibbet, 
 writhed and shrieked at every stroke of the hide 
 whips of his tormentors. 
 
 In vain Philammon and the monks around him 
 knocked and beat at the gates ; they were only an- 
 swered by laughter and taunts from the apparitors 
 within, curses on the turbulent mob of Alexandria, 
 with its patriarch, clergy, saints, and churches, and 
 promises to each and all outside, that their turn 
 would come next; while the piteous screams grew 
 fainter and more faint, and at last, with a convul- 
 sive shudder, motion and suffering ceased for ever 
 in the poor mangled body. 
 
 " They have killed him ! Martyred him ! Back 
 to the archbishop ! To the patriarch's house : he 
 will avenge us ! " And as the horrible news, and 
 the watchword which followed it, passed outwards 
 through the crowd, they wheeled round as one 
 man, and poured through street after street to- 
 wards Cyril's house; while Philammon, beside 
 himself with horror, rage, and pity, hurried onward 
 with them. 
 
 A tumultuous hour, or more, was passed in the 
 street, before he could gain entrance ; and then he 
 was swept, along with the mob in which he had 
 been fast wedged, through a dark low passage, and 
 landed breathless in a quadrangle of mean and new 
 buildings, overhung by the four hundred stately 
 columns of the ruined Serapeium. The grass was 
 already growing on the ruined capitals and archi- 
 traves. . . . Little did even its destroyers dream 
 then, that the day would come when one only of 
 that four hundred would be left, as " Pompey's
 
 94 Hypatia 
 
 Pillar," to show what the men of old could think 
 and do. 
 
 Philammon at last escaped from the crowd, and 
 putting the letter which he had carried in his 
 bosom into the hands of one of the priests who was 
 mixing with the mob, was beckoned by him into a 
 corridor, and up a flight of stairs, and into a large, 
 low, mean room, and there, by virtue of the world- 
 wide freemasonry which Christianity had, for the 
 first time on earth, established, found himself in 
 five minutes awaiting the summons of the most 
 powerful man south of the Mediterranean. 
 
 A curtain hung across the door of the inner 
 chamber, through which Philammon could hear 
 plainly the steps of some one walking up and 
 down hurriedly and fiercely. 
 
 " They will drive me to it ! " at last burst out a 
 deep sonorous voice. "They will drive me to 
 it. ... Their blood be on their own head ! It is 
 not enough for them to blaspheme God and His 
 church, to have the monopoly of all the cheating, 
 fortune-telling, usury, sorcery, and coining of the 
 city, but they must deliver my clergy into the 
 hands of the tyrant?" 
 
 " It was so even in the apostles' time," suggested 
 a softer, but far more unpleasant voice. 
 
 " Then it shall be so no longer ! God has given 
 me the power to stop them; and God do so to 
 me, and more also, if I do not use that power. 
 To-morrow I sweep out this Augean stable of 
 villany, and leave not a Jew to blaspheme and 
 cheat in Alexandria." 
 
 " I am afraid such a judgment, however righteous, 
 might offend his excellency." 
 
 " His excellency ! His tyranny ! Why does
 
 A Day in Alexandria 95 
 
 Orestes truckle to these circumcised, but because 
 they lend money to him and to his creatures ? He 
 would keep up a den of fiends in Alexandria if 
 they would do as much for him ! And then to 
 play them off against me and mine, to bring reli- 
 gion into contempt by setting the mob together by 
 the ears, and to end with outrages like this ! Sedi- 
 tious ! Have they not cause enough? The sooner 
 I remove one of their temptations, the better : let 
 the other tempter beware, lest his judgment be at 
 hand ! " 
 
 " The prefect, your holiness?" asked the other 
 voice, slily. 
 
 "Who spoke of the prefect? Whosoever is a 
 tyrant, and a murderer, and an oppressor of the 
 poor, and a favorer of the philosophy which de- 
 spises and enslaves the poor, should not he perish, 
 though he be seven times a prefect ! " 
 
 At this juncture Philammon, thinking perhaps 
 that he had already heard too much, notified his 
 presence by some slight noise, at which the secre- 
 tary, as he seemed to be, hastily lifted the curtain, 
 and somewhat sharply demanded his business. 
 The names of Pambo and Arsenius, however, 
 seemed to pacify him at once ; and the trembling 
 youth was ushered into the presence of him who in 
 reality, though not in name, sat on the throne of 
 the Pharaohs. 
 
 Not, indeed, in their outward pomp ; the furni- 
 ture of the chamber was but a grade above that of 
 the artisan's; the dress of the great man was 
 coarse and simple ; if personal vanity peeped out 
 anywhere, it was in the careful arrangement of the 
 bushy beard, and of the few curling locks which 
 the tonsure had spared. But the height and
 
 96 Hypatia 
 
 majesty of his figure, the stern and massive beauty 
 of his features, the flashing eye, curling lip, and 
 projecting brow all marked him as one born to 
 command. As the youth entered, Cyril stopped 
 short in his walk, and looking him through and 
 through, with a glance which burnt upon his 
 cheeks like fire, and made him all but wish the 
 kindly earth would open and hide him, took the 
 letters, read them, and then began : 
 
 " Philammon. A Greek. You are said to have 
 learned to obey. If so you have also learned to 
 rule. Your father-abbot has transferred you to my 
 tutelage. You are now to obey me." 
 
 "And I will." 
 
 " Well said. Go to that window, then, and leap 
 into the court." 
 
 Philammon walked to it, and opened it. The 
 pavement was fully twenty feet below; but his 
 business was to obey, and not take measurements. 
 There was a flower in a vase upon the sill. He 
 quietly removed it, and in an instant more would 
 have leapt for life or death, when Cyril's voice 
 thundered " Stop ! " 
 
 "The lad will pass, my Peter. I shall not be 
 afraid, now, for the secrets which he may have 
 overheard." 
 
 Peter smiled assent, looking all the while as if 
 he thought it a great pity that the young man had 
 not been allowed to put talebearing out of his own 
 power by breaking his, neck. 
 
 " You wish to see the world. Perhaps you have 
 seen something of it to-day." 
 
 " I saw the murder " 
 
 " Then you saw what you came hither to see ; 
 what the world is, and what justice and mercy it
 
 A Day in Alexandria 97 
 
 can deal out. You would not dislike to see God's 
 reprisals to man's tyranny? ... Or to be a fellow- 
 worker with God therein, if I judge rightly by 
 your looks ? " 
 
 " I would avenge that man." 
 
 " Ah ! my poor simple schoolmaster ! And his 
 fate is the portent of portents to you now ! Stay 
 awhile, till you have gone with Ezekiel into the 
 inner chambers of the devil's temple, and you will 
 see worse things than these women weeping for 
 Thammuz; bemoaning the decay of an idolatry 
 which they themselves disbelieve That, too, is 
 on the list of Hercules' labor, Peter mine." 
 
 At this moment a deacon entered. ..." Your 
 holiness, the rabbis of the accursed nation are 
 below, at your summons. We brought them in 
 through the back gate, for fear of " 
 
 " Right, right. An accident to them might have 
 ruined us. I shall not forget you. Bring them 
 up. Peter, take this youth, introduce him to the 
 parabolani. . . . Who will be the best man for him 
 to work under?" 
 
 " The brother Theopompus is especially sober 
 and gentle." 
 
 Cyril shook his head laughingly. ..." Go into 
 the next room, my son. . . . No, Peter, put him 
 under some fiery saint, some true Boanerges, who 
 will talk him down, and work him to death, and 
 show him the best and worst of everything. Cleit- 
 ophon will be the man. Now then, let me see my 
 engagements ; five minutes for these Jews Orestes 
 did not choose to frighten them : let us see whether 
 Cyril cannot ; then an hour to look over the hos- 
 pital accounts; an hour for the schools; a half- 
 hour for the reserved cases of distress ; and an- 
 
 F Vol. VI
 
 98 Hypatia 
 
 other half-hour for myself; and then divine service. 
 See that the boy is there. Do bring in every one 
 in their turn, Peter mine. So much time goes in 
 hunting for this man and that man . . . and life is 
 too short for all that. Where are these Jews ? " 
 and Cyril plunged into the latter half of his day's 
 work with that untiring energy, self-sacrifice and 
 method, which commanded for him, in spite of all 
 suspicions of his violence, ambition, and intrigue, 
 the loving awe and implicit obedience of several 
 hundred thousand human beings. 
 
 So Philammon went out with the parabolani, a 
 sort of organized guild of district visitors. . . . And 
 in their company he saw that afternoon the dark 
 side of that world, whereof the harbor-panorama 
 had been the bright one. In squalid misery, filth, 
 profligacy, ignorance, ferocity, discontent, neglected 
 in body, house, and soul, by the civil authorities, 
 proving their existence only in aimless and san- 
 guinary riots, there they starved and rotted, heap 
 on heap, the masses of the old Greek population, 
 close to the great food-exporting harbor of the 
 world. Among these, fiercely perhaps, and fana- 
 tically, but still among them and for them, labored 
 those district visitors night and day. And so 
 Philammon toiled away with them, carrying food 
 and clothing, helping sick to the hospital, anjd 
 dead to the burial : cleaning out the infected 
 houses for the fever was all but perennial in 
 those quarters and comforting the dying with 
 the good news of forgiveness from above ; till the 
 larger number had to return to evening service. 
 He, however, was kept by his superior, watching 
 at a sick-bedside, and it was late at night before he 
 got home, and was reported to Peter the Reader
 
 A Day in Alexandria 99 
 
 as having acquitted himself like " a man of God," 
 as, indeed, without the least thought of doing any- 
 thing noble or self-sacrificing, he had truly done, 
 being a monk. And so he threw himself on a 
 truckle bed, in one of the many cells which opened 
 off a long corridor, and fell fast asleep in a 
 minute. 
 
 He was just weltering about in a dreary dream- 
 jumble of Goths dancing with district visitors, 
 Pelagia as an angel, with peacock's wfngs ; Hypatia 
 with horns and cloven feet, riding three hippo- 
 potami at once round the theatre ; Cyril standing 
 at an open window, cursing frightfully, and pelting 
 him with flower-pots ; and a similar self-sown after- 
 crop of his day's impression ; when he -was awak- 
 ened by the tramp of hurried feet in the street 
 outside, and shouts, which gradually, as he became 
 conscious, shaped themselves into cries of " Alex- 
 ander's Church is on fire ! Help, good Christians ! 
 Fire ! Help ! " 
 
 Whereat he sat up in his truckle-bed, tried to 
 recollect where he was, and having with some 
 trouble succeeded, threw on his sheepskin, and 
 jumped up to ask the news from the deacons and 
 monks who were hurrying along the corridor out- 
 side. " Yes, Alexander's church was on fire ; " 
 and down the stairs they poured, across the court- 
 yard, and out into the street, Peter's tall figure 
 serving as a standard and a rallying point. 
 
 As they rushed out through the gateway, Phil- 
 ammon, dazzled by the sudden transition from the 
 darkness within to the blaze of moon and starlight 
 which flooded the street, and walls, and shining 
 roofs, hung back a moment. That hesitation 
 probably saved his life ; for in an instant he saw a
 
 i oo Hypatia 
 
 dark figure spring out of the shadow, a long knife 
 flashed across his eyes, and a priest next to him 
 sank upon the pavement with a groan, while the 
 assassin dashed off down the street, hotly pursued 
 by monks and parabolani. 
 
 Philammon, who ran like a desert ostrich, had 
 soon outstripped all but Peter, when several more 
 dark figures sprang out of doorways and corners, 
 and joined, or seemed to join, the pursuit. Sud- 
 denly, however, after running a hundred yards, 
 they drew up opposite the mouth of a side street; 
 the assassin stopped also. Peter, suspecting some- 
 thing wrong, slackened his pace, and caught Phil- 
 ammon's arm. 
 
 "Do you see those fellows in the shadow?" 
 
 But, before Philammon could answer, some 
 thirty or forty men, their daggers gleaming in the 
 moonlight, moved out into the middle of the 
 street, and received the fugitives into their ranks. 
 What was the meaning of it? Here was a pleasant 
 taste of the ways of the most Christian and civilized 
 city of the Empire ! 
 
 " Well," thought Philammon, " I have come out 
 to see the world, and I seem, at this rate, to be 
 likely to see enough of it." 
 
 Peter turned at once, and fled as quickly as he 
 had pursued; while Philammon, considering dis- 
 cretion the better part of valor, followed, and they 
 rejoined their party breathless. 
 
 "There is an armed mob at the end of the 
 street." 
 
 " Assassins ! " " Jews ! " "A conspiracy ! " Up 
 rose a Babel of doubtful voices. The foe appeared 
 in sight, advancing stealthily, and the whole party 
 took to flight, led once more by Peter, who seemed
 
 A Day in Alexandria 101 
 
 determined to make free use, in behalf of his own 
 safety, of the long legs which nature had given 
 him. 
 
 Philammon followed, sulkily and unwillingly, at 
 a foot's pace ; but he had not gone a dozen yards 
 when a pitiable voice at his feet called to him : 
 
 " Help ! mercy ! Do not leave me here to be 
 murdered ! I am a Christian ; indeed I am a 
 Christian ! " 
 
 Philammon stooped, and lifted from the ground 
 a comely negro-woman, weeping, and shivering in 
 a few tattered remnants of clothing. 
 
 " I ran out when they said the church was on 
 fire," sobbed the poor creature, " and the Jews 
 beat and wounded me. They tore my shawl and 
 tunic off me before I could get away from them ; 
 and then our own people ran over me and trod me 
 down. And now my husband will beat me, if I 
 ever get home. Quick 1 up this side street, or we 
 shall be murdered ! " 
 
 The armed men, whosoever they were, were 
 close on them. There was no time to be lost ; and 
 Philammon, assuring her that he would not desert 
 her, hurried her up the side street which she 
 pointed out. But the pursuers had caught sight of 
 them, and while the mass held on up the main 
 street, three or four turned aside and gave chase. 
 The poor negress could only limp along, and 
 Philammon, unarmed, looked back, and saw the 
 bright steel points gleaming in the moonlight, and 
 made up his mind to die as a monk should. 
 Nevertheless, youth is hopeful. One chance for 
 life. He thrust the negress into a dark doorway, 
 where her color hid her well enough, and had just 
 time to ensconce himself behind a pillar, when the
 
 102 Hypatia 
 
 foremost pursuer reached him. He held his 
 breath in fearful suspense. Should he be seen? 
 He would not die without a struggle at least. No ! 
 the fellow ran on, panting. But in a minute more, 
 another came up, saw him suddenly, and sprang 
 aside startled. That start saved Philammon. 
 Quick as a cat, he leapt upon him, felled him to 
 the earth with a single blow, tore the dagger from 
 his hand, and sprang to his feet again just in time 
 to strike his new weapon full into the third pur- 
 suer's face. The man put his hand to his head, 
 and recoiled against a fellow-ruffian, who was close 
 on his heels. Philammon, flushed with victory, 
 took advantage of the confusion, and before the 
 worthy pair could recover, dealt them half-a- 
 dozen blows which, luckily for them, came from an 
 unpractised hand, or the young monk might have 
 had more than one life to answer for. As it was, 
 they turned and limped off, cursing in an unknown 
 tongue ; and Philammon found himself triumphant 
 and alone, with the trembling negress and the 
 prostrate ruffian, who, stunned by the blow and 
 the fall, lay groaning on the pavement. 
 
 It was all over in a minute. . . . The negress was 
 kneeling under the gateway, pouring out her 
 simple thanks to Heaven for this unexpected 
 deliverance; and Philammon was about to kneel 
 too, when a thought struck him; and coolly 
 despoiling the Jew of his shawl and sash, he handed 
 them over to the poor negress, considering them 
 fairly enough as his own by right of conquest ; but, 
 lo and behold ! as she was overwhelming him with 
 thanks, a fresh mob poured into the street from 
 the upper end, and were close on them before 
 they were aware. ... A flush of terror and despair,
 
 A Day in Alexandria 103 
 
 , . . and then a burst of joy, as, by mingled moon- 
 light and torchlight, Philammon descried priestly 
 robes, and in the forefront of the battle there 
 being no apparent danger Peter the Reader, 
 who seemed to be anxious to prevent inquiry, by 
 beginning to talk as fast as possible. 
 
 "Ah, boy! Safe? The saints be praised ! We 
 gave you up for dead ! Whom have you here ? 
 A prisoner? And we have another. He ran right 
 into our arms up the street, and the Lord delivered 
 him into our hand. He must have passed you." 
 
 " So he did," said Philammon, dragging up 
 his captive, "and here is his fellow-scoundrel." 
 Whereon the two worthies were speedily tied to- 
 gether by the elbows ; and the party marched on 
 once more in search of Alexander's church, and 
 the supposed conflagration. 
 
 Philammon looked round for the negress, but 
 she had vanished. He was far too much ashamed 
 of being known to have been alone with a woman 
 to say anything about her. Yet he longed to see 
 her again; an interest even something like an 
 affection had already sprung up in his heart 
 toward the poor simple creature whom he had 
 delivered from death. Instead of thinking her 
 ungrateful for not staying to tell what he had done 
 for her, he was thankful to her for having saved his 
 blushes, by disappearing so opportunely. . . . And 
 he longed to tell her so to know if she was hurt 
 
 to Oh, Philammon ! only four days from 
 
 the Laura, and a whole regiment of women 
 acquaintances already ! True, Providence having 
 sent into the world about as many women as men, 
 it may be difficult to keep out of their way alto- 
 gether. Perhaps, too, Providence may have in-
 
 1 04 Hypatia 
 
 tended them to be of some use to that other sex, 
 with whom it has so mixed them up. Don't argue, 
 poor Philammon ; Alexander's church is on fire ! 
 forward ! 
 
 And so they hurried on, a confused mass of 
 monks and populace, with their hapless prisoners 
 in the center, who hauled, cuffed, questioned, and 
 cursed by twenty self -elected inquisitors at once, 
 thought fit, either from Jewish obstinacy, or sheer 
 bewilderment, to give no account whatsoever of 
 themselves. 
 
 As they turned the corner of a street, the folding- 
 doors of a large gateway rolled open ; a long lane 
 of glittering figures poured across the road, 
 dropped their spear-butts on the pavement with a 
 single rattle, and remained motionless. The front 
 rank of the mob recoiled ; and an awe-struck whis- 
 per ran through them. . . . "The Stationaries ! " 
 
 "Who are they?" asked Philammon, in a 
 whisper. 
 
 "The soldiers the Roman soldiers," answered 
 a whisperer to him. 
 
 Philammon, who was among the leaders, had 
 recoiled too he hardly knew why at that stern 
 apparition. His next instinct was to press forward 
 as close as he dared. . . . And these were Roman 
 soldiers ! the conquerors of the world ! the 
 men whose name had thrilled him from his child- 
 hood with vague awe and admiration, dimly heard 
 of up there in the lonely Laura. . . . Roman 
 soldiers ! And here he was face to face with them 
 at last! 
 
 His curiosity received a sudden check, however, 
 as he found his arm seized by an officer, as he 
 took him to be, from the gold ornaments on his
 
 A Day in Alexandria 105 
 
 helmet and cuirass, who lifted his vine-stock 
 threateningly over the young monk's head, and 
 demanded : 
 
 "What's all this about? Why are you not 
 quietly in your beds, you Alexandrian rascals ? " 
 
 " Alexander's church is on fire," answered Phit- 
 ammon, thinking the shortest answer the wisest. 
 
 " So much the better." 
 
 " And the Jews are murdering the Christians." 
 
 " Fight it out, then. Turn in, men, it 's only a 
 riot." 
 
 And the steel-clad apparition suddenly flashed 
 round, and vanished, trampling and jingling, into 
 the dark jaws of the guardhouse-gate, while the 
 stream, its temporary barrier removed, rushed on 
 wilder than ever. 
 
 Philammon hurried on too with them, not with- 
 out a strange feeling of disappointment. " Only a 
 riot ! " Peter was chuckling to his brothers over 
 their cleverness in " having kept the prisoners in 
 the middle, and stopped the rascals' mouths till 
 they were past the guardhouse." "A fine thing 
 to boast of," thought Philammon, " in the face 
 of the men who make and unmake kings and 
 Caesars ! " " Only a riot ! " He, and the corps of 
 district visitors whom he fancied the most august 
 body on earth and Alexander's church, Chris- 
 tians murdered by Jews, persecution of the Catholic 
 faith, and all the rest of it, was simply, then, not 
 worth the notice of those forty men, alone and 
 secure in the sense of power and discipline, 
 among tens of thousands. . . . He hated them, 
 those soldiers. Was it because they were indiffer- 
 ent to the cause of which he was inclined to 
 think himself a not unimportant member, on the
 
 1 06 Hypatia 
 
 strength of his late Samsonic defeat of Jewish 
 persecutors? At least, he obeyed the little por- 
 ter's advice, and " felt very small indeed." 
 
 And he felt smaller still, being young and alive 
 to ridicule, when, at some sudden ebb or flow, 
 wave or wavelet of the Babel sea, which weltered 
 up and down every street, a shrill female voice 
 informed them from an upper window, that Alex- 
 ander's church was not on fire at all ; that she had 
 gone to the top of the house, as they might have 
 gone, if they had not been fools, etc. etc.; and 
 that it " looked as safe and as ugly as ever ; " 
 wherewith a brickbat or two having been sent up 
 in answer, she shut the blinds, leaving them to halt, 
 inquire, discover gradually and piecemeal, after the 
 method of mobs, they had been following the 
 nature of mobs ; that no one had seen the church 
 on fire, or seen any one else who had seen the 
 the same, or even seen any light in the sky in any 
 quarter, or knew who raised the cry; or or 
 in short, Alexander's church was two miles off; 
 if it was on fire, it was either burnt down or saved 
 by this time ; if not, the night-air was, to say the 
 least, chilly: and, whether it was or not, there 
 were ambuscades of Jews Satan only knew how 
 strong in every street between them and it. ... 
 Might it not be better to secure their two prison- 
 ers, and then ask for further orders from the arch- 
 bishop? Wherewith, after the manner of mobs, 
 they melted off the way they came, by twos and 
 threes, till those of a contrary opinion began to find 
 themselves left alone, and having a strong dislike 
 to Jewish daggers, were fain to follow the stream. 
 
 With a panic or two, a cry of " The Jews are on 
 us 1 " and a general rush in every direction (in
 
 A Day in Alexandria 107 
 
 which one or two, seeking shelter from the awful 
 nothing in neighboring houses, were handed over 
 to the watch as burglars, and sent to the quarries 
 accordingly), they reached the Serapeium, and 
 there found, of course, a counter mob collected 
 to inform them that they had been taken in that 
 Alexander's church had never been on fire at all 
 
 that the Jews had murdered a thousand Chris- 
 tians at least, though three dead bodies, includ- 
 ing the poor priest who lay in the house within, 
 were all of the thousand who had yet been seen 
 
 and that the whole Jews' quarter was marching 
 upon them. At which news it was considered 
 advisable to retreat into the archbishop's house 
 as quickly as possible, barricade the doors, and 
 prepare for a siege a work at which Philammon 
 performed prodigies, tearing woodwork from the 
 rooms, and stones from the parapets, before it 
 struck some of the more sober-minded that it was as 
 well to wait for some more decided demonstration 
 of attack, before incurring so heavy a carpenter's 
 bill of repairs. 
 
 At last the heavy tramp of footsteps was heard 
 coming down the street, and every window was 
 crowded in an instant with eager heads; while 
 Peter rushed downstairs to heat the large coppers, 
 having some experience in the defensive virtues of 
 boiling water. The bright moon glittered on a long 
 line of helmets and cuirasses. Thank Heaven ! it 
 was the soldiery. 
 
 " Are the Jews coming?" " Is the city quiet?" 
 "Why did not you prevent this villany?" "A 
 thousand citizens murdered while you have been 
 snoring ! " and a volley of similar ejaculations, 
 greeted the soldiers as they passed, and were an-
 
 io8 Hypatia 
 
 swered by a cool: "To your perches, and sleep, 
 you noisy chickens, or we '11 set the coop on fire 
 about your ears." 
 
 A yell of defiance answered this polite speech, 
 and the soldiery, who knew perfectly well that the 
 unarmed ecclesiastics within were not to be trifled 
 with, and had no ambition to die by coping-stones 
 and hot water, went quietly on their way. 
 
 All danger was now past ; and the cackling rose 
 jubilant, louder than ever, and might have contin- 
 ued till daylight, had not a window in the court- 
 yard been suddenly thrown open, and the awful 
 voice of Cyril commanded silence. 
 
 " Every man sleep where he can. I shall want 
 you at daybreak. The superiors of the parabolani 
 are to come up to me with the two prisoners, and 
 the men who took them. " 
 
 In a few minutes Philammon found himself, with 
 some twenty others, in the great man's presence: 
 he was sitting at his desk, writing, quietly, small 
 notes on slips of paper. 
 
 " Here is the youth who helped me to pursue 
 the murderer, and having outrun me, was attacked 
 by the prisoners," said Peter. " My hands are 
 clean from blood, I thank the Lord ! " 
 
 " Three set on me with daggers," said Philammon, 
 apologetically, " and I was forced to take this one's 
 dagger away, and beat off the two others with it." 
 
 Cyril smiled, and shook his head. 
 
 " Thou art a brave boy ; but hast thou not read, 
 ' If a man smite thee on one cheek, turn to him 
 the other'?" 
 
 " I could not run away, as Master Peter and the 
 rest did." 
 
 " So you ran away, eh? my worthy friend?"
 
 A Day in Alexandria 109 
 
 *' Is it not written," asked Peter, in his blandest 
 tone, " ' If they persecute you in one city, flee 
 unto another ' ? " 
 
 Cyril smiled again. " And why could not you 
 run away, boy?" 
 
 Philammon blushed scarlet, but he dared not lie. 
 " There was a a poor black woman, wounded 
 and trodden down, and I dare not leave her, for 
 she told me she was a Christian." 
 
 " Right, my son, right. I shall remember this. 
 What was her name ? " 
 
 " I did not hear it. Stay, I think she said 
 Judith." 
 
 " Ah ! the wife of the porter who stands at the 
 lecture-room door, which God confound ! A de- 
 vout woman, full of good works, and sorely ill- 
 treated by her heathen husband. Peter, thou shalt 
 go to her to-morrow with the physician, and see if 
 she is in need of anything. Boy, thou hast done 
 well. Cyril never forgets. Now bring up those 
 Jews. Their Rabbis were with me two hours ago 
 promising peace : and this is the way they have 
 kept their promise. So be it. The wicked is 
 snared in his own wickedness." 
 
 The Jews were brought in, but kept a stubborn 
 silence. 
 
 " Your holiness perceives," said some one, " that 
 they have each of them rings of green palm-bark 
 on their right hand." 
 
 " A very dangerous sign ! An evident conspir- 
 acy ! " commented Peter. 
 
 " Ah ? What does that mean, you rascals ? An- 
 swer me, as you value your lives." 
 
 " You have no business with us : we are Jews, 
 and none of your people, " said one, sulkily.
 
 no Hypatia 
 
 " None of my people? You have murdered my 
 people ! None of my people ? Every soul in 
 Alexandria is mine, if the kingdom of God means 
 anything; and you shall find it out. I shall not 
 argue with you, my good friends, any more than I 
 did with your Rabbis. Take these fellows away, 
 Peter, and lock them up in the fuel-cellar, and see 
 that they are guarded. If any man lets them go, 
 his life shall be for the life of them. " 
 
 And the two worthies were led out. 
 
 " Now, my brothers, here are your orders. You 
 will divide these notes among yourselves, and dis- 
 tribute them to trusty and godly catholics in your 
 districts. Wait one hour, till the city be quiet; 
 and then start, and raise the church. I must 
 have thirty thousand men by sunrise." 
 
 " What for, your holiness ? " asked a dozen 
 voice." 
 
 " Read your notes. Whosoever will fight to- 
 morrow under the banner of the Lord, shall have 
 free plunder of the Jews' quarter, outrage and 
 murder only forbidden. As I have said it, God 
 do so to me, and more also, if there be a Jew left 
 in Alexandria by to-morrow at noon. Go." 
 
 And the staff of orderlies filed out, thanking 
 Heaven that they had a leader so prompt and val- 
 iant, and spent the next hour over the hall fire, 
 eating millet cakes, drinking bad beer, likening 
 Cyril to Barak, Gideon, Samson, Jephtha, Judas 
 Maccabeus, and all the worthies of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and then started on their pacific errand. 
 
 Philammon was about to follow them, when 
 Cyril stopped him. 
 
 " Stay, my son ; you are young and rash, and 
 do not know the city. Lie down here and sleep
 
 A Day in Alexandria in 
 
 in the anteroom. Three hours hence the sun rises, 
 and we go forth against the enemies of the Lord." 
 
 Philammon threw himself on the floor in a cor- 
 ner, and slumbered like a child, till he was awak- 
 ened in the gray dawn by one of the parabolani. 
 
 " Up, boy ! and see what we can do. Cyril goes 
 down greater than Barak the son of Abinoam, not 
 with ten, but with thirty thousand men at his 
 feet!" 
 
 " Ay, my brothers ! " said Cyril, as he passed 
 proudly out in full pontificals, with a gorgeous 
 retinue of priests and deacons : " the Catholic 
 Church has her organization, her unity, her com- 
 mon cause, her watchwords, such as the tyrants of 
 the earth, in their weakness and their divisions, 
 may envy and tremble at, but cannot imitate. 
 Could Orestes raise, in three hours, thirty thousand 
 men, who would die for him?" 
 
 " As we will for you ! " shouted many voices. 
 
 " Say for the kingdom of God. " And he passed 
 out. 
 
 And so ended Philammon's first day in Alex- 
 andria.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE NEW DIOGENES 
 
 ABOUT five o'clock the next morning, Raphael 
 Aben-Ezra was lying in bed, alternately 
 yawning over a manuscript of Philo Judaeus, pulling 
 the ears of his huge British mastiff, watching the 
 sparkle of the fountain in the court outside, won- 
 dering when that lazy boy would come to tell 
 him that the bath was warmed, and meditating, 
 half aloud. . . . 
 
 " Alas ! poor me ! Here I am, back again 
 just at the point from which I started ! . . . How 
 am I to get free from that heathen Siren ? Plagues 
 on her ! I shall end by falling in love with her. 
 ... I don't know that I have not got a barb of 
 the blind boy in me already. I felt absurdly glad 
 the other day when that fool told me he dare not 
 accept her modest offer. Ha ! ha ! A delicious 
 joke it would have been to have seen Orestes bow- 
 ing down to stocks and stones, and Hypatia in- 
 stalled in the ruins of the Serapeium, as High 
 Priestess of the Abomination of Desolation ! . . . 
 And now . . . Well: I call all heaven and earth 
 to witness, that I have fought valiantly. I have 
 faced naughty little Eros like a man, rod in hand. 
 What could a poor human being do more than try 
 to marry her to some one else, in hopes of sicken- 
 ing himself of the whole matter? Well, every 
 moth has its candle, and every man his destiny.
 
 The New Diogenes 1 1 3 
 
 But the daring of the little fool I What huge 
 imaginations she has ! She might be another 
 Zenobia, now, with Orestes as Odenatus, and 
 Raphael Aben-Ezra to play the part of Longinus 
 . . . and receive Longinus's salary of axe or 
 poison. She don't care for me; she would sacri- 
 fice me, or a thousand of me, the cold-blooded 
 fanatical archangel that she is, to water with our 
 blood the foundation of some new temple of cast 
 rags and broken dolls . . . Oh, Raphael Aben- 
 Ezra, what a fool you are ! . . . You know you 
 are going off as usual to her lecture, this very 
 morning ! " 
 
 At this crisis of his confessions the page entered, 
 and announced, not the bath, but Miriam. 
 
 The old woman, who, in virtue of her profes- 
 sion, had the private entry of all fashionable 
 chambers in Alexandria, came in hurriedly; and 
 instead of seating herself as usual, for a gossip, 
 remained standing, and motioned the boy out of 
 the room. 
 
 "Well, my sweet mother? Sit: Ah? I see! 
 You rascal, you have brought in no wine for the 
 lady. Don't you know her little ways yet ? " 
 
 " Eos has got it at the door, of course," answered 
 the boy, with a saucy air of offended virtue. 
 
 " Out with you, imp of Satan ! " cried Miriam. 
 " This is no time for winebibbing. Raphael Aben- 
 Ezra, why are you lying here ? Did you not re- 
 ceive a note last night?" 
 
 "A note? So I did, but I was too sleepy to 
 read it. There it lies. Boy, bring it here. . . . 
 What's this? A scrap out of Jeremiah? 'Arise, 
 and flee for thy life, for evil is determined against 
 the whole house of Israel ! ' Does this come
 
 H4 Hypatia 
 
 from the chief rabbi ? I always took the venerable 
 father for a sober man. . . . Eh, Miriam?" 
 
 " Fool ! instead of laughing at the sacred words 
 of the prophets, get up and obey them. I sent 
 you the note." 
 
 " Why can't I obey them in bed ! Here I am, 
 reading hard at the Cabbala or Philo who is 
 stupider still and what more would you have ! " 
 
 The old woman, unable to restrain her impatience, 
 literally ran at him, gnashing her teeth, and, before 
 he was aware, dragged him out of bed upon the 
 floor, where he stood meekly wondering what 
 would come next. 
 
 " Many thanks, mother, for having saved me the 
 one daily torture of life getting out of bed by 
 one's own exertion." 
 
 " Raphael Aben-Ezra ! are you so besotted with 
 your philosophy and your heathenry, and your 
 laziness, and your contempt for God and man, that 
 you will see your nation given up for a prey, and 
 your wealth plundered by heathen dogs? I tell 
 you, Cyril has sworn that God shall do so to him, 
 and more also, if there be a Jew left in Alexandria 
 by to-morrow about this time." 
 
 " So much the better for the Jews, then, if they 
 are half as tired of this noisy Pandemonium as I 
 am. But how can I help it? Am I Queen Esther, 
 to go to Ahasuerus there in the prefect's palace, 
 and get him to hold out the golden sceptre to 
 me?" 
 
 " Fool ! if you had read that note last night, you 
 might have gone and saved us, and your name 
 would have been handed down for ever from 
 generation to generation as a second Mordecai." 
 
 " My dear mother, Ahasuerus would have been
 
 The New Diogenes 115 
 
 either fast asleep, or far too drunk to listen to me. 
 Why did you not go yourself? " 
 
 " Do you suppose that I would not have gone if 
 I could ? Do you fancy me a sluggard like your- 
 self? At the risk of my life I have got hither in 
 time, if there be time to save you." 
 
 "Well : shall I dress? What can be done now?" 
 
 " Nothing ! The streets are blockaded by Cyril's 
 mob There ! do you hear the shouts and screams? 
 They are attacking the further part of the quarter 
 already." 
 
 " What ! are they murdering them ? " asked 
 Raphael, throwing on his pelisse. " Because, if it 
 has really come to a practical joke of that kind, 
 I shall have the greatest pleasure in employing 
 a counter-irritant. Here, boy! My sword and 
 dagger ! Quick ! " 
 
 " No, the hypocrites ! No blood is to be shed, 
 they say, if we make no resistance, and let them 
 pillage. Cyril and his monks are there, to prevent 
 outrage, and so forth. . . . The Angel of the Lord 
 scatter them ! " 
 
 The conversation was interruped by the rushing 
 in of the whole household, in an agony of terror ; 
 and Raphael, at last thoroughly roused, went to a 
 window which looked into the street. The thor- 
 oughfare was full of scolding women and screaming 
 children ; while men, old and young, looked on at 
 the plunder of their property with true Jewish 
 doggedness, too prudent to resist, but too manful 
 to complain; while furniture came flying out of 
 every window, and from door after door poured a 
 stream of rascality, carrying off money, jewels, 
 silks, and all the treasures which Jewish usury 
 had accumulated during many a generation. But
 
 1 1 6 Hypatia 
 
 unmoved amid the roaring sea of plunderers and 
 plundered, stood, scattered up and down, Cyril's 
 spiritual police, enforcing, by a word, an obedience 
 which the Roman soldiers could only have com- 
 pelled by hard blows of the spear-butt. There 
 was to be no outrage, and no outrage there was; 
 and more than once some man in priestly robes 
 hurried through the crowd, leading by the hand, 
 tenderly enough, a lost child in search of its 
 parents. 
 
 Raphael stood watching silently, while Miriam, 
 who had followed him upstairs, paced the room in 
 an ecstasy of rage, calling vainly to him to speak 
 or act. 
 
 " Let me alone, mother, " he said, at last. " It 
 will be full ten minutes more before they pay me 
 a visit, and in the mean time what can one do 
 better than watch the progress of this, the little 
 Exodus?" 
 
 " Not like that first one ! Then we went forth 
 with cymbals and songs to the Red Sea triumph ! 
 Then we borrowed, every woman of her neigh- 
 bor, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and 
 raiment. " 
 
 " And now we pay them back again ; ... it is 
 but fair, after all. We ought to have listened to 
 Jeremiah a thousand years ago, and never gone 
 back again, like fools, into a country to which we 
 were so deeply in debt. " 
 
 " Accursed land ! " cried Miriam. " In an evil 
 hour our forefathers disobeyed the prophet; and 
 now we reap the harvest of our sins! Our sons 
 have forgotten the faith of their forefathers for the 
 philosophy of the Gentiles, and fill their cham- 
 bers " (with a contemptuous look round) " with
 
 The New Diogenes 1 1 7 
 
 heathern imagery; and our daughters are Look 
 there ! " 
 
 As she spoke, a beautiful girl rushed shrieking 
 out of an adjoining house, followed by some half- 
 drunk ruffian, who was clutching at the gold chains 
 and trinkets with which she was profusely be- 
 decked, after the fashion of Jewish women. The 
 rascal had just seized with one hand her streaming 
 black tresses, and with the other a heavy collar of 
 gold, which was wound round her throat, when a 
 priest, stepping up, laid a quiet hand upon his 
 shoulder. The fellow, too maddened to obey, 
 turned, and struck back the restraining arm . . . 
 and in an instant was felled to the earth by a 
 young monk. . . . 
 
 " Touchest thou the Lord's anointed, sacrilegious 
 wretch ? " cried the man of the desert, as the fellow 
 dropped on the pavement, with his booty in his 
 hand. 
 
 The monk tore the gold necklace from his grasp, 
 looked at it for a moment with childish wonder, as 
 a savage might at some incomprehensible product 
 of civilized industry, and then, spitting on it in con- 
 tempt, dashed it on the ground, and trampled it 
 into the mud. 
 
 " Follow the golden wedge of Achan, and the 
 silver of Iscariot, thou root of all evil ! " And he 
 rushed on, yelling, " Down with the circumcision ! 
 Down with the blasphemers ! " while the poor 
 girl vanished among the crowd. 
 
 Raphael watched him with a quaint thoughtful 
 smile, while Miriam shrieked aloud at the destruc- 
 tion of the precious trumpery. 
 
 "The monk is right, mother. If those Chris- 
 tians go on upon that method, they must beat us.
 
 1 1 8 Hypatia 
 
 It has been our ruin from the first, our fancy for 
 loading ourselves with the thick clay." 
 
 "What will you do?" cried Miriam, clutching 
 him by the arm. 
 
 " What will you do ? " 
 
 " I am safe. I have a boat waiting for me on 
 the canal at the garden gate, and in Alexandria I 
 stay; no Christian hound shall make old Miriam 
 move a foot against her will. My jewels are all 
 buried my girls are sold ; save what you can, and 
 come with me ! " 
 
 " My sweet mother, why so peculiarly solicitous 
 about my welfare, above that of all the sons of 
 Judah?" 
 
 " Because because No, I '11 tell you that 
 another time. But I loved your mother, and she 
 loved me. Come ! " 
 
 Raphael relapsed into silence for a few minutes, 
 and watched the tumult below. 
 
 " How those Christian priests keep their men in 
 order ! There is no use resisting destiny. They 
 are the strong men of the time, after all, and the 
 little Exodus must needs have its course. Miriam, 
 daughter of Jonathan " 
 
 " I am no man's daughter ! I have neither father 
 
 nor mother, husband nor Call me mother 
 
 again ! " 
 
 " Whatsoever I am to call you, there are jewels 
 enough in that closet to buy half Alexandria. 
 Take them. I am going. " 
 
 "With me?" 
 
 " Out into the wide world, my dear lady. I am 
 bored with riches. That young savage of a monk 
 understood them better than we Jews do. I shall 
 just make a virtue of necessity, and turn beggar. "
 
 The New Diogenes 119 
 
 "Beggar?" 
 
 "Why not? Don't argue. These scoundrels 
 will make me one, whether I like or not ; so forth 
 I go. There will be few leave-takings. This brute 
 of a dog is the only friend I have on earth ; and I 
 love her, because she has the true old, dogged, 
 spiteful, cunning, obstinate Maccabee spirit in 
 her of which if we had a spark left in us just 
 now, there would be no little Exodus; eh, Bran, 
 my beauty ? " 
 
 " You can escape with me to the prefect's, and 
 save the mass of your wealth." 
 
 " Exactly what I don't want to do. I hate that 
 prefect as I hate a dead camel, or the vulture who 
 eats him. And to tell the truth, I am growing a 
 great deal too fond of that heathen woman 
 there " 
 
 " What? " shrieked the old woman" Hypatia?" 
 
 " If you choose. At all events, the easiest way 
 to cut the knot is to expatriate. I shall beg my 
 passage on board the first ship to Cyrene, and go 
 and study life in Italy with Heraclian's expedition. 
 Quick take the jewels, and breed fresh troubles 
 for yourself with them. I am going. My liberators 
 are battering the outer door already." 
 
 Miriam greedily tore out of the closet diamonds 
 and pearls, rubies and emeralds, and concealed 
 them among her ample robes : " Go ! go ! Es- 
 cape from her ! I will hide your jewels ! " 
 
 " Ay, hide them, as mother earth does all things, 
 in that all-embracing bosom. You will have 
 doubled them before we meet again, no doubt. 
 Farewell, mother ! " 
 
 " But not for ever, Raphael ! not for ever ! 
 Promise me, in the name of the four archangels,
 
 120 Hypatia 
 
 that if you are in trouble or danger, you will write 
 to me, at the house of Eudaimon." 
 
 " The little porter philosopher, who hangs about 
 Hypatia's lecture-room ? " 
 
 "The same, the same. He will give me your 
 letter, and I swear to you, I will cross the moun- 
 tains of Kaf, to deliver you ! I will pay you all 
 back. By Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob I swear! 
 May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, 
 if I do not account to you for the last penny ! " 
 
 "Don't commit yourself to rash promises, my 
 dear lady. If I am bored with poverty, I can 
 but borrow a few gold pieces of a rabbi, and turn 
 pedler. I really do not trust you to pay me back, 
 so I shall not be disappointed if you do not. Why 
 should I?" 
 
 " Because because Oh, God ! No never 
 mind ! You shall have all back. Spirit of Elias ! 
 where is the black agate ? Why is it not among 
 these? The broken half of the black agate 
 talisman ! " 
 
 Raphael turned pale. " How did you know that 
 I have a black agate ? " 
 
 " How did I ? How did I not ? " cried she, clutch- 
 ing him by the arm. " Where is it? All depends 
 on that ! Fool ! " she went on, throwing him off 
 from her at arm's length, as a sudden suspicion 
 stung her " you have not given it to the heathen 
 woman ? " 
 
 " By the soul of my fathers, then, you mysterious 
 old witch, who seem to know everything, that is 
 exactly what I have done." 
 
 Miriam clapped her hands together wildly. 
 " Lost ! lost ! lost ! No ! I will have it, if I tear 
 it out of her heart ! I will be avenged of her
 
 The New Diogenes 121 
 
 the strange woman who flatters with her words, to 
 whom the simple go in, and know not that the 
 dead are there, and that her guests are in the 
 depths of hell ! God do so to me, and more also, 
 if she and her sorceries be on earth a twelvemonth 
 hence ! " 
 
 " Silence, Jezebel ! Heathen or none, she is as 
 pure as the sunlight ! I only gave it her because 
 she fancied the talisman upon it." 
 
 " To enchant you with it, to your ruin ! " 
 
 " Brute of a slave-dealer ! you fancy every one 
 as base as the poor wretches whom you buy and 
 sell to shame, that you may make them as much 
 the children of hell, if that be possible, as your- 
 self! " 
 
 Miriam looked at him, her large black eyes widen- 
 ing and kindling. For an instant she felt for her 
 poniard and then burst into an agony of tears, 
 hid her face in her withered hands, and rushed 
 from the room, as a crash and shout below an- 
 nounced the bursting of the door. 
 
 "There she goes with my jewels. And here 
 come my guests, with the young monk at their 
 head. One rising when the other sets. A worthy 
 pair of Dioscuri ! Come, Bran ! . . . Boys ! Slaves ! 
 Where are you ? Steal every one what he can lay 
 his hands on, and run for your lives through the 
 back gate." 
 
 The slaves had obeyed him already. He walked 
 smiling down stairs through utter solitude, and in 
 the front passage, met face to face the mob of 
 monks, costermongers and dock-workers, fish- 
 wives and beggars, who were thronging up the 
 narrow entry, and bursting into the doors right 
 and left ; and at their head, alas ! the young monk 
 
 G Vol. VI
 
 122 Hypatia 
 
 who had just trampled the necklace into the mud 
 ... no other, in fact, than Philammon. 
 
 " Welcome, my worthy guests ! Enter, I beseech 
 you, and fulfil, in your own peculiar way, the pre- 
 cepts which bid you not be over anxious for the 
 good things of this life. . . . For eating and drink- 
 ing, my kitchen and cellar are at your service. For 
 clothing, if any illustrious personage will do me the 
 honor to change his holy rags with me, here are 
 an Indian shawl-pelisse and a pair of silk trousers 
 at his service. Perhaps you will accommodate me, 
 my handsome young captain, choragus of this new 
 school of the prophets?" 
 
 Philammon, who was the person addressed, tried 
 to push by him contemptuously. 
 
 " Allow me, sir. I lead the way. This dagger 
 is poisoned, a scratch and you are dead. This 
 dog is of the true British breed ; if she seizes you, 
 red-hot iron will not loose her, till she hears the 
 bone crack. If any one will change clothes with 
 me, all I have is at your service. If not, the first 
 that stirs is a dead man." 
 
 There was no mistaking the quiet, high-bred 
 determination of the speaker. Had he raged and 
 blustered, Philammon could have met him on his 
 own ground : but there was an easy self-possessed 
 disdain about him, which utterly abashed the young 
 monk, and abashed, too, the whole crowd of rascals 
 at his heels. 
 
 " I '11 change clothes with you, you Jewish dog ! " 
 roared a dirty fellow out of the mob. 
 
 " I am your eternal debtor. Let us step into 
 this side room. Walk up stairs, my friends. Take 
 care there, sir ! That porcelain, whole, is worth 
 three thousand gold pieces ; broken, it is not worth
 
 The New Diogenes 123 
 
 three pence. I leave it to your good sense to treat 
 it accordingly. Now then, my friend ! " And in 
 the midst of the raging vortex of plunderers, who 
 were snatching up everything which they could 
 carry away, and breaking everything which they 
 could not, he quietly divested himself of his finery, 
 and put on the ragged cotton tunic, and battered 
 straw hat, which the fellow handed over to him. 
 
 Philammon, who had had from the first no mind 
 to plunder, stood watching Raphael with dumb 
 wonder; and a shudder of regret, he knew not 
 why, passed through him, as he saw the mob tear- 
 ing down pictures, and dashing statues to the 
 ground. Heathen they were, doubtless ; but still, 
 the Nymphs and Venuses looked too lovely to be 
 so brutally destroyed. . . . There was something 
 almost humanly pitiful in their poor broken arms 
 and legs, as they lay about upon the pavement. 
 . . . He laughed at himself for the notion; but 
 he could not laugh it away. 
 
 Raphael seemed to think that he ought not to 
 laugh it away; for he pointed to the fragments, 
 and with a quaint look at the young monk 
 
 " Our nurses used to tell us, 
 
 " ' If you can't make it, 
 
 You ought not to break it.' " 
 
 " I had no nurse," said Philammon. 
 
 " Ah ! that accounts for this and other 
 things. Well," he went on, with the most provok- 
 ing good-nature, " you are in a fair road, my 
 handsome youth ; I wish you joy of your fellow- 
 workmen, and of your apprenticeship in the noble 
 art of monkery. Riot and pillage, shrieking women 
 and houseless children in your twentieth summer,
 
 1 24 Hypatia 
 
 are the sure path to a saintship, such as Paul of 
 Tarsus, who, with all his eccentricities, was a gentle- 
 man, certainly never contemplated. I have heard 
 of Phoebus Apollo under many disguises, but this 
 is the first time I ever saw him in the wolf's hide." 
 
 " Or in the lion's," said Philammon, trying in his 
 shame to make a fine speech. 
 
 " Like the Ass in the Fable. Farewell ! Stand 
 out of the way, friends ! 'Ware teeth and poison ! " 
 
 And he disappeared among the crowd, who 
 made way respectfully enough for his dagger and 
 his brindled companion.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THOSE BY WHOM OFFENCES COME 
 
 PHILAMMON'S heart smote him all that day, 
 whenever he thought of his morning's work. 
 Till then all Christians, monks above all, had been 
 infallible in his eyes : all Jews and heathens insane 
 and accursed. Moreover, meekness under insult, 
 fortitude in calamity, the contempt of worldly com- 
 fort, the worship of poverty as a noble estate, 
 were virtues which the Church Catholic boasted as 
 her peculiar heritage: on which side had the 
 balance of those qualities inclined that morning? 
 The figure of Raphael, stalking out ragged and 
 penniless into the wide world, haunted him, with 
 its quiet self-assured smile. And there haunted 
 him, too, another peculiarity in the man, which he 
 had never before remarked in any one but Arsenius 
 that ease and grace, that courtesy and self- 
 restraint, which made Raphael's rebukes rankle all 
 the more keenly, because he felt that the rebuker 
 was in some mysterious way superior to him, 
 and saw through him, and could have won him 
 over, or crushed him in argument, or in intrigue 
 or in anything, perhaps, except mere brute force. 
 Strange that Raphael, of all men, should in 
 those few moments have reminded him so much of 
 Arsenius ; and that the very same qualities which 
 gave a peculiar charm to the latter should give a 
 peculiar unloveliness to the former, and yet be,
 
 1 26 Hypatia 
 
 without a doubt, the same. What was it? Was it 
 rank which gave it? Arsenius had been a great 
 man, he knew the companion of kings. And 
 Raphael seemed rich. He had heard the mob 
 crying out against the prefect for favoring him. 
 Was it then familiarity with the great ones of the 
 world which produced this manner and tone? It 
 was a real strength, whether in Arsenius or in 
 Raphael. He felt humbled before it envied it. 
 If it made Arsenius a more complete and more 
 captivating person, why should it not do the same 
 for him ? Why should not he, too, have his share 
 of it? 
 
 Bringing with it such thoughts as these, the time 
 ran on till noon, and the midday meal, and the 
 afternoon's work, to which Philammon looked for- 
 ward joyfully, as a refuge from his own thoughts. 
 
 He was sitting on his sheepskin upon a step, 
 basking, like a true son of the desert, in a blaze of 
 fiery sunshine, which made the black stonework 
 too hot to touch with the bare hand, watching the 
 swallows, as they threaded the columns of the 
 Serapeium, and thinking how often he had de- 
 lighted in their air-dance, as they turned and 
 hawked up and down the dear old glen at Scetis. 
 A crowd of citizens with causes, appeals, and 
 petitions, were passing in and out from the patri- 
 arch's audience-room. Peter and the archdeacon 
 were waiting in the shade close by, for the gather- 
 ing of the parabolani, and talking over the morn- 
 ing's work in an earnest whisper, in which the 
 names of Hypatia and Orestes were now and then 
 audible. 
 
 An old priest came up, and bowing reverently 
 enough to the archdeacon, requested the help of
 
 Those by whom Offences Come 127 
 
 one of the parabolani. He had a sailor's family, 
 all fever-stricken, who must be removed to the 
 hospital at once. 
 
 The archdeacon looked at him, answered an off- 
 hafcid " Very well," and went on with his talk. 
 
 The priest, bowing lower than before, repre- 
 sented the immediate necessity for help. 
 
 " It is very odd," said Peter to the swallows in 
 the Serapeium, " that some people cannot obtain 
 influence enough in their own parishes to get the 
 simplest good works performed without torment- 
 ing his holiness the patriarch." 
 
 The old priest mumbled some sort of excuse, 
 and the archdeacon, without deigning a second 
 look at him, said : " Find him a man, brother 
 Peter. Anybody will do. What is that boy 
 Philammon doing there ? Let him go with 
 Master Hieracas." 
 
 Peter seemed not to receive the proposition 
 favorably, and whispered something to the arch- 
 deacon. . . . 
 
 " No. I can spare none of the rest. Importu- 
 nate persons must take their chance of being well 
 served. Come here are our brethren ; we will 
 all go together." 
 
 " The further together the better for the boy's 
 sake," grumbled Peter, loud enough for Philam- 
 mon perhaps for the old priest to overhear 
 him. 
 
 So Philammon went out with them, and as he 
 went questioned his companions meekly enough, 
 as to who Raphael was. 
 
 " A friend of Hypatia ! " that name, too, 
 haunted him ; and he began, as stealthily and in- 
 directly as he could, to obtain information about
 
 128 Hypatia 
 
 her. There was no need for his caution ; for the 
 very mention of her name roused the whole party 
 into a fury of execration. 
 
 " May God confound her, siren, enchantress, 
 dealer in spells and sorceries ! She is the strange 
 woman of whom Solomon prophesied." 
 
 " It is my opinion," said another, " that she is 
 the forerunner of Antichrist." 
 
 " Perhaps the virgin of whom it is prophesied 
 that he will be born," suggested another. 
 
 " Not that, I '11 warrant her," said Peter, with a 
 savage sneer. 
 
 " And is Raphael Aben-Ezra her pupil in phil- 
 osophy?" asked Philammon. 
 
 " Her pupil in whatsoever she can find where- 
 with to delude men's souls," said the old priest. 
 11 The reality of philosophy has died long ago, but 
 the great ones find it still worth their while to wor- 
 ship its shadow." 
 
 " Some of them worship more than a shadow, 
 when they haunt her house," said Peter. " Do 
 you think Orestes goes thither only for phil- 
 osophy?" 
 
 " We must not judge harsh judgments," said the 
 old priest; " Synesius of Cyrene is a holy man, 
 and yet he loves Hypatia well." 
 
 "He a holy man? and keeps a wife! One 
 who had the insolence to tell the blessed Theophi- 
 lus himself that he would not be made bishop 
 unless he were allowed to remain with her; and 
 despised the gift of the Holy Ghost in comparison 
 of the carnal joys of wedlock, not knowing the 
 Scriptures, which saith that those who are in the 
 flesh cannot please God ! Well said Siricius of 
 Rome of such men : ' Can the Holy Spirit of
 
 Those by whom Offences Come 129 
 
 God dwell in other than holy bodies? ' No wonder 
 that such a one as Synesius grovels at the feet of 
 Orestes' mistress ! " 
 
 "Then she is profligate? " asked Philammon. 
 
 " She must be. Has a heathen faith and grace? 
 And without faith and grace, are not all our right- 
 eousnesses as filthy rags ? What says Saint Paul ? 
 That God has given them over to a reprobate 
 mind, full of all injustice, uncleanness, covetous- 
 ness, maliciousness, you know the catalogue 
 why do you ask me ? " 
 
 " Alas ! and is she this ? " 
 
 "Alas! And why alas? How would the Gos- 
 pel be glorified if heathens were holier than 
 Christians? It ought to be so, therefore it is so. 
 If she seems to have virtues, they, being done 
 without the grace of Christ, are only bedizened 
 vices, cunning shams, the devil transformed into 
 an angel of light. And as for chastity, the flower 
 and crown of all virtues whosoever says that she, 
 being yet a heathen, has that, blasphemes the 
 Holy Spirit, whose peculiar and highest gift it is, 
 and is anathema maranatha for ever ! Amen ! " 
 And Peter, devoutly crossing himself, turned 
 angrily and contemptuously away from his young 
 companion. 
 
 Philammon was quite shrewd enough to see 
 that assertion was not identical with proof. But 
 Peter's argument of " it ought to be, therefore it 
 is," is one which saves a great deal of trouble . . . 
 and no doubt he had very good sources of infor- 
 mation. So Philammon walked on, sad, he knew 
 not why, at the new notion which he had formed 
 of Hypatia, as a sort of awful sorceress-Messalina, 
 whose den was foul with magic rites and ruined
 
 130 Hypatia 
 
 souls of men. And yet if that was all she had to 
 teach, whence had her pupil Raphael learned that 
 fortitude of his? If philosophy had, as they said, 
 utterly died out, then what was Raphael ? 
 
 Just then, Peter and the rest turned up a side 
 street, and Philammon and Hieracas were left to 
 go on their joint errand together. They paced on 
 for some way in silence, up one street and down 
 another, till Philammon, for want of anything bet- 
 ter to say, asked where they were going. 
 
 "Where I choose, at all events. No, young 
 man ! If I, a priest, am to be insulted by arch- 
 deacons and readers, I won't be insulted by you." 
 
 " I assure you I meant no harm." 
 
 " Of course not ; you all learn the same trick, 
 and the young ones catch it of the old ones fast 
 enough. Words smoother than butter, yet very 
 swords." 
 
 " You do not mean to complain of the archdeacon 
 and his companions?" said Philammon, who of 
 course was boiling over with pugnacious respect 
 for the body to which he belonged. 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Why, sir, are they not among the most holy 
 and devoted of men ? " 
 
 " Ah yes," said his companion, in a tone which 
 sounded very like " Ah no." 
 
 " You do not think so ? " asked Philammon, 
 bluntly. 
 
 " You are young, you are young. Wait a while 
 till you have seen as much as I have. A degenerate 
 age this, my son ; not like the good old times, when 
 men dare suffer and die for the faith. We are too 
 prosperous nowadays ; and fine ladies walk about 
 with Magdalens embroidered on their silks, and
 
 Those by whom Offences Come 1 3 1 
 
 gospels hanging round their necks. When I was 
 young, they died for that with which they now 
 bedizen themselves." 
 
 " But I was speaking of the parabolani." 
 
 " Ah, there are a great many among them who 
 have not much business where they are. Don't say 
 I said so. But many a rich man puts his name on 
 the list of the guild just to get his exemption from 
 taxes, and leaves the work to poor men like you. 
 Rotten, rotten ! my son, and you will find it out. 
 The preachers, now people used to say I know 
 Abbot Isidore did that I had as good a gift for 
 expounding as any man in Pelusium ; but since I 
 came here, eleven years since, if you will believe it, 
 I have never been asked to preach in my own parish 
 church." 
 
 " You surely jest ! " 
 
 " True, as I am a christened man. I know why 
 I know why : they are afraid of Isidore's men 
 here. . . . Perhaps they may have caught the holy 
 man's trick of plain speaking and ears are dainty 
 in Alexandria. And there are some in these parts, 
 too, that have never forgiven him the part he took 
 about those three villains, Maro, Zosimus, and Mar- 
 tinian, and a certain letter that came of it ; or another 
 letter either, which we know of, about taking alms for 
 the church from the gains of robbers and usurers. 
 ' Cyril never forgets.' So he says to every one 
 who does him a good turn. . . . And so he does 
 to every one who he fancies has done him a bad 
 one. So here am I slaving away, a subordinate 
 priest, while such fellows as Peter the Reader look 
 down on me as their slave. But it's always so. 
 There never was a bishop yet, except the blessed 
 Augustine would to Heaven I had taken my
 
 132 Hypatia 
 
 abbot's advice, and gone to him at Hippo ! who 
 had not his flatterers and his tale-bearers, and 
 generally the archdeacon at the head of them, 
 ready to step into the bishop's place when he dies, 
 over the heads of hard-working parish priests. 
 But that is the way of the world. The sleekest 
 and the oiliest, and the noisiest ; the man who can 
 bring in most money to the charities, never mind 
 whence or how ; the man who will take most of the 
 bishop's work off his hands, and agree with him in 
 everything he wants, and save him, by spying and 
 eavesdropping, the trouble of using his own eyes ; 
 that is the man to succeed in Alexandria, or Con- 
 stantinople, or Rome itself. Look now ; there are 
 but seven deacons to this great city, and all its 
 priests; and they and the archdeacon are the 
 masters of it and us. They and that Peter manage 
 Cyril's work for him, and when Cyril makes the 
 archdeacon a bishop, he will make Peter arch- 
 deacon. . . . They have their reward, they have 
 their reward ; and so has Cyril, for that matter." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Why, don't say I said it. But what do I care ? 
 I have nothing to lose, I 'm sure. But they do say 
 that there are two ways of promotion in Alexan- 
 dria : one by deserving it, the other by paying for 
 it. That 'sail." 
 
 " Impossible ! " 
 
 "Oh, of course, quite impossible. But all I know 
 is just this, that when that fellow Martinian got 
 back again into Pelusium, after being turned out 
 by the late bishop for a rogue and hypocrite as he 
 was, and got the ear of this present bishop, and 
 was appointed his steward, and ordained priest 
 I'd as soon have ordained that street-dog and
 
 Those by whom Offences Come 133 
 
 plundered him and brought him to disgrace for 
 I don't believe this bishop is a bad man, but those 
 who use rogues must expect to be called rogues 
 and ground the poor to the earth, and tyrannized 
 over the whole city so that no man's property, or 
 reputation, scarcely their lives, were safe; and 
 after all, had the impudence, when he was called 
 on for his accounts, to bring the church in as 
 owing him money ; I just know this, that he added 
 to all his other shamelessness this, that he offered 
 the patriarch a large sum of money to buy a bishop- 
 ric of him. . . . And what do you think the patri- 
 arch answered ? " 
 
 "Excommunicated the sacrilegious wretch, of 
 course ! " 
 
 " Sent him a letter to say that if he dared to do 
 such a thing again he should really be forced to 
 expose him ! So the fellow, taking courage, 
 brought his money himself the next time; and 
 all the world says that Cyril would have made 
 him a bishop after all, if Abbot Isidore had not 
 written to remonstrate." 
 
 " He could not have known the man's character," 
 said poor Philammon, hunting for an excuse. 
 
 " The whole Delta was ringing with it. Isidore 
 had written to him again and again." 
 
 "Surely then his wish was to prevent scandal, 
 and preserve the unity of the church in the eyes 
 of the heathen." 
 
 The old man laughed bitterly. 
 
 " Ah, the old story of preventing scandals by 
 retaining them, and fancying that sin is a less evil 
 than a little noise ; as if the worst of all scandals 
 was not the being discovered in hushing up a scan- 
 dal. And as for unity, if you want that, you must
 
 134 Hypatia 
 
 go back to the good old times of Diocletian and 
 Decius." 
 
 "The persecutors?" 
 
 "Ay, boy to the times of persecution, when 
 Christians died like brothers, because they lived 
 like brothers. You will see very little of that now, 
 except in some little remote county bishopric, 
 which no one ever hears of from year's end to 
 year's end. But in the cities it is all one great 
 fight for place and power. Every one is jealous 
 of his neighbor. The priests are jealous of the 
 deacons, and good cause they have. The county 
 bishops are jealous of the metropolitan, and he is 
 jealous of the North African bishops, and quite 
 right he is. What business have they to set up 
 for themselves, as if they were infallible? It's a 
 schism, I say a complete schism. They are just 
 as bad as their own Donatists. Did not the Coun- 
 cil of Nice settle that the Metropolitan of Alex- 
 andria should have authority over Libya and 
 Pentapolis, according to the ancient custom ? " 
 
 " Of course he ought, " said Philammon, jealous 
 for the honor of his own patriarchate. 
 
 " And the patriarchs of Rome and Constanti- 
 nople are jealous of our patriarch." 
 
 "Of Cyril?" 
 
 " Of course, because he won't be at their beck 
 and nod, and let them be lords and masters of 
 Africa." 
 
 "But surely these things can be settled by 
 councils?" 
 
 " Councils ? Wait till you have been at one. The 
 blessed Abbot Isidore used to say, that if he ever 
 was a bishop which he never will be he is far 
 too honest for that, he would never go near one
 
 Those by whom Offences Come 135 
 
 of them ; for he never had seen one which did not 
 call out every evil passion in men's hearts, and leave 
 the question more confounded with words than they 
 found it, even if the whole matter was not settled 
 beforehand by some chamberlain, or eunuch, or 
 cook sent from court, as if he were an anointed 
 vessel of the Spirit, to settle the dogmas of the 
 Holy Catholic Church. " 
 
 "Cook?" 
 
 " Why, Valens sent his chief cook to stop Basil 
 of Caesarea from opposing the court doctrine. . . . 
 I tell you, the great battle in these cases is to get 
 votes from courts, or to get to court yourself. 
 When I was young, the Council of Antioch had 
 to make a law to keep bishops from running off to 
 Constantinople to intrigue, under pretence of plead- 
 ing the cause of the orphan and widow. But 
 what 's the use of that, when every noisy and ambi- 
 tious man shifts and shifts, from one see to another, 
 till he settles himself close to Rome or Byzantium, 
 and gets the emperor's ear, and plays into the hands 
 of his courtiers?" 
 
 " Is it not written, ' Speak not evil of dignities '?" 
 said Philammon, in his most sanctimonious tone. 
 
 " Well, what of that? I don't speak evil of dig- 
 nities, when I complain of the men who fill them 
 badly, do I?" 
 
 " I never heard that interpretation of the text 
 before." 
 
 "Very likely not. That's no reason why it 
 should not be true and orthodox. .You will soon 
 hear a good many more things, which are true 
 enough though whether they are orthodox or not, 
 the court cooks must settle. Of course, I am a dis- 
 appointed, irreverent old grumbler. Of course, and
 
 136 Hypatia 
 
 of course, too, young men must needs buy their 
 own experience, instead of taking old folks' at a gift. 
 There use your own eyes, and judge for yourself. 
 There you may see what sort of saints are bred by 
 this plan of managing the Catholic Church. There 
 comes one of them. Now ! I say no more ! " 
 
 As he spoke, two tall negroes came up to them, 
 and set down before the steps of a large church 
 which they were passing, an object new to Philam- 
 mon a sedan-chair, the poles of which were inlaid 
 with ivory and silver, and the upper part enclosed 
 in rose-colored silk curtains. 
 
 " What is inside that cage ? " asked he of the old 
 priest, as the negroes stood wiping the perspiration 
 from their foreheads, and a smart slave-girl stepped 
 forward, with a parasol and slippers in her hand, 
 and reverently lifted the lower edge of the curtain. 
 
 " A saint, I tell you ! " 
 
 An embroidered shoe, with a large gold cross on 
 the instep, was put forth delicately from beneath 
 the curtain, and the kneeling maid put on the slip- 
 per over it. 
 
 " There ! " whispered the old grumbler. " Not 
 enough, you see, to use Christian men as beasts of 
 burden Abbot Isidore used to say ay, and told 
 Iron, the pleader, to his face, that he could not con- 
 ceive how a man who loved Christ, and knew the 
 grace which has made all men free, could keep a 
 slave. " 
 
 " Nor can I," said Philammon. 
 
 " But we think otherwise, you see, in Alexandria 
 here. We can't even walk up the steps of God's 
 temple without an additional protection to our deli- 
 cate feet. " 
 
 " I had thought it was written, ' Put off thy shoes
 
 Those by whom Offences Come 137 
 
 from off thy feet, for the place where thou standest 
 is holy ground." 
 
 " Ah ! there are a good many more things 
 written which we do not find it convenient to 
 
 recollect. Look ! There is one of the pillars 
 
 of the church the richest and most pious lady 
 in Alexandria." 
 
 And forth stepped a figure, at which Philammon's 
 eyes opened wider than they had done even at the 
 sight of Pelagia. Whatever thoughts the rich and 
 careless grace of her attire might have raised in his 
 mind, it had certainly not given his innate Greek 
 good taste the inclination to laugh and weep at once, 
 which he felt at this specimen of the tasteless 
 fashion of an artificial and decaying civilization. 
 Her gown was stuffed out behind in a fashion which 
 provoked from the dirty boys who lay about the 
 steps, gambling for pistachios on their fingers, 
 the same comments with which Saint Clement had 
 upbraided from the pulpit the Alexandrian ladies 
 of his day. The said gown of white silk was be- 
 dizened, from waist to ankle, with certain mysterious 
 red and green figures at least a foot long, which 
 Philammon gradually discovered to be a represen- 
 tation, in the very lowest and ugliest style of fallen 
 art, of Dives and Lazarus; while down her back 
 hung, upon a bright blue shawl, edged with em- 
 broidered crosses, Job sitting, potsherd in hand, 
 surrounded by his three friends a memorial, the 
 old priest whispered, of a pilgrimage which she had 
 taken a year or two before, to Arabia, to see and 
 kiss the identical dunghill on which the patriarch 
 had sat. 
 
 Round her neck hung by one of half-a-dozen 
 necklaces, a manuscript of the Gospels, gilt-edged
 
 138 Hypatia 
 
 and clasped with jewels ; the lofty diadem of pearls 
 on the head carried in front a large gold cross; 
 while above and around it her hair, stiffened 
 with pomatum, was frizzled out half a foot from a 
 wilderness of plaits and curls, which must have 
 cost some hapless slave-girl an hour's work, 
 and perhaps more than one scolding, that very 
 morning. 
 
 Meekly, with simpering face and downcast eyes, 
 and now and then a penitent sigh and shake of the 
 head and pressure of her hand on her jewelled 
 bosom, the fair penitent was proceeding up the 
 steps, when she caught sight of the priest and the 
 monk, and turning to them with an obeisance of 
 the deepest humility, entreated to be allowed to 
 kiss the hem of their garments. 
 
 " You had far better, madam," said Philammon, 
 bluntly enough, " kiss the hem of your own. You 
 carry two lessons there which you do not seem to 
 have learnt yet." 
 
 In an instant her face flashed up into pride and 
 fury. " I asked for your blessing, and not for a 
 sermon. I can have that when I like." 
 
 " And such as you like," grumbled the old priest, 
 as she swept up the steps, tossing some small coin 
 to the ragged boys, and murmuring to herself, 
 loud enough for Philammon's hearing, that she 
 should certainly inform the confessor, and that she 
 would not be insulted in the streets by savage 
 monks. 
 
 " Now she will confess her sins inside all but 
 those which she has been showing off to us here 
 outside, and beat her breast, and weep like a very 
 Magdalen ; and then the worthy man will comfort 
 her with : ' What a beautiful chain ! And what
 
 Those by whom Offences Come 139 
 
 a shawl allow me to touch it! How soft and 
 delicate this Indian wool ! Ah ! if you knew the 
 debts which I have been compelled to incur in the 
 
 service of the sanctuary ! ' And then of 
 
 course the answer will be, as, indeed, he expects it 
 should, that if it can be of the least use in the 
 service of the Temple, she, of course, will think it 
 only too great an honor. . . . And he will keep the 
 chain, and perhaps the shawl, too. And she will 
 go home, believing that she has fulfilled to the 
 very letter the command to break off her sins by 
 almsgiving, and only sorry that the good priest 
 happened to hit on that particular gewgaw ! " 
 
 " What," asked Philammon ; " dare she actually 
 not refuse such importunity?" 
 
 " From a poor priest like me, stoutly enough; 
 but from a popular ecclesiastic like him. . . . As 
 Jerome says, in a letter of his I once saw, ladies 
 think twice in such cases before they offend the 
 city newsmonger. Have you anything more to 
 say?" 
 
 Philammon had nothing to say ; and wisely held 
 his peace, while the old grumbler ran on : 
 
 " Ah, boy, you have yet to learn city fashions ! 
 When you are a little older, instead of speaking 
 unpleasant truths to a fine lady with a cross on 
 her forehead, you will be ready to run to the 
 Pillars of Hercules at her beck and nod, for the 
 sake of her disinterested help toward a fashionable 
 pulpit, or perhaps a bishopric. The ladies settle 
 that for us here." 
 
 " The women ? " 
 
 "The women, lad. Do you suppose that they 
 heap priests and churches with wealth for nothing? 
 They have their reward. Do you suppose that a
 
 1 40 Hypatia 
 
 preacher gets mto the pulpit of that church there, 
 without looking anxiously, at the end of each 
 peculiarly flowery sentence, to see whether her 
 saintship there is clapping or not? She, who has 
 such a delicate sense for orthodoxy, that she 
 can scent out Novatianism or Origenism where 
 no other mortal nose would suspect it. She who 
 meets at her own house weekly all the richest and 
 most pious women of the city, to settle our disci- 
 pline for us, as the court cooks do our doctrine. 
 She who has even, it is whispered, the ear of the 
 Augusta Pulcheria herself, and sends monthly let- 
 ters to her at Constantinople, and might give the 
 patriarch himself some trouble, if he crossed her 
 holy will ! " 
 
 " What ! will Cyril truckle to such creatures ? " 
 " Cyril is a wise man in his generation too 
 wise, some say, for a child of the light. But at 
 least, he knows there is no use fighting with those 
 whom you cannot conquer ; and while he can get 
 money out of these great ladies for his almshouses, 
 and orphan-houses, and lodging-houses, and hos- 
 pitals, and work-shops, and all the rest of it and 
 in that, I will say for him, there is no man on earth 
 equal to him, but Ambrose of Milan and Basil of 
 Caesarea why, I don't quarrel with him for mak- 
 ing the best of a bad matter ; and a very bad mat- 
 ter it is, boy, and has been ever since emperors and 
 courtiers have given up burning and crucifying us, 
 and taken to patronizing and bribing us instead." 
 
 Philammon walked on in silence by the old 
 priest's side, stunned and sickened. ..." And 
 this is what I have come out to see reeds shaken 
 in the wind, and men clothed in soft raiment, fit 
 only for kings' palaces ! " For this he had left the
 
 Those by whom Offences Come 141 
 
 dear old Laura, and the simple joys and friendships 
 of childhood, and cast himself into a roaring whirl- 
 pool of labor and temptation ! This was the har- 
 monious strength and unity of that Church Catholic, 
 in which, as he had been taught from boyhood, 
 there was but one Lord, one Faith, one Spirit. 
 This was the indivisible body, " without spot or 
 wrinkle, which fitly joined together and compacted 
 by that which every member supplied, according 
 to the effectual and proportionate working of every 
 part, increased the body, and enabled it to build 
 itself up in Love ! " He shuddered as the well- 
 known words passed through his memory, and 
 seemed to mock the base and chaotic reality around 
 him. He felt angry with the old man for having 
 broken his dream ; he longed to believe that his 
 complaints were only exaggerations of cynic pee- 
 vishness, of selfish disappointment : and yet, had 
 not Arsenius warned him? Had he not foretold, 
 word for word, what the youth would find what 
 he had found? Then was Saint Paul's great idea 
 an empty and an impossible dream? No! God's 
 word could not fail; the Church could not err. 
 The fault could not be in her, but in her enemies ; 
 not, as the old man said, in her too great prosper- 
 ity, but in her slavery. And then the words which 
 he had heard from Cyril at their first interview 
 rose before him as the true explanation. How 
 could the Church work freely and healthily while 
 she was crushed and fettered by the rulers of this 
 world ? And how could they be anything but the 
 tyrants and the antichrists they were, while they 
 were menaced and deluded by heathen philosophy, 
 and vain systems of human wisdom? If Orestes 
 was the curse of the Alexandrian Church, then
 
 142 Hypatia 
 
 Hypatia was the curse of Orestes. On her head 
 the true blame lay. She was the root of the evil 
 Who would extirpate it? ... 
 
 Why should not he? It might be dangerous: 
 yet, successful or unsuccessful, it must be glorious. 
 The course of Christianity wanted great examples. 
 Might he not and his young heart beat high at 
 the thought might he not, by some great act of 
 daring, self-sacrifice, divine madness of faith, like 
 David's of old, when he went out against the giant 
 awaken selfish and luxurious souls to a noble 
 emulation, and recall to their minds, perhaps to their 
 lives, the patterns of those martyrs who were the 
 pride, the glory, the heirloom of Egypt? And as 
 figure after figure rose before his imagination, of 
 simple men and weak women who had conquered 
 temptation and shame, torture and death, to live 
 for ever on the lips of men, and take their seats 
 among the patricians of the heavenly court, with 
 brows glittering through all eternities with the 
 martyr's crown, his heart beat thick and fast, and 
 he longed only for an opportunity to dare and die. 
 
 And the longing begot the opportunity. For he 
 had hardly rejoined his brother visitors when the 
 absorbing thought took word again, and he began 
 questioning them eagerly for more information 
 about Hypatia. 
 
 On that point, indeed, he obtained nothing but 
 fresh invective; but when his companions, after 
 talking of the triumph which the true faith had 
 gained that morning, went on to speak of the great 
 overthrow of Paganism twenty years before, under 
 the patriarch Theophilus; of Olympiodorus and 
 his mob, who held the Serapeium for many days 
 by force of arms against the Christians, making
 
 Those by whom Offences Come 143 
 
 sallies into the city, and torturing and murdering 
 the prisoners whom they took: of the martyrs 
 who, among those very pillars which overhung 
 their heads, had died in torments rather than 
 sacrifice to Serapis ; and of the final victory, and 
 the soldier who, in presence of the trembling 
 mob, clove the great jaw of the colossal idol, and 
 snapped for ever the spell of heathenism, Phil- 
 ammon's heart burned to distinguish himself like 
 that soldier, and to wipe out his qualms of con- 
 science by some more unquestionable deed of 
 Christian prowess. There were no idols now to 
 break: but there was philosophy: "Why not 
 carry war into the heart of the enemy's camp, and 
 beard Satan in his very den ? Why does not some 
 man of God go boldly into the lecture-room of the 
 sorceress, and testify against her to her face ? " 
 
 " Do it yourself if you dare," said Peter. " We 
 have no wish to get our brains knocked out by all 
 the profligate young gentlemen in the city." 
 
 " I will do it," said Philammon. 
 
 " That is, if his holiness allows you to make such 
 a fool of yourself." 
 
 " Take care, sir, of your words. You revile the 
 blessed martyrs, from Saint Stephen to Saint Telem- 
 achus, when you call such a deed foolishness." 
 
 " I shall most certainly inform his holiness of your 
 insolence." 
 
 " Do so," said Philammon, who, possessed with 
 a new idea, wished for nothing more. And there 
 the matter dropped for the time. 
 
 " The presumption of the young in this genera- 
 tion is growing insufferable," said Peter to his 
 master that evening.
 
 144 Hypatia 
 
 " So much the better. They put their elders on 
 their mettle in the race of good works. But who 
 has been presuming to-day? " 
 
 " That mad boy whom Pambo sent up from the 
 deserts, dared to offer himself as champion of the 
 faith against Hypatia. He actually proposed to go 
 into her 'lecture-room and argue with her to her 
 face. What think you of that for a specimen of 
 youthful modesty, and self-distrust?" 
 
 Cyril was silent a while. 
 
 " What answer am I to have the honor of tak- 
 ing back ? A month's relegation to Nitria on bread 
 and water? You, I am sure, will not allow such 
 things to go unpunished ; indeed, if they do, there 
 is an end to all authority and discipline." 
 
 Cyril was still silent ; whilst Peter's brow clouded 
 fast. At last he answered : 
 
 "The cause wants martyrs. Send the boy to 
 me." 
 
 Peter went down with a shrug, and an expres- 
 sion of face which looked but too like envy, and 
 ushered up the trembling youth, who dropped on 
 his knees as soon as he entered. 
 
 " So you wish to go into the heathen woman's 
 lecture-room, and defy her? Have you courage 
 for it?" 
 
 " God will give it me." 
 
 " You will be murdered by her pupils." 
 
 "I can defend myself," said Philammon, with a 
 pardonable glance downward at his sinewy limbs. 
 "And if not: what death more glorious than 
 martyrdom ? " 
 
 Cyril smiled genially enough. " Promise me two 
 things." 
 
 " Two thousand, if you will."
 
 Those by whom Offences Come 145 
 
 " Two are quite difficult enough to keep. Youth 
 is rash in promises, and rasher in forgetting them. 
 Promise me that, whatever happens, you will not 
 strike the first blow." 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " Promise me again, that you will not argue 
 with her." 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 " Contradict, denounce, defy. But give no rea- 
 sons. If you do, you are lost. She is subtler 
 than the serpent, skilled in all the tricks of logic, 
 and you will become a laughing-stock, and run 
 away in shame. Promise me." 
 
 " I do." 
 
 "Then go." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " The sooner the better. At what hour does 
 the accursed woman lecture to-morrow, Peter ? " 
 
 " We saw her going to the Museum at nine this 
 morning." 
 
 " Then go at nine to-morrow. There is money 
 for you." 
 
 "What is this for?" asked Philammon, finger- 
 ing curiously the first coins which he ever had 
 handled in his life. 
 
 " To pay for your entrance. To the philosopher 
 none enters without money. Not so to the Church 
 of God, open all day long to the beggar and the 
 slave. If you convert her, well. And if not "... 
 And he added to himself between his teeth, " And 
 if not, well also perhaps better." 
 
 " Ay ! " said Peter, bitterly, as he ushered Phil- 
 ammon out. " Go up to Ramoth Gilead, and 
 prosper, young fool ! What evil spirit sent you 
 hereto feed the noble patriarch's only weakness?" 
 
 H Vol. VI
 
 1 46 Hypatia 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked Philammon, as 
 fiercely as he dare. 
 
 " The fancy that preachings, and protestations, 
 and martyrdoms can drive out the Canaanites, who 
 can only be got rid of with the sword of the Lord 
 and of Gideon. His uncle Theophilus knew that 
 well enough. If he had not, Olympiodorus might 
 have been master of Alexandria, and incense burn- 
 ing before Serapis to this day. Ay, go, and let 
 her convert you ! Touch the accursed thing, like 
 Achan, and see if you do not end by having it in 
 your tent. Keep company with the daughters of 
 Midian, and see if you do not join yourself to 
 Baalpeor, and eat the offerings of the dead ! " 
 
 And with this encouraging sentence, the two 
 parted for the night.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE EAST WIND 
 
 AS Hypatia went forth the next morning, in all 
 her glory, with a crowd of philosophers and 
 philosophasters, students, and fine gentlemen, fol- 
 lowing her in reverend admiration across the street 
 to her lecture-room, a ragged beggar-man, accom- 
 panied by a huge and villainous-looking dog, 
 planted himself right before her, and extending 
 a dirty hand, whined for an alms. 
 
 Hypatia, whose refined taste could never endure 
 the sight, much less the contact, of anything squa- 
 lid and degraded, recoiled a little, and bade the 
 attendant slave get rid of the man, with a coin. 
 Several of the younger gentlemen, however, con- 
 sidered themselves adepts in that noble art of 
 " upsetting " then in vogue in the African univer- 
 sities, to which we all have reason enough to be 
 thankful, seeing that it drove Saint Augustine from 
 Carthage to Rome ; and they in compliance with 
 the usual fashion of tormenting any simple creature 
 who came in their way by mystification and insult, 
 commenced a series of personal witticisims, which 
 the beggar bore stoically enough. The coin was 
 offered him, but he blandly put aside the hand of 
 the giver, and keeping his place on the pavement, 
 seemed inclined to dispute Hypatia's further 
 passage.
 
 148 Hypatia 
 
 "What do you want? Send the wretch and 
 his frightful dog away, gentlemen ! " said the poor 
 philosopher, in some trepidation. 
 
 " I know that dog," said one of them ; " it is 
 Aben-Ezra's. Where did you find it before it 
 was lost, you rascal ? " 
 
 "Where your mother found you when she palmed 
 you off upon her goodman, my child in the 
 slave market. Fair sibyl, have you already for- 
 gotten your humblest pupil, as these young dogs 
 have, who are already trying to upset their master 
 and instructor in the angelic science of bullying?" 
 
 And the beggar, lifting his broad straw hat, dis- 
 closed the features of Raphael Aben-Ezra. Hypatia 
 recoiled with a shriek of surprise. 
 
 " Ah ! you are astonished. At what, I pray? " 
 
 " To see you, sir, thus ! " 
 
 "Why, then? You have been preaching to us 
 all a long time the glory of abstraction from the 
 allurements of sense. It augurs ill, surely, for 
 your estimate either of your pupils or of your own 
 eloquence, if you are so struck with consternation 
 because one of them has actually at last obeyed 
 you." 
 
 " What is the meaning of this masquerade, most 
 excellent sir ? " asked Hypatia and a dozen voices 
 beside. 
 
 " Ask Cyril. I am on my way to Italy, in the 
 character of the New Diogenes, to look, like him, 
 for a man. When I have found one, I shall feel 
 great pleasure in returning to acquaint you with 
 the amazing news. Farewell ! I wished to look 
 once more at a certain countenance, though I have 
 turned, as you see, Cynic ; and intend henceforth 
 to attend no teacher but my dog, who will luckily
 
 The East Wind 149 
 
 charge no fees for instruction ; if she did, I must 
 go untaught, for my ancestral wealth made itself 
 wings yesterday morning. You are aware, doubt- 
 less, of the Plebiscitum against the Jews, which 
 was carried into effect under the auspices of a 
 certain holy tribune of the people ? " 
 
 " Infamous ! " 
 
 " And dangerous, my dear lady. Success is in- 
 spiriting . . . and Theon's house is quite as easily 
 sacked as the Jews' quarter. . . . Beware." 
 
 " Come, come, Aben-Ezra," cried the young men ; 
 " you are far too good company for us to lose you 
 for that rascally patriarch's fancy. We will make 
 a subscription for you, eh? And you shall live 
 with each of us, month and month about. We 
 shall quite lose the trick of joking without 
 you." 
 
 "Thank you, gentlemen. But really you have 
 been my butts far too long for me to think of be- 
 coming yours. Madam, one word in private before 
 
 I go." 
 
 Hypatia leant forward, and speaking in Syriac, 
 whispered hurriedly: 
 
 " Oh, stay, sir, I beseech you ! You are the wisest 
 of my pupils perhaps my only true pupil. . . . 
 My father will find some concealment for you from 
 these wretches ; and if you need money, remember, 
 he is your debtor. We have never repaid you the 
 gold which " 
 
 " Fairest Muse, that was but my entrance-fee to 
 Parnassus. It is I who am in your debt ; and I have 
 brought my arrears, in the form of this opal ring. 
 As for shelter near you," he went on, lowering his 
 voice, and speaking like her, in Syriac : " Hypatia 
 the Gentite is far too lovely for the peace of mind
 
 150 Hypatia 
 
 of Raphael the Jew." And he drew from his ringer 
 Miriam's ring, and offered it. 
 
 "Impossible!" said Hypatia, blushing scarlet: 
 " I cannot accept it." 
 
 " I beseech you. It is the last earthly burden I 
 have, except this snail's prison of flesh and blood. 
 My dagger will open a crack through that when it 
 becomes intolerable. But as I do not intend to leave 
 my shell, if I can help it, except just when and how 
 I choose ; and as, if I take this ring with me, some 
 of Heraclian's Circumcellions will assuredly knock 
 my brains out for the sake of it I must entreat." 
 
 " Never ! Can you not sell the ring, and escape 
 fc> Synesius ? He will give you shelter." 
 
 " The hospitable hurricane ! Shelter, yes ; but 
 rest, none. As soon pitch my tent in the crater of 
 ./Etna. Why, he will be trying day and night to 
 convert me to that eclectic farrago of his, which he 
 calls philosophic Christianity. Well, if you will 
 not have the ring, it is soon disposed of. We 
 Easterns know how to be magnificent, and vanish 
 as the lords of the world ought." 
 
 And he turned to the philosophic crowd. 
 
 " Here, gentlemen of Alexandria ! Does any gay 
 youth wish to pay his debts once and for all? 
 Behold the Rainbow of Solomon, an opal such as 
 Alexandria never saw before, which would buy any 
 one of you, and his Macedonian papa, and Mace- 
 donian mamma, and his Macedonian sisters, and 
 horses, and parrots, and peacocks, twice over, in 
 any slave-market in the world. Any gentleman 
 who wishes to possess a jewel worth ten thousand 
 gold pieces, will only need to pick it out of the 
 gutter into which I throw it. Scramble for it, you 
 young Phaedrias and Pamphili ! There are Laides
 
 The East Wind 1 5 1 
 
 and Thaides enough about, who will help you to 
 spend it." 
 
 And raising the jewel on high, he was in the act 
 of tossing it into the street, when his arm was 
 seized from behind, and the ring snatched from 
 his hand. He turned, fiercely enough, and saw 
 behind him, her eyes flashing fury and contempt, 
 old Miriam. 
 
 Bran sprang at the old woman's throat in an in- 
 stant: but recoiled again before the glare of her 
 eye. Raphael called the dog off, and turning 
 quietly to the disappointed spectators: 
 
 " It is all right, my luckless friends. You must 
 raise money for yourselves, after all ; which, since 
 the departure of my nation, will be a somewhat 
 more difficult matter than ever. The over-ruling 
 destinies, whom, as you all know so well when you 
 are getting tipsy, not even philosophers can resist, 
 have restored the Rainbow of Solomon to its orig- 
 inal possessor. Farewell, Queen of Philosophy! 
 When I find the man, you shall hear of it. Mother, 
 I am coming with you for a friendly word before we 
 part, though," he went on laughing as the two 
 walked away together, " it was a scupvy trick of 
 you to balk one of The Nation of the exquisite 
 pleasure of seeing those heathen dogs scrambling 
 in the gutter for his bounty." 
 
 Hypatia went on to the Museum, utterly bewil- 
 dered by this strange meeting, and its still stranger 
 end. She took care, nevertheless, to betray no sign 
 of her deep interest till she found herself alone in 
 her little waiting-room adjoining the lecture-hall; 
 and there, throwing herself into a chair, she sat and 
 thought, till she found, to her surprise and anger, 
 the tears trickling down her cheeks. Not that her
 
 152 Hypatia 
 
 bosom held one spark of affection for Raphael. If 
 there had ever been any danger of that the wily Jew 
 had himself taken care to ward it off, by the sneer- 
 ing and frivolous tone with which he quashed every 
 approach to deep feeling, either in himself or in 
 others. As for his compliments to her beauty, she 
 was far too much accustomed to such, to be either 
 pleased or displeased by them. But she felt, as 
 she said, that she had lost perhaps her only true 
 pupil ; and more perhaps her only true master. 
 For she saw clearly enough, that under that Silenus' 
 mask was hidden a nature capable of perhaps 
 more than she dare think of. She had always felt 
 him her superior in practical cunning; and that 
 morning had proved to her what she had long 
 suspected, that he was possibly also her superior 
 in that moral earnestness and strength of will for 
 which she looked in vain among the enervated 
 Greeks who surrounded her. And even in those 
 matters in which he professed himself her pupil, she 
 had long been alternately delighted by finding that 
 he alone, of all her school, seemed thoroughly and 
 instinctively to comprehend her every word, and 
 chilled by the disagreeable suspicion that he was 
 only playing with her, and her mathematics and 
 geometry, and metaphysic and dialectic, like a 
 fencer practising with foils, while he reserved his 
 real strength for some object more worthy of him. 
 More than once some paradox or question of his had 
 shaken her neatest systems into a thousand cracks, 
 and opened up ugly depths of doubt, even on the 
 most seemingly-palpable certainties ; or some half- 
 jesting allusion to those Hebrew Scriptures, the 
 quantity and quality of his faith in which he would 
 never confess, made her indignant at the notion that
 
 The East Wind 153 
 
 he considered himself in possession of a reserved 
 ground of knowledge, deeper and surer than her 
 own, in which he did not deign to allow her to 
 share. 
 
 And yet she was irresistibly attracted to him. 
 That deliberate and consistent luxury of his, from 
 which she shrank, he had always boasted that he 
 was able to put on and take off at will like a gar- 
 ment: and now he seemed to have proved his 
 words ; to be a worthy rival of the great stoics of 
 old time. Could Zeno himself have asked more 
 from frail humanity? Moreover, Raphael had been 
 of infinite practical use to her. He worked out, 
 unasked, her mathematical problems; he looked 
 out authorities, kept her pupils in order by his 
 bitter tongue, and drew fresh students to her lect- 
 ures by the attractions of his wit, his arguments, 
 and last, but not least, his unrivalled cook and 
 cellar. Above all, he acted the part of a fierce 
 and valiant watch-dog on her behalf, against the 
 knots of clownish and often brutal sophists, the 
 wrecks of the old Cynic, Stoic, and Academic 
 schools, who, with venom increasing, after the 
 wont of parties, with their decrepitude, assailed the 
 beautifully bespangled card-castle of Neo-Platon- 
 ism, as an empty medley of all Greek philosophies 
 with all Eastern superstitions. All such Philis- 
 tines had as yet dreaded the pen and tongue of 
 Raphael, even more than those of the chivalrous 
 Bishop of Cyrene, though he certainly, to judge 
 from certain of his letters, hated them as much as 
 he could hate any human being ; which was after 
 all not very bitterly. 
 
 But the visits of Synesius were few and far be- 
 tween; the distance between Carthage and Alex-
 
 1 54 Hypatia 
 
 andria, and the labor of his diocese, and, worse 
 than all, the growing difference in purpose between 
 him and his beautiful teacher, made his protection 
 all but valueless. And now Aben-Ezra was gone 
 too, and with him were gone a thousand plans and 
 hopes. To have converted him at last to a phil- 
 osophic faith in the old gods ! To have made him 
 her instrument for turning back the stream of 
 human error ! . . . How often had that dream 
 crossed her ! And now, who would take his 
 place? Athanasius? Synesius in his good-nature 
 might dignify him with the name of brother, but 
 to her he was a powerless pedant, destined to die 
 without having wrought any deliverance on the 
 earth, as indeed the event proved. Plutarch of 
 Athens? He was superannuated. Syrianus? A 
 mere logician, twisting Aristotle to mean what she 
 knew, and he ought to have known, Aristotle 
 never meant. Her father? A man of triangles 
 and conic sections. How paltry they all looked by 
 the side of the unfathomable Jew ! Spinners of 
 charming cobwebs. . . . But would the flies con- 
 descend to be caught in them ! Builders of pretty- 
 houses. ... If people would but enter and live in 
 them ! Preachers of superfine morality . . . which 
 their admiring pupils never dreamt of practising. 
 Without her, she well knew, philosophy must die 
 in Alexandria. And was it her wisdom or other 
 and more earthly charms of hers which enabled 
 her to keep it alive? Sickening thought! Oh, 
 that she were ugly, only to test the power of her 
 doctrines. 
 
 Ho ! The odds were fearful enough already ; 
 she would be glad of any help, however earthly 
 and carnal. But was not the work hopeless?
 
 The East Wind 155 
 
 What she wanted was men who could act while 
 she thought. And those were just the men whom 
 she would find nowhere but she knew it too 
 well in the hated Christian priesthood. And 
 then that fearful Iphigenia sacrifice loomed in the 
 distance as inevitable. The only hope of phil- 
 osophy was in her despair ! 
 
 She dashed away the tears, and proudly entered 
 the lecture-hall, and ascended the tribune like a 
 goddess, amid the shouts of her audience. . . . 
 What did she care for them? Would they do 
 what she told them? She was half through her 
 lecture before she could recollect herself, and 
 banish from her mind the thought of Raphael. 
 And at that point we will take the lecture up. 
 
 " Truth ! Where is truth but in the soul itself? 
 Facts, objects, are but phantoms matter-woven 
 ghosts of this earthly night, at which the soul, 
 sleeping here in the mire and clay of matter, shud- 
 ders and names its own vague tremors sense and 
 perception. Yet, even as our nightly dreams stir 
 in us the suspicion of mysterious and immaterial 
 presences, unfettered by the bonds of time and 
 space, so do these waking dreams which we call 
 sight and sound. They are divine messengers, 
 whom Zeus, pitying his children, even when he 
 pent them in this prison-house of flesh, appointed 
 to arouse in them dim recollections of that real 
 world of souls whence they came. Awakened 
 once to them; seeing, through the veil of sense 
 and fact, the spiritual truth of which they are but 
 the accidental garment, concealing the very thing 
 which they make palpable, the philosopher may
 
 156 Hypatia 
 
 neglect the fact for the doctrine, the shell for the 
 kernel, the body for the soul, of which it is but 
 the symbol and the vehicle. What matter, then, 
 to the philosopher whether these names of men, 
 Hector or Priam, Helen or Achilles, were ever 
 visible as phantoms of flesh and blood before the 
 eyes of men? What matter whether they spoke 
 or thought as he of Scios says they did ? What 
 matter, even, whether he himself ever had earthly 
 life ? The book is here the word which men 
 call his. Let the thoughts thereof have been at 
 first whose they may, now they are mine. I have 
 taken them to myself, and thought them to myself, 
 and made them parts of my own soul. Nay, they 
 were and ever will be parts of me ; for they, even 
 as the poet was, even as I am, are but a part of 
 the universal soul. What matter, then, what myths 
 grew up around those mighty thoughts of ancient 
 seers? Let others try to reconcile the Cyclic 
 fragments, or vindicate the Catalogue of ships. 
 What has the philosopher lost, though the former 
 were proved to be contradictory, and the latter 
 interpolated? The thoughts are there, and ours. 
 Let us open our hearts lovingly to receive them, 
 from whencesoever they may have come. As in 
 men, so in books, the soul is all with which our 
 souls must deal ; and the soul of the book is what- 
 soever beautiful, and true, and noble we can find 
 in it. It matters not to us whether the poet was 
 altogether conscious of the meanings which we can 
 find in him. Consciously or unconsciously to him, 
 the meanings must be there; for were they not 
 there to be seen, how could we see them ? There 
 are those among the uninitiate vulgar and those, 
 too, who carry under the philosophic cloak hearts
 
 The East Wind 157 
 
 still uninitiate who revile such interpretations as 
 merely the sophistic and arbitrary sports of fancy. 
 It lies with them to show what Homer meant, if 
 our spiritual meanings be absurd; to tell the 
 world why Homer is admirable, if that for which 
 we hold him up to admiration does not exist in 
 him. Will they say that the honor which he has 
 enjoyed for ages was inspired by that which seems 
 to be his first and literal meaning? And more, 
 will they venture to impute that literal meaning to 
 him? can they suppose that the divine soul of 
 Homer could degrade itself to write of actual and 
 physical feastings, and nuptials, and dances, actual 
 nightly thefts of horses, actual fidelity of dogs and 
 swineherds, actual intermarriages between deities 
 and men, or that it is this seeming vulgarity 
 which has won for him from the wisest of every 
 age the title of the father of poetry? Degrading 
 thought ! fit only for the coarse and sense-bound 
 tribe who can appreciate nothing but what is pal- 
 pable to sense and sight ! As soon believe the 
 Christian scriptures, when they tell us of a deity 
 who has hands and feet, eyes and ears, who 
 condescends to command the patterns of furniture 
 and culinary utensils, and is made perfect by being 
 born disgusting thought ! as the son of a 
 village maiden, and defiling himself with the wants 
 and sorrows of the lowest slaves ! " 
 
 " It is false ! blasphemous ! The Scriptures 
 cannot lie ! " cried a voice from the further end of 
 the room. 
 
 It was Philammon's. He had been listening to 
 the whole lecture, and yet not so much listening as 
 watching, in bewilderment, the beauty of the 
 speaker, the grace of her action, the melody of her
 
 158 Hypatia 
 
 voice, and last, but not least, the maze of her rhet- 
 oric, as it glittered before his mind's eye like a cob- 
 web diamonded with dew. A sea of new thoughts 
 and questions, if not of doubts, came rushing 
 in at every sentence on his acute Greek intellect, 
 all the more plentifully and irresistibly because his 
 speculative faculty was as yet altogether waste and 
 empty, undefended by any scientific culture from 
 the inrushing flood. For the first time in his life 
 he found himself face to face with the root-ques- 
 tions of all thought: "What am I, and where?" 
 "What can I know?" And in the half- terrified 
 struggle with them, he had all but forgotten the 
 purpose for which he entered the lecture-hall. 
 He felt that he must break the spell. Was she 
 not a heathen and a false prophetess ? Here was 
 something tangible to attack ; and half in indigna- 
 tion at the blasphemy, half in order to force himself 
 into action, he had sprung up and spoken. 
 
 A yell arose. " Turn the monk out ! " " Throw 
 the rustic through the window ! " cried a dozen 
 young gentlemen. Several of the most, valiant 
 began to scramble over the benches up to him ; and 
 Philammon was congratulating himself on the near 
 approach of a glorious martyrdom, when Hypatia's 
 voice, calm and silvery, stifled the tumult in a 
 moment. 
 
 " Let the youth listen, gentlemen. He is but a 
 monk and a plebeian, and knows no better ; he has 
 been taught thus. Let him sit here quietly, and 
 perhaps we may be able to teach him otherwise." 
 
 And without interrupting, even by a change of 
 tone, the thread of her discourse, she continued : 
 
 " Listen, then, to a passage, from the sixth book 
 of the * Iliad/ in which last night I seemed to
 
 The East Wind 159 
 
 see glimpses of some mighty mystery. You know 
 it well : yet I will read it to you ; the very sound 
 and pomp of that great verse may tune our souls 
 to a fit key for the reception of lofty wisdom. For 
 well said Abamnon the Teacher, that ' the soul con- 
 sisted first of harmony and rhythm, and ere it gave 
 itself to the body, had listened to the divine har- 
 mony. Therefore it is that when, after having 
 come into a body, it hears such melodies as most 
 preserve the divine footstep of harmony, it em- 
 braces such, and recollects from them that divine 
 harmony, and is impelled to it, and finds its home 
 in it, and shares of it as much as it can share.' " 
 
 And therewith fell on Philammon's ear, for the 
 first time, the mighty thunder-roll of Homer's verse : 
 
 So spoke the stewardess: but Hector rushed 
 
 From the house, the same way back, down stately streets, 
 
 Through the broad city, to the Scaian gates, 
 
 Whereby he must go forth toward the plain, 
 
 There running toward him came Andromache, 
 
 His ample-dowered wife, Eetion's child 
 
 Eetion the great-hearted, he who dwelt 
 
 In Thebe* under Places, and the woods 
 
 Of Placos, ruling over Kilic men. 
 
 His daughter wedded Hector brazen-helmed, 
 
 And met him then ; and with her came a maid, 
 
 Who bore in arms a playful-hearted babe, 
 
 An infant still, akin to some fair star, 
 
 Only and well-loved child of Hector's house, 
 
 Whom he had named Scamandrios, but the rest 
 
 Astyanax, because his sire alone- 
 
 Upheld the weal of Ilion the holy. 
 
 He smiled in silence, looking on his child : 
 
 But she stood close to him, with many tears ; 
 
 And hung upon his hand, and spoke, and called him. 
 
 " My hero, thy great heart will wear thee out ; 
 Thou pitiest not thine infant child, nor me 
 The hapless, soon to be thy widow ;
 
 160 Hypatia 
 
 The Greeks will slay thee, falling one and all 
 
 Upon thee : but to me were sweeter far, 
 
 Having lost thee, to die ; no cheer to me 
 
 Will come thenceforth, if thou shouldst meet thy fate ; 
 
 Woes only : mother have I none, nor sire. 
 
 For that my sire divine Achilles slew, 
 
 And wasted utterly the pleasant homes 
 
 Of Kilic folk in Thetx? lofty-walled, 
 
 And slew Eetion with the sword ! yet spared 
 
 To strip the dead : awe kept his soul from that. 
 
 Therefore he burnt him in his graven arms, 
 
 And heaped a mound above him ; and around 
 
 The damsels of the vEgis-holding Zeus, 
 
 The nymphs who haunt the upland, planted elms. 
 
 And seven brothers bred with me in the halls, 
 
 All in one day went down to Hades there ; 
 
 For all of them swift-foot Achilles slew 
 
 Beside the lazy kine and snow-white sheep. 
 
 And her, my mother, who of late was queen 
 
 Beneath the woods of Placos, he brought here 
 
 Among his other spoils ; yet set her free 
 
 Again, receiving ransom rich and great. 
 
 But Artemis, whose bow is all her joy, 
 
 Smote her to death within her father's halls. 
 
 Hector ! so thou art father to me now, 
 
 Mother, and brother, and husband fair and strong 1 
 
 Oh, come now, pity me, and stay thou here 
 
 Upon the tower, nor make thy child an orphan 
 
 And me thy wife a widow ; range the men 
 
 Here by the fig-tree, where the city lies 
 
 Lowest, and where the wall can well be scaled ; 
 
 For here three times the best have tried the assault 
 
 Round either Ajax, and Idomeneus, 
 
 And round the Atridai both, and Tydeus' son, 
 
 Whether some cunning seer taught them craft, 
 
 Or their own spirit stirred and drove them on." 
 
 Then spake tall Hector, with the glancing helm: 
 " All this I too have watched, my wife ; yet much 
 I hold in dread the scorn of Trojan men 
 And Trojan women with their trailing shawls, 
 If, like a coward, I should skulk from war. 
 Beside, I have no lust to stay ; I have learnt
 
 The East Wind 161 
 
 Aye to be bold, and lead the van of fight, 
 
 To win my father, and myself, a name. 
 
 For well I know, at heart and in my thought, 
 
 The day will come when Ilios the holy 
 
 Shall lie in heaps, and Priam, and the folk 
 
 Of ashen-speared Priam, perish all. 
 
 But yet no woe to come to Trojan men, 
 
 Nor even to Hecabe, nor Priam king, 
 
 Nor to my brothers, who shall roll in dust, 
 
 Many and fair, beneath the strokes of foes, 
 
 So moves me, as doth thine, when thou shalt go 
 
 Weeping, led off by some brass-harnessed Greek, 
 
 Robbed of the daylight of thy liberty, 
 
 To weave in Argos at another's loom, 
 
 Or bear the water of Messeis home, 
 
 Or Hypereia, with unseemly toils, 
 
 While heavy doom constrains thee, and perchance 
 
 The folk may say, who see thy tears run down, 
 
 4 This was the wife of Hector, best in fight 
 
 At Ilium, of horse-taming Trojan men.' 
 
 So will they say perchance ; while unto thee 
 
 Now grief will come, for such a husband's loss, 
 
 Who might have warded off the day of thrall. 
 
 But may the soil be heaped above my corpse 
 
 Before I hear thy shriek and see thy shame ! " 
 
 He spoke, and stretched his arms to take th child, 
 But back the child upon his nurse's breast 
 Shrank crying, frightened at his father's looks, 
 Fearing the brass and crest of horse's hair 
 Which waved above the helmet terribly. 
 Then out that father dear and mother laughed, 
 And glorious Hector took the helmet off, 
 And laid it gleaming on the ground, and kissed 
 His darling child, and danced him in his arm ; 
 And spoke in prayer to Zeus, and all the gods : 
 " Zeu, and ye other gods, oh grant that this 
 My child, like me, may grow the champion here 
 As good in strength, and rule with might in Troy. 
 That men may say, ' The boy is better far 
 Than was his sire,' when he returns from war, 
 Bearing a gory harness, having slain 
 A foeman, and his mother's heart rejoice."
 
 1 62 Hypatia 
 
 Thus saying, on the hands of his dear wife 
 He laid the child ; and she received him back 
 In fragrant bosom, smiling through her tears. 1 
 
 " Such is the myth. Do you fancy that in it 
 Homer meant to hand down to the admiration of 
 ages such earthly commonplaces as a mother's 
 brute affection, and the terrors of an infant? 
 Surely the deeper insight of the philosopher may 
 be allowed, without the reproach of fancifulness, 
 to see in it the adumbration of some deeper 
 mystery ! 
 
 " The elect soul, for instance is not its name 
 Astyanax, king of the city; by the fact of its 
 ethereal parentage, the leader and lord of all 
 around it, though it knows it not? A child as yet, 
 it lies upon the fragrant bosom of its mother 
 Nature, the nurse and yet the enemy of man 
 Andromache, as the poet well names her, because 
 she rights with that being, when grown to man's 
 estate, whom as a child she nourished. Fair is 
 she, yet unwise; pampering us, after the fashion 
 of mothers, with weak indulgences; fearing to 
 send us forth into the great realities of speculation, 
 there to forget her in the pursuit of glory, she 
 would have us while away our prime within the 
 harem, and play for ever round her knees. And 
 
 1 The above lines are not meant as a " translation," but as an 
 humble attempt to give the literal sense in some sort of metre. 
 It would be an act of arrogance even to aim at success where 
 Pope and Chapman failed. It is simply, I believe, impossible 
 to render Homer into English verse ; because, for one reason 
 among many, it is impossible to preserve the pomp of sound, 
 which invests with grandeur his most common words. How 
 can any skill represent the rhythm of Homeric Greek in a 
 language which to take the first verse which comes to hand 
 transforms "boos megaloio boeien," into "great ox's hide "?
 
 The East Wind 163 
 
 has not the elect soul a father, too, whom it knows 
 not? Hector, he who is without unconfined, 
 unconditioned by Nature, yet its husband ? the 
 all-pervading, plastic Soul, informing, organizing, 
 whom men call Zeus the lawgiver, JEther the fire, 
 Osiris the lifegiver ; whom here the poet has set 
 forth as the defender of the mystic city, the 
 defender of harmony, and order, and beauty 
 throughout the universe? Apart sits his great 
 father Priam, the first of existences, father of 
 many sons, the Absolute Reason ; unseen, tremen- 
 dous, immovable, in distant glory; yet himself 
 amenable to that abysmal unity which Homer 
 calls Fate, the source of all which is, yet in Itself 
 Nothing, without predicate, unnamable. 
 
 "From It and for It the universal Soul thrills 
 through the whole Creation, doing the behests of 
 that Reason from which it overflowed, unwillingly, 
 into the storm and crowd of material appearances ; 
 warring with the brute forces of gross matter, 
 crushing all which is foul and dissonant to itself, and 
 clasping to its bosom the beautiful, and all wherein 
 it discovers its own reflex ; impressing on it its sig- 
 nature, reproducing from it its own likeness, whether 
 star, or demon, or soul of the elect : and yet, as 
 the poet hints in anthropomorphic language, 
 haunted all the while by a sadness weighed 
 down amid all its labors by the sense of a fate 
 by the thought of that First One from whom the 
 Soul is originally descended ; from whom it, and its 
 Father the Reason before it, parted themselves 
 when they dared to think and act, and assert their 
 own free will. 
 
 " And in the meanwhile, alas ! Hector, the father, 
 fights around, while his children sleep and feed;
 
 1 64 Hypatia 
 
 and he is away in the wars, and they know him 
 not know not that they the individuals are but 
 parts of him the universal. And yet at moments 
 oh ! thrice blessed they whose celestial parentage 
 has made such moments part of their appointed 
 destiny at moments flashes on the human child 
 the intuition of the unutterable secret. In the 
 spangled glory of the summer-night in the roar 
 of the Nile-flood, sweeping down fertility in every 
 wave in the awful depths of the temple-shrine 
 in the wild melodies of old Orphic singers, or be- 
 fore the images of those gods of whose perfect 
 beauty the divine theosophists of Greece caught 
 a fleeting shadow, and with the sudden might of 
 artistic ecstasy smote it, as by an enchanter's wand, 
 into an eternal sleep of snowy stone in these 
 there flashes on the inner eye a vision beautiful and 
 terrible, of a force, an energy, a soul, an idea, one 
 and yet million-fold, rushing through all created 
 things, like the wind across a lyre, thrilling the 
 strings into celestial harmony one life-blood 
 through the million veins of the universe, from one 
 great unseen heart, whose thunderous pulses the 
 mind hears far away, beating for ever in the abysmal 
 solitude, beyond the heavens and the galaxies, be- 
 yond the spaces and the times, themselves but veins 
 and runnels from its all-teeming sea. 
 
 " Happy, thrice happy ! they who once have 
 dared, even though breathless, blinded with tears 
 of awful joy, struck down upon their knees in utter 
 helplessness, as they feel themselves but dead leaves 
 in the wind which sweeps the universe happy 
 they who have dared to gaze, if but for an instant, 
 on the terror of that glorious pagent; who have 
 not, like the young Astyanax, clung shrieking to
 
 The East Wind 165 
 
 the breast of mother Nature, scared by the heaven- 
 wide flash of Hector's arms, and the glitter of his 
 rainbow crest ! Happy, thrice happy ! even though 
 their eyeballs, blasted by excess of light, wither to 
 ashes in their sockets ! Were it not a noble end to 
 have seen Zeus, and die like Semele, burnt up by 
 his glory? Happy, thrice happy! though their 
 mind reel from the divine intoxication, and the hogs 
 of Circe call them henceforth madmen and enthusi- 
 asts. Enthusiasts they are ; for Deity is in them, 
 and they in It. For the time, this burden of in- 
 dividuality vanishes, and recognizing themselves as 
 portions of the universal Soul, they rise upward, 
 through and beyond that Reason from whence the 
 soul proceeds, to the fount of all the ineffable 
 and Supreme One and seeing It, become by that 
 act portions of Its essence. They speak no more, 
 but It speaks in them, and their whole being, trans- 
 muted by that glorious sunlight into whose rays they 
 have dared, like the eagle, to gaze without shrink- 
 ing, becomes an harmonious vehicle for the words 
 of Deity, and passive itself, utters the secrets of the 
 immortal gods. What wonder if to the brute mass 
 they seem as dreamers? Be it so. ... Smile if 
 you will. But ask me not to teach you things un- 
 speakable, above all sciences, which the word-battle 
 of dialectic, the discursive struggles of reason can 
 never reach, but which must be seen only, and when 
 seen confessed to be unspeakable. Hence, thou 
 disputer of the Academy ! hence, thou sneering 
 Cynic ! hence, thou sense-worshipping Stoic, who 
 fanciest that the soul is to derive her knowledge 
 from those material appearances which she herself 
 
 creates! . . . hence ; and yet no: stay and 
 
 sneer if you will. It is but a little time a few
 
 1 66 Hypatia 
 
 days longer in this prison-house of our degradation, 
 and each thing shall return to its own fountain; 
 the blood-drop to the abysmal heart, and the water 
 to the river, and the fiver to the shining sea ; and 
 the dewdrop which fell from heaven shall rise to 
 heaven again, shaking off the dust-grains which 
 weighed it down, thawed from the earth-frost 
 which chained it here to herb and sward, upward 
 and upward ever through stars and suns, through 
 gods, and through the parents of the gods, purer 
 and purer through successive lives, till it enters 
 The Nothing, which is The All, and finds its home 
 at last." . . . 
 
 And the speaker stopped suddenly, her eyes 
 glistening with tears, her whole figure trembling 
 and dilating with rapture. She remained for a 
 moment motionless, gazing earnestly at her au- 
 dience, as if in hopes of exciting in them some 
 kindred glow; and then recovering herself, added 
 in a more tender tone, not quite unmixed with 
 sadness : 
 
 " Go now, my pupils. Hypatia has no more for 
 you to-day. Go now, and spare her at least 
 woman as she is after all the shame of finding 
 that she has given you too much, and lifted the veil 
 of Isis before eyes which are not enough purified 
 to behold the glory of the goddess. Farewell ! " 
 
 She ended: and Philammon, the moment that 
 the spell of her voice was taken off him, sprang 
 up, and hurried out through the corridor into the 
 street. . . . 
 
 So beautiful ! So calm and merciful to him ! 
 So enthusiastic towards all which was noble ! Had 
 not she too spoken of the unseen world, of the 
 hope of immortality, of the conquest of the spirit
 
 The East Wind 1 67 
 
 over the flesh, just as a Christian might have done ? 
 Was the gulf between them so infinite ? If so, why 
 had her aspirations awakened echoes in his own 
 heart echoes too, just such as the prayers and 
 lessons of the Laura used to awaken ? If the fruit 
 was so like, must not the root be like also? . . . 
 Could that be a counterfeit? That a minister of 
 Satan in the robes of an angel of light? Light, at 
 least, it was: purity, simplicity, courage, earnest- 
 ness, tenderness, flashed out from eye, lip, ges- 
 ture. ... A heathen, who disbelieved ? . . . What 
 was the meaning of it all? 
 
 But the finishing stroke yet remained which was 
 to complete the utter confusion of his mind. For 
 before he had gone fifty yards up the street, his little 
 friend of the fruit-basket, whom he had not seen 
 since he vanished under the feet of the mob, in the 
 gateway of the theatre, clutched him by the arm, 
 and burst forth, breathless with running : 
 
 " The gods heap their favors on those 
 who who least deserve them ! Rash and insolent 
 rustic ! And this is the reward of thy madness ! " 
 
 " Off with you ! " said Philammon, who had no 
 mind at the moment to renew his acquaintance with 
 the little porter. But the guardian of parasols kept 
 a firm hold on his sheepskin. 
 
 " Fool ! Hypatia herself commands ! Yes, you 
 will see her, have speech with her ! while I I the 
 illuminated I the appreciating I the obedient 
 I the adoring who for these three years past 
 have grovelled in the kennel, that the hem of her 
 garment might touch the tip of my little finger 
 
 " What do you want, madman ? " 
 
 " She calls for thee, insensate wretch ! Theon
 
 1 68 Hypatia 
 
 sent me breathless at once with running and with 
 envy Go ! favorite of the unjust gods ! " 
 
 "Who isTheon?" 
 
 " Her father, ignorant ! He commands thee to 
 be at her house here opposite to-morrow at 
 the third hour. Hear and obey ! There ! they are 
 coming out of the Museum, and all the parasols 
 will get wrong ! Oh, miserable me ! " 
 
 And the poor little fellow rushed back again, 
 while Philammon, at his wits' end between dread 
 and longing, started off, and ran the whole way 
 home to the Serapeium, regardless of carriages, 
 elephants, and foot-passengers; and having been 
 knocked down by a surly porter, and left a piece 
 of his sheepskin between the teeth of a spiteful 
 camel neither of which insults he had time to 
 resent arrived at the archbishop's house, found 
 Peter the Reader, and tremblingly begged an 
 audience from Cyril.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE SNAPPING OF THE BOW 
 
 CYRIL heard Philammon's story and Hypatia's 
 message with a quiet smile, and then dis- 
 missed the youth to an afternoon of labor in the 
 city, commanding him to mention no word of what 
 had happened, and to come to him that evening and 
 receive his order, when he should have had time to 
 think over the matter. So forth Philammon went 
 with his companions, through lanes and alleys 
 hideous with filth and poverty, compulsory idleness 
 and native sin. Fearfully real and practical it all 
 was ; but he saw it all dimly as in a dream. Before 
 his eyes one face was shining; in his ears one 
 silvery voice was ringing. ..." He is a monk, and 
 knows no better." . . . True! And how should 
 he know better? How could he tell how much 
 more there was to know, in that great new universe, 
 in such a cranny whereof his life had till now been 
 passed ? He had heard but one side already. What 
 if there were two sides? Had he not a right 
 that is, was it not proper, fair, prudent, that he 
 should hear both, and then judge ? 
 
 Cyril had hardly, perhaps, done wisely for the 
 youth in sending him out about the practical 
 drudgery of benevolence, before deciding for him 
 what was his duty with regard to Hypatia's invita- 
 tion. He had not calculated on the new thoughts 
 which were tormenting the young monk ; perhaps 
 
 I Vol. VI
 
 1 70 Hypatia 
 
 they would have been unintelligible to him had he 
 known of them. Cyril had been bred up under the 
 most stern dogmatic training, in those vast mon- 
 astic establishments, which had arisen amid the 
 neighboring saltpetre quarries of Nitria, where 
 thousands toiled in voluntary poverty and starva- 
 tion at vast bakeries, dyeries, brick-fields, tailors' 
 shops, carpenters' yards ; and expended the profits 
 of their labor, not on themselves, for they had 
 need of nothing, but on churches, hospitals, and 
 alms. Educated in that world of practical indus- 
 trial production as well as of religious exercise, 
 which by its proximity to the great city accustomed 
 monks to that world which they despised ; entan- 
 gled from boyhood in the intrigues of his fierce and 
 ambitious uncle Theophilus, Cyril had succeeded 
 him in the patriarchate of Alexandria without 
 having felt a doubt, and stood free to throw his 
 fiery energy and clear practical intellect into the 
 cause of the Church without scruple, even, where 
 necessary, without pity. How could such a man 
 sympathize with the poor boy of twenty, suddenly 
 dragged forth from the quiet cavern-shadow of the 
 Laura into the full blaze and roar of the world's 
 noonday? He, too, was cloister-bred. But the 
 busy and fanatic atmosphere of Nitria, where every 
 nerve of soul and body was kept on a life-long 
 artificial strain, without rest, without simplicity, 
 without human affection, was utterly antipodal to 
 the government of the remote and needy, though 
 no less industrious commonwealths of Coenobites, 
 who dotted the lonely mountain-glens, far up into 
 the heart of the Nubian desert. In such a one 
 Philammon had received, from a venerable man, a 
 mother's sympathy as well as a father's care ; and
 
 The Snapping of the Bow 171 
 
 now he yearned for the encouragement of a gentle 
 voice, for the greeting of a kindly eye, and was 
 lonely and sick at heart. . . . And still Hypatia's 
 voice haunted his ears, like a strain of music, and 
 would not die away. That lofty enthusiasm, so 
 sweet and modest in its grandeur, that tone of 
 pity in one so lovely it could not be called 
 contempt for the many ; that delicious phantom 
 of being an elect spirit . . . unlike the crowd. . . . 
 " And am I altogether like the crowd ? " said Phil- 
 ammon to himself, as he staggered along under the 
 weight of a groaning fever-patient. " Can there 
 be found no fitter work for me than this, which any 
 porter from the quay might do as well? Am I 
 not somewhat wasted on such toil as this ! Have 
 I not an intellect, a taste, a reason? I could 
 appreciate what she said. Why should not my 
 faculties be educated ? Why am I only to be shut 
 out from knowledge? There is a Christian Gnosis 
 as well as a heathen one. What was permissible 
 to Clement " he had nearly said to Origen, but 
 checked himself on the edge of heresy " is surely 
 lawful for me ! Is not my very craving for know- 
 ledge a sign that I am capable of it? Surely my 
 sphere is the study rather than the street ! " 
 
 And then his fellow-laborers he could not 
 deny it to himself began to grow less venerable 
 in his eyes. Let him try as he might to forget the 
 old priest's grumblings and detractions, the fact 
 was before him. The men were coarse, fierce, 
 noisy ... so different from her! Their talk 
 seemed mere gossip scandalous too, and hard- 
 judging, most of it; about that man's private 
 ambition, and that woman's proud looks ; and who 
 had stayed for the Eucharist the Sunday before,
 
 172 Hypatia 
 
 and who had gone out after the sermon ; and how 
 the majority who did not stay could possibly dare 
 to go, and how the minority who did not go 
 could possibly dare to stay. . . . Endless suspi- 
 cions, sneers, complaints . . . what did they care 
 for the eternal glories and the beatific vision? 
 Their one test for all men and things, from the 
 patriarch to the prefect, seemed to be did he 
 or it advance the cause of the Church? which 
 Philammon soon discovered to mean their own 
 cause, their influence, their self-glorification. And 
 the poor boy, as his faculty for fault-finding quick- 
 ened under the influence of theirs, seemed to see 
 under the humble stock-phrases in which they 
 talked of their labors of love, and the future 
 reward of their present humiliations, a deep and 
 hardly-hidden pride, a faith in their own infalli- 
 bility, a contemptuous impatience of every man, 
 however venerable, who differed from their party 
 on any, the slightest, matter. They spoke with 
 sneers of Augustine's Latinizing tendencies, and 
 with open execrations of Chrysostom, as the vilest 
 and most impious of schismatics; and, for aught 
 Philammon knew, they were right enough. But 
 when they talked of wars and desolation past and 
 impending, without a word of pity for the slain and 
 ruined, as a just judgment of Heaven upon heretics 
 and heathens; when they argued over the awful 
 struggle for power which, as he gathered from 
 their words, was even then pending between the 
 Emperor and the Count of Africa, as if it contained 
 but one question of interest to them would Cyril, 
 and they as his bodyguard, gain or lose power in 
 Alexandria? and lastly, when at some mention of 
 Orestes, and of Hypatia as his counsellor, they
 
 The Snapping of the Bow 173 
 
 broke out into open imprecations of God's curse, 
 and comforted themselves with the prospect of 
 everlasting torment for both; he shuddered 
 and asked himself involuntarily were these the 
 ministers of a Gospel? were these the fruits 
 of Christ's Spirit? . . . And a whisper thrilled 
 through the inmost depth of his soul : " Is there 
 a Gospel? Is there a Spirit of Christ? Would 
 not their fruits be different from these? " 
 
 Faint, and low, and distant, was that whisper, 
 like the mutter of an earthquake miles below the 
 soil. And yet, like the earthquake-roll, it had in 
 that one moment jarred every belief, and hope, 
 and memory of his being each a hair's-breadth 
 from its place. . . . Only one hair's-breadth. 
 But that was enough ; his whole inward and out- 
 ward world changed shape, and cracked at every 
 joint. What if it were to fall in pieces ? His brain 
 reeled with the thought. He doubted his own 
 identity. The very light of heaven had altered 
 its hue. Was the firm ground on which he stood 
 after all no solid reality, but a fragile shell which 
 covered what ? 
 
 The nightmare vanished, and he breathed once 
 more. What a strange dream ! The sun and the 
 exertion must have made him giddy. He would 
 forget all about it. 
 
 Weary with labor, and still wearier with thought, 
 he returned that evening, longing, and yet dread- 
 ing to be permitted to speak with Hypatia. He 
 half hoped at moments that Cyril might think him 
 too weak for it; and the next, all his pride and 
 daring, not to say his faith and hope, spurred him 
 on. Might he but face the terrible enchantress, 
 and rebuke her to her face ! And yet so lovely,
 
 174 Hypatia 
 
 so noble as she looked ! Could he speak to her, 
 except in tones of gentle warning, pity, counsel, 
 entreaty? Might he not convert her save her? 
 Glorious thought ! to win such a soul to the true 
 cause ! To be able to show, as the first fruits of 
 his mission, the very champion of heathendom ! 
 It was worth while to have lived only to do that ; 
 and having done it, to die. 
 
 The archbishop's lodgings, when he entered 
 them, were in a state of ferment even greater than 
 usual. Groups of monks, priests, parabolani, and 
 citizens rich and poor, were hanging about the 
 courtyard, talking earnestly and angrily. A large 
 party of monks fresh from Nitria, with ragged hair 
 and beards, and the peculiar expression of coun- 
 tenance which fanatics of all creeds acquire, fierce 
 and yet abject, self-conscious and yet ungoverned, 
 silly and yet sly, with features coarsened and 
 degraded by continual fasting and self-torture, 
 prudishly shrouded from head to heel in their 
 long ragged gowns, were gesticulating wildly and 
 loudly, and calling on their more peaceable com- 
 panions, in no measured terms, to revenge some 
 insult offered to the Church. 
 
 "What is the matter?" asked Philammon of a 
 quiet portly citizen, who stood looking up, with 
 a most perplexed visage, at the windows of the 
 patriarch's apartments. 
 
 " Don't ask me ; I have nothing to do with it 
 Why does not his holiness come out and speak to 
 them ? Blessed Virgin, mother of God ! that we 
 were well through it all ! " 
 
 " Coward ! " bawled a monk in his ear. " These 
 shopkeepers care for nothing but seeing their stalls 
 safe. Rather than lose a day's custom, they would
 
 The Snapping of the Bow 1 75 
 
 give the very churches to be plundered by the 
 heathen ! " 
 
 "We do not want them ! " cried another. " We 
 managed Dioscuros and his brother, and we can 
 manage Orestes. What matter what answer he 
 sends ? The devil shall have his own ! " 
 
 "They ought to have been back two hours 
 ago ; they are murdered by this time." 
 
 " He would not dare to touch the archdeacon ! " 
 
 " He will dare anything. Cyril should never 
 have sent them forth as lambs among wolves. 
 What necessity was there for letting the prefect 
 know that the Jews were gone ? He would have 
 found it out for himself fast enough, the next time 
 he wanted to borrow money." 
 
 "What is all this about, reverend sir?" asked 
 Philammon of Peter the Reader, who made his 
 appearance at that moment in the quadrangle, 
 walking with great strides, like the soul of Aga- 
 memnon across the meads of Asphodel, and 
 apparently beside himself with rage. 
 
 " Ah ! you here ? You may go to-morrow, young 
 fool ! The patriarch can't talk to you. Why should 
 he? Some people have a great deal too much 
 notice taken of them, in my opinion. Yes ; you 
 may go. If your head is not turned already, you 
 may go and get it turned to-morrow. We shall see 
 whether he who exalts himself is not abased, before 
 all is over ! " And he was striding away, when Phil- 
 ammon, at the risk of an explosion, stopped him. 
 
 " His holiness commanded me to see him, sir, 
 before " 
 
 Peter turned on him in a fury. " Fool ! will 
 you dare to intrude your fantastical dreams on 
 him at such a moment as this?"
 
 1 76 Hypatia 
 
 " He commanded me to see him," said Philam- 
 mon, with the true soldierlike discipline of a monk; 
 " and see him I will, in spite of any man. I believe 
 in my heart you wish to keep me from his coun- 
 sels and his blessing." 
 
 Peter looked at him for a moment with a right 
 wicked expression, and then, to the youth's as- 
 tonishment, struck him full in the face, and yelled 
 for help. 
 
 If the blow had been given by Pambo in the 
 Laura a week before, Philammon would have 
 borne it. But from that man, and coming unex- 
 pectedly as the finishing stroke to all his disap- 
 pointment and disgust, it was intolerable ; and in 
 an instant Peter's long legs were sprawling on the 
 pavement, while he bellowed like a bull for all 
 the monks in Nitria. 
 
 A dozen lean brown hands were at Philammon's 
 throat as Peter rose. 
 
 " Seize him ! hold him ! " half blubbered he. 
 " The traitor ! the heretic ! He holds communion 
 with heathens ! " 
 
 " Down with him ! " " Cast him out ! " " Carry 
 him to the archbishop ! " while Philammon shook 
 himself free, and Peter returned to the charge. 
 
 " I call all good catholics to witness ! He has 
 beaten an ecclesiastic in the courts of the Lord's 
 house, even in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem! 
 And he was in Hypatia's lecture-room this 
 morning ! " 
 
 A groan of pious horror rose. Philammon set 
 his back against the wall. 
 
 " His holiness the patriarch sent me." 
 
 " He confesses, he confesses ! He deluded the 
 piety of the patriarch into letting him go, under
 
 The Snapping of the Bow 1 77 
 
 color of converting her ; and even now he wants 
 to intrude on the sacred presence of Cyril, burning 
 only with carnal desire that he may meet the 
 sorceress in her house to-morrow ! " 
 
 " Scandal ! " " Abomination in the holy place ! " 
 and a rush at the poor youth took place. 
 
 His blood was thoroughly up. The respectable 
 part of the crowd, as usual in such cases, pru- 
 dently retreated, and left him to the mercy of the 
 monks, with an eye to their own reputation for 
 orthodoxy, not to mention their personal safety; 
 and he had to help himself as he could. He 
 looked round for a weapon. There was none. 
 The ring of monks were baying at him like hounds 
 round a bear : and though he might have been a 
 match for any one of them singly, yet their sinewy 
 limbs and determined faces warned him that against 
 such odds the struggle would be desperate. 
 
 " Let me leave this court in safety ! God knows 
 whether I am a heretic ; and to Him I commit my 
 cause ! The holy patriarch shall know of your 
 iniquity. I will not trouble you ; I give you leave 
 to call me heretic, or heathen, if you will, if I cross 
 this threshold till Cyril himself sends for me back 
 to shame you." 
 
 And he turned, and forced his way to the gate, 
 amid a yell of derision which brought every drop 
 of blood in his body into his cheeks. Twice, as 
 he went down the vaulted passage, a rush was 
 made on him from behind, but the soberer of his 
 persecutors checked it. Yet he could not leave 
 them, young and hot-headed as he was, without 
 one last word, and on the threshold he turned. 
 
 " You ! who call yourselves the disciples of the 
 Lord, and are more like the demoniacs who abode
 
 178 Hypatia 
 
 day and night in the tombs, crying and cutting 
 themselves with stones " 
 
 In an instant they rushed upon him; and, 
 luckily for him, rushed also into the arms of a 
 party of ecclesiastics, who were hurrying inwards 
 from the street, with faces of blank terror. 
 
 " He has refused !" shouted the foremost. "He 
 declares war against the Church of God ! " 
 
 " Oh, my friends," panted the archdeacon, " we 
 are escaped like the bird out of the snare of the 
 fowler. The tyrant kept us waiting two hours 
 at his palace-gates, and then sent lictors out upon 
 us, with rods and axes, telling us that they were 
 the only message which he had for robbers and 
 rioters." 
 
 " Back to the patriarch ! " and the whole mob 
 streamed in again, leaving Philammon alone in 
 the street and in the world. 
 
 Whither now? 
 
 He strode on in his wrath some hundred yards 
 or more before he asked himself that question. 
 And when he asked it, he found himself in no 
 humor to answer it. He was adrift, and blown 
 out of harbor upon a shoreless sea, in utter dark- 
 ness; all heaven and earth were nothing to him. 
 He was alone in the blindness of anger. 
 
 Gradually one fixed idea, as a light-tower, be- 
 gan to glimmer through the storm. . . . To see 
 Hypatia, and convert her. He had the patriarch's 
 leave for that. That must be right. That would 
 justify him bring him back, perhaps, in a tri- 
 umph more glorious than any Caesar's, leading 
 captive, in the fetters of the Gospel, the Queen 
 of Heathendom. Yes, there was that left, for 
 which to live.
 
 
 The Snapping of the Bow 1 79 
 
 His passion cooled down gradually as he wan- 
 dered on in the fading evening-light, up one street 
 and down another, till he had utterly lost his way. 
 What matter? He should find that lecture-room 
 to-morrow at least. At last he found himself in 
 a broad avenue, which he seemed to know. 
 Was that the Sungate in the distance ? He saun- 
 tered carelessly down it, and found himself at last 
 on the great Esplanade, whither the little porter 
 had taken him three days before. He was close 
 then to the Museum, and to her house. Destiny 
 had led him, unconsciously, towards the scene 
 of his enterprise. It was a good omen ; he would 
 go thither at once. He might sleep upon her 
 doorstep as well as upon any other. Perhaps he 
 might catch a glimpse of her going out or coming 
 in, even at that late hour. It might be well to 
 accustom himself to the sight of her. There 
 would be the less chance of his being abashed 
 to-morrow before those sorceress eyes. And 
 moreover, to tell the truth, his self-dependence, 
 and his self-will too, crushed, or rather laid to 
 sleep, by the discipline of the Laura, had started 
 into wild life, and gave him a mysterious pleasure, 
 which he had not felt since he was a disobedient 
 little boy, of doing what he chose, right or wrong, 
 simply because he chose it. Such moments come 
 to every free-willed creature. Happy are those 
 who have not, like poor Philammon, been kept 
 by a hotbed cultivation from knowing how to face 
 them ! But he had yet to learn, or rather his 
 tutors had to learn, that the sure path toward 
 willing obedience and manful self-restraint, lies 
 not through slavery, but through liberty. 
 
 He was not certain which was Hypatia's house ;
 
 1 80 Hypatia 
 
 but the door of the Museum he could not forget. 
 So there he sat himself down under the garden- 
 wall, soothed by the cool night, and the holy 
 silence, and the rich perfume of the thousand 
 foreign flowers which filled the air with enervating 
 balm. There he sat, and watched, and watched, 
 and watched in vain for some glimpse of his one 
 object. Which of the houses was hers? Which 
 was the window of her chamber? Did it look 
 into the street? What business had his fancy with 
 woman's chambers? . . . But that one open win- 
 dow, with the lamp burning bright inside he 
 could not help looking up to it he could not 
 help fancying hoping. He even moved a few 
 yards to see better the bright interior of the room. 
 High up as it was, he could still discern shelves of 
 books pictures on the walls. Was that a voice? 
 Yes ! a woman's voice reading aloud in metre 
 was plainly distinguishable in the dead stillness of 
 the night, which did not even awaken a whisper in 
 the trees above his head. He stood, spell-bound 
 by curiosity. 
 
 Suddenly the voice ceased, and a woman's figure 
 came forward to the window, and stood motionless, 
 gazing upward at the spangled star-world over- 
 head, and seeming to drink in the glory, and the 
 silence, and the rich perfume. . . . Could it be 
 she ? Every pulse in his body throbbed madly. . . . 
 Could it be? What was she doing? He could 
 not distinguish the features ; but the full blaze of 
 the eastern moon showed him an upturned brow, 
 between a golden stream of glittering tresses which 
 hid her whole figure, except the white hands 
 clasped upon her bosom. . . . Was she praying? 
 were these her midnight sorceries? . . .
 
 The Snapping of the Bow 1 8 1 
 
 And still his heart throbbed and throbbed, till 
 he almost fancied she must hear its noisy beat 
 and still she stood motionless, gazing upon the 
 sky, like some exquisite chryselephantine statue, 
 all ivory and gold. And behind her, round the 
 bright room within, painting, books, a whole world 
 of unknown science and beauty. . . . And she 
 the priestess of it all ... inviting him to learn 
 of her and be wise ! It was a temptation ! He 
 would flee from it ! Fool that he was ! and it 
 might not be she after all ! 
 
 He made some sudden movement. She looked 
 down, saw him, and shutting the blind, vanished 
 for the night. In vain, now that the temptation 
 had departed, he sat and waited for its reappear- 
 ance, half cursing himself for having broken the 
 spell. But the chamber was dark and silent hence- 
 forth ; and Philammon, wearied out, found himself 
 soon wandering back to the Laura in quiet dreams, 
 beneath the balmy, semi-tropic night.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE INTERVIEW 
 
 PHILAMMON was aroused from his slumbers 
 at sunrise the next morning by the attend- 
 ants who came in to sweep out the lecture-rooms, 
 and wandered, disconsolately enough, up and down 
 the street ; longing for, and yet dreading, the three 
 weary hours to be over which must pass before he 
 would be admitted to Hypatia. But he had tasted 
 no food since noon the day before: he had had 
 but three hours' sleep the previous night, and had 
 been working, running, and fighting for two whole 
 days without a moment's peace of body or mind. 
 Sick with hunger and fatigue, and aching from 
 head to foot with his hard night's rest on the 
 granite-flags, he felt as unable as man could well 
 do to collect his thoughts or brace his nerves for 
 the coming interview. How to get food he could 
 not guess; but having two hands, he might at 
 least earn a coin by carrying a load ; so he went 
 down to the Esplanade in search of work. Of that, 
 alas ! there was none. So he sat down upon the 
 parapet of the quay, and watched the shoals of 
 sardines which played in and out over the marble 
 steps below, and wondered at the strange crabs 
 and sea-locusts which crawled up and down the 
 face of the masonry, a few feet below the surface, 
 scrambling for bits of offal, and making occasional 
 fruitless dashes at the nimble little silver arrows
 
 The Interview 183 
 
 which played round them. And at last his whole 
 soul, too tired to think of anything else, became 
 absorbed in a mighty struggle between two great 
 crabs, who held on stoutly, each by a claw, to his 
 respective bunch of seaweed, while with the others 
 they tugged, one at the head and the other at the 
 tail of a dead fish. Which would conquer? . . . 
 Ay, which? And for five minutes Philammon was 
 alone in the world with the two struggling heroes. 
 . . . Might not they be emblematic ? Might not the 
 upper one typify Cyril? the lower one Hypatia? 
 and the dead fish between, himself? . . . But 
 at last the dead-lock was suddenly ended the 
 fish parted in the middle : and the typical Hypatia 
 and Cyril, losing hold of their respective seaweeds 
 by the jerk, tumbled down, each with its half-fish, 
 and vanished head over heels into the blue depths 
 in so undignified a manner, that Philammon burst 
 into a shout of laughter. 
 
 " What 's the joke ? " asked a well-known voice 
 behind him ; and a hand patted him familiarly on 
 the back. He looked round, and saw the little 
 porter, his head crowned with a full basket of figs, 
 grapes, and water-melons, on which the poor youth 
 cast a longing eye. " Well, my young friend, and 
 why are you not at church? Look at all the 
 saints pouring into the Caesareum there, behind 
 you." 
 
 Philammon answered sulkily enough something 
 inarticulate. 
 
 " Ho, ho ! Quarrelled with the successor of the 
 Apostles already? Has my prophecy come true, 
 and the strong meat of pious riot and plunder 
 proved too highly spiced for ,your young palate. 
 Eh?"
 
 184 Hypatia 
 
 Poor Philammon ! Angry with himself for feel- 
 ing that the porter was right ; shrinking from the 
 notion of exposing the failings of his fellow- 
 Christians ; shrinking still more from making such 
 a jackanapes his confidant: and yet yearning in 
 his loneliness to open his heart to some one, he 
 dropped out, hint by hint, word by word, the 
 events of the past evening, and finished by a 
 request to be put in the way of earning his 
 breakfast. 
 
 " Earning your breakfast ! Shall the favorite of 
 the gods shall the guest of Hypatia earn his 
 breakfast, while I have an obol to share with him? 
 Base thought ! Youth ! I have wronged you. 
 Unphilosophically I allowed, yesterday morning, 
 envy to ruffle the ocean of my intellect. We are 
 now friends and brothers, in hatred to the monastic 
 tribe." 
 
 " I do not hate them, I tell you," said Philam- 
 mon. " But these Nitrian savages " 
 
 " Are the perfect examples of monkery, and you 
 hate them; and therefore, all greaters containing 
 the less, you hate~all less monastic monks I have 
 not heard logic lectures in vain. Now, up ! The 
 sea woos our dusty limbs: Nereids and Tritons, 
 charging no cruel coin, call us to Nature's baths. 
 At home a mighty sheat-fish smokes upon the 
 festive board; beer crowns the horn, and onions 
 deck the dish ; come then, my guest and brother ! " 
 
 Philammon swallowed certain scruples about 
 becoming the guest of a heathen, seeing that 
 otherwise there seemed no chance of having any- 
 thing else to swallow; and after a refreshing 
 plunge in the sea, followed the hospitable little 
 fellow to Hypatia's door, where he dropped his
 
 The Interview 185 
 
 daily load of fruit, and then into a narrow by-street, 
 to the ground-floor of a huge block of lodgings, 
 with a common staircase, swarming with children, 
 cats, and chickens ; and was ushered by his host 
 into a little room, where the savory smell of broil- 
 ing fish revived Philammon's heart. 
 
 " Judith ! Judith ! where lingerest thou ? Marble 
 of Pentel'cus ! foam-flake of the wine-dark main ! 
 lily of the Mareotic lake ! You accursed black 
 Andromeda, if you don't bring the breakfast this 
 moment, I '11 cut you in two ! " 
 
 The inner door opened, and in bustled, trembling, 
 her hands full of dishes, a tall lithe negress dressed 
 in true negro fashion, in a snow-white cotton shift, 
 a scarlet cotton petticoat, and a bright yellow 
 turban of the same, making a light in that dark 
 place which would have served as a landmark a 
 mile off. She put the dishes down, and the porter 
 majestically waved Philammon to a stool; while 
 she retreated, and stood humbly waiting on her 
 lord and master, who did not deign to introduce to 
 his guest the black beauty which composed his 
 whole seraglio. . . . But, indeed, such an act of 
 courtesy would have been needless ; for the first 
 morsel of fish was hardly safe in poor Philammon's 
 mouth, when the negress rushed upon him, caught 
 him by the head, and covered him with rapturous 
 kisses. 
 
 Up jumped the little man with a yell, brandish- 
 ing a knife in one hand and a leek in the other ; 
 while Philammon, scarcely less scandalized, jumped 
 up too, and shook himself free of the lady, who, 
 finding it impossible to vent her feelings further on 
 his head, instantly changed her tactics, and, wal- 
 lowing on the floor, began frantically kissing his feet.
 
 1 86 Hypatia 
 
 " What is this? before my face ! Up, shameless 
 baggage, or thou diest the death ! " and the porter 
 pulled her up upon her knees. 
 
 " It is the monk ! the young man I told you of, 
 who saved me from the Jews the other night! 
 What good angel sent him here that I might thank 
 him ? " cried the poor creature, while the tears ran 
 down her black shining face. 
 
 " I am that good angel," said the porter, with a 
 look of intense self-satisfaction. " Rise, daughter 
 of Erebus ; thou art pardoned, being but a female. 
 What says the poet ? 
 
 44 ' Woman is passion's slave, while rightful lord 
 O'er her and passion, rules the nobler male.' 
 
 Youth ! to my arms ! Truly say the philosophers, 
 that the universe is magical in itself, and by mys- 
 terious sympathies links like to like. The prophetic 
 instinct of thy future benefits towards me drew me 
 to thee as by an invisible warp, hawser, or chain- 
 cable, from the moment I beheld thee. Thou wert 
 a kindred spirit, my brother, though thou knewest 
 it not. Therefore I do not praise thee no, nor 
 thank thee in the least, though thou hast preserved 
 for me the one palm which shadows my weary 
 steps the single lotus-flower (in this case black, 
 not white) which blooms for me above the mud- 
 stained ocean-wastes of the Hylic Borboros. That 
 which thou hast done, thou hast done by instinct 
 by divine compulsion thou couldst no more 
 help it than thou canst help eating that fish, and 
 art no more to be praised for it." 
 
 " Thank you," said Philammon. 
 
 " Comprehend me. Our theory in the schools 
 for such cases is this has been so at least for the
 
 The Interview 187 
 
 last six months ; similar particles, from one origi- 
 nal source, exist in you and me. Similar causes 
 produce similar effects ; our attractions, antipathies, 
 impulses, are therefore, in similar circumstances, 
 absolutely the same; and therefore you did the 
 other night exactly what I should have done in 
 your case." 
 
 Philammon thought the latter part of the theory 
 open to question, but he had by no means stopped 
 eating when he rose, and his mouth was much too 
 full offish to argue. 
 
 " And therefore," continued the little man, " we 
 are to consider ourselves henceforth as one soul in 
 two bodies. You may have the best of the cor- 
 poreal part of the division . . . yet it is the soul 
 which makes the person. You may trust me, I 
 shall not disdain my brotherhood. If any one 
 insults you henceforth, you have but to call me ; 
 and if I be within hearing, why, by this right 
 arm " 
 
 And he attempted a pat on Philammon's head, 
 which, as there was a head and shoulder's dif- 
 ference between them, might on the whole have 
 been considered, from a theatric point of view, as 
 a failure. Whereon the little man seized the cala- 
 bash of beer, and filling therewith a cow's horn, his 
 thumb on the small end, raised it high in the air. 
 
 " To the Tenth Muse, and to your interview with 
 her ! " 
 
 And removing his thumb, he sent a steady jet 
 into his open mouth, and having drained the horn 
 without drawing breath, licked his lips, handed it 
 to Philammon, and flew ravenously upon the fish 
 and onions. 
 
 Philammon, to whom the whole was supremely
 
 1 88 Hypatia 
 
 absurd, had no invocation to make, but one which 
 he felt too sacred for his present temper of mind : 
 so he attempted to imitate the little man's feat, 
 and, of course, poured the beer into his eyes, and 
 up his nose, and in his bosom, and finally choked 
 himself black in the face, while his host observed, 
 smilingly : 
 
 " Aha, rustic ! unacquainted with the ancient 
 and classical customs preserved in this center of 
 civilization by the descendants of Alexander's 
 heroes? Judith! clear the table. Now to the 
 sanctuary of the Muses ! " 
 
 Philammon rose, and finished his meal by a 
 monkish grace. A gentle and reverend " Amen " 
 rose from the other end of the room. It was the 
 negress. She saw him look up at her, dropped her 
 eyes modestly, and bustled away with the rem- 
 nants, while Philammon and his host started for 
 Hypatia's lecture-room. 
 
 " Your wife is a Christian? " asked he when they 
 were outside the door. 
 
 " Ahem ! The barbaric mind is prone to 
 
 superstition. Yet she is, being but a woman 
 and a negress, a good soul, and thrifty, though 
 requiring, like all lower animals, occasional chas- 
 tisement I married her on philosophic grounds. 
 A wife was necessary to me, for several' reasons: 
 but mindful that the philosopher should subjugate 
 the material appetite, and rise above the swinish 
 desires of the flesh, even when his nature requires 
 him to satisfy them, I purposed to make pleasure 
 as unpleasant as possible. I had the choice of 
 several cripples their parents, of ancient Mace- 
 donian family like myself, were by no means 
 adverse; but I required a housekeeper, with
 
 The Interview 189 
 
 whose duties the want of an arm or a leg might 
 have interfered." 
 
 "Why did you not marry a scold?" asked 
 Philammon. 
 
 " Pertinently observed : and indeed the example 
 of Socrates rose luminous more than once before 
 my imagination. But philosophic calm, my dear 
 youth, and the peaceful contemplation of the in- 
 effable? I could not relinquish those luxuries. 
 So having, by the bounty of Hypatia and her 
 pupils, saved a small sum, I went out, bought me 
 a negress, and hired six rooms in the block we 
 have just left, where I let lodgings to young 
 students of the Divine Philosophy." 
 
 " Have you any lodgers now? " 
 
 " Ahem ! Certain rooms are occupied by a lady 
 of rank. The philosopher will, above all things, 
 abstain from babbling. To bridle the tongue, is to 
 
 But there is a closet at your service ; and for 
 
 the hall of reception, which you have just left 
 are you not a kindred and fraternal spark ? We can 
 combine our meals, as our souls are already united.", 
 
 Philammon thanked him heartily for the offer, 
 though he shrank from accepting it; and in ten 
 minutes more found himself at the door of the 
 very house which he had been watching the night 
 before. It was she, then, whom he had seen ! . . . 
 He was handed over by a black porter to a smart 
 slave-girl, who guided him up, through cloisters 
 and corridors, to the large library, where five or 
 six young men were sitting, busily engaged under 
 Theon's superintendence, in copying manuscripts 
 and drawing geometric diagrams. 
 
 Philammon gazed curiously at these symbols of 
 a science unknown to him, and wondered whether
 
 1 90 Hypatia 
 
 the day would ever come when he too would 
 understand their mysteries ; but his eyes fell again 
 as he saw the youths staring at his ragged sheep- 
 skin and matted locks with undisguised contempt 
 He could hardly collect himself enough to obey 
 the summons of the venerable old man, as he 
 beckoned him silently out of the room, and led 
 him, with the titters of the young students ringing 
 in his ears, through the door by which he had 
 entered, and along a gallery, till he stopped and 
 knocked humbly at a door. . . . She must be 
 within ! . . . Now ! ... At last ! . . . His knees 
 knocked together under him. His heart sank and 
 sank into abysses ! Poor wretch ! . . . He was 
 half-minded once to escape and dash into the 
 street . . . but was it not his one hope, his 
 one object? . . . But why did not that old man 
 speak? If he would have but said something ! . , . 
 If he would only have 'looked cross, contempt- 
 uous ! . . . But with the same impressive gravity 
 as of a man upon a business in which he had no 
 voice, and wished it to be understood that he had 
 none, the old man silently opened the door, and 
 Philammon followed. . . . There she was ! looking 
 more glorious than ever ; more than when glowing 
 with the enthusiasm of her own eloquence ; more 
 than when transfigured last night in golden tresses 
 and glittering moonbeams. There she sat, without 
 moving a finger, as the two entered. She greeted 
 her father with a smile, which made up for all her 
 seeming want of courtesy to him, and then fixed 
 her large gray eyes full on Philammon. 
 
 " Here is the youth, my daughter. It was your 
 wish, you know; and I always believe that you 
 know best "
 
 The Interview 191 
 
 Another smile put an end to the speech, and 
 the old man retreated humbly toward another 
 door, with a somewhat anxious visage, and then 
 lingering and looking back, his hand upon the 
 latch : 
 
 " If you require any one, you know, you have 
 only to call we shall be all in the library." 
 
 .Another smile; and the old man disappeared, 
 leaving the two alone. 
 
 Philammon stood trembling, choking, his eyes 
 fixed on the floor. Where were all the fine things 
 he had conned over for the occasion? He dared 
 not look up at that face, lest it should drive them 
 out of his head. And yet the more he kept his 
 eyes turned from the face, the more he was conscious 
 of it, conscious that it was watching him ; and the 
 more all the fine words were, by that very knowl- 
 edge, driven out of his head. . . . When would she 
 speak ? Perhaps she wished him to speak first. It 
 was her duty to begin : for she had sent for him. 
 . . . But still she kept silence, and sat scanning 
 him intently from head to foot, herself as motion- 
 less as a statue ; her hands folded together before 
 her, over the manuscript which lay upon her knee. 
 If there was a blush on her cheek at her own 
 daring, his eyes swam too much to notice it. 
 
 When would the intolerable suspense end ? She 
 was, perhaps, as unwilling to speak as he. But 
 some one must strike the first blow ; and, as often 
 happens, the weaker party, impelled by sheer fear, 
 struck it, and broke the silence in a tone half 
 indignant, half apologetic: 
 
 " You sent for me hither ! " 
 
 "I did. It seemed to me, as I watched you 
 during my lecture, both before and after you were
 
 192 Hypatia 
 
 rude enough to interrupt me, that your offence 
 was one of mere youthful ignorance. It seemed to 
 me that your countenance bespoke a nobler nature 
 than that which the gods are usually pleased to 
 bestow upon monks. That I may now ascertain 
 whether or not my surmises were correct, I ask you 
 for what purpose are you come hither?" 
 
 Philammon hailed the question as a godsend. 
 Now for his message ! And yet he faltered, as he 
 answered, with a desperate effort: "To rebuke 
 you for your sins." 
 
 "My sins! What sins?", she asked, as she 
 looked up with a stately, slow surprise in those 
 large gray eyes, before which his own glance sank 
 abashed, he knew not why. What sins ? He 
 knew not. Did she look like a Messalina? But 
 was she not a heathen and a sorceress ? And yet 
 he blushed, and stammered, and hung down his 
 head, as, shrinking at the sound of his own words, 
 he replied: 
 
 " The foul sorceries and profligacy worse than 
 
 sorceries, in which, they say " He could get 
 
 no farther: for he looked up again and saw an 
 awful quiet smile upon that face. His words had 
 raised no blush upon the marble cheek. 
 
 " They say ! The bigots and slanderers ; wild 
 beasts of the desert, and fanatic intriguers, who, in 
 the words of Him they call their master, compass 
 heaven and earth to make one proselyte, and when 
 they have found him, make him twofold more the 
 child of hell than themselves. Go I forgive you : 
 you are young, and know not yet the mystery of 
 the world. Science will teach you some day that 
 the outward frame is the sacrament of the soul's 
 inward beauty. Such a soul I had fancied your
 
 The Interview 193 
 
 face expressed ; but I was mistaken. Foul hearts 
 alone harbor such foul suspicions, and fancy 
 others to be what they know they might become 
 
 themselves. Go ! Do I look like ? The very 
 
 tapering of these fingers, if you could read their 
 symbolism, would give your dream the lie." And 
 she flashed full on him, like sun-rays from a mirror, 
 the full radiance of her glorious countenance. 
 
 Alas, poor Philammon ! where were thy eloquent 
 arguments, thy orthodox theories then? Proudly 
 he struggled with his own man's heart of flesh, and 
 tried to turn his eyes away; the magnet might as 
 well struggle to escape from the spell of the north. 
 In a moment, he knew not how, utter shame, 
 remorse, longing for forgiveness, swept over him, 
 and crushed him down; and he found himself on 
 his knees before her, in abject and broken syllables 
 entreating pardon. 
 
 " Go I forgive you. But know before you go, 
 that the celestial milk which fell from Here's bosom, 
 bleaching the plant which it touched to everlasting 
 whiteness, was not more taintless than the soul of 
 Theon's daughter." 
 
 He looked up in her face as he knelt before her. 
 Unerring instinct told him that her words were 
 true. He was a monk, accustomed to believe 
 animal sin to be the deadliest and worst of all sins 
 indeed, " the great offence " itself, beside which 
 all others were comparatively venial : where there 
 was physical purity, must not all other virtues follow 
 in its wake? All other failings were invisible under 
 the dazzling veil of that great loveliness ; and in 
 his self-abasement he went on : 
 
 " Oh, do not spurn me ! do not drive me away 1 
 I have neither friend, home, nor teacher. I fled 
 
 J Vol. VI
 
 194 Hypatia 
 
 last night from the men of my own faith, maddened 
 by bitter insult and injustice disappointed and 
 disgusted with their ferocity, narrowness, ignorance. 
 I dare not, I cannot, I will not return to the 
 obscurity and the dulness of a Thebaid Laura. I 
 have a thousand doubts to solve, a thousand 
 questions to ask, about that great ancient world of 
 which I know nothing of whose mysteries, they 
 say, you alone possess the key ! I am a Christian ; 
 but I thirst for knowledge. ... I do not promise 
 to believe you I do not promise to obey you ; 
 but let me hear ! Teach me what you know, that 
 I may compare it with what I know. ... If in- 
 deed " (and he shuddered as he spoke the words) 
 " I do know anything ! " 
 
 " Have you forgotten the epithets which you 
 used to me just now ? " 
 
 " No, no ! But do you forget them ; they were 
 put into my mouth. I I did not believe them 
 when I said them. It was agony to me ; but I did 
 it, as I thought, for your sake to save you. Oh r 
 say that I may come and hear you again ! Only 
 from a distance in the very farthest corner of 
 your lecture-room. I will be silent; you shall 
 never see me. But your words yesterday awoke in 
 me no, not doubts ; but still I must, I must hear 
 more, or be as miserable and homeless inwardly as 
 I am in my outward circumstances ! " And he 
 looked up imploringly for consent. 
 
 "Rise. This passion and that attitude are fit- 
 ting neither for you nor me." 
 
 And as Philammon rose, she rose also, went into 
 the library to her father, and in a few minutes 
 returned with him. 
 
 " Come with me, young man," said he, laying
 
 The Interview 195 
 
 his hand kindly enough on Philammon's shoulder. 
 ..." The rest of this matter you and I can settle ; " 
 and Philammon followed him, not daring to look 
 back at Hypatia, while the whole room swam 
 before his eyes. 
 
 " So, so I hear you have been saying rude 
 things to my daughter. Well, she has forgiven 
 you " 
 
 "Has she?" asked the young monk, with an 
 eager start. 
 
 " Ah ! you may well look astonished. But I 
 forgive you too. It is lucky for you, however, 
 that I did not hear you, or else, old man as I am, 
 I can't say what I might not have done. Ah ! 
 you little know, you little know what she is ! " 
 and the old pedant's eyes kindled with loving 
 pride. " May the gods give you some day such a 
 daughter ! that is, if you learn to deserve it as 
 virtuous as she is wise, as wise as she is beautiful. 
 Truly, they have repaid me for my labors in their 
 service. Look, young man ! little as you merit 
 it, here is a pledge of your forgiveness, such as the 
 richest and noblest in Alexandria are glad to pur- 
 chase with many an ounce of gold a ticket of 
 free admission to all her lectures henceforth ! 
 Now go; you have been favored beyond your 
 deserts, and should learn that the philosopher 
 can practise what the Christian only preaches, 
 and return good for evil." And he put into 
 Philammon's hand a slip of paper, and bid 
 one of the secretaries show him to the outer 
 door. 
 
 The youths looked up at him from their writing 
 as he passed, with faces of surprise and awe, and 
 evidently thinking no more about the absurdity of
 
 1 96 Hypatia 
 
 his sheepskin and his tanned complexion ; and he 
 went out with a stunned, confused feeling, as of 
 one who, by a desperate leap, has plunged into a 
 new world. He tried to feel content ; but he dare 
 not. All before him was anxiety, uncertainty. 
 He had cut himself adrift ; he was on the great 
 stream. Whither would it lead him ? Well was 
 it not the great stream? Had not all mankind, 
 for all the ages, been floating on it? Or, was it 
 but a desert-river, dwindling away beneath the 
 fiery sun, destined to lose itself a few miles on, 
 among the arid sands? Were Arsenius and the 
 faith of his childhood right? And was the Old 
 World coming speedily to its death-throe, and the 
 Kingdom of God at hand ? Or, was Cyril right, 
 and the Church Catholic appointed to spread, and 
 conquer, and destroy, and rebuild, till the kingdoms 
 of this world had become the kingdoms of God 
 and of His Christ ! If so, what use in this old 
 knowledge which he craved? And yet, if the 
 day of the destruction of all things were at 
 hand, and the times destined to become worse 
 and not better, till the end how could that 
 be? ... 
 
 " What news ? " asked the little porter, who had 
 been waiting for him at the door all the while. 
 " What news, O favorite of the gods ! " 
 
 " I will lodge with you, and labor with 
 you. Ask me no more at present. I am I 
 am " 
 
 " Those who descended into the Cave of Tro- 
 phonius, and beheld the unspeakable, remained 
 astonished for three days, my young friend and 
 so will you ! " And they went forth together to 
 earn their bread.
 
 The Interview 197 
 
 But what is Hypatia doing all this while, upon 
 that cloudy Olympus, where she sits enshrined far 
 above the noise and struggle of man and his work- 
 day world? 
 
 She is sitting again, with her manuscripts open 
 before her : but she is thinking of the young monk, 
 not of them. 
 
 " Beautiful as Antinous ! . . . Rather as the 
 young Phoebus himself, fresh glowing from the 
 slaughter of the Python. Why should not he, 
 too, become a slayer of Pythons, and loathsome 
 monsters, bred from the mud of sense and matter? 
 So bold and earnest ! I can forgive him those 
 words for the very fact of his having dared, here 
 in my father's house, to say them to me. . . . And 
 yet so tender, so open to repentance and noble 
 shame ! That is no plebeian by birth ; patrician 
 blood surely flows in those veins ; it shows out in 
 every attitude, every tone, every motion of the 
 hand and lip. He cannot be one of the herd. 
 Who ever knew one of them crave after knowl- 
 edge for its own sake? . . . And I have longed 
 so for one real pupil ! I have longed so to find 
 one such man, among the effeminate selfish triflers 
 who pretend to listen to me. I thought I had 
 found one and the moment that I had lost him, 
 behold, I find another ; and that a fresher, purer, 
 simpler nature than ever Raphael's was at its best. 
 By all the laws of physiognomy by all the sym- 
 bolism of gesture and voice and complexion by 
 the instinct of my own heart, that young monk 
 might be the instrument, the ready, valiant, obedi- 
 ent instrument, for carrying out all my dreams. If 
 I could but train him into a Longinus, I could 
 dare to play the part of a Zenobia, with him as
 
 198 Hypatia 
 
 counsellor. . . . And for my Odenatus Orestes? 
 Horrible ! " 
 
 She covered her face with her hand a minute. 
 " No ! " she said, dashing away the tears " That 
 and anything and everything for the cause of 
 Philosophy and the gods ! "
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE LAURA AGAIN 
 
 NOT a sound, not a moving object, broke the 
 utter stillness of the glen of Scetis. The 
 shadows of the crags, though paling every moment 
 before the spreading dawn, still shrouded all the 
 gorge in gloom. A winding line of haze slept 
 above the course of the rivulet. The plumes of 
 the palm-trees hung motionless, as if awaiting in 
 resignation the breathless blaze of the approach- 
 ing day. At length, among the green ridges of 
 the monastery garden, two gray figures rose from 
 their knees, and began, with slow and feeble 
 strokes, to break the silence by the clatter of 
 their hoes among the pebbles. 
 
 " These beans grow wonderfully, brother Aufu- 
 gus. We shall be able to sow our second crop, 
 by God's blessing, a week earlier than we did last 
 year." 
 
 The person addressed returned no answer ; and 
 his companion, after watching him for some time 
 in silence, recommenced : 
 
 "What is it, my brother? I have remarked 
 lately a melancholy about you, which is hardly 
 fitting for a man of God." 
 
 A deep sigh was the only answer. The speaker 
 laid down his hoe, and placing his hand affection- 
 ately on the shoulder of Aufugus, asked again :
 
 2oo Hypatia 
 
 " What is it, my friend ? I will not claim with 
 you my abbot's right to know the secrets of your 
 heart : but surely that breast hides nothing which 
 is unworthy to be spoken to me, however un- 
 worthy I may be to hear it ! " 
 
 " Why should I not be sad, Pambo, my friend ? 
 Does not Solomon say that there is a time for 
 mourning?" 
 
 " True : but a time for mirth also." 
 ' " None to the penitent, burdened with the guilt 
 of many sins." 
 
 " Recollect what the blessed Anthony used to 
 say : ' Trust not in thine own righteousness, and 
 regret not that which is past.' " 
 
 " I do neither, Pambo." 
 
 " Do not be too sure of that. Is it not because 
 thou art still trusting in thyself, that thou dost 
 regret the past, which shows thee that thou art 
 not that which thou wouldst gladly pride thyself 
 on being?" 
 
 " Pambo, my friend," said Arsenius, solemnly, 
 " I will tell thee all. My sins are not yet past ; 
 for Honorius, my pupil, still lives, and in him lives 
 the weakness and the misery of Rome. My sins 
 past? If they are, why do I see rising before me, 
 night after night, that train of accusing spectres, 
 ghosts of men slain in battle, widows and orphans, 
 virgins of the Lord shrieking in the grasp of bar- 
 barians, who stand by my bedside and cry, ' Hadst 
 thou done thy duty, we had not been thus ! 
 Where is that imperial charge which God com- 
 mitted to thee ? '" . . . And the old man hid his 
 face in his hands and wept bitterly. 
 
 Pambo laid his hand again tenderly on the 
 weeper's shoulder.
 
 The Laura Again 201 
 
 "Is there no pride here, my brother? Who 
 art thou, to change the fate of nations and the 
 hearts of emperors, which are in the hand of the 
 King of kings ; If thou wert weak, and imperfect 
 in thy work for unfaithful, I will warrant thee, 
 thou wert never He put thee there, because 
 thou wert imperfect, that so that which has come 
 to pass might come to pass; and thou bearest 
 thine own burden only and yet not thou, but 
 He who bore it for thee." 
 
 " Why then am I tormented by these nightly 
 visions? " 
 
 "Fear them not, friend. They are spirits of 
 evil, and therefore lying spirits. Were they good 
 spirits they would speak to thee only in pity, for- 
 giveness, encouragement. But be they ghosts or 
 demons, they must be evil, because they are ac- 
 cusers, like the Evil One himself, the accuser of 
 the saints. He is the father of lies, and his chil- 
 dren will be like himself. What said the blessed 
 Anthony? That a monk should not busy his 
 brain with painting spectres, or give himself up 
 for lost ; but rather be cheerful, as one who knows 
 that he is redeemed, and in the hands of the Lord, 
 where the Evil One has no power to hurt him. 
 ' For,' he used to say, ' the demons behaved to us 
 even as they find us. If they see us cast down 
 and faithless, they terrify us still more, that they 
 may plunge us in despair. But if they see us 
 full of faith, and joyful in the Lord, with our souls 
 filled with the glory which shall be, then they 
 shrink abashed, and flee away in confusion.' 
 Cheer up, friend ! such thoughts are of the night, 
 the hour of Satan and of the powers of darkness ; 
 and with the dawn they flee away."
 
 2O2 Hypatia 
 
 " And yet things are revealed to men upon 
 their beds, in visions of the night." 
 
 "Be it so. Nothing, at all events, has been 
 revealed to thee upon thy bed, except that which 
 thou knowest already far better than Satan does, 
 namely, that thou art a sinner. But for me, my 
 friend, though I doubt not that such things are, 
 it is the day, and not the night, which brings 
 revelations." 
 
 "How, then?" 
 
 " Because by day I can see to read that book 
 which is written, like the Law given on Sinai, upon 
 tables of stone, by the finger of God himself." 
 
 Arsenius looked up at him inquiringly. Pambo 
 smiled. 
 
 "Thou knowest that, like many holy men of 
 old, I am no scholar, and knew not even the Greek 
 tongue, till thou, out of thy brotherly kindness, 
 taughtest it to me. But hast thou never heard 
 what Anthony said to a certain Pagan who re- 
 proached him with his ignorance of books? 
 'Which is first,' he asked, 'spirit, or letter? 
 Spirit, sayest thou? Then know, the healthy 
 spirit needs no letters. My book is the whole 
 creation, lying open before me, wherein I can 
 read, whensoever I please, the word of God.' " 
 
 " Dost thou not undervalue learning, my friend ? " 
 
 " I am old among monks, and have seen much 
 of their ways; and among them my simplicity 
 seems to have seen this many a man wearing 
 himself with study, and tormenting his soul as 
 to whether he believed rightly this doctrine and 
 that, while he knew not with Solomon that in 
 much learning is much sorrow, and that while he 
 was puzzling at the letter of God's message, the
 
 The Laura Again 203 
 
 spirit of it was going fast and faster out of 
 him." 
 
 "And how didst thou know that of such a 
 man?" 
 
 "By seeing him become a more and more 
 learned theologian, and more and more zealous 
 for the letter of orthodoxy ; and yet less and less 
 loving and merciful less and less full of trust in 
 God, and of hopeful thoughts for himself and for 
 his brethren, till he seemed to have darkened his 
 whole soul with disputations, which breed only 
 strife, and to have forgotten utterly the message 
 which is written in that book wherewith the blessed 
 Anthony was content." 
 
 " Of what message dost thou speak ? " 
 
 " Look," said the old abbot, stretching his hand 
 toward the Eastern desert, " and judge, like a wise 
 man, for thyself! " 
 
 As he spoke, a long arrow of level light flashed 
 down the gorge from crag to crag, awakening 
 every crack and slab to vividness and life. The 
 great crimson sun rose swiftly through the dim 
 night-mist of the desert, and as he poured his 
 glory down the glen, the haze rose in threads and 
 plumes, and vanished, leaving the stream to sparkle 
 round the rocks, like the living, twinkling eye of 
 the whole scene. Swallows flashed by hundreds 
 out of the cliffs, and began their air-dance for the 
 day; the jerboa hopped stealthily homeward on 
 his stilts from his stolen meal in the monastery 
 garden; the brown sand-lizards underneath the 
 stones opened one eyelid each, and having satisfied 
 themselves that it was day, dragged their bloated 
 bodies and whip-like tails out into the most burn- 
 ing patch of gravel which they could find, and
 
 204 Hypatia 
 
 nestling together as a further protection against 
 cold, fell fast asleep again ; the buzzard, who con- 
 sidered himself lord of the valley, awoke with a 
 long querulous bark, and rising aloft in two or 
 three vast rings, to stretch himself after his night's 
 sleep, hung motionless, watching every lark which 
 chirruped on the cliffs ; while from the far-off Nile 
 below, the awakening croak of pelicans, the clang 
 of geese, the whistle of the godwit and curlew, 
 came ringing up the windings of the glen; and 
 last of all the voices of the monks rose chanting a 
 morning hymn to some wild Eastern air; and a 
 new day had begun in Scetis, like those which 
 went before, and those which were to follow after, 
 week after week, year after year, of toil and prayer 
 as quiet as its sleep. 
 
 " What does that teach thee, Aufugus, my friend ? " 
 
 Arsenius was silent. 
 
 " To me it teaches this : that God is light, and 
 in Him is no darkness at all. That in His presence 
 is life, and fulness of joy for evermore. That He 
 is the giver, who delights in His own bounty ; the 
 lover, whose mercy is over all His works and why 
 not over thee, too, O thou of little faith ? Look at 
 those thousand birds and without our Father 
 not one of them shall fall to the ground : and art 
 thou not of more value than many sparrows, thou 
 for whom God sent his Son to die ? . . . Ah, my 
 friend, we must look out and around to see what 
 God is like. It is when we persist in turning our 
 eyes inward, and prying curiously over our own 
 imperfections, that we learn to make a God after 
 our own image, and fancy that our own darkness 
 and hardness of heart are the patterns of His light 
 and love."
 
 The Laura Again 205 
 
 " Thou speakest rather as a philosopher than as 
 a penitent Catholic. For me, I feel that I want to 
 look more, and not less, inward. Deeper self- 
 examination, completer abstraction, than I can 
 attain even here, are what I crave for. I long 
 forgive me, my friend but I long more and 
 more, daily, for the solitary life. This earth is 
 accursed by man's sin: the less we see of it, it 
 seems to me, the better." 
 
 " I may speak as a philosopher, or as a heathen, 
 for aught I know : yet it seems to me that, as they 
 say, the 'half loaf is better than none; that the 
 wise man will make the best of what he has, and 
 throw away no lesson because the book is some- 
 what torn and soiled. The earth teaches me thus 
 far already. Shall I shut my eyes to those in- 
 visible things of God which are clearly manifested 
 by the things which are made, because some day 
 they will be more clearly manifested than now? 
 But as for more abstraction, are we so worldly here 
 in Scetis? " 
 
 " Nay, my friend, each man has surely his voca- 
 tion, and for each some peculiar method of life is 
 more edifying than another. In my case, the 
 habits of mind which I acquired in the world will 
 cling to me in spite of myself even here. I cannot 
 help watching the doings of others, studying their 
 characters, planning and plotting for them, trying 
 to prognosticate their future fate. Not a word, 
 not a gesture of this our little family, but turns 
 away my mind from the one thing needful." 
 
 " And do you fancy that the anchorite in his 
 cell has fewer distractions ? " 
 
 " What can he have but the supply of the mere 
 necessary wants of life ? and them, even, he may
 
 206 Hypatia 
 
 abridge to the gathering of a few roots and herbs. 
 Men have lived like the beasts already, that they 
 might at the same time live like the angels and 
 why should not I also ? " 
 
 " And thou art the wise man of the world the 
 student of the hearts of others the anatomizer of 
 thine own? Hast thou not found out that, besides 
 a craving stomach, man carries with him a corrupt 
 heart? Many a man I have seen who, in his haste 
 to fly from the fiends without him, has forgotten 
 to close the door of his heart against worse fiends 
 who were ready to harbor within him. Many a 
 monk, friend, changes his place, but not the 
 anguish of his soul. I have known those who, 
 driven to feed on their own thoughts in solitude, 
 have desperately cast themselves from cliffs or 
 ripped up their own bodies, in the longing to 
 escape from thoughts, from which one companion, 
 one kindly voice, might have delivered them. I 
 have known those, too, who have been so puffed 
 up by those very penances which were meant to 
 humble them, that they have despised all means 
 of grace, as though they were already perfect, and 
 refusing even the Holy Eucharist, have lived in 
 self-glorying dreams and visions suggested by the 
 evil spirits. One such I knew, who, in the mad- 
 ness of his pride, refused to be counselled by any 
 mortal man saying that he would call no man 
 master: and what befell him? He who used to 
 pride himself on wandering a day's journey into 
 the desert without food or drink, who boasted that 
 he could sustain life for three months at a time 
 only on wild herbs and the Blessed Bread, seized 
 with an inward fire, fled from his cell back to the 
 theatres, the circus, and the taverns, and ended
 
 The Laura Again 207 
 
 his miserable days in desperate gluttony, holding 
 all things to be but phantasms, denying his own 
 existence, and that of God himself." 
 
 Arsenius shook his head. 
 
 " Be it so. But my case is different. I have yet 
 more to confess, my friend. Day by day I am 
 more and more haunted by the remembrance of 
 that world from which I fled. I know that if I 
 returned I should feel no pleasure in those pomps, 
 which, even while I battened on them, I despised. 
 Can I hear any more the voice of singing men and 
 singing women ; or discern any longer what I eat 
 or what I drink ? And yet the palaces of those 
 seven hills, their statesmen and their generals, their 
 intrigues, their falls, and their triumphs for they 
 might rise and conquer yet ! for no moment are 
 they out of my imagination, no moment in which 
 they are not tempting me back to them, like a 
 moth to the candle which has already scorched 
 him, with a dreadful spell, which I must at last obey, 
 wretch that I am, against my own will, or break by 
 fleeing into some outer desert, from whence return 
 will be impossible ! " 
 
 Pambo smiled. 
 
 " Again, I say, this is the worldly-wise man, the 
 searcher of hearts ! And he would fain flee from 
 the little Laura, which does turn his thoughts at 
 times from such vain dreams, to a solitude where 
 he will be utterly unable to escape those dreams. 
 Well, friend ! and what if thou art troubled at 
 times by anxieties and schemes for this brother 
 and for that? Better to be anxious for others than 
 only for thyself. Better to have something to love 
 even something to weep over than to become 
 in some lonely cavern thine own world, perhaps,
 
 208 Hypatia 
 
 as more than one whom I have known, thine own 
 God." 
 
 "Do you know what you are saying?" asked 
 Arsenius in a startled tone. 
 
 " I say, that by fleeing into solitude a man cuts 
 himself off from all which makes a Christian man ; 
 from law, obedience, fellow-help, self-sacrifice 
 from the communion of saints itself." 
 
 "How then?" 
 
 " How canst thou hold communion with those 
 toward whom thou canst show no love? And 
 how canst thou show thy love but by works of 
 love?" 
 
 " I can, at least, pray day and night for all man- 
 kind. Has that no place or rather, has it not 
 the mightiest place in the communion of saints? " 
 
 " He who cannot pray for his brothers whom he 
 does see, and whose sins and temptations he knows, 
 will pray but dully, my friend Aufugus, for his 
 brothers whom he does not see, or for anything 
 else. And he who will not labor for his brothers, 
 the same will soon cease to pray for them, or love 
 them either. And then, what is written ? ' If a 
 man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how 
 will he love God whom he hath not seen ? ' " 
 
 "Again, I say, do you know whither your 
 argument leads? " 
 
 " I am a plain man, and know nothing about 
 arguments. If a thing be true, let it lead where it 
 will, for it leads where God wills." 
 
 " But at this rate, it were better for a man to take 
 a wife, and have children, and mix himself up in all 
 the turmoil of carnal affections, in order to have as 
 many as possible to love, and fear for, and work 
 for."
 
 The Laura Again 209 
 
 Pambo was silent for a while. 
 
 " I am a monk and no logician. But this I say, 
 that thou leavest not the Laura for the desert with 
 my good will. I would rather, had I my wish, see 
 thy wisdom installed somewhere nearer the metrop- 
 olis at Troe or Canopus, for example where 
 thou mighest be at hand to fight the Lord's battles. 
 Why wert thou taught worldly wisdom, but to use 
 it for the good of the Church? It is enough. Let 
 us go." 
 
 And the two old men walked homeward across 
 the valley, little guessing the practical answer which 
 was ready for their argument in Abbot Pambo's 
 cell, in the shape of a tall and grim ecclesiastic, who 
 was busily satisfying his hunger with dates and 
 millet, and by no means refusing the palm-wine, 
 the sole delicacy of the monastery, which had been 
 brought forth only in honor of a guest. 
 
 The stately and courteous hospitality of Eastern 
 manners, as well as the self- restraining kindliness 
 of monastic Christianity, forbade the abbot to 
 interrupt the stranger ; and it was not till he had 
 finished a hearty meal that Pambo asked his name 
 and errand. 
 
 " My unworthiness is called Peter the Reader. 
 I come from Cyril, with letters and messages to the 
 brother Aufugus." 
 
 Pambo rose, and bowed reverentially. 
 
 " We have heard your good report, sir, as of one 
 zealously affected in the cause of the Church 
 Catholic. Will it please you to follow us to the 
 cell of Aufugus?" 
 
 Peter stalked after them with a sufficiently im- 
 portant air to the little hut, and there taking from 
 his bosom Cyril's epistle, handed it to Arsenius,
 
 210 Hypatia 
 
 who sat long, reading and re-reading with a 
 clouded brow, while Pambo watched him with 
 simple awe, not daring to interrupt by a question 
 lucubrations which he considered of unfathomable 
 depth. 
 
 " These are indeed the last days," said Arsenius, 
 at length, " spoken of by the prophet, when many 
 shall run to and fro. So Heraclian has actually 
 sailed for Italy?" 
 
 " His armament was met on the high seas by 
 Alexandrian merchantmen, three weeks ago." 
 
 "And Orestes hardens his heart more and 
 more ? " 
 
 " Ay, Pharaoh that he is ; or rather, the heathen 
 woman hardens it for him." 
 
 " I always feared that woman above all the 
 schools of the heathen," said Arsenius. " But the 
 Count Heraclian, whom I always held for the 
 wisest as well as the most righteous of men ! 
 Alas ! alas ! what virtue will withstand, when 
 ambition enters the heart ! " 
 
 " Fearful, truly," said Peter, " is that same lust 
 of power: but for him, I have never trusted him 
 since he began to be indulgent to those Donatists." 
 
 "Too true. So does one sin beget another." 
 
 "And I consider that indulgence to sinners is 
 the worst of all sins whatsoever." 
 
 "Not of all, surely, reverend sir?" said Pambo, 
 humbly. But Peter, taking no notice of the inter- 
 ruption, went on to Arsenius : 
 
 " And now, what answer am I to bear back 
 from your wisdom to his holiness?" 
 
 " Let me see let me see. He might it 
 needs consideration I ought to know more of 
 the state of parties. He has, of course, communi-
 
 The Laura Again 211 
 
 cated with the African bishops, and tried to unite 
 them with him ? " 
 
 " Two months ago. But the stiff-necked schis- 
 matics are still jealous of him, and hold aloof." 
 
 " Schismatics is too harsh a term, my friend. 
 But has he sent to Constantinople?" 
 
 " He needs a messenger accustomed to courts. 
 It was possible, he thought, that your experience 
 might undertake the mission." 
 
 " Me ? Who am I ? Alas ! alas ! fresh tempta- 
 tion daily ! Let him send by the hand of whom 
 he will. . . . And yet were I at least in 
 Alexandria I might advise from day to day. . . . 
 I should certainly see my way clearer. . . . And 
 unforeseen chances might arise, too. . . . Pambo, 
 my friend, thinkest thou that it would be sinful to 
 obey the Holy Patriarch ? " 
 
 " Aha ! " said Pambo, laughing, " and thou art 
 he who was for fleeing into the desert an hour 
 agone ! And now, when once thou smellest the 
 battle afar off, thou art pawing in the valley, like 
 the old war-horse. Go, and God be with thee ! 
 Thou wilt be none the worse for it. Thou art too 
 old to fall in love, too poor to buy a bishopric, 
 and too righteous to have one given thee." 
 
 " Art thou in earnest? " 
 
 " What did I say to thee in the garden ? Go, 
 and see our son, and send me news of him." 
 
 " Ah ! shame on my worldly-mindedness ! I had 
 forgotten all this time to inquire for him. How is 
 the youth, reverend sir? " 
 
 " Whom do you mean? " 
 
 " Philammon, our spiritual son, whom we sent 
 down to you three months ago," said Pambo. 
 " Risen to honor he is, by this time, I doubt not?"
 
 2 1 2 Hypatia 
 
 "He? He is gone!" 
 
 "Gone?" 
 
 " Ay, the wretch, with the curse of Judas on 
 him. He had not been with us three days before 
 he beat me openly in the patriarch's court, cast off 
 the Christian faith, and fled away to the heathen 
 woman, Hypatia, of whom he is enamoured." 
 
 The two old men looked at each other with 
 blank and horror-stricken faces. 
 
 "Enamoured of Hypatia?" said Arsenius, at 
 last. 
 
 " It is impossible ! " sobbed Pambo. " The boy 
 must have been treated harshly, unjustly? Some 
 one has wronged him, and he was accustomed 
 only to kindness, and could not bear it. Cruel 
 men that you are, and unfaithful stewards. The 
 Lord will require the child's blood at your 
 hands ! " 
 
 " Ay," said Peter, rising fiercely, " that is the 
 world's justice ! Blame me, blame the patriarch, 
 blame any and every one but the sinner. As if 
 a hot head and a hotter heart were not enough to 
 explain it all ! As if a young fool had never before 
 been bewitched by a fair face ? " 
 
 " Oh, my friends, my friends," cried Arsenius, 
 " why revile each other without cause ? I, I only 
 am to blame. I advised you, Pambo ! I sent 
 him I ought to have known what was I doing, 
 old worldling that I am, to thrust the poor inno- 
 cent forth into the temptations of Babylon? This 
 comes of all my schemings and my plottings ! 
 And now his blood will be on my head as if I 
 had not sins enough to bear already, I must go 
 and add this over and above all, to sell my own 
 Joseph, the son of my old age, to the Midianites !
 
 The Laura Again 2 1 3 
 
 Here, I will go with you now at once I will 
 not rest till I find him, clasp his knees till he pities 
 my gray hairs! Let Heraclian and Orestes go 
 their way for aught I care I will find him, I say. 
 O Absalom, my son ! would to God I had died 
 for thee, my son ! my son ! "
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE BOWER OF ACRASIA 
 
 house which Pelagia and the Amal had 
 . hired after their return to Alexandria, was 
 one of the most splendid in the city. They had 
 been now living there three months or more, and 
 in that time Pelagia's taste had supplied the little 
 which it needed to convert it into a paradise of 
 lazy luxury. She herself was wealthy; and her 
 Gothic guests, overburdened with Roman spoils, 
 the very use of which they could not understand, 
 freely allowed her and her nymphs to throw away 
 for them the treasures which they had won in many 
 a fearful right. What matter? If they had enough 
 to eat, and more than enough to drink, how could 
 the useless surplus of their riches be better spent 
 than in keeping their ladies in good humor? . . . 
 And when it was all gone . . . they would go 
 somewhere or other who cared whither ? and 
 win more. The whole world was before them 
 waiting to be plundered, and they would fulfil their 
 mission, whensoever it suited them. In the mean- 
 time they were in no hurry. Egypt furnished in 
 profusion every sort of food which could gratify 
 palates far more nice than theirs. And as for wine 
 few of them went to bed sober from one week's 
 end to another. Could the souls of warriors have 
 more, even in the halls of Valhalla? 
 
 So thought the party who occupied the inner 
 court of the house, one blazing afternoon in the
 
 The Bower of Acrasia 215 
 
 same week in which Cyril's messenger had so 
 rudely broken in on the repose of the Scetis. 
 
 Their repose, at least, was still untouched. The 
 great city roared without; Orestes plotted, and 
 Cyril, counterplotted, and the fate of a continent 
 hung or seemed to hang trembling in the 
 balance ; but the turmoil of it no more troubled 
 those lazy Titans within, than did the roll and 
 rattle of the carriage-wheels disturb the parrakeets 
 and sunbirds which peopled, under an awning of 
 gilded wire, the inner court of Pelagia's house. 
 Why should they fret themselves with it all ? What 
 was every fresh riot, execution, conspiracy, bank- 
 ruptcy, but a sign that the fruit was growing 
 ripe for the plucking ? Even Heraclian's rebellion, 
 and Orestes's suspected conspiracy, were to the 
 younger and coarser Goths a sort of child's play, 
 at which they could look on and laugh, and bet, 
 from morning till night ; while to the more cunning 
 heads, such as Wulf and Smid, they were but signs 
 of the general rottenness new cracks in those 
 great walls over which they intended, with a simple 
 and boyish consciousness of power, to mount to 
 victory when they chose. 
 
 And in the meantime, till the right opening 
 offered, what was there better than to eat, drink, 
 and sleep? And certainly they had chosen a 
 charming retreat in which to fulfil that lofty mis- 
 sion. Columns of purple and green porphyry, 
 among which gleamed the white limbs of delicate 
 statues, surrounded a basin of water, fed by a per- 
 petual jet, which sprinkled with cool spray the 
 leaves of the oranges and mimosas, mingling its 
 murmurs with the warblings of the tropic birds 
 which nestled among the branches.
 
 2 1 6 Hypatia 
 
 On one side of the fountain, under the shade of a 
 broad-leaved palmetto, lay the Amal's mighty limbs, 
 stretched out on cushions, his yellow hair crowned 
 with vine-leaves, his hand grasping a golden cup, 
 which had been won from Indian Rajahs by Par- 
 thian Chosroos, from Chosroos by Roman generals, 
 from Roman generals by the heroes of sheepskin and 
 horsehide ; while Pelagia, by the side of the sleepy 
 Hercules-Dionysos, lay leaning over the brink of 
 the fountain, lazily dipping her fingers into the 
 water, and basking, like the gnats which hovered 
 over its surface, in the mere pleasure of existence. 
 
 On the opposite brink of the basin, tended each 
 by a dark-eyed Hebe, who filled the wine-cups, 
 and helped now and then to empty them, lay the 
 especial friends and companions in arms of the 
 Amal, Goderic the son of Ermenric, and Agilmund 
 the son of Cniva, who both, like the Amal, boasted 
 a descent from gods ; and last, but not least, that 
 most important and all but sacred personage, Smid 
 the son of Troll, reverenced for cunning beyond 
 the sons of men ; for not only could he make and 
 mend all matters, from a pontoon bridge to a gold 
 bracelet, shoe horses and doctor them, charm all 
 diseases out of man and beast, carve runes, inter- 
 pret war-omens, foretell weather, raise the winds, 
 and, finally, conquer in the battle of mead-horns 
 all except Wulf the son of Ovida; but he had 
 actually, during a sojourn among the half-civilized 
 Maesogoths, picked up a fair share of Latin and 
 Greek, and a rough knowledge of reading and 
 writing. 
 
 A few yards off lay old Wulf upon his back, his 
 knees in the air, his hands crossed behind his head, 
 keeping up, even in his sleep, a half-conscious com-
 
 The Bower of Acrasia 217 
 
 ment of growls on the following intellectual conver- 
 sation : 
 
 " Noble wine this, is it not? " 
 
 " Perfect. Who bought it for us? " 
 
 "Old Miriam bought it, at some great tax- 
 farmer's sale. The fellow was bankrupt, and 
 Miriam said she got it for the half what it was 
 worth." 
 
 " Serve the penny-turning rascal right. The old 
 vixen-fox took care, I '11 warrant her, to get her 
 profit out of the bargain." 
 
 " Never mind if she did. We can afford to pay 
 like men, if we earn like men." 
 
 " We sha'n't afford it long, at this rate," growled 
 Wulf. 
 
 " Then we '11 go and earn more. I am tired of 
 doing nothing." 
 
 " People need not do nothing, unless they 
 choose," said Goderic. " Wulf and I had coursing 
 fit for a king, the other morning on the sand-hills. 
 I had had no appetite for a week before, and I 
 have been as sharp-set as a Danube pike ever 
 since." 
 
 " Coursing? What, with those long-legged 
 brush-tailed brutes, like a fox upon stilts, which 
 the prefect cozened you into buying." 
 
 " All I can say is, that we put up a herd of those 
 what do they call them here deer with goat's 
 horns?" 
 
 "Antelopes?" 
 
 " That 's it and the curs ran into them as a 
 falcon does into a skein of ducks. Wulf and I 
 galloped and galloped over those accursed sand- 
 heaps till the horses stuck fast; and when they got 
 their wind again, we found each pair of dogs with 
 
 K Vol. VI
 
 2 1 8 Hypatia 
 
 a deer down between them and what can man 
 want more, if he cannot get fighting? You eat 
 them, so you need not sneer." 
 
 " Well, dogs are the only things worth having, 
 then, that this Alexandria does produce." 
 
 " Except fair ladies ! " put in one of the girls. 
 
 " Of course. I '11 except the women. But the 
 men " 
 
 " The what? I have not seen a man since I came 
 here, except a dock-worker or two priests and 
 fine gentlemen they are all and you don't call 
 them men, surely?" 
 
 " What on earth do they do, beside riding don- 
 keys?" 
 
 " Philosophize, they say." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " I 'm sure I don't know ; some sort of slave's 
 quill-driving, I suppose." 
 
 " Pelagia ! do you know what philosophizing 
 is?" 
 
 No and I don't care." 
 
 "I do," quoth Agilmund, with a look of superior 
 wisdom ; " I saw a philosopher the other day." 
 
 " And what sort of thing was it? " 
 
 " I '11 tell you. I was walking down the great 
 street there, going to the harbor; and I saw a 
 crowd of boys men they call them here going 
 into a large doorway. So I asked one of them 
 what was doing, and the fellow, instead of answer- 
 ing me, pointed at my legs, and set all the other 
 monkeys laughing. So I boxed his ears, and he 
 tumbled down." 
 
 " They all do so here, if you box their ears," said 
 the Amal, meditatively, as if he had hit upon a great 
 inductive law.
 
 The Bower of Acrasia 2 1 9 
 
 " Ah," said Pelagia, looking up with her most 
 winning smile, " they are not such giants as you, 
 who make a poor little woman feel like a gazelle in 
 the lion's paw ! " 
 
 " Well it struck me that, as I spoke in Gothic, 
 the boy might not have understood me, being a 
 Greek. So I walked in at the door, to save 
 questions, and see for myself. And there a fellow 
 held out his hand I suppose for money. So I 
 gave him two or three gold pieces, and a box on 
 the ear, at which he tumbled down of course, but 
 seemed very well satisfied. So I walked in." 
 
 " And what did you see ? " 
 
 " A great hall, large enough for a thousand 
 heroes, full of these Egyptian rascals scribbling 
 with pencils on tablets. And at the farther end of 
 it the most beautiful woman I ever saw with right 
 fair hair and blue eyes, talking, talking I could 
 not understand it; but the donkey-riders seemed 
 to think it very fine; for they went on looking 
 first at her, and then at their tablets, gaping like 
 frogs in drought. And, certainly, she looked as 
 fair as the sun, and talked like an Alruna-wife. 
 Not that I knew what it was about, but one can see 
 somehow, you know. So I fell asleep ; and when 
 I woke, and came out, I met some one who under- 
 stood me, and he told me that it was the famous 
 maiden, the great philosopher. And that's what 
 I know about philosophy." 
 
 " She was very much wasted, then, on such soft- 
 handed starvelings. Why don't she marry some 
 hero?" 
 
 " Because there are none here to marry," said 
 Pelagia ; " except some who are fast netted, I 
 fancy, already."
 
 22O Hypatia 
 
 " But what do they talk about, and tell people to 
 do, these philosophers, Pelagia? " 
 
 " Oh, they don't tell any one to do anything, 
 at least, if they do nobody ever does it, as far 
 as I can see; but they talk about suns and 
 stars, and right and wrong, and ghosts and 
 spirits, and that sort of thing; and about not 
 enjoying oneself too much. Not that I ever 
 saw that they were any happier than any one 
 else." 
 
 " She must have been an Alruna-maiden," said 
 Wulf, half to himself. 
 
 "She is a very conceited creature, and I hate 
 her," said Pelagia. 
 
 " I believe you," said Wulf. 
 
 " What is an Alruna-maiden ? " asked one of the 
 girls. 
 
 " Something as like you as a salmon is like a 
 horse-leech. Heroes, will you hear a saga?" 
 
 " If it is a cool one," said Agilmund ; " about 
 ice, and pine-trees, and snow-storms. I shall be 
 roasted brown in three days more." 
 
 " Oh," said the Amal, " that we were on the Alps 
 again for only two hours, sliding down those snow- 
 slopes on our shields, with the sleet whistling about 
 our ears ! That was sport ! " 
 
 "To those who could keep their seat," said 
 Goderic. "Who went head over heels into a 
 glacier-crack, and was dug out of fifty feet of snow, 
 and had to be put inside a fresh-killed horse before 
 he could be brought to life ? " 
 
 " Not you, surely," said Pelagia. " Oh, you won- 
 derful creature! what things you have done and 
 suffered ! " 
 
 "Well," said the Amal, with a look of stolid self-
 
 The Bower of Acrasia 221 
 
 satisfaction, "I suppose I have seen a good deal in 
 my time, eh ? " 
 
 "Yes, my Hercules, you have gone through your 
 twelve labors, and saved your poor little Hesione 
 after them all, when she was chained to the rock, 
 for the ugly sea-monsters to eat; and she will 
 cherish you, and keep you out of scrapes now, for 
 her own sake ; " and Pelagia threw her arms round 
 the great bull-neck, and drew it down to her. 
 
 " Will you hear my saga ? " said Wulf, impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 " Of course we will," said the Amal ; " any- 
 thing to pass the time." 
 
 " But let it be about snow," said Agilmund. 
 
 " Not about Alruna-wives ? " 
 
 " About them, too," said Goderic ; " my mother 
 was one, so I must needs stand up for them." 
 
 " She was, boy. Do you be her son. Now 
 hear, Wolves of the Goths ! " 
 
 And the old man took up his little lute, or as 
 he would probably have called it, "fidel," and 
 began chanting, to his own accompaniment. 
 
 Over the camp fires 
 
 Drank I with heroes, 
 
 Under the Donau bank 
 
 Warm in the snow-trench, 
 
 Sagamen heard I there, 
 
 Men of the Longbeards, 
 
 Cunning and ancient, 
 
 H oney-sweet-voiced. 
 
 Scaring the wolf-cub, 
 
 Scaring the horn-owl out, 
 
 Shaking the snow-wreaths 
 
 Down from the pine-bough8| . 
 
 Up to the star-roof 
 
 Rang out their song. 
 
 Singing how Winil men
 
 222 Hypatia 
 
 Over the icefloes 
 Sledging from Scanland on 
 Came unto Scoring ; 
 Singing of Gambara 
 Freya's beloved. 
 Mother of Ayo, 
 Mother of Ibor. 
 Singing of Wendel men, 
 Ambri and Assi ; 
 How to the Winilfolk 
 Went they with war-words 
 ** Few are ye, strangers, 
 And many are we ; 
 Pay us now toll and fee, 
 Clothyarn, and rings, and beeves | 
 Else at the raven's meal 
 Bide the sharp bill's doom." 
 
 Clutching the dwarfs' work then, 
 Clutching the bullock's shell, 
 Girding gray iron on, 
 Forth fared the Winils all, 
 Fared the Alruna's sons, 
 Ayo and Ibor. 
 Mad of heart stalked they: 
 Loud wept the women all, 
 Loud the Alruna-wife ; 
 Sore was their need. 
 
 Out of the morning land, 
 Over the snowdrifts, 
 Beautiful Freya came, 
 Tripping to Scoring. 
 White were the moorlands, 
 And frozen before her ; 
 But green were the moorland*, 
 And blooming behind her, 
 Out of her golden locks 
 Shaking the spring flowers, 
 Out of her garments 
 Shaking the south wind, 
 Around in the birches
 
 The Bower of Acrasia 223 
 
 Awaking the throstles, 
 And making chaste housewives all 
 Long for their heroes home, 
 Loving and love-giving, 
 Came she to Scoring. 
 Came unto Gambara, 
 Wisest of Valas 
 44 Vala, why weepest thou ! 
 Far in the wide-blue, 
 High up in the Elfin-home, 
 Heard I thy weeping." 
 
 44 Stop not my weeping, 
 Till one can fight seven. 
 Sons have I, heroes tall, 
 First in the sword-play ; 
 This day at the Wendels' hands 
 Eagles must tear them ; 
 While their mothers, thrall-weary, 
 Must grind for the Wendels." 
 
 Wept the Alruna-wife ; 
 Kissed her fair Freya 
 * Far off in the morning land 
 High in Valhalla, 
 A window stands open, 
 Its sill is the snow-peaks, 
 Its posts are the water-spouts 
 Storm-rack its lintel, 
 Gold cloud-flakes above it 
 Are piled for the roofing. 
 Far up to the Elfin-home, 
 High in the wide-blue. 
 Smiles out each morning thence 
 Odin Allfather ; 
 From under the cloud-eaves, 
 Smiles out on the heroes, 
 Smiles out on chaste housewives all* 
 Smiles on the brood-mares, 
 Smiles on the smith's work: 
 And theirs is the sword-luck, 
 With them is the glory 
 So Odin hath sworn it
 
 224 Hypatia 
 
 Who first in the morning 
 Shall meet him and greet him.** 
 Still the Alruna wept 
 M Who then shall greet him ? 
 Women alone are here : 
 Far on the moorlands 
 Behind the war-lindens, 
 In vain for the bill's doom 
 Watch Winil heroes all, 
 One against seven." 
 
 Sweetly the Queen laughed 
 44 Hear thou my counsel now ; 
 Take to thee cunning. 
 Beloved of Freya. 
 Take thou thy women-folk, 
 Maidens and wives : 
 Over your ankles 
 Lace on the white war-hose ; 
 Over your bosoms 
 Link up the hard mailnets ; 
 Over your lips 
 
 Plait Jong tresses with cunning ; 
 So war-beasts full-bearded 
 King Odin shall deem you, 
 When off the gray sea-beach 
 At sunrise ye greet him;" 
 
 Night's son was driving 
 His golden-haired horses up. 
 Over the Eastern firths 
 High flashed their manes. 
 Smiled from the cloud-eaves out 
 Allfather Odin, 
 Waiting the battle-sport : 
 Freya stood by him. 
 M Who are these heroes tall 
 Lusty-limbed Longbeards ? 
 Over the swans' bath 
 Why cry they to me ? 
 Bones should be crashing fast, 
 Wolves should be full-fed,
 
 The Bower of Acrasia 225 
 
 Where'er such, mad-hearted, 
 Swing hands in the sword-play." 
 Sweetly laughed Freya 
 " A name thou hast given them 
 Shames neither thee nor them, 
 Well can they wear it. 
 Give them the victory, 
 First have they greeted thee ; 
 Give them the victory, 
 Yokefellow mine ! 
 Maidens and wives are these 
 Wives of the Winils ; 
 Few are their heroes 
 And far on the war-road, 
 So over the swans' bath 
 They cry unto thee." 
 
 Royally laughed he then ; 
 Dear was that craft to him, 
 Odin Allfather, 
 Shaking the clouds. 
 " Cunning are women all, 
 Bold and importunate ! 
 Longbeards their name shall be, 
 Ravens shall thank them : 
 Where the women are heroes, 
 What must the men be like ? 
 Theirs is the victory ; 
 No need of me 1 " x 
 
 " There ! " said Wulf, when the song was ended ; 
 " is that cool enough for you? " 
 
 " Rather too cool ; eh, Pelagia? " said the Amal, 
 laughing. 
 
 " Ay," went on the old man, bitterly enough, 
 " such were your mothers ; and such were your 
 sisters ; and such your wives must be, if you in- 
 
 1 This punning legend may be seen in Paul Warnefrid's Gesta 
 Langobardorum. The metre and language are intended a* im- 
 itations of those of the earlier Eddaic poems.
 
 226 Hypatia 
 
 tend to last much longer on the face of the earth 
 women who care for something better than 
 good eating, strong drinking, and soft lying." 
 
 "All very true, Prince Wulf," said Agilmund, 
 " but I don't like the saga after all. It was a great 
 deal too like what Pelagia here says those philos- 
 ophers talk about right and wrong, and that 
 sort of thing." 
 
 " I don't doubt it." 
 
 " Now I like a really good saga, about gods and 
 giants, and the fire kingdoms and the snow king- 
 doms, and the JEslr making men and women out 
 of two sticks, and all that." 
 
 " Ay," said the Amal, " something like nothing 
 one ever saw in one's life, all stark mad and topsy- 
 turvy, like one's dreams when one has been drunk ; 
 something grand which you cannot understand, 
 but which sets you thinking over it all the morn- 
 ing after." 
 
 " Well," said Goderic, " my mother was an 
 Alruna-woman, so I will not be the bird to foul its 
 own nest. But I like to hear about wild beasts 
 and ghosts, ogres, and fire-drakes, and nicors 
 something that one could kill if one had a chance, 
 as one's fathers had." 
 
 " Your fathers would never have killed nicors," 
 said Wulf, " if they had been " 
 
 " Like us I know," said the Amal. " Now 
 tell me, prince, you are old enough to be our 
 father; and did you ever see a nicer?" 
 
 " My brother saw one, in the Northern sea, three 
 fathoms long, with the body of a bison-bull, and 
 the head of a cat, and the beard of a man, and 
 tusks an ell long lying down on its breast, watching 
 for the fishermen ; and he struck it with an arrow,
 
 The Bower of Acrasia 227 
 
 so that it fled to the bottom of the sea, and never 
 came up again." 
 
 " What is a nicor, Agilmund ? " asked one of the 
 girls. 
 
 " A sea-devil who eats sailors. There used to 
 be plenty of them where our fathers came from, 
 and ogres too, who came out of the fens into the 
 hall at night, when the warriors were sleeping, to 
 suck their blood, and steal along, and steal along, 
 and jump upon you so ! " 
 
 Pelagia, during the saga, had remained looking 
 into the fountain, and playing with the water-drops, 
 in assumed indifference. Perhaps it was to hide 
 burning blushes, and something very like two hot 
 tears, which fell unobserved into the ripple. Now 
 she looked up suddenly : 
 
 " And of course you have killed some of these 
 dreadful creatures, Amalric ? " 
 
 " I never had such good luck, darling. Our 
 forefathers were in such a hurry with them, that by 
 the time we were born, there was hardly one left." 
 
 " Ay, they were men," growled Wulf. 
 
 " As for me," went on the Amal, " the biggest 
 thing I ever killed was a snake in the Donau fens. 
 How long was he, prince? You had time to see, 
 for you sat eating your dinner and looking on, 
 while he was trying to crack my bones." 
 
 " Four fathom," answered Wulf. 
 
 " With a wild bull lying by him, which he had 
 just killed. I spoilt his dinner, eh, Wulf? " 
 
 " Yes/' said the old grumbler, mollified, " that 
 ,was a right good fight." 
 
 i "Why don't you make a saga about it, then, 
 instead of about right and wrong, and such 
 things?"
 
 228 Hypatia 
 
 " Because I am turned philosopher. I shall go 
 and hear that Alruna-maiden this afternoon." 
 
 " Well said. Let us go too, young men : it will 
 pass the time, at all events." 
 
 " Oh, no ! no ! no ! do not 1 you shall not ! " 
 almost shrieked Pelagia. 
 
 " Why not, then, pretty one? " 
 
 " She is a witch she I will never love you 
 again if you dare to go. Your only reason is that 
 Agilmund's report of her beauty." 
 
 " So ? You are afraid of my liking her golden 
 locks better than your black ones ? " 
 
 " I ? Afraid ? " And she leapt up, panting with 
 pretty rage. " Come, we will go too at once 
 and brave this nun, who fancies herself too wise to 
 speak to a woman, and too pure to love a man ! 
 Look out my jewels ! Saddle my white mule ! 
 We will go royally. We will not be ashamed of 
 Cupid's livery, my girls saffron shawl and all ! 
 Come, and let us see whether saucy Aphrodite is 
 not a match after all for Pallas Athene and her 
 owl ! " 
 
 And she darted out of the cloister. 
 
 The three younger men burst into a roar of 
 laughter, while Wulf looked with grim approval. 
 
 " So you want to go and hear the philosopher, 
 Prince ? " said Smid. 
 
 " Wheresoever a holy and a wise woman speaks, 
 a warrior need not be ashamed of listening. Did 
 not Alaric bid us spare the nuns in Rome, com- 
 rade? And though I am no Christian as he was, 
 I thought it no shame for Odin's man to take their 
 blessing ; nor will I to take this one's, Smid, son 
 of Troll."
 
 CHAPTER XHI 
 
 THE BOTTOM OF THE ABYSS 
 
 TT ERE am I, at last ! " said Raphael Aben- 
 
 JL JL Ezra to himself. " Fairly and safely landed 
 at the very bottom of the bottomless ; disporting 
 myself on the firm floor of the primeval nothing, and 
 finding my new element, like boys when they begin 
 to swim, not so impracticable after all. No man, 
 angel, or demon, can this day cast it in my teeth 
 that I am weak enough to believe or disbelieve 
 any phenomenon or theory in or concerning heaven 
 or earth; or even that any such heaven, earth, 
 phenomena, or theories exist or otherwise. . . . 
 
 1 trust that is a sufficiently exhaustive statement of 
 my opinions? ... I am certainly not dogmatic 
 enough to deny or to assert either that there 
 are sensations ... far too numerous for comfort 
 . . . but as for proceeding any further, by induc- 
 tion, deduction, analysis, or synthesis, I utterly 
 decline the office of Arachne, and will spin no 
 more cobwebs out of my own inside if I have 
 any. Sensations? What are they, but parts of 
 oneself if one has a self! What put this child's 
 fancy into one's head, that there is anything out- 
 side of one which produces them ? You have ex- 
 actly similar feelings in your dreams, and you 
 know that there is no reality corresponding to 
 them No, you don't ! How dare you be dog- 
 matic enough to affirm that? Why should not 
 your dreams be as real as your waking thoughts?
 
 230 Hypatia 
 
 Why should not your dreams be the reality, and 
 your waking thoughts the dream? What matter 
 which ? 
 
 " What matter, indeed ? Here have I been 
 staring for years unless that, too, is a dream, 
 which it very probably is at every mountebank 
 ' ism ' which ever tumbled and capered on the 
 philosophic tight-rope ; and they are every one of 
 them dead dolls, wooden, worked with wires, which 
 are petitiones principii. . . . Each philosopher 
 begs the question in hand, and then marches for- 
 ward, as brave as a triumph, and prides himself 
 on proving it all afterwards. No wonder that his 
 theory fits the universe, when he has first clipped 
 the universe to fit his theory. Have I not tried 
 my hand at many a one starting, too, no one 
 can deny, with the very minimum of clipping, . . . 
 for I suppose one cannot begin lower than at 
 simple ' I am I ' . . . unless which is equally 
 demonstrable at ' I am not I.' I recollect or 
 dream that I offered that sweet dream, Hypatia, 
 to deduce all things in Heaven and earth, from the 
 Astronomies of Hipparchus to the number of 
 plumes in an archangel's wing, from that one 
 simple proposition, if she would but write me out 
 a demonstration of it first, as some sort of TTOU orw 
 for the apex of my inverted pyramid. But she 
 disdained, . . . people are apt to disdain what 
 they know they cannot do. . . . ' It was an axiom/ 
 it was, 'like one and one making two.' ... How 
 cross the sweet dream was, at my telling her that 
 I did not consider that any axiom either, and that 
 one thing and one thing seeming to us to be two 
 things, was no more proof that they really were 
 two, and not three hundred and sixty-five, than a
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 231 
 
 man seeming to be an honest man, proved him not 
 to be a rogue ; and at my asking her, moreover, 
 when she appealed to universal experience, how 
 she proved that the combined folly of all fools 
 resulted in wisdom ! 
 
 " ' I am I ' an axiom, indeed ! What right have 
 I to say that I am not any one else? How do I 
 know it ! How do I know that there is any one 
 else for me not to be ? I, or rather something, feel 
 a number of sensations, longings, thoughts, fancies 
 
 the great devil take them all fresh ones every 
 moment, and each at war tooth and nail with all 
 the rest; and then on the strength of this infinite 
 multiplicity and contradiction, of which alone I 
 am aware, I am to be illogical enough to stand up, 
 and say, ' I by myself I ; ' and swear stoutly that 
 I am one thing, when all I am conscious of is the 
 devil only knows how many things. Of all quaint 
 deductions from experience, that is the quaintest ! 
 Would it not be more philosophical to conclude 
 that I, who never saw or felt or heard this which I 
 call myself, am what I have seen, heard, and felt, 
 
 and no more and no less that sensation which 
 I call that horse, that dead man, that jackass, those 
 forty thousand two-legged jackasses who appear 
 to be running for their lives below there, having 
 got hold of this same notion of their being one 
 thing each as I choose to fancy in my foolish 
 habit of imputing to them the same disease of 
 thought which I find in myself crucify the word ! 
 
 The folly of my ancestors if I ever had any 
 
 prevents my having any better expression. . . . 
 Why should I not be all I feel that sky, those 
 clouds the whole universe? Hercules! what a 
 creative genius my sensorium must be ! I '11 take
 
 232 Hypatia 
 
 to writing poetry a mock-epic, in seventy-two 
 books, entitled ' The Universe ; or, Raphael Aben- 
 Ezra; ' and take Homer's Margites for my model. 
 Homer's? Mine! Why must not the Margites, 
 like everything else, have been a sensation of my 
 own ? Hypatia used to say Homer's poetry was a 
 part of her . . . only she could not prove it ... 
 but I have proved that the Margites is a part of 
 me . . . not that I believe my own proof scepti- 
 cism forbid ! Oh, would to heaven that the said 
 whole disagreeable universe were annihilated, if it 
 were only just to settle by fair experiment whether 
 any of master ' I ' remained when they were gone ! 
 Buzzard and dogmatist ! And how do you know 
 that that would settle it? And if it did why 
 need it be settled? . . . 
 
 " I dare say there is an answer pat for all this. 
 I could write a pretty one myself in half an hour. 
 But then I should not believe it ... nor the 
 rejoinder to that . . . nor the demurrer to that 
 again. ... So ... I am both sleepy and hungry 
 ... or rather, sleepiness and hunger are me. 
 Which is it? Heigh-ho ..." and Raphael fin- 
 ished his meditation by a mighty yawn. 
 
 This hopeful oration was delivered in a fitting 
 lecture-room. Between the bare walls of a doleful 
 fire-scarred tower in the Campagna of Rome, 
 standing upon a knoll of dry brown grass, ringed 
 with a few grim pines, blasted and black with 
 smoke ; there sat Raphael Aben-Ezra, working out 
 the last formula of the great world problem 
 " Given Self; to find God." Through the doorless 
 stone archway he could see a long vista of the 
 plain below, covered with broken trees, trampled 
 crops, smoking villas, and all the ugly scars of
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 233 
 
 recent war, far onward to the quiet purple moun- 
 tains and the silver sea, towards which struggled, 
 far in the distance, long dark lines of moving 
 specks, flowing together, breaking up, stopping 
 short, recoiling back to surge forward by some 
 fresh channel, while now and then a glitter of keen 
 white sparks ran through the dense black masses. 
 . . . The Count of Africa had thrown for the 
 empire of the world and lost. 
 
 " Brave old Sun ! " said Raphael, " how merrily 
 he flashes off the sword-blades yonder, and never 
 cares that every tiny sparkle brings a death-shriek 
 after it! Why should he? It is no concern of 
 his. Astrologers are fools. His business is to 
 shine; and on the whole, he is one of my few 
 satisfactory sensations. How now? This is ques- 
 tionably pleasant ! " 
 
 As he spoke, a column of troops came marching 
 across the field, straight towards his retreat. 
 
 " If these new sensations of mine find me here, 
 they will infallibly produce in me a new sensation, 
 which will render all further ones impossible. . . . 
 Well? What kinder thing could they do for me? 
 . . . Ay but how do I know that they would do 
 it? What possible proof is there that if a two- 
 legged phantasm pokes a hard iron-gray phantasm 
 in among my sensations, those sensations will be 
 my last ? Is the fact of my turning pale, and lying 
 still, and being in a day or two converted into 
 crow's flesh, any reason why I should not feel? 
 And how do I know that would happen? It seems 
 to happen to certain sensations of my eyeball 
 or something else who cares ? which I call sol- 
 diers; but what possible analogy can there be 
 between what seems to happen to those single
 
 234 Hypatia 
 
 sensations called soldiers, and what may or may 
 not really happen to all my sensations put together, 
 which I call me ? Should I bear apples if a phan- 
 tasm seemed to come and plant me? Then why 
 should I die if another phantasm seemed to come 
 and poke me in the ribs? 
 
 " Still I don't intend to deny it ... I am no 
 dogmatist. Positively the phantasms are marching 
 straight for my tower ! Well, it may be safer to 
 run away, on the chance. But as for losing feeling," 
 continued he, rising and cramming a few mouldy 
 crusts into his wallet, " that, like everything else, 
 is past proof. Why if now, when I have some 
 sort of excuse for fancying myself one thing in one 
 place, I am driven mad with the number of my 
 sensations, what will it be when I am eaten, and 
 turned to dust, and undeniably many things in 
 many places. . . . Will not the sensations be 
 multiplied by unbearable ! I would swear at the 
 thought, if I had anything to swear by ! To be 
 transmuted into the sensoria of forty different nasty 
 carrion crows, besides two or three foxes, and a 
 large black beetle ! I '11 run away, just like any- 
 body else ... if anybody existed. Come, Bran ! " 
 
 " Bran ! where are you ; unlucky inseparable 
 sensation of mine? Picking up a dinner already 
 off these dead soldiers? Well, the pity is that 
 this foolish contradictory taste of mine, while it 
 makes me hungry, forbids me to follow your 
 example. Why am I to take lessons from my 
 soldier-phantasms, and not from my canine one? 
 Illogical ! Bran ! Bran ! " and he went out and 
 whistled in vain for the dog. 
 
 " Bran ! unhappy phantom, who will not vanish
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 235 
 
 by night or day, lying on my chest even in dreams ; 
 and who would not even let me vanish, and solve 
 the problem though I don't believe there is any 
 
 why did you drag me out of the sea there at 
 Ostia? Why did you not let me become a whole 
 shoal of crabs? How did you know, or I either, 
 that they may not be very jolly fellows, and not in 
 the least troubled with philosophic doubts? . . . 
 But perhaps there were no crabs, but only phan- 
 tasms of crabs. . . . And, on the other hand, if the 
 crab-phantasms give jolly sensations, why should 
 not the crow-phantasms? So whichever way it 
 turns out, no matter ; and I may as well wait here, 
 and seem to become crows, as I certainly shall do. 
 
 Bran! . . . Why should I wait for her? What 
 pleasure can it be to me to have the feeling of 
 a four-legged, brindled, lop-eared, toad-mouthed 
 thing always between what seem to be my legs? 
 There she is ! Where have you been, madam ? 
 Don't you see I am in marching order, with staff 
 and wallet ready shouldered ? Come ! " 
 
 But the dog, looking up in his face as only dogs 
 can look, ran toward the back of the ruin, and up 
 to him again, and back again, until he followed her. 
 
 " What 's this ? Here is a new sensation with 
 a vengeance ! Oh, storm and cloud of material 
 appearances, were there not enough of you al- 
 ready, that you must add to your number these 
 also ? Bran ! Bran ! Could you find no other day 
 in the year but this, whereon to present my ears 
 with the squeals of one two three nine 
 blind puppies?" 
 
 Bran answered by rushing into the hole where 
 her new family lay tumbling and squalling, bring- 
 ing out one in her mouth, and laying it at his feet.
 
 236 Hypatia 
 
 " Needless, I assure you. I am perfectly aware 
 of the state of the case already. What! another? 
 Silly old thing ! do you fancy, as the fine ladies 
 do, that burdening the world with noisy likenesses 
 of your precious self, is a thing of which to be 
 proud ? Why, she 's bringing out the whole litter I 
 . . . What was I thinking of last? Ah the 
 argument was self-contradictory, was it, because 
 I could not argue without using the very terms 
 which I repudiated. Well . . . And why should 
 it not be contradictory? Why not? One must 
 face that too, after all. Why should not a thing 
 be true and false also? What harm in a thing's 
 being false? What necessity for it to be true? 
 True? What is truth? Why should a thing be 
 the worse for being illogical ? Why should there 
 be any logic at all? Did I ever see a little beast 
 flying about with 'Logic' labelled on its back? 
 What do I know of it, but as a sensation of my 
 own mind if I have any? What proof is that 
 that I am to obey it, and not it me? If a flea 
 bites me I get rid of that sensation ; and if logic 
 bothers me, I '11 get rid of that too. Phantasms 
 must be taught to vanish courteously. One's 
 only hope of comfort lies in kicking feebly against 
 the tyranny of one's own boring notions and sen- 
 sations every philosopher confesses that and 
 what god is logic, pray, that it is to be the sole 
 exception? . . . What, old lady? I give you 
 fair warning, you must choose this day, like any 
 nun, between the ties of family and those of duty." 
 
 Bran seized him by the skirt, and pulled him 
 down towards the puppies ; took up one of the 
 puppies and lifted it towards him; and then re- 
 peated the action with another.
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 237 
 
 " You unconscionable old brute ! You don't 
 actually dare to expect me to carry your puppies 
 for you ? " and he turned to go. 
 
 Bran sat down on her tail and began howling. 
 
 " Farewell, old dog ! you have been a pleasant 
 dream after all. . . . But if you will go the way of 
 all phantasms "... And he walked away. 
 
 Bran ran with him, leaping and barking; then 
 recollected her family and ran back ; tried to bring 
 them, one by one, in her mouth, and then to bring 
 them all at once ; and failing sat down and howled. 
 
 " Come, Bran ! Come, old girl ! " 
 
 She raced halfway up' to him ; then halfway 
 back again to the puppies ; then towards him again : 
 and then suddenly gave it up, and dropping her 
 tail, walked slowly back to the blind suppliants, 
 with a deep reproachful growl. 
 
 " ! " said Raphael, with a mighty oath ; 
 
 "you are right after all? Here are nine things 
 come into the world, phantasms or not, there it 
 is; I can't deny it. They are something, and 
 you are something, old dog; or at least like 
 enough to something to do instead of it ; and you 
 are not I, and as good as I, and they too, for aught 
 I know, and have as good a right to live as I ; 
 and by the seven planets and all the rest of it, I '11 
 carry them ! " 
 
 And he went back, tied up the puppies in his 
 blanket, and set forth, Bran barking, squeaking, 
 wagging, leaping, running between his legs and 
 upsetting him, in her agonies of joy. 
 
 " Forward ! Whither you will, old lady ! The 
 world is wide. You shall be my guide, tutor, 
 queen of philosophy, for the sake of this mere 
 common sense of yours. Forward, you new Hy-
 
 238 Hypatia 
 
 patia! I promise you I will attend no lectures 
 but yours this day ! " 
 
 He toiled on, every now and then stepping 
 across a dead body, or clambering a wall out of 
 the road, to avoid some plunging, shrieking horse, 
 or obscene knot of prowling camp followers, who 
 were already stripping and plundering the slain. 
 ... At last, in front of a large villa, now a black 
 and smoking skeleton, he leaped a wall, and found 
 himself landed on a heap of corpses. . . . They 
 were piled up against the garden fence for many 
 yards. The struggle had been fierce there some 
 three hours before. 
 
 " Put me out of my misery ! In mercy kill 
 me ! " moaned a voice beneath his feet. 
 
 Raphael looked down ; the poor wretch was 
 slashed and mutilated beyond all hope. 
 
 " Certainly, friend, if you wish it," and he drew 
 his dagger. The poor fellow stretched out his 
 throat, and awaited the stroke with a ghastly 
 smile. Raphael caught his eye ; his heart failed 
 him, and he rose. 
 
 "What do you advise, Bran?" But the dog 
 was far ahead, leaping and barking impatiently. 
 
 " I obey," said Raphael ; and he followed her, 
 while the wounded man called piteously and up- 
 braidingly after him. 
 
 " He will not have long to wait. Those plun- 
 derers will not be as squeamish as I. ... Strange, 
 now! From Armenian reminiscences I should 
 have fancied myself as free from such tender 
 weakness as any of my Canaanite-slaying ances- 
 tors. . . . And yet by some mere spirit of con- 
 tradiction, I couldn't kill that fellow, exactly 
 because he asked me to do it. ... There is more
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 239 
 
 in that than will fit into the great inverted pyra- 
 mid of ' I am I.' . . . Never mind, let me get the 
 dog's lessons by heart first. What next, Bran? 
 Ah! Could one believe the transformation? 
 Why, this is the very trim villa which I passed 
 yesterday morning, with the garden-chairs stand- 
 ing among the flower-beds, just as the young ladies 
 had left them, and the peacocks and silver pheas- 
 ants running about, wondering why their pretty 
 mistresses did not come to feed them. And here 
 is a trampled mass of wreck and corruption for 
 the girls to find, when they venture back from 
 Rome, and complain how horrible war is for 
 breaking down all their shrubs, and how cruel 
 soldiers must be to kill and cook all their poor dear 
 tame turtle-doves! Why not? Why should they 
 lament over other things which they can just 
 as little mend and which perhaps need no more 
 mending? Ah! there lies a gallant fellow under- 
 neath that fruit-tree ! " 
 
 Raphael walked up to a ring of dead, in the midst 
 of which lay, half-sitting against the trunk of the 
 tree, a tall and noble officer, in the first bloom of 
 manhood. His casque and armor, gorgeously 
 inlaid with gold, were hewn and battered by a 
 hundred blows ; his shield was cloven through and 
 through; his sword broken in the stiffened hand 
 which grasped it still. Cut off from his troop, he 
 had made his last stand beneath the tree, knee- 
 deep in the gay summer flowers, and there he lay, 
 bestrewn, as if by some mockery or pity of 
 mother nature, with faded roses, and golden fruit, 
 shaken from off the boughs in that last deadly 
 struggle. Raphael stood and watched him with a 
 sad sneer.
 
 240 Hypatia 
 
 " Well ! you have sold your fancied personality 
 dear! How many dead men? . . . Nine . . . 
 Eleven ! Conceited fellow ! Who told you that 
 your one life was worth the eleven which you have 
 taken?" 
 
 Bran went up to the corpse perhaps from its 
 sitting posture fancying it still living smelt the 
 cold cheek, and recoiled with a mournful whine. 
 
 "Eh? That is the right way to look at the 
 phenomena, is it? Well, after all, I am sorry for 
 you . . . almost like you. . . . All your wounds 
 in front, as a man's should be. Poor fop ! Lais and 
 Thais will never curl those dainty ringlets for you 
 again ! What is that bas-relief upon your shield? 
 Venus receiving Psyche into the abode of the gods 1 
 . . . Ah ! you have found out all about Psyche's 
 wings by this time. . . . How do I know that? And 
 yet, why am I, in spite of my common sense if I 
 have any talking to you as you, and liking you, and 
 pitying you, if you are nothing now, and probably 
 never were anything? Bran ! What right had you 
 to pity him without giving your reasons in due 
 form, as Hypatia would have done? Forgive me, 
 sir, however whether you exist or not, I cannot 
 leave that collar round your neck for these camp- 
 wolves to convert into strong liquor." 
 
 And as he spoke, he bent down, and detached, 
 gently enough, a magnificent necklace. 
 
 " Not for myself, I assure you. Like At6's 
 golden apple, it shall go to the fairest. Here, 
 Bran!" 
 
 And he wreathed the jewels round the neck of 
 the mastiff, who, evidently exalted in her own eyes 
 by the burden, leaped and barked forward again, 
 taking, apparently as a matter of course, the road
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 241 
 
 back towards Ostia, by which they had come 
 thither from the sea. And as he followed, careless 
 where he went, he continued talking to himself 
 aloud after the manner of restless self-discontented 
 men. 
 
 ..." And then man talks big about his dignity 
 and his intellect, and his heavenly parentage, and 
 his aspirations after the unseen and the beautiful, 
 and the infinite and everything else unlike him- 
 self. How can he prove it? Why, these poor 
 blackguards lying about are very fair specimens of 
 humanity. And how much have they been 
 bothered since they were born with aspirations 
 after anything infinite, except infinite sour wine? 
 To eat, to drink ; to destroy a certain number of 
 their species; to reproduce a certain number of 
 the same, two-thirds of whom will die in infancy, a 
 dead waste of pain to their mothers, and of expense 
 
 to their putative sires . . . and then what says 
 
 Solomon ? What befalls them befalls beasts. As 
 one dies, so dies the other ; so that they have all 
 one breath, and a man has no pre-eminence over a 
 beast ; for all is vanity. All go to one place ; all 
 are of the dust and turn to dust again. Who knows 
 that the breath of man goes upward, and that the 
 breath of the beast goes downward to the earth? 
 Who, indeed, my most wise ancestor? Not I, cer- 
 tainly. Raphael Aben-Ezra, how art thou better than 
 a beast? What pre-eminence hast thou, not merely 
 over this dog, but over the fleas whom thou so wan- 
 tonly cursest? Man must painfully win house, 
 clothes, fire. . . .A pretty proof of his wisdom, when 
 every flea has the wit to make my blanket, without 
 any labor of his own, lodge him a great deal better 
 than it lodges me ! Man makes clothes, and the 
 
 VI
 
 242 Hypatia 
 
 fleas live in them. . . . Which is the wiser of the 
 two? . . . 
 
 " Ah, but man is fallen. . . . Well and the 
 flea is not. So much better he than the man ; for 
 he is what he was intended to be, and so fulfils the 
 very definition of virtue . . . which no one can 
 say of us of the red-ochre vein. And even if the 
 old myth be true, and the man only fell, because 
 he was set to do higher work than the flea ; what 
 does that prove but that he could not do it? 
 
 "But his arts and his sciences? . . . Apage ! 
 The very sound of those grown-children's rattles 
 turns me sick. . . . One conceited ass in a gener- 
 ation increasing labor and sorrow, and dying after 
 all even as the fool dies, and ten million brutes and 
 slaves, just where their forefathers were, and where 
 their children will be after them, to the end of the 
 farce. . . . The thing that has been, it is that 
 which shall be ; and there is no new thing under 
 the sun. . . . 
 
 " And as for your palaces, and cities, and temples 
 . . . look at this Campagna, and judge. Flea-bites 
 go down after a while and so do they. What are 
 they but the bumps which we human fleas make in 
 the old earth's skin? . . . Make them? We only 
 cause them, as fleas cause flea-bites. . . . What are 
 all the works of man, but a sort of cutaneous dis- 
 order in this unhealthy earth-hide, and we a race of 
 larger fleas, running about among its fur, which 
 we call trees? Why should not the earth be an 
 animal? How do I know it is not? Because it is 
 too big? Bah! What is big, and what is little? 
 Because it has not the shape of one? . . . Look 
 into a fisherman's net, and see what forms are 
 there! Because it does not speak? . . . Perhaps
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 243 
 
 it has nothing to say, being too busy. Perhaps it 
 can talk no more sense than we. ... In both 
 cases it shows its wisdom by holding its tongue. 
 Because it moves in one necessary direction? . . . 
 How do I know that it does? How can I tell that 
 it is not flirting with all the seven spheres at once, 
 at this moment? But if it does so much the 
 wiser of it, if that be the best direction for it. Oh, 
 what a base satire on ourselves and our notions of 
 the fair and fitting, to say that a thing cannot be 
 alive and rational, just because it goes steadily on 
 upon its own road, instead of skipping and scram- 
 bling fantastically up and down without method or 
 order, like us and the fleas, from the cradle to the 
 grave ! Besides, if you grant, with the rest of the 
 world, that fleas are less noble than we, because 
 they are our parasites, then you are bound to grant 
 that we are less noble than the earth, because we 
 are its parasites. . . . Positively, it looks more 
 probable than anything I have seen for many a 
 day. . . . And, by-the-by, why should not earth- 
 quakes, and floods, and pestilences, be only just so 
 many ways which the cunning old brute earth has 
 of scratching herself, when the human fleas and their 
 palace and city bites get too troublesome? " 
 
 At a turn of the road he was aroused from this 
 profitable meditation by a shriek, the shrillness of 
 which told him that it was a woman's. He looked 
 up, and saw close to him, among the smouldering 
 ruins of a farm-house, two ruffians driving before 
 them a young girl, with her hands tied behind her, 
 while the poor creature was looking back piteously 
 after something among the ruins, and struggling in 
 vain, bound as she was, to escape from her captors, 
 and return.
 
 244 Hypatia 
 
 " Conduct unjustifiable in any fleas, eh, Bran? 
 How do I know that, though? Why should it not 
 be a piece of excellent fortune for her, if she had 
 but the equanimity to see it? Why what will 
 happen to her? She will be taken to Rome, and 
 sold as a slave. . . . And in spite of a few discom- 
 forts in the transfer, and the prejudice which some 
 persons have against standing an hour on the 
 catasta to be handled from head to foot in the 
 minimum of clothing, she will most probably end 
 in being far better housed, fed, bedizened, and 
 pampered to her heart's desire, than ninety-nine 
 out of a hundred of her sister-fleas . . . till she 
 begins to grow old . . . which she must do in any 
 case. . . . And if she have not contrived to wheedle 
 her master out of her liberty, and to make up a 
 pretty little purse of savings, by that time why, 
 it is her own fault. Eh, Bran ? " 
 
 But Bran by no means agreed with his view of the 
 case ; for after watching the two ruffians, with her 
 head stuck on one side, for a minute or two, she 
 suddenly and silently, after the manner of mastiffs, 
 sprang upon them, and dragged one to the ground. 
 
 " Oh ! that is the ' fit and beautiful,' in this case, 
 as they say in Alexandria, is it? Well I obey. 
 You are at least a more practical teacher than ever 
 Hypatia was. Heaven grant that there may be no 
 more of them in the ruins ! " 
 
 And rushing on the second plunderer, he laid 
 him dead with a blow of his dagger, and then 
 turned to the first, whom Bran was holding down 
 by the throat. 
 
 " Mercy, mercy ! " shrieked the wretch. " Life ! 
 only life ! " 
 
 "There was a fellow half-a-mile back begging me
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 245 
 
 to kill him : with which of you two am I to agree ? 
 for you can't both be right." 
 
 " Life ! Only life ! " 
 
 " A carnal appetite, which man must learn to 
 conquer," said Raphael, as he raised the poniard. 
 ... In a moment it was over, and Bran and he 
 rose Where was the girl ? She had rushed back 
 to the ruins, whither Raphael followed her; while 
 Bran ran to the puppies, which he had laid upon 
 a stone, and commenced her maternal cares. 
 
 " What do you want, my poor girl ? " asked he 
 in Latin. " I will not hurt you." 
 
 "My father! My father!" 
 
 He untied her bruised and swollen wrists ; and 
 without stopping to thank him, she ran to a heap 
 of fallen stones and beams, and began digging 
 wildly with all her little strength, breathlessly 
 calling " Father ! " 
 
 " Such is the gratitude of flea to flea ! What is 
 there, now, in the mere fact of being accustomed 
 to call another person father, and not master, or 
 slave, which should produce such passion as that? 
 . . . Brute habit ! . . . What services can the said 
 man render, or have rendered, which make him 
 
 worth Here is Bran ! . . . What do you think 
 
 of that, my female philosopher?" 
 
 Bran sat down and watched too. The poor girl's 
 tender hands were bleeding from the stones, while 
 her golden tresses rolled down over her eyes, and 
 entangled in her impatient fingers : but still she 
 worked frantically. Bran seemed suddenly to 
 comprehend the case, rushed to the rescue, and 
 began digging too, with all her might. 
 
 Raphael rose with a shrug, and joined in the work.
 
 246 Hypatia 
 
 " Hang these brute instincts ! They make one 
 very hot. What was that? " 
 
 A feeble moan rose from under the stones. A 
 human limb was uncovered. The girl threw her- 
 self on the place, shrieking her father's name. 
 Raphael put her gently back, and exerting his 
 whole strength, drew out of the ruins a stalwart 
 elderly man, in the dress of an officer of high 
 rank. 
 
 He still breathed. The girl lifted up his head 
 and covered him with wild kisses. Raphael looked 
 round for water; found a spring and a broken 
 sherd, and bathed the wounded man's temples till 
 he opened his eyes, and showed signs of returning 
 life. 
 
 The girl still sat by him, fondling her recovered 
 treasure, and bathing the grizzled face in holy 
 tears. 
 
 "It is no business of mine," said Raphael. 
 " Come, Bran ! " 
 
 The girl sprang up, threw herself at his feet, 
 kissed his hands, called him her savior, her deliv- 
 erer, sent by God. 
 
 " Not in the least, my child. You must thank 
 my teacher the dog, not me." 
 
 And she took him at his word, and threw her 
 soft arms round Bran's neck ; and Bran understood 
 it, and wagged her tail, and licked the gentle face 
 lovingly. 
 
 " Intolerably absurd, all this ! " said Raphael. 
 " I must be going, Bran." 
 
 "You will not leave us? You surely will not 
 leave an old man to die here ? " 
 
 "Why not? What better thing could happen 
 to him?"
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 247 
 
 " Nothing," murmured the officer, who had not 
 spoken before. 
 
 " Ah God ! he is my father ! " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " He is my father ! " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " You must save him ! You shall, I say ! " And 
 she seized Raphael's arm in the imperiousness of 
 her passion. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders : but felt, he knew 
 not why, marvellously inclined to obey her. 
 
 " I may as well do this as anything else, having 
 nothing else to do. Whither now, sir?" 
 
 " Whither you will. Our troops are disgraced, 
 our eagles taken. We are your prisoners by right 
 of war. We follow you." 
 
 " Oh my fortune ! A new responsibility ! Why 
 cannot I stir, without live animals, from fleas 
 upward, attaching themselves to me? Is it not 
 enough to have nine blind puppies at my back, 
 and an old brute at my heels, who will persist in 
 saving my life, that I must be burdened over and 
 above with a respectable elderly rebel and his 
 daughter? Why am I not allowed by fate to care 
 for nobody but myself? Sir, I give you both your 
 freedom. The world is wide enough for us all. I 
 really ask no ransom." 
 
 " You seem philosophically disposed, my friend." 
 
 "I? Heaven forbid ! I have gone right through 
 that slough, and come out sheer on the other side. 
 For sweeping the last lingering taint of it out of 
 me, I have to thank, not sulphur and exorcisms, 
 but your soldiers and their morning's work. Philo- 
 sophy is superfluous in a world where all are fools.*' 
 
 " Do you include yourself under that title? "
 
 248 Hypatia 
 
 " Most certainly, my best sir. Don't fancy that 
 I make any exceptions. If I can in any way prove 
 my folly to you, I will do it" 
 
 " Then help me and my daughter to Ostia." 
 
 " A very fair instance. Well my dog happens 
 to be going that way ; and after all, you seem to 
 have a sufficient share of human imbecility to be a 
 very fit companion for me. I hope, though, you 
 do not set up for a wise man ! " 
 
 " God knows no ! Am I not of Heraclian's 
 army?" 
 
 " True ; and the young lady here made herself 
 so great a fool about you, that she actually in- 
 fected the very dog." 
 
 " So we three fools will forth together." 
 
 " And the greatest one, as usual, must help the 
 rest. But I have nine puppies in my family al- 
 ready. How am I to carry you and them?" 
 
 " I will take them," said the girl ; and Bran, 
 after looking on at the transfer with a somewhat 
 dubious face, seemed to satisfy herself that all was 
 right, and put her head contentedly under the 
 girl's hand. 
 
 " Eh ? You trust her, Bran ? " said Raphael, in 
 an undertone. " I must really emancipate myself 
 from your instructions if you require a similar 
 simplicity in me. Stay ! there wanders a mule 
 without a rider; we may as well press him into 
 the service." 
 
 He caught the mule, lifted the wounded man 
 into the saddle, and the cavalcade set forth, turn- 
 ing out of the highroad into a by-lane, which the 
 officer, who seemed to know the country thorough- 
 ly, assured him would lead them to Ostia by an 
 unfrequented route.
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 249 
 
 " If we arrive there before sundown, we are 
 saved," said he. 
 
 " And in the meantime," answered Raphael, 
 "between the dog and this dagger, which, as I 
 take care to inform all comers, is delicately 
 poisoned, we may keep ourselves clear of marau- 
 ders. And yet, what a meddling fool I am ! " he 
 went on to himself. " What possible interest can 
 I have in this uncircumcised rebel! The least 
 evil is, that if we are taken, which we most prob- 
 ably shall be, I shall be crucified for helping him 
 to escape. But even if we get safe off here is a 
 fresh tie between me and those very brother fleas, to 
 be rid of whom I have chosen beggary and starva- 
 tion. Who knows where it may end? Pooh! 
 The man is like other men. He is certain, before 
 the day is over, to prove ungrateful, or attempt 
 the mountebank-heroic, or give me some other 
 excuse for bidding him good evening. And in 
 the meantime there is something quaint in the fact 
 of finding so sober a respectability, with a young 
 daughter too, abroad on this fool's errand, which 
 really makes me curious to discover with what 
 variety of flea I am to class him." 
 
 But while Aben-Ezra was talking to himself 
 about the father, he could not help, somehow, 
 thinking about the daughter. Again and again 
 he found himself looking at her. She was, un- 
 deniably, most beautiful. Her features were not 
 as regularly perfect as Hypatia's, nor her stature 
 so commanding ; but her face shone with a clear 
 and joyful determination, and with a tender 
 and modest thoughtfulness, such as he had never 
 beheld before united in one countenance ; and as 
 she stepped along, firmly and lightly, by her
 
 250 Hypatia 
 
 father's side, looping up her scattered tresses as 
 she went, laughing at the struggles of her noisy 
 burden, and looking up with rapture at her father's 
 gradually brightening face, Raphael could not 
 help stealing glance after glance, and was surprised 
 to find them returned with a bright, honest, smil- 
 ing gratitude, which met him full-eyed, as free 
 from prudery as it was from coquetry. ..." A 
 lady she is," said he to himself; " but evidently 
 no city one. There is nature or something else, 
 there, pure and unadulterated, without any of man's 
 additions or beautifications." And as he looked, 
 he began to feel it a pleasure, such as his weary 
 heart had not known for many a year, simply to 
 watch her. . . . 
 
 " Positively there is a foolish enjoyment after 
 all in making other fleas smile. . . . Ass that I 
 am! As if I had not drank all that ditch-water 
 cup to the dregs years ago ! " 
 
 They went on for some time in silence, till the 
 officer, turning to him : 
 
 "And may I ask you, my quaint preserver, 
 whom I would have thanked before but for this 
 foolish faintness, which is now going off, what and 
 who you are ? " 
 
 " A flea, sir a flea nothing more." 
 
 " But a patrician flea, surely ; to judge by your 
 language and manners ? " 
 
 " Not that exactly. True, I have been rich, as 
 the saying is ; I may be rich again, they tell me, 
 when I am fool enough to choose." 
 
 " Oh if we were but rich ! " sighed the girl. 
 
 " You would be very unhappy, my dear young 
 lady. Believe a flea who has tried the experiment 
 thoroughly."
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 251 
 
 " Ah ! but we could ransom my brother ! and 
 now we can find no money till we get back to 
 Africa." 
 
 " And none then," said the officer, in a low voice. 
 "You forget, my poor child, that I mortgaged the 
 whole estate to raise my legion. We must not 
 shrink from looking at things as they are." 
 
 " Ah ! and he is prisoner ! he will be sold for a 
 slave perhaps ah ! perhaps crucified, for he 
 is not a Roman ! Oh, he will be crucified ! " and 
 she burst into an agony of weeping. . . . Sud- 
 denly she dashed away her tears and looked up 
 clear and bright once more. " No ! forgive me, 
 father ! God will protect His own ! " 
 
 " My dear young lady," said Raphael, " if you 
 really dislike such a prospect for your brother, and 
 are in want of a few dirty coins wherewith to pre- 
 vent it, perhaps I may be able to find you them 
 in Ostia." 
 
 She looked at him incredulously, as her eye 
 glanced over his rags, and then, blushing, begged 
 his pardon for her unspoken thoughts. 
 
 " Well, as you choose to suppose. But my dog 
 has been so civil to you already, that perhaps she 
 may have no objection to make you a present of 
 that necklace of hers. I will go to the Rabbis, 
 and we will make all right; so don't cry. I hate 
 crying; and the puppies are quite chorus enough 
 for the present tragedy." 
 
 "The Rabbis? Are you a Jew?" asked the 
 officer. 
 
 "Yes, sir, a Jew. And you, I presume, a 
 Christian : perhaps you may have scruples about 
 receiving your sect has generally none about 
 taking from one of our stubborn and unbe-
 
 252 Hypatia 
 
 lieving race. Don't be frightened, though, for 
 your conscience; I assure you I am no more a 
 Jew at heart than I am a Christian." 
 
 " God help you then ! " 
 
 " Some one, or something, has helped me a 
 great deal too much, for three-and-thirty years of 
 pampering. But, pardon me, that was a strange 
 speech for a Christian." 
 
 " You must be a good Jew, sir, before you can 
 be a good Christian." 
 
 " Possibly. I intend to be neither nor a 
 good pagan either. My dear sir, let us drop the 
 subject. It is beyond me. If I can be as good 
 a brute animal as my dog there it being first 
 demonstrated that it is good to be good I shall 
 be very well content" 
 
 The officer looked down on him with a stately, 
 loving sorrow. Raphael caught his eye, and felt 
 that he was in the presence of no common man. 
 
 " I must take care what I say here, I suspect, 
 or I shall be entangled shortly in a regular So- 
 cratic dialogue. . . . And now, sir, may I return 
 your question, and ask who and what are you? 
 I really have no intention of giving you up to 
 any Caesar, Antiochus, Tiglath-Pileser, or other 
 flea-devouring flea. . . . They will fatten well 
 enough without your blood. So I only ask as a 
 student of the great nothing-in-general, which men 
 call the universe." 
 
 " I was prefect of a legion this morning. What 
 I am now, you know as well as I." 
 
 " Just what I do not. I am in deep wonder at 
 seeing your hilarity, when, by all flea-analogies, 
 you ought to be either behowling your fate like 
 Achilles on the shores of Styx, or pretending to
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 253 
 
 grin and bear it, as I was taught to do when I 
 played at Stoicism. You are not of that sect 
 certamly, for you confessed yourself a fool just 
 now." 
 
 " And it would be long, would it not, before 
 you made one of them do as much? Well, be it 
 so. A fool I am ; yet, if God helps us as far as 
 Ostia, why should I not be cheerful?" 
 
 "Why should you?" 
 
 " What better thing can happen to a fool, than 
 that God should teach him that he is one, when 
 he fancied himself the wisest of the wise ? Listen 
 to me, sir. Four months ago I was blessed with 
 health, honor, lands, friends all for which the 
 heart of man could wish. And if, for an insane 
 ambition, I have chosen to risk all those, against 
 the solemn warnings of the truest friend, and the 
 wisest saint, who treads this earth of God's 
 should I not rejoice to have it proved to me, even 
 by such a lesson as this, that the friend who never 
 deceived me before was right in this case too; 
 and that the God who has checked and turned 
 me for forty years of wild toil and warfare, when- 
 ever I dared to do what was right in the sight of 
 my own eyes, has not forgotten me yet, or given 
 up the thankless task of my education?" 
 
 " And who, pray, is this peerless friend ? " 
 
 "Augustine of Hippo." 
 
 " Humph ! It had been better for the world in 
 general, if the great dialectician had exerted his 
 powers of persuasion on Heraclian himself." 
 
 " He did so, but in vain." 
 
 " I don't doubt it. I know the sleek Count 
 well enough to judge what effect a sermon would 
 have upon that smooth vulpine determination of
 
 254 Hypatia 
 
 his. . . . ' An instrument in the hands of God, my 
 dear brother. . . . We must obey His call, even 
 to the death,' etc., etc." And Raphael laughed 
 tbitterly. 
 
 "You know the Count?" 
 
 " As well, sir, as I care to know any man." 
 
 " I am sorry for your eyesight, then, sir," said 
 the Prefect, severely, " if it has been able to dis- 
 cern no more than that in so august a character." 
 
 " My dear sir, I do not doubt his excellence 
 nay, his inspiration. How well he divined the 
 perfectly fit moment for stabbing his old comrade 
 Stilicho! But really, as two men of the world, 
 we must be aware by this time that every man 
 has his price.". . . 
 
 " Oh, hush ! hush ! " whispered the girl. " You 
 cannot guess how you pain him. He worships 
 the Count. It was not ambition, as he pretends, 
 but merely loyalty to him, which brought him 
 here against his will." 
 
 " My dear madam, forgive me. For your sake 
 I am silent." . . . 
 
 " For her sake ! A pretty speech for me ! 
 What next!" said he to himself. "Ah, Bran, 
 Bran, this is all your fault!" 
 
 " For my sake ! Oh, why not for your own 
 sake? How sad to hear one one like you, only 
 sneering and speaking evil ! " 
 
 "Why then? If fools are fools, and one can 
 safely call them so, why not do it? " 
 
 " Ah, if God was merciful enough to send 
 down His own Son to die for them, should we 
 not be merciful enough not to judge their failings 
 harshly!" 
 
 " My dear young lady, spare a worn-out philos-
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 255 
 
 opher any new anthropologic theories. We really 
 must push on a little faster, if we intend to reach 
 Ostia to-night." 
 
 But, for some reason or other, Raphael sneered 
 no more for a full half-hour. 
 
 Long, however, ere they reached Ostia, the 
 night had fallen ; and their situation began to be 
 more than questionably safe. Now and then a 
 wolf, slinking across the road towards his ghastly 
 feast, glided like a lank ghost out of the darkness, 
 and into it again, answering Bran's growl by a 
 gleam of his white teeth. Then the voices of 
 some marauding party rang coarse and loud 
 through the still night, and made them hesitate 
 and stop a while. And at last, worst of all, the 
 measured tramp of an imperial column began to 
 roll like distant thunder along the plain below. 
 They were advancing upon Ostia ! What if they 
 -arrived there before the routed army could rally, 
 and defend themselves long enough to re-embark ! 
 . . . What if a thousand ugly possibilities be- 
 gan to crowd up. 
 
 "Suppose we found the gates of Ostia shut, 
 and the Imperialists bivouacked outside?" said 
 Raphael half to himself. 
 
 " God would protect His own," answered the 
 girl; and Raphael had no heart to rob her of 
 her hope, though he looked upon their chances 
 of escape as growing smaller and smaller every 
 moment. The poor girl was weary; the mule 
 weary also ; and as they crawled along, at a pace 
 which made it certain that the fast passing column 
 would be at Ostia an hour before them, to join 
 the vanguard of the pursuers, and aid them in 
 investing the town, she had to lean again and
 
 256 Hypatia 
 
 again on Raphael's arm. Her shoes, unfitted for 
 so rough a journey, had been long since torn off, 
 and her tender feet were marking every step with 
 blood. Raphael knew it by her faltering gait; 
 and remarked, too, that neither sigh nor murmur 
 passed her lips. But as for helping her, he could 
 not ; and began to curse the fancy which had led 
 him to eschew even sandals as unworthy the self- 
 dependence of a Cynic. 
 
 And so they crawled along, while Raphael and 
 the prefect, each guessing the terrible thoughts 
 of the other, were thankful for the darkness which 
 hid their despairing countenances from the young 
 girl; she, on the other hand, chatting cheerfully, 
 almost laughingly, to her silent father. 
 
 At last the poor child stepped on some stone 
 more sharp than usual and, with a sudden writhe 
 and shriek, sank to the ground. Raphael lifted 
 her up, and she tried to proceed, but sank down 
 again. . . . What was to be done ? 
 
 " I expected this," said the prefect, in a slow 
 stately voice. " Hear me, sir ! Jew, Christian, or 
 philosopher, God seems to have bestowed on you 
 a heart which I can trust. To your care I com- 
 mit this girl your property, like me, by right 
 of war. Mount her upon this mule. Hasten with 
 her where you will for God will be there also. 
 And may He so deal with you, as you deal with 
 her henceforth. An old and disgraced soldier can 
 do no more than die." 
 
 And he made an effort to dismount ; but faint- 
 ing from his wounds, sank upon the neck of the 
 mule. Raphael and his daughter caught him in 
 their arms. 
 
 "Father! Father! Impossible! Cruel! Oh
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss -257 
 
 do you think that I would have followed you 
 hither from Africa, against your own entreaties, 
 to desert you now?" 
 
 " My daughter, I command ! " 
 
 The girl remained firm and silent. 
 
 "How long have you learned to disobey me? 
 Lift the old disgraced man down, sir, and leave 
 him to die in the right place on the battle-field 
 where his general sent him." 
 
 The girl sank down on the road in an agony of 
 weeping. " I must help myself, I see," said her 
 father, dropping to the ground. " Authority van- 
 ishes before old age and humiliation. Victoria! 
 has your father no sins to answer for already, that 
 you will send him before his God with your blood 
 too upon his head ? " 
 
 Still the girl sat weeping on the ground ; while 
 Raphael, utterly at his wits' end, tried hard to 
 persuade himself that it was no concern of 
 his. 
 
 " I am at the service of either or of both, for 
 life or death; only be so good as to settle it 
 quickly. . . . Hell ! here it is settled for us, with 
 a vengeance ! " 
 
 And as he spoke, the tramp and jingle of horse- 
 men rang along the lane, approaching rapidly. 
 
 In an instant Victoria had sprung to her feet 
 weakness and pain had vanished. 
 
 " There is one chance one chance for him ! 
 Lift him over the bank, sir ! Lift him over, while 
 I run forward and meet them. My death will de- 
 lay them long enough for you to save him ! " 
 
 "Death?" cried Raphael, seizing her by the 
 arm. " If that were all " 
 
 "God will protect His own," answered she,
 
 258 Hypatia 
 
 calmly, laying her finger on her lips; and then 
 breaking from his grasp in the strength of her 
 heroism, vanished into the night. 
 
 Her father tried to follow her, but fell on his 
 face, groaning. Raphael lifted him, strove to drag 
 him up the steep bank: but his knees knocked 
 together ; a faint sweat seemed to melt every limb. 
 . . . There was a pause, which seemed ages long. 
 . . . Nearer and nearer came the trampling. . . . 
 A sudden gleam of the moon revealed Victoria 
 standing with outspread arms, right before the 
 horses' heads. A heavenly glory seemed to bathe 
 her from head to foot ... or was it tears sparkling 
 in his own eyes? . . . Then the grate and jar of 
 the horse-hoofs on the road, as they pulled up 
 suddenly. . . . He turned his face away and shut 
 his eyes. . . . 
 
 " What are you ? " thundered a voice. 
 
 " Victoria, the daughter of Majoricus the 
 Prefect." 
 
 The voice was low, but yet so clear and calm, 
 that every syllable rang through Aben-Ezra's ting- 
 ling ears. . . . 
 
 A shout a shriek the confused murmur 
 of many voices. . . . He looked up, in spite of 
 himself a horseman had sprung to the ground, 
 and clasped Victoria in his arms. The human 
 heart of flesh, asleep for many a year, leaped into 
 mad life within his breast, and drawing his dagger, 
 he rushed into the throng: 
 
 " Villains ! Hellhounds ! I will balk you ! She 
 shall die first!" 
 
 And the bright blade gleamed over Victoria's 
 head. . . . He was struck down blinded half- 
 stunned but rose again with the energy of mad-
 
 The Bottom of the Abyss 259 
 
 ness. . . . What was this? Soft arms around him. 
 . . . Victoria's ! 
 
 " Save him ! Spare him ! He saved us ! Sir ! 
 It is my brother ! We are safe ! Oh, spare the 
 dog ! It saved my father ! " 
 
 " We have mistaken each other, indeed, sir ! " 
 said a gay young tribune, in a voice trembling 
 with joy. " Where is my father? " 
 
 " Fifty yards behind. Down, Bran ! Qukt ! 
 O Solomon, mine ancestor, why did you not pre- 
 vent me making such an egregious fool of myself? 
 Why, I shall be forced, in self-justification, to carry 
 through the farce ! " 
 
 There is no use telling what followed during the 
 next five minutes, at the end of which time Raphael 
 found himself astride of a goodly war-horse, by the 
 side of the young tribune, who carried Victoria 
 before him. Two soldiers in the meantime were 
 supporting the prefect on his mule, and convinc- 
 ing that stubborn bearer of burdens that it was not 
 quite so unable to trot as it had fancied, by the 
 combined arguments of a drench of wine and two 
 sword-points, while they heaped their general with 
 blessings, and kissed his hands and feet. 
 
 " Your father's soldiers seem to consider them- 
 selves in debt to him : not, surely, for taking them 
 where they could best run away ? " 
 
 " Ah, poor fellows ! " said the tribune ; " we 
 have had as real a panic among us as I ever read 
 of in Arrian or Polybius. But he has been a 
 father rather than a general to them. It is not 
 often that, out of a routed army, twenty gallant 
 men will volunteer to ride back into the enemy's 
 ranks, on the chance of an old man's breathing 
 still."
 
 26 o Hypatia 
 
 "Then you knew where to find us?" said Vic- 
 toria. 
 
 " Some of them knew. And he himself showed 
 us this very by-road yesterday, when we took up 
 our ground, and told us it might be of service on 
 occasion and so it has been." 
 
 " But they told me that you were taken prisoner. 
 Oh, the torture I have suffered for you 1 " 
 
 " Silly child ! Did you fancy my father's son 
 would be taken alive? I and the first troop got 
 away over the garden walls, and cut our way out 
 into the plain, three hours ago." 
 
 " Did I not tell you," said Victoria leaning to- 
 ward Raphael, " that God would protect His 
 own?" 
 
 " You did," answered he ; and fell into a long 
 and silent meditation.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE ROCKS OF THE SIRENS 
 
 THESE four months had been busy and event- 
 ful enough to Hypatia and to Philammon ; 
 yet the events and the business were of so gradual 
 and uniform a tenor, that it is as well to pass 
 quickly over them, and show what had happened 
 principally by its effects. 
 
 The robust and fiery desert-lad was now met- 
 amorphosed into the pale and thoughtful student, 
 oppressed with the weight of careful thought and 
 weary memory. But those remembrances were 
 all recent ones. With his entrance into Hypatia's 
 lecture-room, and into the fairy realms of Greek 
 thought, a new life had begun for him ; and the 
 Laura, and Pambo, and Arsenius, seemed dim 
 phantoms from some antenatal existence, which 
 faded day by day before the inrush of new and 
 startling knowledge. 
 
 But though the friends and scenes of his child- 
 hood had fallen back so swiftly Into the far hori- 
 zon, he was not lonely. His heart found a lovelier, 
 if not a healthier home, than it had ever known 
 before. For during those four peaceful and busy 
 months of study there had sprung up between 
 Hypatia and the beautiful boy one of those pure 
 and yet passionate friendships call them rather, 
 with Saint Augustine, by the sacred name of love 
 which, fair and holy as they are when they link
 
 262 Hypatia 
 
 youth to youth, or girl to girl, reach their full 
 perfection only between man and woman. The 
 unselfish adoration with which a maiden may bow 
 down before some strong and holy priest, or with 
 which an enthusiastic boy may cling to the wise 
 and tender matron, who, amid the turmoil of the 
 world, and the pride of beauty, and the cares of 
 wifehood, bends down to him with counsel and 
 encouragement earth knows no fairer bonds 
 than these, save wedded love itself. And that 
 second relation, motherly rather than sisterly, had 
 bound Philammon with a golden chain to the 
 wondrous maid of Alexandria. 
 
 From the commencement of his attendance in 
 her lecture-room she had suited her discourses to 
 what she fancied were his especial spiritual needs ; 
 and many a glance of the eye towards him, on any 
 peculiarly important sentence, set the poor boy's 
 heart beating at that sign that the words were 
 meant for him. But before a month was past, 
 won by the intense attention with which he watched 
 for every utterance of hers, she had persuaded her 
 father to give him a place in the library as one of 
 his pupils, among the youths who were employed 
 there daily in transcribing, as well as in studying, 
 the authors then in fashion. 
 
 She saw him at first but seldom more seldom 
 than she would have wished : but she dreaded the 
 tongue of scandal, heathen as well as Christian, 
 and contented herself with inquiring daily from 
 her father about the progress of the boy. And 
 when at times she entered for a moment the library, 
 where he sat writing, or passed him on her way to 
 the Museum, a look was interchanged, on her part 
 of most gracious approval, and on his of adoring
 
 The Rocks of the Sirens 263 
 
 gratitude, which was enough for both. Her spell 
 was working surely ; and she was too confident in 
 her own cause and her own powers to wish to 
 hurry that transformation for which she so fondly 
 hoped. 
 
 " He must begin at the beginning," thought she 
 to herself. " Mathematics and the Parmenides are 
 enough for him as yet. Without a training in the 
 liberal sciences he cannot gain a faith worthy of 
 those gods to whom some day I shall present him ; 
 and I should find his Christian ignorance and 
 fanaticism transferred, whole and rude, to the 
 service of those gods whose shrine is unapproach- 
 able save to the spiritual man, who has passed 
 through the successive vestibules of science and 
 philosophy." 
 
 But soon, attracted herself, as much as wishing 
 to attract him, she employed him in copying manu- 
 scripts for her own use. She sent back his themes 
 and declamations, corrected with her own hand; 
 and Philammon laid them by in his little garret 
 at Eudaemon's house as precious badges of honor 
 after exhibiting them to the reverential and envious 
 gaze of the little porter. So he toiled on, early 
 and late, counting himself well paid for a week's 
 intense exertion by a single smile or word of 
 approbation, and went home to pour out his soul 
 to his host on the one inexhaustible theme which 
 they had in common Hypatia and her perfec- 
 tions. He would have raved often enough on the 
 same subject to his fellow-pupils, but he shrank not 
 only from their artificial city manners, but also 
 from their morality, for suspecting which he saw 
 but too good cause. He longed to go out into the 
 streets, to proclaim to the whole world the treasure
 
 264 Hypatia 
 
 which he had found, and call on all to come and 
 share it with him. For there was no jealousy in 
 that pure love of his. Could he have seen her 
 lavishing on thousands far greater favors than she 
 had conferred on him, he would have rejoiced in 
 the thought that there were so many more blest 
 beings upon earth, and have loved them all and 
 every one as brothers, for having deserved her 
 notice. Her very beauty, when his first flush of 
 wonder was past, he ceased to mention ceased 
 even to think of it. Of course she must be beau- 
 tiful. It was her right ; the natural complement of 
 her other graces : but it was to him only what the 
 mother's smile is to the infant, the sunlight to the 
 skylark, the mountain-breeze to the hunter an 
 inspiring element, on which he fed unconsciously. 
 Only when he doubted for a moment some espe- 
 cially startling or fanciful assertion, did he become 
 really aware of the great loveliness of her who 
 made it ; and then his heart silenced his judgment 
 with the thought Could any but true words 
 come out of those perfect lips? any but royal 
 thoughts take shape within that queenly head ? . . . 
 Poor fool ! Yet was it not natural enough? 
 
 Then, gradually, as she passed the boy, poring 
 over his book, in some alcove of the Museum 
 gardens, she would invite him by a glance to join 
 the knot of loungers and questioners who dangled 
 about her and her father, and fancied themselves 
 to be reproducing the days of the Athenian sages 
 amid the groves of another Academus. Some- 
 times, even, she had beckoned him to her side as 
 she sat in some retired arbor, attended only by 
 her father; and there some passing observation, 
 earnest and personal, however lofty and measured,
 
 The Rocks of the Sirens 265 
 
 made him aware, as it was intended to do, that she 
 had a deeper interest in him, a livelier sympathy 
 for him, than for the many ; that he was in her 
 eyes not merely a pupil to be instructed, but a soul 
 whom she desired to educate. And those delicious 
 gleams of sunlight grew more frequent and more 
 protracted ; for by each she satisfied herself more 
 and more that she had not mistaken either his 
 powers or his susceptibilities : and in each, whether 
 in public or private, Philammon seemed to bear 
 himself more worthily. For over and above the 
 natural ease and dignity which accompanies phys- 
 ical beauty, and the modesty, self-restraint, and 
 deep earnestness which he had acquired under the 
 discipline of the Laura, his Greek character was 
 developing itself in all its quickness, subtlety, and 
 versatility, until he seemed to Hypatia some young 
 Titan, by the side of the flippant, hasty, and insin- 
 cere talkers who made up her chosen circle. 
 
 But man can no more live upon Platonic love 
 than on the more prolific species of that common 
 ailment ; and for the first month Philammon would 
 have gone hungry to his couch full many a night, 
 to lie awake from baser causes than philosophic 
 meditation, had it not been for his magnanimous 
 host, who never lost heart for a moment, either 
 about himself, or any other human being. As for 
 Philammon's going out with him to earn his bread, 
 he would not hear of it. Did he suppose that he 
 could meet any of those monkish rascals in the 
 street, without being knocked down and carried off 
 by main force? And besides there was a sort of 
 impiety in allowing so hopeful a student to neglect 
 the " Divine Ineffable " in order to supply the base 
 necessities of the teeth. So he should pay no rent 
 
 M Vol. VI
 
 266 Hypatia 
 
 for his lodgings positively none; and as for 
 eatables why, he must himself work a little 
 harder in order to cater for both. Had not all his 
 neighbors their litters of children to provide for, 
 while he, thanks to the immortals, had been far too 
 wise to burden the earth with animals who would 
 add to the ugliness of their father the Tartarean 
 hue of their mother? And after all, Philammon 
 could pay him back when he became a great 
 sophist, and made money, as of course he would 
 some day or other ; and in the meantime, some- 
 thing might turn up things were always turning 
 up for those whom the gods favored ; and besides, 
 he had fully ascertained that on the day on which 
 he first met Philammon, the planets were favorable, 
 the Mercury being in something or other, he forgot 
 what, with Helios, which portended for Philammon, 
 in his opinion, a similar career with that of the 
 glorious and devout Emperor Julian. 
 
 Philammon winced somewhat at the hint ; which 
 seemed to have an ugly verisimilitude in it: but 
 still, philosophy he must learn, and bread he must 
 eat; so he submitted. 
 
 But one evening, a few days after he had been 
 admitted as Theon's pupil, he found, much to his 
 astonishment, lying on the table in his garret, an 
 undeniable glittering gold piece. He took it down 
 to the porter the next morning, and begged him 
 to discover the owner of the lost coin, and return 
 it duly. But what was his surprise, when the little 
 man, amid endless capers and gesticulations, in- 
 formed him, with an air of mystery, that it was 
 anything but lost ; that his arrears of rent had been 
 paid for him ; and that, by the bounty of the upper 
 powers, a fresh piece of coin would be forthcoming
 
 The Rocks of the Sirens 267 
 
 every month ! In vain Philammon demanded to 
 know who was his benefactor. Eudaemon reso- 
 lutely kept the secret and imprecated a whole 
 Tartarus of unnecessary curses on his wife if she 
 allowed her female garrulity though the poor 
 creature seemed never to open her lips from 
 morning till night to betray so great a mystery. 
 Who was the unknown friend? There was but 
 one person who could have done it. ... And yet 
 he dared not the thought was too delightful 
 think that it was she. It must have been her 
 father. The old man had asked him more than 
 once about the state of his purse. True, he had 
 always returned evasive answers ; but the kind old 
 man must have divined the truth. Ought he not 
 
 must he not go and thank him ? No ; perhaps 
 it was more courteous to say nothing. If he she 
 
 for of course she had permitted, perhaps advised, 
 the gift had intended him to thank them, would 
 they have so carefully concealed their own gener- 
 osity? ... Be it so, then. But how would he not 
 repay them for it ! How delightful to be in her 
 debt for anything for everything ! Would that 
 he could have the enjoyment of owing her existence 
 itself! 
 
 So he took the coin, bought unto himself a cloak 
 of the most philosophic fashion, and went his way, 
 such as it was, rejoicing. 
 
 But his faith in Christianity? What had become 
 of that? 
 
 What usually happens in such cases. It was not 
 dead ; but nevertheless it had fallen fast asleep for 
 the time being. He did not disbelieve it; he 
 would have been shocked to hear such a thing 
 asserted of him : but he happened to be busy be-
 
 268 Hypatia 
 
 lieving something else geometry, conic sections, 
 cosmogonies, psychologies, and what not And so 
 it befell that he had not just then time to believe 
 in Christianity. He recollected at times its exist- 
 ence ; but even then he neither affirmed nor denied 
 it. When he had solved the great questions 
 those which Hypatia set forth as the roots of all 
 knowledge how the world was made, and what 
 was the origin of evil, and what his own personality 
 was, and that being settled whether he had 
 one, with a few other preliminary matters, then it 
 would be time to return, with his enlarged light, 
 to the study of Christianity; and if, of course, 
 Christianity should be found to be at variance with 
 that enlarged light, as Hypatia seemed to think. 
 . . . Why, then What then ? . . . He would 
 not think about such disagreeable possibilities. 
 Sufficient for the day was the evil thereof. Possi- 
 bilities? It was impossible. . . . Philosophy could 
 not mislead. Had not Hypatia defined it, as man's 
 search after the unseen? And if he found the un- 
 seen by it, did it not come to just the same thing 
 as if the unseen had revealed itself to him? And 
 he must find it for logic and mathematics could 
 not err. If every step was correct, the conclusion 
 must be correct also ; so he must end, after all, in 
 the right path that is, of course, supposing 
 Christianity to be the right path and return to 
 fight the church's battles, with the sword which he 
 had wrested from Goliath the Philistine. . . . But 
 he had not won the sword yet ; and in the mean- 
 while, learning was weary work ; and sufficient for 
 the day was the good, as well as the evil, thereof. 
 
 So, enabled by his gold coin each month to 
 devote himself entirely to study, he became very
 
 The Rocks of the Sirens 269 
 
 much what Peter would have coarsely termed a 
 heathen. At first, indeed, he slipped into the 
 Christian churches, from a habit of conscience. 
 But habits soon grow sleepy ; the fear of discovery 
 and recapture made his attendance more and more 
 of a labor. And keeping himself apart as much 
 as possible from the congregation, as a lonely 
 and secret worshipper, he soon found himself as 
 separate from them in heart as in daily life. He 
 felt that they, and even more than they, those 
 flowery and bombastic pulpit rhetoricians, who 
 were paid for their sermons by the clapping and 
 cheering of the congregation, were not thinking of, 
 longing after, the same things as himself. Besides, 
 he never spoke to a Christian ; for the negress at 
 his lodgings seemed to avoid him whether from 
 modesty or terror, he could not tell ; and cut off 
 thus from the outward " communion of saints," he 
 found himself fast parting away from the inward 
 one. So he went no more to church ; and looked 
 the other way, he hardly knew why, whenever he 
 passed the Csesareum; and Cyril, and all his 
 mighty organization, became to him another world, 
 with which he had even less to do than with those 
 planets over his head, whose mysterious move- 
 ments, and symbolisms, and influences Hypatia's 
 lectures on astronomy were just opening before his 
 bewildered imagination. 
 
 Hypatia watched all this with growing self- 
 satisfaction, and fed herself with the dream that 
 through Philammon she might see her wildest 
 hopes realized. After the manner of women, she 
 crowned him, in her own imagination, with all 
 powers and excellences which she would have 
 wished him to possess, as well as with those which
 
 270 Hypatia 
 
 he actually manifested, till Philammon would have 
 been as much astonished as self-glorified could he 
 have seen the idealized caricature of himself which 
 the sweet enthusiast had painted for her private 
 enjoyment. They were blissful months those to 
 poor Hypatia. Orestes, for some reason or other, 
 had neglected to urge his suit, and the Iphigenia- 
 sacrifice had retired mercifully into the background. 
 Perhaps she should be able now to accomplish 
 all without it. And yet it was so long to wait ! 
 Years might pass before Philammon's education 
 was matured, and with them golden opportunities 
 which might never recur again. 
 
 " Ah ! " she sighed at times, " that Julian had 
 lived a generation later! That I could have 
 brought all my hard-earned treasures to the feet 
 of the Poet of the Sun, and cried, ' Take me ! 
 Hero, warrior, statesman, sage, priest of the God 
 of Light ! Take thy slave ! Command her send 
 her to martyrdom, if thou wilt ! ' A pretty price 
 would that have been wherewith to buy the honor 
 of being the meanest of thy apostles, the fellow- 
 laborer of lamblichus, Maximus, Libanius, and 
 the choir of sages who upheld the throne of the 
 last true Caesar ! "
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 NEPHELOCOCCUGUIA 
 
 HYPATIA had always avoided carefully dis- 
 cussing with Philammon any of those points 
 on which she differed from his former faith. She 
 was content to let the divine light of philosophy 
 penetrate by its own power, and educe its own 
 conclusions. But one da)', at the very time at 
 which this history re-opens, she was tempted to 
 speak more openly to her pupil than she yet had 
 done. Her father had introduced him, a few days 
 before, to a new work of hers on mathematics; 
 and the delighted and adoring look with which the 
 boy welcomed her, as he met her in the Museum 
 gardens, pardonably tempted her curiosity to in- 
 quire what miracles her own wisdom might have 
 already worked. She stopped in her walk, and 
 motioned her father to begin a conversation with 
 Philammon. 
 
 " Well ! " asked the old man, with an encour- 
 aging smile, " and how does our pupil like his 
 new " 
 
 "You mean my conic sections, father? It is 
 hardly fair to expect an unbiassed answer in my 
 presence." 
 
 " Why so?" said Philammon. " Why should I 
 not tell you, as well as all the world, the fresh and 
 wonderful field of thought which they have opened 
 to me, in a few short hours?"
 
 272 Hypatia 
 
 " What then ? " asked Hypatia, smiling, as if she 
 knew what the answer would be. " In what does 
 my commentary differ from the original text of 
 Apollonius, on which I have so faithfully based 
 it?" 
 
 "Oh, as much as a living body differs from a 
 dead one. Instead of mere dry disquisitions on 
 the properties of lines and curves, I found a mine 
 of poetry and theology. Every dull mathematical 
 formula seemed transfigured, as if by a miracle, 
 into the symbol of some deep and noble principle 
 of the unseen world." 
 
 " And do you think that he of Perga did not see 
 as much? or that we can pretend to surpass, in 
 depth of insight, the sages of the elder world ? Be 
 sure that they, like the poets, meant only spiritual 
 things, even when they seem to talk only of physi- 
 cal ones, and concealed heaven under an earthly 
 garb, only to hide it from the eyes of the profane ; 
 while we, in these degenerate days, must interpret 
 and display each detail to the dull ears of men." 
 
 " Do you think, my young friend," asked Theon, 
 " that mathematics can be valuable to the philoso- 
 pher otherwise than as vehicles of spiritual truth ! 
 Are we to study numbers merely that we may be 
 able to keep accounts; or as Pythagoras did, in 
 order to deduce from their laws the ideas by 
 which the universe, man, Divinity itself, con- 
 sists?" 
 
 "That seems to me certainly to be the nobler 
 purpose." 
 
 " Or conic sections, that we may know better 
 how to construct machinery; or rather to devise 
 from them symbols of the relations of Deity to its 
 various emanations?"
 
 Nephelococcuguia 273 
 
 "You use your dialectic like Socrates himself, 
 my father," said Hypatia. 
 
 " If I do, it is only for a temporary purpose. I 
 should be sorry to accustom Philammon to sup- 
 pose that the essence of philosophy was to be 
 found in those minute investigations of words and 
 analyses of notions, which seem to constitute 
 Plato's chief power in the eyes of those who, like 
 the Christian sophist Augustine, worship his letter 
 while they neglect his spirit ; not seeing that those 
 dialogues, which they fancy the shrine itself, are 
 but vestibules " 
 
 " Say rather, veils, father." 
 
 " Veils, indeed, which were intended to baffle 
 the rude gaze of the carnal-minded ; but still vesti- 
 bules, through which the enlightened soul might 
 be led up to the inner sanctuary, to the Hesperid 
 gardens and golden fruit of the Timaeus and the 
 oracles. . . . And for myself, were but those two 
 books left, I care not whether every other writing 
 in the world perished to-morrow." ] 
 
 " You must except Homer, father." 
 
 "Yes, for the herd. . . . But of what use would 
 he be to them without some spiritual commen- 
 tary?" 
 
 " He would tell them as little, perhaps, as the 
 circle tells to the carpenter who draws one with 
 his compasses." 
 
 " And what is the meaning of the circle ? " asked 
 Philammon. 
 
 " It may have infinite meanings, like every other 
 natural phenomenon; and deeper meanings in 
 proportion to the exaltation of the soul which be- 
 
 1 This astounding speech is usually attributed to Proclus, 
 Hypatia's " great " successor.
 
 274 Hypatia 
 
 holds it. But, consider, is it not, as the one per- 
 fect figure, the very symbol of the totality of the 
 spiritual world ; which, like it, is invisible, except 
 at its circumference, where it is limited by the 
 dead gross phenomena of sensuous matter ! and 
 even as the circle takes its origin from one center, 
 itself unseen, a point, as Euclid defines it, where- 
 of neither parts nor magnitude can be predicated, 
 does not the world of spirits revolve round one 
 abysmal being, unseen and undefinable in itself, 
 as I have so often preached, nothing, for it is con- 
 ceivable only by the negation of all properties, 
 even of those of reason, virtue, force; and yet, 
 like the center of the circle, the cause of all other 
 existences?" 
 
 " I see," said Philammon ; for the moment, cer- 
 tainly, the said abysmal Deity struck him as a 
 somewhat chill and barren notion . . . but that 
 might be caused only by the dulness of his own 
 spiritual perceptions. At all events, if it was a 
 logical conclusion, it must be right. 
 
 "Let that be enough for the present. Here- 
 after you may be I fancy that I know you well 
 enough to prophesy that you will be able to 
 recognize in the equilateral triangle inscribed with- 
 in the circle, and touching it only with its angles, 
 the three supra-sensual principles of existence, 
 which are contained in Deity as it manifests itself 
 in the physical universe, coinciding with its utmost 
 limits, and yet, like it, independent on that unseen 
 central One which none dare name." 
 
 " Ah ! " said poor Philammon, blushing scarlet 
 at the sense of his own dulness, " I am, indeed, not 
 worthy to have such wisdom wasted upon my im- 
 perfect apprehension. . . . But, if I may dare to
 
 Nephelococcuguia 275 
 
 ask . . . does not Apollonius regard the circle, 
 like all other curves, as not depending primarily 
 on its own center for its existence, but as generated 
 by the section of any cone by a plane at right 
 angles to its axis?" 
 
 " But must we not draw, or at least conceive a 
 circle, in order to produce that cone? And is not 
 the axis of that cone determined by the center of 
 that circle ? " 
 
 Philammon stood rebuked. 
 
 " Do not be ashamed ; you have only, unwit- 
 tingly, laid open another, and perhaps, as deep a 
 symbol. Can you guess what it is ? " 
 
 Philammon puzzled in vain. 
 
 " Does it not show you this ? That, as every 
 conceivable right section of the cone discloses the 
 circle, so in all which is fair and symmetric you 
 will discover Deity, if you but analyze it in a right 
 and symmetric direction ? " 
 
 " Beautiful ! " said Philammon, while the old 
 man added : 
 
 "And does it not show us, too, how the one 
 perfect and original philosophy may be discovered 
 in all great writers, if we have but that scientific 
 knowledge, which will enable us to extract it?" 
 
 " True, my father : but just now, I wish Philam- 
 mon, by such thoughts as I have suggested, to 
 rise to that higher and more spiritual insight into 
 nature, which reveals her to us as instinct through- 
 out all fair and noble forms of her at least 
 with Deity itself; to make him feel that it is not 
 enough to say, with the Christians, that God has 
 made the world, if we make that very assertion an 
 excuse for believing that His presence has been 
 ever since withdrawn from it."
 
 276 Hypatia 
 
 " Christians, I think, would hardly say that,** 
 said Philammon. 
 
 M Not in words. But, in fact, they regard Deity 
 as the maker of a dead machine, which, once made, 
 will move of itself thenceforth, and repudiate as 
 heretics every philosophic thinker, whether Gnostic 
 or Platonist, who, unsatisfied with so dead, barren, 
 and sordid a conception of the glorious all, wishes 
 to honor the Deity by acknowledging His uni- 
 versal presence, and to believe, honestly, the 
 assertion of their own Scriptures, that He lives 
 and moves, and has His being in the universe." 
 
 Philammon gently suggested that the passage in 
 question was worded somewhat differently in the 
 Scripture. 
 
 " True. But if the one be true, its converse will 
 be true also. If the universe lives and moves, and 
 has its being in Him, must He not necessarily 
 pervade all things ? " 
 
 "Why? Forgive my dulness, and explain." 
 
 " Because, if He did not pervade all things, those 
 things which He did not pervade would be as it 
 were interstices in His being, and in so far, with- 
 out Him." 
 
 " True, but still they would be within His cir- 
 cumference." 
 
 " Well argued. But yet they would not live in 
 Him, but in themselves. To live in Him they 
 must be pervaded by His life. Do you think it 
 possible do you think it even reverent to affirm 
 that there can be anything within the infinite glory 
 of Deity which has the power of excluding from 
 the space which it occupies that very being from 
 which it draws its worth, and which must have 
 originally pervaded that thing, in order to bestow on
 
 Nephelococcuguia 277 
 
 it its organization and its life? Does He retire after 
 creating, from the spaces which He occupied during 
 creation, reduced to the base necessity of making 
 room for His own universe, and endure the suffer- 
 ing for the analogy of all material nature tells 
 us that it is suffering of a foreign body, like a 
 thorn within the flesh, subsisting within His own 
 substance ? Rather believe that His wisdom and 
 splendor, like a subtle and piercing fire, insinuates 
 itself eternally with resistless force through every 
 organized atom, and that were it withdrawn but 
 for an instant from the petal of tlie meanest flower, 
 gross matter, and the dead chaos from which it 
 was formed, would be all which would remain of 
 its loveliness. . . . 
 
 " Yes " she went on, after the method of her 
 school, who preferred, like most decaying ones, 
 harangues to dialectic, and synthesis to induction. 
 ..." Look at yon lotus-flower, rising like Aphro- 
 dite from the wave in which it has slept through- 
 out the night, and saluting, with bending swan-neck, 
 that sun which it will follow lovingly around the 
 sky. Is there no more there than brute matter, 
 pipes and fibres, color and shape, and the mean- 
 ingless life-in-death which men call vegetation? 
 Those old Egyptian priests knew better, who could 
 see in the number and the form of those ivory 
 petals and golden stamina, in that mysterious daily 
 birth out of the wave, in that nightly baptism, from 
 which it rises each morning re-born to a new life, 
 the signs of some divine idea, some mysterious law, 
 common to the flower itself, to the white-robed 
 priestess who held it in the temple-rites, and to the 
 goddess to whom they both were consecrated. . . . 
 The flower of Isis ! . . Ah ! well. Nature has
 
 278 Hypatia 
 
 her sad symbols, as well as her fair ones. And in 
 proportion as a misguided nation has forgotten the 
 worship of her to whom they owed their greatness, 
 for novel and barbaric superstitions, so has her 
 sacred flower grown rarer and more rare, till now 
 fit emblem of the worship over which it used to 
 shed its perfume it is only to be found in gardens 
 such as these a curiosity to the vulgar, and, to 
 such as me, a lingering monument of wisdom and 
 of glory passed away." 
 
 Philammon, it may be seen, was far advanced by 
 this time ; for he bore the allusions to Isis without 
 the slightest shudder. Nay he dared even to 
 offer consolation to the beautiful mourner. 
 
 " The philosopher," he said, " will hardly lament 
 the loss of a mere outward idolatry. For if, as you 
 seem to think, there were a root of spiritual truth 
 in the symbolism of nature, that cannot die. And 
 thus the lotus-flower must still retain its meaning, 
 as long as its species exists on earth." 
 
 " Idolatry ! " answered she, with a smile. " My 
 pupil must not repeat to me that worn-out Chris- 
 tian calumny. Into whatsoever low superstitions 
 the pious vulgar may have fallen, it is the Chris- 
 tians now, and not the heathens, who are idolaters. 
 They who ascribe miraculous power to dead men's 
 bones, who make temples of charnel-houses, and 
 bow before the images of the meanest of mankind, 
 have surely no right to accuse of idolatry the 
 Greek or the Egyptian, who embodies in a form 
 of symbolic beauty ideas beyond the reach of 
 words ! 
 
 "Idolatry? Do I worship the Pharos when I 
 gaze at it, as I do for hours, with loving awe, as 
 the token to me of the all-conquering might of
 
 Nephelococcuguia 279 
 
 Hellas? Do I worship the roll on which Homer's 
 words are written, when I welcome with delight the 
 celestial truths which it unfolds to me, and even 
 prize and love the material book for the sake of 
 the message which it brings? Do you fancy that 
 any but the vulgar worship the image itself, or 
 dream that it can help or hear them ? Does the 
 lover mistake his mistress's picture for the living, 
 speaking reality? We worship the idea of which 
 the image is a symbol. Will you blame us because 
 we use that symbol to represent the idea to our 
 own affections and emotions instead of leaving it a 
 barren notion, a vague imagination of our own 
 intellect?" 
 
 " Then," asked Philammon, with a faltering voice, 
 yet unable to restrain his curiosity, " then you do 
 reverence the heathen gods ? " 
 
 Why Hypatia should have felt his question a 
 sore one, puzzled Philammon; but she evidently 
 did feel it as such, for she answered haughtily 
 enough : 
 
 " If Cyril had asked me that question, I should 
 have disdained to answer. To you I will tell, that 
 before I can answer your question you must learn 
 what those whom you call heathen gods are. The 
 vulgar, or rather those who find it their interest to 
 calumniate the vulgar for the sake of confounding 
 philosophers with them, may fancy them mere hu- 
 man beings, subject like man to the sufferings of 
 pain and love, to the limitations of personality. 
 We, on the other hand, have been taught by the 
 primeval philosophers of Greece, by the priests of 
 ancient Egypt, and the sages of Babylon, to recog- 
 nize in them the universal powers of nature, those 
 children of the all-quickening spirit, which are but
 
 280 Hypatia 
 
 various emanations of the one primeval unity 
 say rather, various phases of that unity, as it has 
 been variously conceived, according to the differ- 
 ences of climate and race, by the wise of different 
 nations. And thus, in our eyes, he who reverences 
 the many, worships by that very act, with the high- 
 est and fullest adoration, the one of whose perfec- 
 tion they are the partial antitypes ; perfect each in 
 themselves, but each the image of only one of its 
 perfections." 
 
 " Why, then," said Philammon, much relieved by 
 this explanation, "do you so dislike Christianity? 
 may it not be one of the many methods ?" 
 
 " Because," she answered, interrupting him im- 
 patiently, "because it denies itself to be one of 
 those many methods, and stakes its existence on 
 the denial ; because it arrogates to itself the exclu- 
 sive revelation of the Divine, and cannot see, in its 
 self-conceit, that its own doctrines disprove that 
 assumption by their similarity to those of all creeds. 
 There is not a dogma of the Galileans which may 
 not be found, under some form or other, in some 
 of those very religions from which it pretends to 
 disdain borrowing." 
 
 " Except," said Theon, " its exaltation of all which 
 is human and low-born, illiterate and levelling." 
 
 "Except that But look! here comes some 
 
 one whom I cannot do not choose to meet. 
 Turn this way quick ! " 
 
 And Hypatia, turning pale as death, drew her 
 father with unphilosophic haste down a side-walk. 
 
 " Yes," she went on to herself, as soon as she had 
 recovered her equanimity. "Were this Galilean 
 superstition content to take its place humbly 
 among the other ' religiones licitas ' of the empire,
 
 Nephelococcuguia 281 
 
 one might tolerate it well enough, as an anthro- 
 pomorphic adumbration of divine things fitted for 
 the base and toiling herd; perhaps peculiarly 
 fitted, because peculiarly flattering to them. But 
 now " 
 
 " There is Miriam again," said Philammon, 
 " right before us ! " 
 
 "Miriam?" asked Hypatia, severely. "You 
 know her, then? How is that?" 
 
 " She lodges at Eudaemon's house, as I do," 
 answered Philammon, frankly. " Not that I evef 
 interchanged, or wish to interchange, a word with 
 so base a creature." 
 
 " Do not ! I charge you ! " said Hypatia, al- 
 most imploringly. But there was now no way of 
 avoiding her, and perforce Hypatia and her tor- 
 mentress met face to face. 
 
 " One word ! one moment, beautiful lady," be- 
 gan the old woman, with a slavish obeisance. 
 " Nay, do not push by so cruelly. I have see 
 what I have for you ! " and she held out, with a 
 mysterious air, " The Rainbow of Solomon." 
 
 " Ah ! I knew you would stop a moment not 
 for the ring's sake, of course, nor even for the sake 
 of one who once offered it to you. Ah ! and 
 where is he now ? Dead of love, perhaps ! At 
 least, here is his last token to the fairest one, the 
 cruel one. . . . Well, perhaps she is right. . . . 
 To be an empress an empress ! . . . Far finer 
 than anything the poor Jew could have offered. 
 . . . But still. . . . An empress need not be above 
 hearing her subject's petition.". . . 
 
 All this was uttered rapidly, and in a wheedling 
 undertone, with a continual snaky writhing of her 
 whole body, except her eye, which seemed, in the
 
 282 Hypatia 
 
 intense fixity of its glare, to act as a fulcrum for 
 all her limbs; and from that eye, as long as it 
 kept its mysterious hold, there was no escaping. 
 
 " What do you mean ? What have I to do with 
 this ring?" asked Hypatia, half frightened. 
 
 " He who owned it once, offers it to you now. 
 You recollect a little black agate a paltry thing. 
 ... If you have not thrown it away, as you most 
 likely have, he wishes to redeem it with this opal 
 ... a gem surely more fit for such a hand as 
 that." 
 
 " He gave me the agate, and I shall keep it." 
 
 " But this opal worth, oh worth ten thousand 
 gold pieces in exchange for that paltry broken 
 thing not worth one?" 
 
 " I am not a dealer, like you, and have not yet 
 learnt to value things by their money price. If 
 that agate had been worth money, I would never 
 have accepted it." 
 
 " Take the ring, take it, my darling," whispered 
 Theon, impatiently; " it will pay all our debts." 
 
 " Ah, that it will pay them all," answered the 
 old woman, who seemed to have mysteriously 
 overheard him. 
 
 " What ! my father ! Would you, too, counsel 
 me to be so mercenary? My good woman," she 
 went on, turning to Miriam, " I cannot expect you 
 to understand the reason of my refusal. You and 
 I have a different standard of worth. But for the 
 sake of the talisman engraven on that agate, if for 
 no other reason, I cannot give it up." 
 
 " Ah ! for the sake of the talisman ! That is 
 wise, now ! That is noble ! Like a philosopher ! 
 Oh, I will not say a word more. Let the beauti- 
 ful prophetess keep the agate, and take the opal
 
 Nephelococcuguia 283 
 
 too ; for see, there is a charm on it also ! The 
 name by which Solomon compelled the demons 
 to do his bidding. Look ! What might you not 
 do now, if you knew how to use that ! To have 
 great glorious angels, with six wings each, bowing 
 at your feet whensoever you called them, and say- 
 ing, ' Here am I, mistress ; send me.' Only look 
 at it!" 
 
 Hypatia took the tempting bait, and examined 
 it with more curiosity than she would have wished 
 to confess ; while the old woman went on : 
 
 " But the wise lady knows how to use the black 
 agate, of course? Aben-Ezra told her that, did 
 he not?" 
 
 Hypatia blushed somewhat; she was ashamed 
 to confess that Aben-Ezra had not revealed the 
 secret to her, probably not believing that there 
 was any, and that the talisman had been to her 
 only a curious plaything, of which she liked to 
 believe one day that it might possibly have some 
 occult virtue, and the next day to laugh at the 
 notion as unphilosophical and barbaric; so she 
 answered, rather severely, that her secrets were 
 her own property. 
 
 " Ah, then ! she knows it all the fortunate 
 lady ! And the talisman has told her whether 
 Heraclian has lost or won Rome by this time, and 
 whether she is to be the mother of a new dynasty 
 of Ptolemies, or to die a virgin, which the Four 
 Angels avert ! And surely she has had the great 
 demon come to her already, when she rubbed the 
 flat side, has she not?" 
 
 " Go, foolish woman ! I am not like you, the 
 dupe of childish superstitions." 
 
 " Childish superstitions ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! " said the
 
 284 Hypatia 
 
 old woman, as she turned to go, with obeisances 
 more lowly, than ever. " And she has not seen 
 the Angels yetl . . . Ah well! perhaps some 
 day, when she wants to know how to use the talis- 
 man, the beautiful lady will condescend to let the 
 poor old Jewess show her the way." 
 
 And Miriam disappeared down an alley, and 
 plunged into the thickest shrubberies, while the 
 three dreamers went on their way. 
 
 Little thought Hypatia that the moment the 
 old woman had found herself alone, she had 
 dashed herself down on the turf, rolling and biting 
 at the leaves like an infuriated wild beast. ... "I 
 will have it yet ! I will have it, if I tear out her 
 heart with it ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 VENUS AND PALLAS 
 
 AS Hypatia was passing across to her lecture- 
 room that afternoon, she was stopped mid- 
 way by a procession of some twenty Goths and 
 damsels, headed by Pelagia herself, in all her glory 
 of jewels, shawls, and snow-white mule ; while by 
 her side rode the Amal, his long legs, like those of 
 Gang-Rolf the Norseman, all but touching the 
 ground, as he crushed down with his weight a deli- 
 cate little barb, the best substitute to be found in 
 Alexandria for the huge black chargers of his 
 native land. 
 
 On they came, followed by a wondering and ad- 
 miring mob, straight to the door of the Museum, 
 and stopping began to dismount, while their slaves 
 took charge of the mules and horses. 
 
 There was no escape for Hypatia ; pride forbade 
 her to follow her own maidenly instinct, and to re- 
 coil among the crowd behind her ; and in another 
 moment the Amal had lifted Pelagia from her mule, 
 and the rival beauties of Alexandria stood, for the 
 first time in their lives, face to face. 
 
 " May Athene befriend you this day, Hypatia !" 
 said Pelagia, with her sweetest smile. " I have 
 brought my guards to hear somewhat of your wis- 
 dom, this afternoon. I am anxious to know whether 
 you can teach them anything more worth listening
 
 286 Hypatia 
 
 to than the foolish little songs which Aphrodite 
 taught me, when she raised me from the sea-foam, 
 as she rose herself, and named me Pelagia." 
 
 Hypatia drew herself up to her stateliest height, 
 and returned no answer. 
 
 " I think my body-guard will well bear compari- 
 son with yours. At least they are the princes and 
 descendants of deities. So it is but fitting that 
 they should enter before your provincials. Will 
 you show them the way?" 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Then I must do it myself. Come, Amal ! " and 
 she swept up the steps, followed by the Goths, who 
 put the Alexandrians aside right and left, as if they 
 had been children. 
 
 " Ah ! treacherous wanton that you are ! " cried a 
 young man's voice out of the murmuring crowd. 
 " After having plundered us of every coin out of 
 which you could dupe us, here you are squander- 
 ing our patrimonies on barbarians ! " 
 
 " Give us back our presents, Pelagia," cried 
 another, " and you are welcome to your herd of 
 wild bulls!" 
 
 " And I will ! " cried she, stopping suddenly ; and 
 clutching at her chains and bracelets, she was on 
 the point of dashing them among the astonished 
 crowd : 
 
 "There ! take your gifts ! Pelagia and her girls 
 scorn to be debtors to boys, while they are wor- 
 shipped by men like these ! " 
 
 But the Amal, who, luckily for the students, had 
 not understood a word of this conversation, seized 
 her arm, asking if she were mad. 
 
 " No, no ! " panted she, inarticulate with passion. 
 "Give me gold every coin you have. These
 
 Venus and Pallas 287 
 
 wretches are twitting me with what they gave me 
 before before oh Amal, you understand me?" 
 And she clung imploringly to his arm. 
 
 " Oh ! Heroes ! each of you throw his purse 
 among these fellows ! they say that we and our 
 ladies are living on their spoils ! " And he tossed 
 his purse among the crowd. 
 
 In an instant every Goth had followed his ex- 
 ample : more than one following it up by dashing 
 a bracelet or necklace into the face of some hapless 
 philosophaster. 
 
 "I have no lady, my young friends," said old 
 Wulf, in good enough Greek, "and owe you noth- 
 ing : so I shall keep my money, as you might have 
 kept yours; and as you might, too, old Smid, if 
 you had been as wise as I." 
 
 " Don't be stingy, Prince, for the honor of the 
 Goths," said Smid, laughing. 
 
 " If I take in gold I pay in iron," answered Wulf, 
 drawing half out of its sheath the huge broad blade, 
 at the ominous brown stains of which the studentry 
 recoiled ; and the whole party swept into the empty 
 lecture-room, and seated themselves at their ease 
 in the front ranks. 
 
 Poor Hypatia ! At first she determined not to 
 lecture then to send for Orestes then to call on 
 her students to defend the sanctity of the Museum ; 
 but pride, as well as prudence, advised her better ; 
 to retreat would be to confess herself conquered 
 to disgrace philosophy to lose her hold on the 
 minds of all waverers. No ! she would go on and 
 brave everything, insults, even violence ; and with 
 trembling limbs and a pale cheek, she mounted the 
 tribune and began. 
 
 To her surprise and delight, however, her bar-
 
 288 Hypatia 
 
 barian auditors were perfectly well behaved. Pe- 
 lagia, in childish good humor at her triumph, and 
 perhaps, too, determined to show her contempt for 
 her adversary by giving her every chance, enforced 
 silence and attention, and checked the tittering of 
 the girls, for a full half-hour. But at the end of that 
 time the heavy breathing of the slumbering Amal, 
 who had been twice awoke by her, resounded un- 
 checked through the lecture-room, and deepened 
 into a snore ; for Pelagia herself was as fast asleep as 
 he. But now another censor took upon himself the 
 office of keeping order. Old Wulf, from the moment 
 Hypatia had begun, had never taken his eyes off 
 her face; and again and again the maiden's weak 
 heart had been cheered, as she saw the smile of 
 sturdy intelligence and honest satisfaction which 
 twinkled over that scarred and bristly visage ; while 
 every now and then the graybeard wagged approval, 
 until she found herself, long before the end of the 
 oration, addressing herself straight to her new 
 admirer. 
 
 At last it was over, and the students behind, who 
 had sat meekly through it all, without the slight- 
 est wish to "upset" the intruders, who had so 
 thoroughly upset them, rose hurriedly, glad enough 
 to get safe out of so dangerous a neighborhood. 
 But to their astonishment, as well as to that of 
 Hypatia, old Wulf rose also, and stumbling along 
 to the foot of the tribune, pulled out his purse, and 
 laid it at Hypatia's feet. 
 
 "What is this?" asked she, half terrified at the 
 approach of a figure more rugged and barbaric 
 than she had ever beheld before. 
 
 " My fee for what I have heard to-day. You are 
 a right noble maiden, and may Freya send you a
 
 Venus and Pallas 289 
 
 husband worthy of you, and make you the mother 
 of kings!" 
 
 And Wulf retired with his party. 
 
 Open homage to her rival, before her very face ! 
 Pelagia felt quite inclined to hate old Wulf. 
 
 But at least he was the only traitor. The rest of 
 the Goths agreed unanimously that Hypatia was a 
 very foolish person, who was wasting her youth and 
 beauty in talking to donkey-riders ; and Pelagia re- 
 mounted her mule, and the Goths their horses, for 
 a triumphal procession homeward. 
 
 And yet her heart was sad, even in her triumph. 
 Right and wrong were ideas as unknown to her as 
 they were to hundreds of thousands in her day. 
 As far as her own consciousness was concerned, 
 she was as destitute of a soul as the mule on which 
 she rode. Gifted by nature with boundless frolic 
 and good-humor, wit and cunning, her Greek 
 taste for the physically beautiful and graceful de- 
 veloped by long training, until she had become, 
 without a rival, the most perfect pantomime, 
 dancer, and musician who catered for the luxuri- 
 ous tastes of the Alexandrian theatres. She had 
 lived since her childhood only for enjoyment and 
 vanity, and wished for nothing more. But her new 
 affection, or rather worship, for the huge manhood 
 of her Gothic lover had awoke in her a new object 
 to keep him to live for him to follow him 
 to the ends of the earth, even if he tired of her, ill- 
 used her, despised her. And slowly, day by day, 
 Wulf's sneers had awakened in her a dread that 
 perhaps the Amal might despise her. . . . Why, she 
 could not guess: but what sort of women were 
 those Alrunas, of whom Wulf sung, of whom even 
 the Amal and his men spoke with reverence, as 
 
 N Vol. VI
 
 290 Hypatia 
 
 something nobler, not only than she, but even than 
 themselves? And what was it which Wulf had 
 recognized in Hypatia which had bowed the stern 
 and coarse old warrior before her in that public 
 homage? ... It was not difficult to say what. . . . 
 But why should that make Hypatia or any one else 
 attractive? . . . And the poor little child of nature 
 gazed in deep bewilderment at a crowd of new 
 questions, as a butterfly might at the pages of the 
 book on which it has settled, and was sad and dis- 
 contented not with herself, for was she not Pela- 
 gia the perfect? but with these strange fancies 
 which came into other people's heads. Why 
 should not every one be as happy as they could? 
 And who knew better than she how to be happy, 
 and to make others happy? . . . 
 
 " Look at that old monk standing on the pave- 
 ment, Amalric ! Why does he stare so at me ? Tell 
 him to go away." 
 
 The person at whom she pointed, a delicate- 
 featured old man, with a venerable white beard, 
 seemed to hear her ; for he turned with a sudden 
 start, and then, to Pelagia's astonishment, put his 
 hands before his face, and burst convulsively into 
 tears. 
 
 " What does he mean by behaving in that way? 
 Bring him here to me this moment ! I will know ! " 
 cried she, petulantly catching at the new object, in 
 order to escape from her own thoughts. 
 
 In a moment a Goth had led up the weeper, 
 who came without demur to the side of Pelagia's 
 mule. 
 
 " Why were you so rude as to burst out crying 
 in my face ? " asked she, petulantly. 
 
 The old man looked up sadly and tenderly, and
 
 Venus and Pallas 291 
 
 answered in a low voice, meant only for her 
 ear: 
 
 " And how can I help weeping, when I see any- 
 thing as beautiful as you are destined to the flames 
 of hell for ever?" 
 
 " The flames of hell ? " said Pelagia, with a shud- 
 der. "What for?" 
 
 " Do you not know? " asked the old man, with a 
 look of sad surprise. " Have you forgotten what 
 you are?" 
 
 "I? I never hurt a fly !" 
 
 "Why do you look so terrified, my darling? 
 What have you been saying to her, you old vil- 
 lain?" and the Amal raised his whip. 
 
 " Oh ! do not strike him. Come, come to-mor- 
 row, and tell me what you mean." 
 
 " No, we will have no monks within our doors, 
 frightening silly women. Off, sirrah ! and thank 
 the lady that you have escaped with a whole skin." 
 And the Amal caught the bridle of Pelagia's mule, 
 and pushed forward, leaving the old man gazing 
 sadly after them. 
 
 But the beautiful sinner was evidently not the 
 object which had brought the old monk of the 
 desert into a neighborhood so strange and ungenial 
 to his habits ; for, recovering himself in a few mo- 
 ments, he hurried on to the door of the Museum, 
 and there planted himself, scanning earnestly the 
 faces of the passers-out, and meeting, of course, 
 with his due share of student ribaldry. 
 
 " Well, old cat, and what mouse are you on the 
 watch for, at the hole's mouth here ? " 
 
 " Just come inside, and see whether the mice will 
 not singe your whiskers for you." . . . 
 
 " Here is my mouse, gentlemen," answered the
 
 292 Hypatia 
 
 old monk, with a bow and a smile, as he laid his 
 hand on Philammon's arm, and presented to his 
 astonished eyes the delicate features and high 
 retreating forehead of Arsenius. 
 
 " My father," cried the boy, in the first impulse 
 of affectionate recognition ; and then he had 
 expected some such meeting all along, but now 
 that it was come at last, he turned pale as death. 
 The students saw his emotion. 
 
 " Hands off, old Heautontimoroumenos ! He 
 belongs to our guild now ! Monks have no more 
 business with sons than with wives. Shall we hustle 
 him for you, Philammon?" 
 
 " Take care how you show off, gentlemen : the 
 Goths are not yet out of hearing ! " answered Phil- 
 ammon, who was learning fast how to give a smart 
 answer ; and then, fearing the temper of the younp 
 dandies, and shrinking from the notion of any in- 
 sult to one so reverend and so beloved as Arsenius, 
 he drew the old man gently away, and walked up 
 the street with him in silence, dreading what was 
 coming. 
 
 " And are these your friends? " 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! I have nothing in common 
 with such animals but flesh and blood, and a seat 
 in the lecture-room ! " 
 
 "Of the heathen woman?" 
 
 Philammon, after the fashion of young men in 
 fear, rushed desperately into the subject himself, 
 just because he dreaded Arsenius's entering on it 
 quietly. 
 
 " Yes, of the heathen woman. Of course you 
 have seen Cyril before you came hither?" 
 
 " I have, and " 
 
 " And," went on Philammon, interrupting him.
 
 Venus and Pallas 293 
 
 "you have been told every lie which prurience, 
 stupidity, and revenge can invent. That I have 
 trampled on the cross sacrificed to all the 
 deities in the pantheon and probably" (and 
 he blushed scarlet) " that that purest and holiest 
 'of beings who, if she were not what people call 
 a pagan, would be, and deserves to be, worshipped 
 
 as the queen of saints that she and I " 
 
 and he stopped. 
 
 " Have I said that I believed what I may have 
 heard?" 
 
 " No and therefore, as they are all simple and 
 sheer falsehoods, there is no more to be said on 
 the subject. Not that I shall not be delighted 
 to answer any questions of yours, my dearest 
 father " 
 
 " Have I asked any, my child ? " 
 
 " No. So we may as well change the subject for 
 the present," and he began overwhelming the 
 old man with inquiries about himself, Pambo, and 
 each and all of the inhabitants of the Laura : to 
 which Arsenius, to the boy's infinite relief, an- 
 swered cordially and minutely, and even vouch- 
 safed a smile at some jest of Philammon's on the 
 contrast between the monks of Nitria and those 
 of Scetis. 
 
 Arsenius was too wise not to see well enough 
 what all this flippancy meant ; and too wise, also, 
 not to know that Philammon's version was prob- 
 ably quite as near the truth as Peter's and Cyril's ; 
 but for reasons of his own, merely replied by an 
 affectionate look, and a compliment to Philammon's 
 growth. 
 
 " And yet you seem thin and pale, my boy." 
 
 " Study," said Philammon, " study. One cannot
 
 294 Hypatia 
 
 burn the midnight oil without paying some penalty 
 for it ... However, I am richly repaid already; 
 I shall be more so hereafter." 
 
 "Let us hope so. But who are those Goths 
 whom I passed in the streets just now?" 
 
 " Ah ! my father," said Philammon, glad in his 
 heart of any excuse to turn the conversation, and 
 yet half uneasy and suspicious at Arsenius's evident 
 determination to avoid the very object of his visit. 
 " It must have been you, then, whom I saw stop and 
 speak to Pelagia at the farther end of the street. 
 What words could you possibly have had where- 
 with to honor such a creature ? " 
 
 "God knows. Some secret sympathy touched 
 my heart. . . . Alas ! poor child ! But how came 
 you to know her ? " 
 
 " All Alexandria knows the shameless abomina- 
 tion," interrupted a voice at their elbow none other 
 than that of the little porter, who had been dodging 
 and watching the pair the whole way, and could no 
 longer restrain his longing to meddle. " And well 
 it had been for many a rich young man had old 
 Miriam never brought her over, in an evil day, from 
 Athens hither." 
 
 "Miriam?" 
 
 " Yes, monk ; a name not unknown, I am told, in 
 palaces as well as in slave-markets." 
 
 " An evil-eyed old Jewess ? " 
 
 " A Jewess she is, as her name might have in- 
 formed you ; and as for her eyes, I consider them, 
 or used to do so, of course for her injured nation 
 have been long expelled from Alexandria by your 
 fanatic tribe as altogether divine and demoniac, 
 let the base imagination of monks call them what 
 it likes."
 
 Venus and Pallas 295 
 
 "But how did you know this Pelagia, my son? 
 She is no fit company for such as you." 
 
 Philammon told, honestly enough, the story of his 
 Nile journey, and Pelagia's invitation to him. 
 
 " You did not surely accept it ? " 
 
 " Heaven forbid that Hypatia's scholar should so 
 degrade himself! " 
 
 Arsenius shook his head sadly. 
 
 " You would not have had me go ? " 
 
 " No, boy. But how long hast thou learned to 
 call thyself Hypatia's scholar, or to call it a degra- 
 dation to visit the most sinful, if thou mightest 
 thereby bring back a lost lamb to the Good 
 Shepherd ? Nevertheless, thou art too young for 
 such employment and she meant to tempt thee, 
 doubtless." 
 
 " I do not think it. She seemed struck by my 
 talking Athenian Greek, and having come from 
 Athens." 
 
 " And how long since she came from Athens ? " 
 said Arsenius, after a pause. "Who knows? " 
 
 " Just after it was sacked by the barbarians," said 
 the little porter, who, beginning to suspect a mys- 
 tery, was peeking and peering like an excited parrot. 
 " The old dame brought her hither among a cargo 
 of captive boys and girls." 
 
 "The time agrees. . . . Can this Miriam be 
 found?" 
 
 " A sapient and courteous question for a monk 
 to ask ! Do you not know that Cyril has expelled 
 all Jews four months ago ? " 
 
 "True, true. . . . Alas ! " said the old man to him- 
 self, " how little the rulers of this world guess their 
 own power ! They move a finger carelessly, and for- 
 get that that finger may crush to death hundreds
 
 296 Hypatia 
 
 whose names they never heard and every soul of 
 them as precious in God's sight as Cyril's own." 
 
 "What is the matter, my father?" asked Phil- 
 ammon. "You seem deeply moved, about this 
 woman." . . . 
 
 "And she is Miriam's slave?" 
 
 " Her freedwoman this four years past," said 
 the porter. " The good lady for reasons doubt- 
 less excellent in themselves, though not altogether 
 patent to the philosophic mind thought good to 
 turn her loose on the Alexandrian republic, to 
 seek what she might devour." 
 
 " God help her ! And you are certain that 
 Miriam is not in Alexandria." 
 
 The little porter turned very red, and Philammon 
 did so likewise ; but he remembered his promise, 
 and kept it 
 
 "You both know something of her, I can see. 
 You cannot deceive an old statesman, sir ! " turn- 
 ing to the little porter with a look of authority 
 " poor monk though he be now. If you think fitting 
 to tell me what you know, I promise you that neither 
 she nor you shall be losers by your confidence in 
 me. If not, I shall find means to discover." 
 
 Both stood silent 
 
 " Philammon, my son ! and art thou too in league 
 against no, not against me ; against thyself, poor 
 misguided boy?" 
 
 " Against myself ? " 
 
 " Yes I have said it But unless you will trust 
 me, I cannot trust you." 
 
 " I have promised." 
 
 " And I, sir statesman, or monk, or both, or neither, 
 have sworn by the immortal gods ! " said the porter, 
 looking very big.
 
 Venus and Pallas 297 
 
 Arsenius paused. 
 
 " There are those who hold that an oath by an 
 idol, being nothing, is of itself void. I do not 
 agree with them. If thou thinkest it sin to break 
 thine oath, to thee it is sin. And for thee, my poor 
 child, thy promise is sacred, were it made to Iscariot 
 himself. But hear me. Can either of you, by ask- 
 ing this woman, be so far absolved as to give me 
 speech of her ? Tell her that is, if she be in 
 Alexandria, which God grant all that has passed 
 between us here, and tell her, on the solemn oath 
 of a Christian, that Arsenius, whose name she knows 
 well, will neither injure nor betray her. Will you 
 do this?" 
 
 " Arsenius ? " said the little porter, with a look of 
 mingled awe and pity. 
 
 The old man smiled. " Arsenius, who was once 
 called the Father of the Emperors. Even she will 
 trust that name." 
 
 " I will go this moment, sir; I will fly ! " and off 
 rushed the little porter. 
 
 " The little fellow forgets," said Arsenius, with a 
 smile, " to how much he has confessed already, and 
 how easy it were now to trace him to the old hag's 
 lair. . . . Philammon, my son ... I have many 
 tears to weep over thee but they must wait a while. 
 I have thee safe now," and the old man clutched 
 his arm. "Thou wilt not leave thy poor old 
 father ? Thou wilt not desert me for the heathen 
 woman ? " 
 
 " I will stay with you, I promise you, indeed ! 
 if if you will not say unjust things of her." 
 
 " I will speak evil of no one, accuse no one, but 
 myself. I will not say one harsh word to thee, my 
 poor boy. But listen now ! Thou knowest that
 
 298 Hypatia 
 
 thou earnest from Athens. Knowest them that it 
 was I who brought thee hither?" 
 
 "You?" 
 
 " I, my son : but when I brought thee to the 
 Laura, it seemed right that thou, as the son of a 
 noble gentleman, shouldest hear nothing of it. But 
 tell me : dost thou recollect father or mother, brother 
 or sister; or anything of thy home in Athens?" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " Thanks be to God. But, Philammon, if thou 
 hadst had a sister hush ! And if I only say 
 if " 
 
 " A sister ! " interrupted Philammon. " Pelagia ? " 
 
 " God forbid, my son ! But a sister thou hadst 
 once some three years older than thee she 
 seemed." 
 
 "What! did you know her?" 
 
 " I saw her but once on one sad day. Poor 
 children both ! I will not sadden you by telling 
 you where and how." 
 
 " And why did you not bring her hither with me? 
 You surely had not the heart to part us ? " 
 
 " Ah, my son, what right had an old monk with 
 a fair young girl? And, indeed, even had I had 
 the courage, it would have been impossible. There 
 were others, richer than I, to whose covetousness 
 her youth and beauty seemed a precious prize. 
 When I saw her last, she was in company with an 
 ancient Jewess. Heaven grant that this Miriam 
 may prove to be the one ! " 
 
 " And I have a sister ! " gasped Philammon, his 
 eyes bursting with tears. " We must find her ! 
 You will help me ? Now this moment ! There 
 is nothing else to be thought of, spoken of, done, 
 henceforth, till she is found ! "
 
 Venus and Pallas 299 
 
 " Ah, my son, my son ! Better, better, perhaps, 
 to leave her in the hands of God ! What if she were 
 dead ? To discover that, would be to discover need- 
 less sorrow. And what if God grant that it be 
 not so ! she had only a name to live, and were 
 dead, worse than dead, in sinful pleasure? " 
 
 " We would save her, or die trying to save her ! 
 Is it not enough for me that she is my sister?" 
 
 Arsenius shook his head. He little knew the 
 strange new light and warmth which his words had 
 poured in upon the young heart beside him. . . . 
 " A sister ! " What mysterious virtue was there in 
 that simple word, which made Philammon's brain 
 reel and his heart throb madly? A sister! not 
 merely a friend, an equal, a helpmate, given by God 
 himself, for loving whom none, not even a monk, 
 could blame him. Not merely something delicate, 
 weak, beautiful for of course she must be beau- 
 tiful whom he might cherish, guide, support, de- 
 liver, die for, and find death delicious. Yes all 
 that, and more than that, lay in the sacred word. 
 For those divided and partial notions had flitted 
 across his mind too rapidly to stir such passion as 
 moved him now ; even the hint of her sin and dan- 
 ger had been heard heedlessly, if heard at all. It 
 was the word itself which bore its own message, its 
 own spell to the heart of the fatherless and mother- 
 less foundling, as he faced for the first time the 
 deep, everlasting, divine reality of kindred. . . . 
 A sister ! of his own flesh and blood born of the 
 same father, the same mother his, his, for ever ! 
 How hollow and fleeting seemed all " spiritual son- 
 ships," " spiritual daughterhoods," inventions of the 
 changing fancy, the wayward will of man ! Arsenius 
 Pambo ay, Hypatia herself what were they
 
 300 Hypatia 
 
 to him now? Here was a real relationship. ... A 
 sister ! What else was worth caring for upon earth? 
 
 "And she was at Athens when Pelagia was " he 
 cried at last "perhaps knew her let us go to 
 Pelagia herself! " 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " said Arsenius. " We must 
 wait at least till Miriam's answer comes." 
 
 " I can show you her house at least in the mean- 
 while ; and you can go in yourself when you will. 
 I do not ask to enter. Come ! I feel certain that 
 my finding her is in some way bound up with Pela- 
 gia. Had I not met her on the Nile, had you not 
 met her in the street, I might never have heard 
 that I had a sister. And if she went with Miriam, 
 Pelagia must know her she may be in that very 
 house at this moment ! " 
 
 Arsenius had his reasons for suspecting that Phil- 
 ammon was but too right. But he contented him- 
 self with yielding to the boy's excitement, and set 
 off with him in the direction of the dancer's house. 
 
 They were within a few yards of the gate, when 
 hurried footsteps behind them, and voices calling 
 them by name, made them turn ; and behold, evi- 
 dently to the disgust of Arsenius as much as Phil- 
 ammon himself, Peter the Reader and a large party 
 of monks ! 
 
 Philammon's first impulse was to escape ; Arsen- 
 ius himself caught him by the arm, and seemed 
 inclined to hurry on. 
 
 " No ! " thought the youth, " am I not a free man, 
 and a philosopher?" and facing round, he awaited 
 the enemy. 
 
 " Ah, young apostate ! So you have found him, 
 reverend and ill-used sir. Praised be Heaven for 
 this rapid success i "
 
 Venus and Pallas 301 
 
 " My good friend," asked Arseniiis, in a trem- 
 bling voice," what brings you here? " 
 
 " Heaven forbid that I should have allowed your 
 sanctity and age to go forth without some guard 
 against the insults and violence of this wretched 
 youth and his profligate companions. We have 
 been following you afar off all the morning, with 
 hearts full of filial solicitude." 
 
 " Many thanks ; but indeed your kindness has 
 been superfluous. My son here, from whom I have 
 met with nothing but affection, and whom, indeed, 
 I believe far more innocent than report declared 
 him, is about to return peaceably with me. Are 
 you not, Philammon?" 
 
 " Alas ! my father," said Philammon, with an 
 effort, " how can I find courage to say it? but I 
 cannot return with you." 
 
 "Cannot return?" 
 
 "I vowed that I would never again cross that 
 threshold till " 
 
 " And Cyril does. He bade me, indeed he bade 
 me, assure you that he would receive you back as 
 a son, and forgive and forget all the past." 
 
 "Forgive and forget? That is my part not 
 his. Will he right me against that tyrant and 
 his crew? Will he proclaim me openly to be an 
 innocent and persecuted man, unjustly beaten and 
 driven forth for obeying his own commands ? Till 
 he does that, I shall not forget that I am a free 
 man." 
 
 " A free man ! " said Peter, with an unpleasant 
 smile ; " that remains to be proved, my gay youth ; 
 and will need more evidence than that smart philo- 
 sophic cloak and those well-curled locks which you 
 have adopted since I saw you last."
 
 302 Hypatia 
 
 " Remains to be proved ? " 
 
 Arsenius made an imploring gesture to Peter to 
 be silent. 
 
 " Nay, sir. As I foretold to you, this one way 
 alone remains ; the blame of it, if there be blame, 
 must rest on the unhappy youth whose perversity 
 renders it necessary." 
 
 " For God's sake, spare me ! " cried the old man, 
 dragging Peter aside, while Philammon stood as- 
 tonished, divided between indignation and vague 
 dread. 
 
 " Did I not tell you again and again that I never 
 could bring myself to call a Christian man my 
 slave ? And him, above all, my spiritual son ? " 
 
 " And, most reverend sir, whose zeal is only sur- 
 passed by your tenderness and mercy, did not the 
 holy patriarch assure you that your scruples were 
 groundless? Do you think that either he or I can 
 have less horror than you have of slavery in itself? 
 Heaven forbid ! But when an immortal soul is at 
 stake when a lost lamb is to be brought back to 
 the fold surely you may employ the authority 
 which the law gives you for the salvation of that 
 precious charge committed to you? What could 
 be more conclusive than his holiness's argument 
 this morning ? ' Christians are bound to obey the 
 laws of this world for conscience' sake, even though, 
 in the abstract, they may disapprove of them, and 
 deny their authority. Then, by parity of reason- 
 ing, it must be lawful for them to take the ad- 
 vantage which those same laws offer them, when 
 by so doing the glory of God may be advanced.' " 
 
 Arsenius still hung back, with eyes brimming 
 with tears ; but Philammon himself put an end to 
 the parley.
 
 Venus and Pallas 303 
 
 " What is the meaning of all this ? Are you, too, 
 in a conspiracy against me ? Speak, Arsenius ! " 
 
 " This is the meaning of it, blinded sinner ! " cried 
 Peter. " That you are by law the slave of Arsen- 
 ius, lawfully bought with his money in the city of 
 Ravenna; and that he has the power, and, as I 
 trust, for the sake of your salvation, the will also, to 
 compel you to accompany him." 
 
 Philammon recoiled across the pavement, with 
 eyes flashing defiance. A slave ! The light of 
 heaven grew black to him. . . . Oh, that Hypatia 
 might never know his shame ! Yet it was impos- 
 sible. Too dreadful to be true. . . . 
 
 " You lie ! " almost shrieked he. " I am the son 
 of a noble citizen of Athens. Arsenius told me so, 
 but this moment, with his own lips ! " 
 
 "Ah, but he bought you bought you in the 
 public market ; and he can prove it ! " 
 
 " Hear me hear me, my son ! " cried the old 
 man, "springing toward him. Philammon, in his 
 fury, mistook the gesture and thrust him fiercely 
 back. 
 
 " Your son ? your slave ! Do not insult the 
 name of son by applying it to me. Yes, sir ; your 
 slave in body, but not in soul ! Ay, seize me 
 drag home the fugitive scourge him brand 
 him chain him in the mill, if you can ; but even 
 for that the free heart has a remedy. If you will 
 not let me live as a philosopher, you shall see me 
 die like one ! " 
 
 " Seize the fellow, my brethren ! " cried Peter, 
 while Arsenius, utterly unable to restrain either 
 party, hid his face and wept. 
 
 " Wretches ! " cried the boy ; " you shall never 
 take me alive, while I have teeth or nails left. Treat
 
 304 Hypatia 
 
 me as a brute beast, and I will defend myself as 
 such ! " 
 
 " Out of the way there, rascals ! Place for the 
 prefect! What are you squabbling about here, 
 you unmannerly monks?" shouted peremptory 
 voices from behind. The crowd parted, and dis- 
 closed the apparitors of Orestes, who followed in 
 his robes of office. 
 
 A sudden hope flashed before Philammon, and 
 in an instant he had burst through the mob, and 
 was clinging to the prefect's chariot. 
 
 " I am a free-born Athenian, whom these monks 
 wish to kidnap back into slavery ! I claim your 
 protection ! " 
 
 " And you shall have it, right or wrong, my hand- 
 some fellow. By Heaven, you are much too good- 
 looking to be made a monk of ! What do you 
 mean, you villains, by attempting to kidnap free 
 men ? Is it not enough for you to lock up every 
 mad girl whom you can dupe, but you must " 
 
 " His master is here present, your excellency, 
 who will swear to the purchase." 
 
 " Or to anything else for the glory of God. Out 
 of the way ! And take care, you tall scoundrel, that 
 I do not get a handle against you. You have been 
 one of my marked men for many a mouth. Off! " 
 
 " His master demands the rights of the law as 
 a Roman citizen," said Peter, pushing forward 
 Arsenius. 
 
 " If he be a Roman citizen, let him come and 
 make his claim at the tribune to-morrow, in legal 
 form. But I would have you remember, ancient sir, 
 that I shall require you to prove your citizenship 
 before we proceed to the question of purchase." 
 
 " The law does not demand that," quoth Peter.
 
 Venus and Pallas 305 
 
 " Knock that fellow down, apparitor ! " Whereat 
 Peter vanished, and an ominous growl rose from the 
 mob of monks. 
 
 " What am I to do, most noble sir ? " said Phil- 
 ammon. 
 
 " Whatever you like, till the third hour to-morrow 
 if you are fool enough to appear at the tribune. 
 If you will take my advice, you will knock down 
 these fellows right and left, and run for your life." 
 And Orestes drove on. 
 
 Philammon saw that it was his only chance, and 
 did so; and in another minute he found himself 
 rushing headlong into the archway of Pelagia's 
 house, with a dozen monks at his heels. 
 
 As luck would have it, the outer gates, at which 
 the Goths had just entered, were still open ; but the 
 inner ones which led into the court beyond were 
 fast. He tried them, but in vain. There was an 
 open door in the wall on his right: he rushed 
 through it, into a long range of stables, and into 
 the arms of Wulf and Smid, who were unsaddling 
 and feeding, like true warriors, their own horses. 
 
 " Souls of my fathers ! " shouted Smid, " here 's 
 our young monk come back! What brings you 
 here head over heels in this way, young curly- 
 pate?" 
 
 " Save me from those wretches ! " pointing to the 
 monks, who were peeping into the doorway. 
 
 Wulf seemed to understand it all in a moment ; 
 for, snatching up a heavy whip, he rushed at the foe, 
 and with a few tremendous strokes cleared the door- 
 way, and shut-to the door. 
 
 Philammon was going to explain and thank, but 
 Smid stopped his mouth. 
 
 " Never mind, young one, you are our guest now.
 
 306 Hypatia 
 
 Come in, and you shall be as welcome as ever. See 
 what comes of running away from us at first." 
 
 " You do not seem to have benefited much by 
 leaving me for the monks," said old Wulf. " Come 
 in by the inner door. Smid ! go and turn those 
 monks out of the gateway." 
 
 But the mob, after battering the door for a few 
 minutes, had yielded to the agonized entreaties of 
 Peter, who assured them that if those incarnate 
 fiends once broke out upon them, they would not 
 leave a Christian alive in Alexandria. So it was 
 agreed to leave a few to watch for Philammon's com- 
 ing out ; and the rest, balked of their prey, turned 
 the tide of their wrath against the prefect, and re- 
 joined the mass of their party, who were still hang- 
 ing round his chariot, ready for mischief. 
 
 In vain the hapless shepherd of the people at- 
 tempted to drive on. The apparitors were fright- 
 ened and hung back ; and without their help it was 
 impossible to force the horses through the mass of 
 tossing arms and beards in front. The matter was 
 evidently growing serious. 
 
 " The bitterest ruffians in all Nitria, your excel- 
 lency," whispered one of the guards, with a pale 
 face ; " and two hundred of them at the least. The 
 very same set, I will be sworn, who nearly mur- 
 dered Dioscuros." 
 
 " If you will not allow me to proceed, my holy 
 brethren," said Orestes, trying to look collected, 
 " perhaps it will not be contrary to the canons of 
 the church if I turn back. Leave the horses' heads 
 alone. Why, in God's name, what do you want? " 
 
 "Do you fancy we have forgotten Hieracas?" 
 cried a voice from the rear; and at that name, 
 yell upon yell arose, till the mob, gaining courage
 
 Venus and Pallas 307 
 
 from its own noise, burst out into open threats. 
 " Revenge for the blessed martyr, Hieracas ! " 
 " Revenge for the wrongs of the church ! " " Down 
 with the friend of heathens, Jews, and barba- 
 rians ! " " Down with the favorite of Hypatia ! " 
 " Tyrant ! " " Butcher ! " 
 
 And the last epithet so smote the delicate fancy 
 of the crowd, that a general cry arose of " Kill the 
 butcher ! " and one furious monk attempted to clam- 
 ber into the chariot. An apparitor tore him down, 
 and was dragged to the ground in his turn. The 
 monks closed in. The guards, finding the enemy 
 number ten to their one, threw down their weapons 
 in a panic, and vanished; and in another minute 
 the hopes of Hypatia and the gods would have 
 been lost for ever, and Alexandria robbed of the 
 blessing of being ruled by the most finished gentle- 
 man south of the Mediterranean, had it not been 
 for unexpected succor; of which it will be time 
 enough, considering who and what is in danger, 
 to speak in a future chapter.
 
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