 Chapter 12 of Hypatia. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ada Kerman. Hypatia by Charles Kingsley, Chapter 12, The Bower of Accretia. The 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 fight. 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 with her and win more. The whole world was before them waiting to be plundered and they would fulfill their mission when so ever it suited them. In the meantime they were in no hurry. Egypt furnished in profusion every sort of food which could gratify palats 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 same week in which Cyril's messenger had so rudely broken in on the repose of the scetis. The repose at least was still untouched. The great city roared without. Orestes plotted and Cyril counter plotted 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 reels disturb the parakeets 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, bankruptcy, but a sign that the fruit was growing ripe for the plucking? Even Heraklion's rebellion and Orestes' suspected conspiracy were to the younger and coarser goth the sort of child's play at which they could look on and laugh and bet from morning till night. While to the more cunning head such as wolf and smith 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 fulfill that lofty mission. Columns of purple and green porphyry, among which gleamed the white limbs of delicate statues, surrounded a basin of water fed by a perpetual 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. On one side of the fountain under the shade of a broadleaf palmetto lay the Amal's mighty limbs, stretched out on cushions, his yellow hair crowned with fine leaves, his hand grasping a golden cup which had been one from Indian Rajas by Parthian Chosruce, from Chosruce by Roman generals, from Roman generals by the heroes of sheepskin and horse hide. While palagia by the side of the sleepy Hercules de Anisos 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, Godaric the son of Ermenric and Agilman the son of Kniva 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 referenced 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, carves runes, interpret war omens, fortale weather, raise the winds, and finally conquer in the battle of mead horns all except wolf the son of Ovada. But he had actually during a sojourn among the half civilized messogoths picked up a fair share of Latin and Greek and a rough knowledge of reading and writing. A few yards off lay old wolf upon his back, his knees in the air, his hands crossed behind his head keeping up even in his sleep a half conscious comet of growls on the following intellectual conversation. Noble line this, is it not? Perfect, who bought it for us? Old Miriam bought it at some great tax farmers 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 carol 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 shan't afford it long at this rate, growled wolf, then we'll go and earn more, I am tired of doing nothing. People need not do nothing unless they choose, said Goderick. Wolf and I had coursing fit for a king the other morning on the sandhills. 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 foxtop on stilts which the Prefect cousins you into buying. All I can say is that we put up a herd of those, what do you call them here, deer with goats horns? Antelopes? That's it and the curves ran into them as a falcon does into a skein of ducks. Wolf 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 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'll accept 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 donkeys? Philosophies, they say. What's that? I'm sure I don't know, some sort of slaves quill driving, I suppose. Pelagia, do you know what philosophizing is? No, and I don't care. I do quote Agelmund with a look of superior wisdom, I saw a philosopher the other day. And what sort of a thing was it? I'll 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 answering me pointed at my legs and said 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 bit upon a great inductive law. 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 a 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 bright 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 Elruna wife. Not that I know what it was about, but one can see somehow, you know. So I fell asleep, and when I woke and came out, I met someone who understood 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 starflings. 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. But what do they talk about and tell people to do, these philosophers, Pelagia? Oh, they don't tell anyone to do anything, at least if they do, and nobody ever does it as far as I can see. But they talk about sons 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 anyone else. She must have been an Elruna maiden, said Wolf, half to himself. She is a very conceited creature, and I hate her, said Pelagia. I believe you, said Wolf. What is an Elruna 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 Agelmund, about ice and pine trees and snowstorms, I shall be roasted brown in three days more. I also, 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 seats, said Gaderick, who went head over heels into a glacier crack and was dug out of 50 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 wonderful creature, what things you have done and suffered. Well, said the Amal, with a look of stolid self-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 Hizayani 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 around the great bull-neck and drew it down to her. Will you hear my saga, said Wolf impatiently? Of course we will, said the Amal, anything to pass the time. But let it be about snow, said Agilman. Not about Elruna wives? About them, too, said Gadaric. My mother was one, so I must need to stand up for them. She was, boy, do you be her son. Now hear, wolves of the gods. And the old man took of his little loot, or as he probably would have called it, fiddle, and began chanting to his own accompaniment. Over the campfires, drank I with heroes, under the dana bank, warm in the snow trench. Saga men heard I there, men of the long beards, cunning and ancient, honey sweet voiced, scaring the wolf cub, scaring the horn owl out, shaking the snow wreaths down from the pine boughs, up to the star roof, rang out their song, singing how Wendelmen over the ice flows, sledging from Scanland on, came on to scoring, singing of Gambara, Freya's beloved, mother of Ayo, mother of Ibor, singing of Wendelmen, Ambrie and Assi, how to the Wendelfolk went they with war words, few are ye strangers, and many are we, pay us now toll and fee, cloth yarn and rings and beads, I'll set the raven's meal by the sharp bill's doom, clutching the dwarf's work then, clutching the bullock's shell, girding gray iron on, forth fared the Wendel's all, fared the Elruna's sons, Ayo and Ibor, mad of hearts talked they, loud wept the women all, loud the Elruna wife, sore was their need, out of the morning land over the snow drifts, beautiful Freya came, tripping to scoring, white were the moorlands and frozen before her, but green were the moorlands 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, awaking the throstles, and making chased housewives all, long for their heroes' home, loving and love-giving came she to scoring, came unto Gambara, wisest of Valas, Vala, why weepest thou, far in the wide blue, high up in the Elfin home, herd I thy weeping, stop not thy weeping till one can fight seven, sons have I heroes tall, first in the sword play, this day at the Wendel's hands, eagles must tear them, while their mothers, thrall weary, must grind for the Wendel's, wept the Elruna 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 rackets 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, all father, from under the cloud eaves, smiles out on the heroes, smiles out on chased 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, who first in the morning shall meet him and greet him, still the Elruna wept, 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 Winnell heroes all, one against seven, sweetly the queen laughed, 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 warhose, over your blisms link up the hard male nets, over your lips plate long tresses with cunning, so war beasts full bearded, King Odin shall deem you, went off the Gracie beach, at sunrise ye greet him, Knight's son was driving his golden-haired horses up, over the eastern firs, high-flashed their mains, smiled from the cloud eaves out, all father Odin, waiting the battlesport, Freya stood by him, who are these heroes tall, lusty-limbed long beards, over the swan's bath, why cry they to me, bones should be crashing fast, wolves should be full-fed, wear air such mad-hearted, swing hands in the sword-play, sweetly laughed Freya, unnamed thou hast given them, shames neither thee nor them, welcome they wear it, give them the victory, first have they greeted thee, give them the victory, yoke fellow-mind, maidens and wives are these, wives of the winnals, few are their heroes, and far on the war-road, so over the swan's bath, they cry unto thee, royally laughed he then, dear was that craft to him, Odin, all father, shaking the clouds, cunning are women all, bold and importunate, long beards their name shall be, raven shall thank them, for the women are heroes, what must the men be like, theirs is the victory, no need of me? There, said Wolf when the song was ended, is that cool enough for you? Rather too cool, eh, Pelagia? said the Amal, laughing. I went on the old man bitterly enough, such were your mothers and such were your sisters, and such your wives must be if you intend 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 Wolf said Agilment, but I don't like the saga after all, it was a great deal too like what Pelagia here says those philosophers 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 Kingdoms and the Aesir making men and women out of two sticks and all that. I 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 morning after. Al said Gaderick, my mother was an Alruina woman, so I will not be the bird to follow its own nest, but I like to hear about wild beasts and ghosts, ogres and fire-drakes and knickers, something that one could kill if one had a chance as one's father's had. Your fathers would never have killed knickers, said Wolfe, if they had been like us, I know so the Amal. Now tell me, Prince, you're old enough to be our father and did you ever see a knicker? 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 and L-long lying down on its breast watching for the fishermen and he struck it with an arrow so that it fled to the bottom of the sea and never came up again. What is a knicker, Eigelman, said 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 up on you. So, Pelagia during the saga had remained looking into the fountain and playing with the water drops and 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. Aye, they were men, growled wolf. As for me, when on the Amal, the biggest thing I ever killed was a snake in the Dono Fens. How long was he prince, you had time to see for you sat eating your dinner and looking at it while he was trying to crack my bones. Forefathom answered wolf with a wild bull lying by him which he had just killed. I spilled his dinner, ay wolf. Yes, the old grumbler mollified that was a right good fight. Why don't you make a saga about it then instead of about right and wrong and such things? Because I am turned philosopher I shall go and hear that Elruna maiden this afternoon. Well said, let us go to young men it will pass the time at all events. Oh no no no, do not, you shall not almost freaked 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 Agilman'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 Palazza Thine and her owl. And she darted out of the clister. The three younger men burst into a roar of laughter while Wolf looked with grim approval. So you want to go and hear the philosopher, Prince said smid. Where so ever 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, comrade? 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 take this one's smid, son of troll. End of Chapter 12. Chapter 13. Part 1. Of Hypatia. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mike Harris. Hypatia by Charles Kingsley. Chapter 13. The Bottom of the Abyss. Part 1. Here am I at last. Here am I at last. said Raphael Ammon Ezra to himself. Fairly and safely landed at the very bottom of the bottomless despoting 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 I 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 induction, deduction, analysis or synthesis I utterly decline the office alarachne and will spin no more cobwebs out of my own inside if I have any. Sensations? What are they but parts of one's health if one has a self? What put this child's fancy into one's head that there is anything outside of one which produces them? You have exactly similar feelings in your dreams and you know that there is no reality corresponding to them? No, you don't. How dare you be dogmatic enough to affirm that? Why should not your dreams be as real as your waking thoughts? 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 multibank ism which ever tumbled and capered into a tightrope and they are every one of them dead dolls, wooden, worked with wires which are a petition as principale each philosopher begs the question in hand and then marches forward 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 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 at the sweet dream, Hypatia, to reduce all things in heaven and earth from the astronomics of Hipparchus to the number of plumes and 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 Greek expression 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 am I telling her that I did not consider that any axiom either and that one thing and one thing seemed to us to be two things was no more proof that they really were to were not 365 than a 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 I am not anyone else how do I know it how do I know that there is anyone else for me not to be I rather something feel a number of sensations longings, thoughts, fancies the great devil will 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 not 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 there 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 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'll take to writing poetry a mock epic in seventy-two books entitled the universe and take Homer's Margiette's for my model Homer's? mine why must not the Margiette's like everything else have been a sensation of my own Hyphatia used to say Homer's poetry was a part of her only she could not prove it but I have proved that the Margiette's is a part of me not that I believe my own proof skepticism forbid oh would to heaven that the 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 daresay there is an answer pat for all as I could write a pretty one myself in half an hour but then I should not believe it nor the rejoinder to that again so I am both sleepy and hungry rather sleepiness and hunger are me which is it hyho and Raphael finished 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 Campania of Rome standing upon a knoll of dry brown grass ringed with a few grim pines casted and black with smoke there sat Raphael Abenesra 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 recent war far onward to the quiet purple mountains 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 search 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 son said Raphael how merrily he flashes off the sword-blades yonder and never cares that every tiny spark brings a death shriek after it why should he? it's 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 questionably pleasant as he spoke a column of troops came marching across the field straight toward 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 kind of thing could they do for me but how do I know that that would do it what possible proof is there that if a two-legged phantasm pokes a hard iron grey 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 soldiers but what possible analogy can there be between what seems to happen to those single 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 phantasm seemed to come and plant me then why should I die if another phantasm seems to come and poke me in the ribs still I don't intend to deny it I'm no dogmatist positively the phantasms are marching straight from my tower well it may be safer to run away on the chance but as for losing feeling continued he rising and cramming across 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 40 different nasty carrion crows besides two or three foxes and a large black beetle I'll run away just like anybody else if anybody existed come Bran Bran where are you unlucky and separable sensation of mine picking up a dinner already off these dead soldiers well the pity is that this foolish contradictory taste of mine hungry forbids me to follow your example why am I to take lessons from my soldier fantasms and not from my canine one geological Bran, Bran they went out and whistled in vain for the dog Bran unhappy phantom who will not vanish by night or day lying on my chest even in dreams and who would not even let me vanish and solve the problem why did you drag me out of the sea there at Ostia why did you not let me become a whole show of crabs how did you know or by 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 fantasms of crabs and on the other hand if the crab fantasms give jolly sensations why should not the crow fantasms 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 seemed 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 oh what's this here's a new sensation with a vengeance oh storm and cloud of material appearances were there not enough of you already 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 and nine blind puppies Bran answered by rushing into the hole where her new family lay tumbling and squalling bringing out one in her mouth and laying it at his feet 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 bringing out the whole litter what was I thinking of last 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 and a thing is being false what necessity for it to be true true truth why should a thing be the worst for being illogical why should there be any logic at all did I ever see a little beast flying about with logic labeled 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'll get rid of that too and all the other criticisms 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 sensations every philosopher confesses that and what God is logic pray that it is to be the sole exception what oh lady I give you fair warning you must choose this day like any nun between the ties of family and those of duty ran seized him by the skirt and pulled him down toward the puppies took up one of the puppies and lifted it towards him and then repeated the action with another you unconscionable old brute you don't actually dare to expect me to carry your puppies for you they turned to go ran sat down on her tail and began howling farewell old dog you've been a pleasant dream after all but if you'll go the way of all fantasms and he walked away 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 ran come old girl she raced halfway up to him and halfway back again to the puppies then toward him again and then suddenly gave it up and dropping her tail walked slowly back to the blind suppliance the deeper approachful growl sheesh you're right after all here are nine things coming to the world fantasms are not there it is I can't deny it they are something and you are something old dog at least like enough to something to do instead of it and you are not high and as good as I and they too for what I know and have as good a right to live as I and by the seven planets and all the rest of it I'll carry them and he went back tied up the puppies in his blanket and set forth ran barking squeaking wagging leaping running between his legs and upsetting him in her agonies of joy forward whether you will old lady the world is wide you shall be my guide to the queen of philosophy for the sake of this mere common sense of yours forward you new high-patio I promise you I will attend no lectures but yours this day he toiled on every now and then stepping across a dead body of a wall out of the road to avoid some plunging shrieking horse or obscene not 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 and 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 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 gasp they 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 Raphael and he followed her while the wounded man called piteously and upgradingly after him he will not have long to wait those plunderers 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 ancestors and yet by some mere spirit of contradiction I couldn't kill that fellow exactly because he asked me to do it there's more in that than will fit I am I never mind let me get the dog's lessons by heart first what next Bran could one believe the transformation this is the very trim villa which I passed yesterday morning with the garden chairs standing among the flower beds just as the young ladies had left them and the peacocks and silver pheasants 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 turtledoft but why not why should they lament over other things which they can just as little meant and which perhaps need no more mending ah, there lies a gallant fellow underneath 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 cask and armor gorgeously inlaid with gold were hewn and batted 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'd made his last stand beneath the tree knee deep in the gay summer flowers and there he lay bestrune 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 well, you've sold your fancy 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 from its sitting posture fancying it still lived smelt the cold cheek and recoiled with a mournful wine eh? yes, 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 should be poor fop laus and theus will never curl those dainty ringlets for you again what is that bar relief upon your shield? Venus receiving Psyche into the abode of the gods you 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 you reasons in due form as Hypatia would have done however, whether you exist or not, I cannot leave that color 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 Ate's golden apple it shall go to the fairest here, Bran and he reathed the jewels round the neck of the mastiff who evidently exalted in her own eyes the burden leaped and barked forward again taking, apparently as a matter of course, the road back toward 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 everything else unlike himself how can he prove it? Why these poor black-ards 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 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 preeminence 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 the most wise ancestor and if not I certainly Raphael, Abba and Ezra how are thou better than a beast? what preeminence has thou? not merely over this dog but over the fleas whom thou so wantonly cursed man must painfully when 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 it lodge him a great deal better than it lodges me man makes clothes and the fleas live in them which is the wiser of the two Abba man has fallen well when the flea is not so much better he than the man for he is what he was intended to be and so fulfills 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 when a 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 Abba J the very sound of those grown children's rattles turns me sick one conceited ass in a generation 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 campania 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 world make them we only cause them as fleas cause flea bites what are all the works of man but a sort of cutaneous disorder 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's not because it's too big but what is big and what is little look into a fisherman's net and see what forms are there because it does not speak perhaps 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 very moment it does so much the wiser of it if that be the best direction for it 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 scrambling fantastically up and down without method or order like us and the fleas from the cradle to the grave besides if you grant what the rest of the world is no more 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 earthquakes and floods and pestilences be only just so many ways which the cutting old brute earth has of scratching herself and city bites get too troublesome end of chapter 13 part 1 recording by Mike Harris chapter 13 part 2 of Hypatia this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Hypatia by Charles Kingsley chapter 13 part 2 at a turn of the road he was aroused from the profitable meditation by a shriek the shrillness of which told him that it was a woman he looked up and saw close to him among the smoldering ruins of a farmhouse 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 he was to escape from her captors and return conduct unjustifiable in any fleas and brand 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 in spite of a few discomforts 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 bed-dised and pampered to her heart's desire the 99 out of 100 of her sister fleas till she begins to grow old which she must do in any case and if she have not contrived to needle her master out of her liberty and to make tip a pretty little purse of savings by that time why it is her own fault and brand but brand 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 matter of mastiffs spring 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 last a more practical teacher than ever had patia 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 brand was holding down by the throat he shrieked the wretch life only life there was a fellow half a mile back be begging me to kill him with which of you to am i to agree for you can't both be right life only life a carnal appetite which man must learn to conquer said rafio as he raised the paniard in a moment it was over and brand and he rose where was the girl she had rushed back to the ruins whether rafio followed her while brand 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 bruise and swollen wrists and without stopping to thank him she ran to a heap of fallen stones and beams being wildly with all her little strength breathlessly calling father such as 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 a passion as that brute habit what services can the said man render or have rendered which make him worth here is brand my female philosopher brand 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 brand seemed suddenly to comprehend the case rushed to the rescue and began digging too with all her might rafio rose with a shrug and joined in the work through 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 herself on the place shrieking her father's name rafio 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 his head and covered him with wild kisses rafio looked round for water found a spring and a broken shirt 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 rafio come brand the girl sprang up threw himself at his feet kissed his hands called him her savior her deliverer 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 brand's deck and brand understood it and wagged her tail and licked the gentle face lovingly intolerably absurd all this said rafio I must be going brand 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 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 he sees rafio's arm in the imperiousness of her passion he shrugged his shoulders but felt he only knew not why marvelously inclined to obey her I may as well do this as anything else having nothing else to do with or now sir whether 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 the old brute at my heels who will persist in saving my life that I must be burned 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 slow and come out sheer on the other side for sweeping the last lingering taint of it out of me I have to thank not sulfur and exorcisms but your soldiers and their mornings work philosophy is superfluous in a world where all our fools do you include yourself under that title 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 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 in facility to be a very fit companion for me I hope though you do not set up for a wise man God knows no I am not of Hera client's army true and the young lady here made herself so great a fool about you that she actually infected 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 already how am I to carry you and them I will take them said the girl and brand 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 a you trust her brand said right feel 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 into the service hot the mule lifted the wounded man into the saddle and the calvissades set forth turning out of the high road into a by lane which the officer who seemed to know the country thoroughly assured would lead them to austia by an unfrequented road if we arrive there before sundown we are safe said he and in the meantime answer right feel between the dog and his dagger which as I take care to inform all comers is delicately poisoned we may keep ourselves clear of marauders 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 probably shall be I shall be crucified for helping to escape but even if we get safe off here is a fresh tie between me and those very brother flees to rid of whom I have chosen beggary and starvation who knows where it may end poo the man is like the other men he is certain before the day is over to prove ungrateful or attempt the mount bake heroic or give me some other excuse for bidding good evening in time there is something quaint in the fact of finding disober or respectability with a young daughter too abroad on this fools errand which really makes me curious to discover with what variety of flea I am to class him but while abin azura 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 undeniably most beautiful her statues were not as regularly perfect as hypodias nor her stature so commanding but her face shown with a clear and joyful determination and with a tender and modest thoughtfulness such as he had never be held before united in one countenance and as she stepped along firmly and lightly by her 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 brightened face Rayfield could not help stealing glance after glance and was surprised to find them returned with a bright honest smiling gratitude which meant full-eyed as free from prudery as it was from cocuterie 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 beautifications and as he looked he began to feel at a pleasure such as his wary 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 asks that I am as if I had not drunk all that ditch water cup to the drags years ago they went on for some time in silence till the officer turning to him and may I ask you in 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 full enough to choose oh if we were but rich side the girl you would be very unhappy my dear young lady believe a flea who has tried the experiment thoroughly ah but we could ransom my brother and now we could 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 mortgage the whole estate to raise my legion we must not shrink from looking at things as they are ah and he is a 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 suddenly 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 rafio if you really dislike such a prospect for your brother and are in want of a few dirty coins wherewith to prevent it perhaps I may be able to find you in them in ostia she looked at 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 had been no 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 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 someone or something has helped me to 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 Jewish sir before you can be a good Christian possibly I intend to be neither nor a good pagan neither 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 look down on with a stately loving sorrow refuel God is I and felt that he was in the presence of no common man I must take care of what I say here I suspect or I shall be entangled shortly in a regular Socratic 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 Teglath Piles sir or other flea devouring flea they will fatten well enough without your blood so I only ask a student of great nothing in general which men shall call the universe I was perfect of a leech in 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 be hollowing your fate like Achilles on the shores of Stikes or pretending to grin and act as I was taught to do when I played at Stiochism you are not of that sect certainly 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 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 why is a saint who treads the earth of God's should I rejoice to have it proved to me even by such a lesson as this that the friend who never disused me before was right in this case too and that the God who has checked and turned me for forty years of wild soil and warfare whenever I dared to do what was right in the sight of my own eyes I had not forgotten me yet or given up the thankless task of my education and who pray is this peerless friend Augustine of Hippo it had been better for the world in general if the great dialectician had exerted his powers of persuasion on heraclion himself he did so but in vain I don't doubt it I have upon that smooth valpine determination of his an instrument in the hands of God my dear brother we must obey his call even to the death et cetera et cetera and Rayfield laughed bitterly you know the count as well sir as I care to know any man I'm sorry for your eyesight then sir said the perfect severely if it has been able to discern no more than that in so august a character dear sir I do not doubt his excellence nay his inspiration how well he defined the perfectly fit woman for stamping his old comrade still a Joe 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 I am which brought 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 brown brown this is all your fault for my sake oh why not for your own sake how sad to hear one like you only sneering and speaking evil why then 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 philosopher any new anthropologic theories we really must push on a little faster if we intend to reach Austria tonight but for some reason or other Raphael sneered no more a full half hour long however air they reached Austria 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 bronze growl by a gleam of his white teeth then the voices of some ring course and loud through the still night and made them hesitate and stop a while and at last worse of all the measure tramp of the imperial column began to roll like a distant thunder along the plain below they were advancing upon Austria 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 began to crowd up suppose we found the gates of Austria shut and the imperialists bio-voct 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 wary the mule wary also and as they crawled along at a pace which made it certain that the fast passing column would be at Austria an hour before them to join the vanguard of the pursuers and aid them in advancing the town she had to lean again and again on Raphael's arm her shoes unfitted for so rough a journey had men long since torn off and her tender feet were making every step with blood Raphael knew it by her faltering gait and remarked to that neither sleigh nor murmur passed her lips but as for helping her he could not and begin to curse the fancy which had led to a chew 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 continences from the young girl she on the other hand chatting cheerfully almost laughingly to her silent father at last the poor girl stepped on some stone more sharp than usual and with a sudden writhe and shriek saint to the ground Raphael lifted her up as she tried to proceed but saint 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 commit 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 no more than die and he made an effort to dismount but fainting from his wounds sink upon the neck of the mule Raphael and his daughter caught in their arms father, father impossible, cruel oh do you think that I would have followed you hither from Africa against their own entreaties to desert you now my daughter I command the girl remain firm in sound how long have you learned to disobey me lift the old disgraced man down sir and leave to die in the right place on the battlefield where his general sent him the girl sink down on the road in an agony of weeping I must help myself I see said her father dropping to the ground authority vanishes before old age and humiliation Victoria as your father no sins to answer for already that you will send for his god with your blood to upon his head still the girl sat weeping on the ground while Raphael utterly at his wits and tried hard to persuade himself that it was no concern of this I am at the service of either or of both for life and death only be so good as to settle it quickly hell here is settled for us with a vengeance and as he spoke the tramp and jingle of horsemen 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 over the bank sir lift over while I run forward and meet them my death will delay 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 calmly laying her finger on her lips 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 up the steep bank but his knees knocked together a faint sweat seemed to melt every limb there was a pause which secured ages long near and near came the trampling a sudden gleam of the moon revealed Victoria standing without spread arms 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 gate and jar of the horse hooves on his head as they pulled up suddenly he turned his face away and shut his eyes what are you under the voice Victoria the daughter of Majoricus the Prefect the voice is low and yet so clear and calm that every syllable ran through Abin Ezra's tingling tears a shout a shriek the confused murmur of many voices he looked up in spite of himself a horseman and sprung to the ground and clasped Victoria in his arms the human heart of flesh a sleep 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 madness what was this soft arms around him victorias save him spare him he saved us sir it's my brother we are safe oh spare the dog it's save my father we have mistaken each other indeed sir said a gay young tribune in a voice trembling with joy where is my father 50 yards behind down brand quiet oh Solomon mine ancestor why did you not prevent me making such an egregious fool of myself why shall I 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 rafael found himself astride of a goodly war hoars 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 convincing that stubborn bearer of burdens that it was not quite so unable of 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 seemed to consider themselves in debt to him not surely for taking them where they could best run away poor fellow said the tribune we have had as a real a panic among us and I ever read of an arian or polybios but he has been a father rather than a general to him it is not often that out of a routed army 20 gallant men will volunteer to ride back into the enemies rinks on the chance of an old man's breathing still where to find us said victoria 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 a 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 silly child do you fancy that my father's son would be taking alive I and the first troop got away over the garden's walls and cut our way out into the plane three hours ago did I not tell you said victoria leading to a rafial that God would protect his own you did answered he and fell into a long and silent meditation end of chapter 13 chapter 14 of hypodia this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Chris Koran hypodia by Charles Kingsley chapter 14 the rocks of the sirens these four months had been busy and eventful enough to hypodia and film on yet the events in the business were of so gradual and uniform a tenor that it was as well to pass quickly over them and show what had happened principally by its effects the robust and fiery desert was now metamorphosed into the pale and thoughtful student oppressed with the weight of careful thought and wary memory but those remembrances were all recent ones with his entrance into hypodia's lecture room and into the fairy realms of greek thought a new life had begun for him and the Lara and Pambo and Arcenius seemed dim phantoms from some antennial existence which faded day by day before the inrush of new and startling knowledge but though the friends and scenes of his childhood had fallen back so swiftly into the far horizon 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 hypodia and the beautiful boy one of those pure and yet passionate friendships called them rather with Saint Augustine by the sacred name of love which fair and holy as they are when they link 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 makeling 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 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 filament 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 she fancied were his special spiritual needs and many a glance of the eye towards him on any peculiarly important sentence that the poor boy's heart beating at that sign that the words were meant for him but before a month was passed one 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 in daily and transcribing as well as in studying the authors then in fashion she saw him at first but seldom more seldom that she would have wished but she dreaded the tongue of scandal hasn't as well as Christian and contended 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 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 she must begin at the beginning thought she to herself mathematics and the paramedius are enough for him as yet without a training in the liberal sciences he cannot gain a faith worthy of those gods to whom someday 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 unapproachable saved 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 manuscripts for her own use she sent back his themes and declamations corrected with her own hand and filament laid them by in his little garret at Udaimon's house and precious badges of honor after exhibiting them to the reverential and evious gaze of the little porter so he toiled on early and late counting himself well paid for a weeks intense exertion by a single smile or word of abrobation and went home to pour out his soul to his host on the one inexhaustible theme which they had in common Hypatia and her perfections he would have raved often enough on the same subject to his fellow pupils but he shrank not only from their actual 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 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 this 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 blessed beings upon earth and have loved him all and every one his brothers for having deserved her notice her very beauty when his first flush of wonder was passed he sees to mention sees even to think of it of course she must be beautiful it was her right the natural compliment of her other graces but it was to him only what the mother 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 come especially 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 can any but true words come out of those perfect lips but any royal thoughts take shape within that queenly head poor fool yet was it not natural enough then gradually as she passed the boy pouring over his book in some a clove of the museum gardens she would invite him by a glance to join the nut of loungers and questioners who dingled about her and her father and fancy themselves to be reproducing the days of the Athenian sages amid the grooves of another academic sometimes even she had beckon 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 made him aware as it was attended to do that she had a deeper interest in him a livelier sympathy for him then 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 susceptibilities and in each whether in public or private filamon seemed to bear himself more worthy for over and above the natural ease and dignity which accompanies physical beauty and the modesty self-restraint and deep earnestness which he had acquired under the discipline of the Laura his great character was developing himself in all its quickness, sublity and versatility until he seemed to iPodia some young titan by the side of the flippant hasty and insincere 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 filamon would have gone hungry to his couch full many a night to lie awake from the buzzer causes the 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 filamon'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 defiant ineffable in order to supply the base necessities of the teeth so he could pay no rent for his lodgings positively none and as for eatables why he must himself work a little harder in order to cater for both had it not all his neighbors their letters of children to provide for while he thinks to the mortals had been far too wise to burden the earth with animals who would add to the ugliness of their father the tartarian hew of their mother and after all filamon could pay him back when he became a great sophist and made money as of course he would someday or other and in the meantime something might turn up things were always turning up for those whom the gods favored and besides he had fully ascertained that on the day of which he first met filamon the planets were favorable the murkier being in something or other he forgot what with heal use which portended for filamon in his opinion a similar career with that of the glorious and devout emperor julian filamon winced he was 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 therian's pupil he found much to his astonishment lying on the table in his carrot an undeniable glittering gold piece he took it down to his porter the next morning and begged him to discover or turn it duly but what was his surprise when the little man admitted endless chapters and gestulations informed him with an air of mystery that it was anything but lost that his errors of rent had been paid for him that by the bounty of the upper powers a fresh piece of coin would be forthcoming every month in vain filamon demanded to know who was his benefactor udamion resolutely kept the secret and implicated a whole terterious of unnecessary curses on his wife if she allowed her female garrulity through the door 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 he thought was too delightful 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 to find 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 a gift that intended him to thank him would they have so carefully concealed their own generosity 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 we took the coin bought it unto himself a clone 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 first the time being he did not disbelieve it he could have been shocked to hear such a thing asserted of him but he happened to be busy believing something else geometry, comic sections cosmogonies psychologies and whatnot and so it befell that he had not just then time to believe in Christianity he recollected at times its existence but even then he never affirmed nor denied it when he had solved the great questions those which hypodias set forth as the roots of all knowledge how the world was made and what the origin of evil as 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 hypodias seemed to think why then, what then he would not think about such disagreeable possibilities sufficient for the day was the evil thereof possibilities it was impossible philosophy could not mislead had not hypodia defined it as man's search after the unseen and if he found the unseen by it did it not come to just the same thing as if the unseen had revealed itself to him had 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 flight the church's battles with the sword which he had rested from Goliath the Philistine but he had not won the sword yet and in the meanwhile learning his wary 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 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 attendants more and more of a labor and keeping himself apart as much as possible from the congregation as a lonely and secret worshiper 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 rehectorians 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 negras 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 charism and cyrel and all his majesty, organization became to him another world with which he had even less to do than with those planets over his head whose mysterious movements and symbolisms and influences Hypatia's lecture on astronomy were just open before his bewildered imagination Hypatia watched all this with growing self satisfaction and led herself with the dream that though Philemon 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 he actually manifested tell Philemon would have been as much astonished as self glorified could he have seen the idealized character of himself which the sweet enthusiast had painted for a private enjoyment they were blissful months those to poor Hypatia or resties for some reason or other had neglected to urge a suit and the iffy genia sacrifice had retired mercifully to the background perhaps she would be able now to accomplish all without it and yet it was so long to wait that the treasures might pass before Philemon's education was matured and with them golden opportunities which might never recur again ah, she sighed at times that Julian had lived in 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 send her to martyrdom if thou wilt a pretty price would have been wherewith to by the honor of being the meanest of thy apostles and the fellow laborer of Iamblicus Maximus Libanius and the choir of sages who upheld the throne of the last true Caesar end of chapter 14 chapter 15 of Hypatia this is a Librivox recording all Librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Librivox.org recording by Chris Caron Hypatia by Charles Kingsley chapter 15 Nephilo Kokugia Hypatia had always avoided carefully discussing with Philemon 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 deduce its own conclusions but one day at the very time at which this history opens she was tempted to speak more openly to her pupil than she had yet 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 inquire what miracles her own wisdom might have already worked she stopped in her walk and motioned her father to begin a conversation with Philemon well asked the old man with an encouraging smile and how does our pupil like this knew you mean my conic sections father it is hardly fair to expect an unbiased picture in my presence why so said Philemon 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 what then as I body a 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 mind 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 Purge did not see as much or that we can pretend to surpass in death 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 physical 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 as theon that mathematics be valuable to the philosopher otherwise than as vehicles of spiritual truth are we to study members 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 consists that seems to me certainly to be the noble purpose or conic sections that we know better how to construct machinery or rather to devise from them syllables of the relations of deity to its famous emanations you use your dialect like Socrates himself my father said Hypatia if I do it is only for temporary purpose I should be sorry to a custom film on to suppose that the essence of philosophy was to be found in those minute investigations of words and analysis of notions which seem to constitute Plato's chief power in the eyes of those who like the Christian Sophist Augustine worship of 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 battle the root gaze of the carnal minded but still vestibules though which the enlightened soul might be led up to the inter sanctuary to the Hesperid gardens and golden fruit of the Timmous in the oracles and for myself where but those two books left I care not whether every other writing in the world pairs tomorrow footnote this astounding speech is usually attributed to Proclus Hypatia's great successor and the footnote you must accept home or father yes for the herd but of what use would he be to them without some spiritual commentary to 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 as film on it may have infinite meanings like every other natural phenomenon and deeper meanings in proportion to the exaltation of the soul which beholds it but consider it is not as the one perfect figure the very symbol of the totality of the spiritual world 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 Euclide defines it whereof neither parts nor magnitude can be predicted does not the world of spirits revolve around one abysmal being unseen and undefinable in itself as I have so often preached nothing for it is conceivable 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 Philemon for the moment certainly the said abysmal deity struck him as a somewhat chill and barren notion but that might be caused only by the dullness of his own spiritual conception at all events if it was a logical conclusion it must be right let that be enough for the present hereafter 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 within the circle and touching it only with its angles the three supercentral 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 dependent on that unseen central one which done their name ah, said poor Philemon brushing scarlet at the sense of his own dullness I am indeed not worthy to have such wisdom wasted upon my imperfect apprehension but if I may dare 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 Philemon stood rebuked do not be ashamed you have only unwittingly laid open another perhaps as deep a symbol can you guess what it is Philemon puzzled in vain does it not show you this that as every conceivable right section of the cone discloses the circle so and all which is fair and symmetric you will discover deity if you but analyze it in a right and symmetric direction beautiful said Philemon while the old man added and does it not show us unperfect and original philosophy may be discovered in all great writers if we have but that scientific knowledge in which will enable us to extract it true my father but just now I wish Philemon by such thoughts as I have suggested to rise to that higher and more spiritual insight into nature which reveals her to us and instinct throughout 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 him Christians I think would hardly say that said Philemon not in words but in fact they regard deity as the maker of a dead machine which once made will move of itself thence forth and repudiate as heretics every philosophic here whether gnostic or platonist who unsatisfied with so dead baron and so did a conception of the glorious all wishes to honor the deity by acknowledging his universal presence and to believe honestly the assertion of their own scriptures that he lives and moves and as his being in the universe Philemon gently suggested that the passage in question was worded somewhat differently in scripture true but if the one be true its converse will be true also if the universe lies and moves and as its being in him must he not necessarily pervade all things why? forgive my dullness 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 without him true but still they would be within his circumference well argued but 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 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 suffering for the analogy of all material nature tells us that it is suffering of a foreign body like a thorn within the flesh subsiding within his own substance rather believe that his wisdom and splendor like a subtle and piercing fire insinuates itself eternally with restless force through every organized atom and that were it withdrawn but for an instant from the petal of 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 referred like most decaying ones herring used to the dialectic and synthesis to induction look at yawned lotus flower rising like aphrodite from the wave in which it has slept throughout the night and saluting with bending swan neck that sun which it will follow lovingly around the sky is there no more than brute matter, pipes and fibers color and shape and the meaningless life and death which men call vegetation those old egyptian priests knew better who could see in a number and the form of those ivory petals and golden stab in a in that mysterious daily birth out of the wave in that nightly baptism from which it rises each morning reborn to a new life the signs of some divine area some mysterious law common to the flower itself to the white road priestess who held it in temple rites and to the goddess to whom they both were consecrated the flower of ices ah well, nature has had 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 Philemon it may be seen was far advanced by this time for he bore the illusions to ices without the slightest shudder nay, he dared even to offer consolation to the beautiful mourner the philosopher he said will hardly lament the cross 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 remain its meaning as long as its species exists on earth idolatry answered she with a smile my people must not repeat to me that worn out Christian Calmini into whatsoever low superstitions the pious vulgar may have fallen it is the Christians now but the heathens who are idolaters they who ascribe miraculous power to dead men's bones who make temples of charneaux 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 the symbolic beauty ideas beyond the reach of words idolatry do I worship the pharaohs when I gaze at it as I do for hours with loving ah as the token to me of all conquering might of hellas do I worship the role on which Homer's words are written when I welcome with delight in celestial truths which it unfolds to me and even prize in love the material book for the sake of the message which it brings do you fancy any but the vulgar worship in 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 this image is a symbol will you blame us because we use that symbol to represent the idea of our own affections and emotions instead of leaving it a barren notion a vague imagination of our own intellect then as film on with a faltering voice yet unable to strain its curiosity then you do reverence the heaven gods why Hapadia should have felt this question a sore one puzzled film on but she evidently did feel it as such for she answered hotly enough if Sino 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 that those whom you call heaven gods are the vulgar or rather those who find it their interest to culminate the vulgar for the sake of confounding philosophers with them may fancy them human 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 primival philosophers of Greece by the priests of the ancient Egypt and the sages of Babylon to recognize in them the universal powers of nature those children of the all quickening spirit which are but various emanations of the one primival unity sat rather various places of that unity as it has been variously conceived according to the differences 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 highest and fullest adoration the one of whose perfection they are the partial and antitypes perfect each and themselves but each the image of only one of its perfection why then said Philemon much relief by this explanation do you dislike Christianity may it not be one of the many methods because she answered interrupting him impatiently because it denies itself to be one of those many methods and stakes its existence on the denial because it arrogates to itself the exclusive revelation of the divine and cannot see in itself can see that its own doctrines disprove that assumption by their similarity to those of all creeds there is not a dogma of the galleons 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 Dion its exaltation of all which is human and lowborn illiterate and leveling except that but look here comes someone 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 sidewalk yes she went on herself as soon as she had recovered her equanimity were this galleon superstition content to take its place humbly among the other religious licitas of the empire one might tolerate it well enough anthropomorphic aduboration of divine things fitted for the base and toiling her perhaps peculiarly fitted because peculiarly flattering to them but now there is Maryam again said Philemon right before us asked Hypatia severely you know her then how was that she lodges at Udomia's house as I do answered Philemon frankly not that I ever interchange or wish to interchange with so basic creature do not I charge you said Hypatia almost imploringly but there was now no way of avoiding her and pre-forced Hypatia and her tormentress met face to face one word one moment beautiful lady began the old woman with a slavish abesience nay do not push by so cruelly I have see what I have for you and she held out with the 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 wheeling undertone with the continual snaky withering of her whole body except her eye which seemed in the 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 as Hypatia have frightened he who owned it once offered 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 be 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 ring one I am not a dealer like you and have not yet learned to value things by their money price if that agate had been worth money I would have never 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 seem to have mysteriously overheard him what my father would you to counsel me mercenary my good woman she went on turning to mariam I cannot expect you to understand the reason of my refusal you and I have a different standard of worth for the sake of the talisman and graven on that agate it for no reason I cannot give up ah for the sake of the talisman that is wise now what is noble like a philosopher oh I will not say a word more let the beautiful prophetess keep the agate and take the opal too for see there is a charm on it also the name by which talisman 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 bound at your feet and so ever you called them and saying here I am mistress send me only look at it took the tempting bait and exclaimed 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 hypodia 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 has been to her only a curious plaything of which she liked to believe one day that it might possibly have some 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 Aben 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 Potolmias or Diavirgin which the four angels ever and surely he has had the great demon come to her already when she rub 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 old woman as she turned to go with abeances more lonely than ever and she has not seen the angels yet ah well perhaps some day when she wants to know how to use the talisman the beautiful lady will condescend to let the poor old Jewish show her the way and Maryam disappeared down the isle and plunged into the thickest shrubberies while the three dreamers went on their way little thought hypodia 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 end of chapter 15