CHAPTER XXV: SEEKING AFTER A SIGN
'What answer has he sent back, father?' asked Hypatia, as Theonre-entered her chamber, after delivering that hapless letter toPhilammon.
'Insolent that he is! he tore it to fragments and tied forth without aword.'
'Let him go, and desert us like the rest, in our calamity!'
'At least, we have the jewels.'
'The jewels? Let them be returned to their owner. Shall we defileourselves by taking them as wages for anything--above all, for thatwhich is unperformed?'
'But, my child, they were given to us freely. He bade me keepthem; and--and, to tell you the truth, I must keep them. After thisunfortunate failure, be sure of it, every creditor we have will beclamouring for payment.'
'Let them take our house and furniture, and sell us as slaves, then. Letthem take all, provided we keep our virtue.'
'Sell us as slaves? Are you mad?'
'Not quite mad yet, father,' answered she with a sad smile. 'But howshould we be worse than we are now, were we slaves? Raphael Aben-Ezratold me that he obeyed my precepts, when he went forth as a houselessbeggar; and shall I not have courage to obey them myself, if the needcome? The thought of his endurance has shamed my luxury for this many amonth. After all, what does the philosopher require but bread andwater, and the clear brook in which to wash away the daily stains of hisearthly prison-house? Let what is fated come. Hypatia struggles with thestream no more!'
'My daughter! And have you given up all hope? So soon disheartened!What! Is this paltry accident to sweep away the purposes of years?Orestes remains still faithful. His guards have orders to garrison thehouse for as long as we shall require them.'
'Send them away, then. I have done no wrong, and I fear no punishment.'
'You do not know the madness of the mob; they are shouting your name inthe streets already, in company with Pelagia's.'
Hypatia shuddered. Her name in company with Pelagia's! And to this shehad brought herself!
'I have deserved it! I have sold myself to a lie and a disgrace! Ihave stooped to truckle, to intrigue! I have bound myself to a sordidtrickster! Father! never mention his name to me again! I have leaguedmyself with the impure and the bloodthirsty, and I have my reward! Nomore politics for Hypatia from henceforth, my father; no more orationsand lectures; no more pearls of Divine wisdom cast before swine. I havesinned in divulging the secrets of the Immortals to the mob. Let themfollow their natures! Fool that I was, to fancy that my speech, myplots, could raise them above that which the gods had made them!'
'Then you give up our lectures? Worse and worse! We shall be ruinedutterly!'
'We are ruined utterly already. Orestes? There is no help in him. Iknow the man too well, my father, not to know that he would give us upto-morrow to the fury of the Christians were his own base life--even hisown baser office--in danger.'
'Too true--too true! I fear,' said the poor old man, wringing his handsin perplexity. 'What will become of us,--of you, rather? What matterwhat happens to the useless old star-gazer? Let him die! To-day or nextyear is alike to him. But you, you! Let us escape by the canal. We maygather up enough, even without these jewels, which you refuse, to payour voyage to Athens, and there we shall be safe with Plutarch; hewill welcome you--all Athens will welcome you--we will collect a freshschool--and you shall be Queen of Athens, as you have been Queen ofAlexandria!'
'No, father. What I know, henceforth I will know for myself only.Hypatia will be from this day alone with the Immortal Gods!'
'You will not leave me?' cried the old man, terrified.
'Never on earth!' answered she, bursting into real human tears, andthrowing herself on his bosom. 'Never--never! father of my spirit aswell as of my flesh!--the parent who has trained me, taught me, educatedmy soul from the cradle to use her wings!--the only human being whonever misunderstood me--never thwarted me--never deceived me!'
'My priceless child! And I have been the cause of your ruin!'
'Not you!--a thousand times not you! I only am to blame! I tampered withworldly politics. I tempted you on to fancy that I could effect what Iso rashly undertook. Do not accuse yourself unless you wish to breakmy heart! We can be happy together yet.--A palm-leaf hut in the desert,dates from the grove, and water from the spring--the monk dares bemiserable alone in such a dwelling, and cannot we dare to be happytogether in it?'
'Then you will escape?'
'Not to-day. It were base to flee before danger comes. We must holdout at our post to the last moment, even if we dare not die at it likeheroes. And to-morrow I go to the lecture-room,--to the beloved Museum,for the last time, to take farewell of my pupils. Unworthy as they are,I owe it to myself and to philosophy to tell them why I leave them.'
'It will be too dangerous--indeed it will!'
'I could take the guards with me, then. And yet--no.... They shall neverhave occasion to impute fear to the philosopher. Let them see her goforth as usual on her errand, strong in the courage of innocence,secure in the protection of the gods. So, perhaps, some sacred awe, somesuspicion of her divineness, may fall on them at last.'
'I must go with you.'
'No, I go alone. You might incur danger where I am safe. After all, I ama woman.... And, fierce as they are, they will not dare to harm me.'
The old man shook his head.
'Look now,' she said smilingly, laying her hands on his shoulders, andlooking into his face.... 'You tell me that I am beautiful, you know;and beauty will tame the lion. Do you not think that this face mightdisarm even a monk?'
And she laughed and blushed so sweetly, that the old man forgot hisfears, as she intended that he should, and kissed her and went hisway for the time being, to command all manner of hospitalities to thesoldiers, whom he prudently determined to keep in his house as long ashe could make them stay there; in pursuance of which wise purpose hecontrived not to see a great deal of pleasant flirtation between hisvaliant defenders and Hypatia's maids, who, by no means so prudish astheir mistress, welcomed as a rare boon from heaven an afternoon's chatwith twenty tall men of war.
So they jested and laughed below, while old Theon, having brought outthe very best old wine, and actually proposed in person, by way ofmending matters, the health of the Emperor of Africa, locked himselfinto the library, and comforted his troubled soul with a tough problemof astronomy, which had been haunting him the whole day, even in thetheatre itself. But Hypatia sat still in her chamber, her face buried inher hands, her heart full of many thoughts; her eyes of tears. She hadsmiled away her father's fears; she could not smile away her own.
She felt, she hardly knew why, but she felt as clearly as if a god hadproclaimed it to her bodily ears, that the crisis of her life was come:that her political and active career was over, and that she must now becontent to be for herself, and in herself alone, all that she was, ormight become. The world might be regenerated: but not in her day;--thegods restored; but not by her. It was a fearful discovery, and yethardly a discovery. Her heart had told her for years that she was hopingagainst hope,--that she was struggling against a stream too mighty forher. And now the moment had come when she must either be swept helplessdown the current, or, by one desperate effort, win firm land, and letthe tide roll on its own way henceforth.... Its own way?.... Not theway of the gods, at least; for it was sweeping their names from off theearth. What if they did not care to be known? What if they were weary ofworship and reverence from mortal men, and, self-sufficing in their ownperfect bliss, recked nothing for the weal or woe of earth? Must it notbe so? Had she not proof of it in everything which she beheld? What didIsis care for her Alexandria? What did Athens care for her Athens?....And yet Homer and Hesiod, and those old Orphic singers, were of anothermind.... Whence got they that strange fancy of gods counselling,warring, intermarrying, with mankind, as with some kindred tribe?
'Zeus, father of gods and men.'.... Those were words of hope andcomfort.... But were they true? Father of men? Impossible!--not fatherof Pelagia, surely. Not father of the
base, the foul, the ignorant....Father of heroic souls, only, the poets must have meant.... But wherewere the heroic souls now? Was she one? If so, why was she deserted bythe upper powers in her utter need? Was the heroic race indeed extinct?Was she merely assuming, in her self-conceit, an honour to which she hadno claim? Or was it all a dream of these old singers? Had they, as somebold philosophers had said, invented gods in their own likeness, andpalmed off on the awe and admiration of men their own fair phantoms?....It must be so. If there were gods, to know them was the highest blissof man. Then would they not teach men of themselves, unveil their ownloveliness to a chosen few, even for the sake of their own honour, ifnot, as she had dreamed once, from love to those who bore a kindredflame to theirs?....What if there were no gods? What if the stream offate, which was sweeping away their names; were the only real power?What if that old Pyrrhonic notion were the true solution of the problemof the Universe? What if there were no centre, no order, no rest, nogoal--but only a perpetual flux, a down-rushing change? And before herdizzying brain and heart arose that awful vision of Lucretius, of thehomeless Universe falling, falling, falling, for ever from nowhencetoward nowhither through the unending ages, by causeless and unceasinggravitation, while the changes and efforts of all mortal things were butthe jostling of the dust-atoms amid the everlasting storm....
It could not be! There was a truth, a virtue, a beauty, a nobleness,which could never change, but which were absolute, the same for ever.The God-given instinct of her woman's heart rebelled against herintellect, and, in the name of God, denied its lie.... Yes,--there wasvirtue, beauty.... And yet--might not they, too, be accidents ofthat enchantment, which man calls mortal life; temporary and mutableaccidents of consciousness; brilliant sparks, struck out by the clashingof the dust-atoms? Who could tell?
There were those once who could tell. Did not Plotinus speak of a directmystic intuition of the Deity, an enthusiasm without passion, a stillintoxication of the soul, in which she rose above life, thought, reason,herself, to that which she contemplated, the absolute and first One,and united herself with that One, or, rather, became aware of that unionwhich had existed from the first moment in which she emanated fromthe One? Six times in a life of sixty years had Plotinus risen to thatheight of mystic union, and known himself to be a part of God. Once hadPorphyry attained the same glory. Hypatia, though often attempting,had never yet succeeded in attaining to any distinct vision of a beingexternal to herself; though practice, a firm will, and a powerfulimagination, had long since made her an adept in producing, almostat will, that mysterious trance, which was the preliminary step tosupernatural vision. But her delight in the brilliant, and, as sheheld, divine imaginations, in which at such times she revelled, hadbeen always checked and chilled by the knowledge that, in such matters,hundreds inferior to her in intellect and in learning,--ay, saddest ofall, Christian monks and nuns, boasted themselves her equals,--indeed,if their own account of their visions was to be believed, hersuperiors--by the same methods which she employed. For by celibacy,rigorous fasts, perfect bodily quiescence, and intense contemplation ofone thought, they, too, pretended to be able to rise above the bodyinto the heavenly regions, and to behold things unspeakable, whichnevertheless, like most other unspeakable things, contrived to be mostcarefully detailed and noised abroad.... And it was with a half feelingof shame that she prepared herself that afternoon for one more, perhapsone last attempt, to scale the heavens, as she recollected how manyan illiterate monk and nun, from Constantinople to the Thebaid, wasprobably employed at that moment exactly as she was. Still, the attemptmust be made. In that terrible abyss of doubt, she must have somethingpalpable, real; something beyond her own thoughts, and hopes, andspeculations, whereon to rest her weary faith, her weary heart....Perhaps this time, at least, in her extremest need, a god mightvouchsafe some glimpse of his own beauty .... Athene might pity atlast.... Or, if not Athene, some archetype, angel, demon.... And thenshe shuddered at the thought of those evil and deceiving spirits, whosedelight it was to delude and tempt the votaries of the gods, in theforms of angels of light. But even in the face of that danger, she mustmake the trial once again. Was she not pure and spotless as Athene'sself? Would not her innate purity enable her to discern, by aninstinctive antipathy, those foul beings beneath the fairest mask? Atleast, she must make the trial....
And so, with a look of intense humility, she began to lay aside herjewels and her upper robes. Then, baring her bosom and her feet, andshaking her golden tresses loose, she laid herself down upon the conch,crossed her hands upon her breast, and, with upturned ecstatic eyes,waited for that which might befall.
There she lay, hour after hour, as her eye gradually kindled, her bosomheaved, her breath came fast: but there was no more sign of lifein those straight still limbs, and listless feet and hands, than inPygmalion's ivory bride, before she bloomed into human flesh and blood.The sun sank towards his rest; the roar of the city grew louder andlouder without; the soldiers revelled and laughed below: but every soundpassed through unconscious ears, and went its way unheeded. Faith, hope,reason itself, were staked upon the result of that daring effort toscale the highest heaven. And, by one continuous effort of her practisedwill, which reached its highest virtue, as mystics hold, in its ownsuicide, she chained down her senses from every sight and sound,and even her mind from every thought, and lay utterly self-resigned,self-emptied, till consciousness of time and place had vanished, and sheseemed to herself alone in the abyss.
She dared not reflect, she dared not hope, she dared not rejoice, lestshe should break the spell.... Again and again had she broken it at thisvery point, by some sudden and tumultuous yielding to her own joy orawe; but now her will held firm.... She did not feel her own limbs, hearher own breath.... A light bright mist, an endless network of glitteringfilms, coming, going, uniting, resolving themselves, was above herand around her.... Was she in the body or out of the body?...................
The network faded into an abyss of still clear light.... A still warmatmosphere was around her, thrilling through and through her .... Shebreathed the light, and floated in it, as a mote in the mid-day beam....And still her will held firm. ...............
Far away, miles, and aeons, and abysses away, through the interminabledepths of glory, a dark and shadowy spot. It neared and grew.... A darkglobe, ringed with rainbows.... What might it be? She dared not hope....It came nearer, nearer, nearer, touched her.... The centre quivered,flickered, took form--a face. A god's? No--Pelagia's.
Beautiful, sad, craving, reproachful, indignant, awful.... Hypatia couldbear no more: and sprang to her feet with a shriek, to experience inits full bitterness the fearful revulsion of the mystic, when the humanreason and will which he has spurned reassert their God-given rights;and after the intoxication of the imagination, come its prostration andcollapse.
And this, then, was the answer of the gods! The phantom of her whomshe had despised, exposed, spurned from her! 'No, not their answer--theanswer of my own soul! Fool that I have been! I have been exerting mywill most while I pretended to resign it most! I have been the slaveof every mental desire, while I tried to trample on them! What if thatnetwork of light, that blaze, that globe of darkness, have been, likethe face of Pelagia, the phantoms of my own imagination--ay, even ofmy own senses? What if I have mistaken for Deity my own self? What if Ihave been my own light, my own abyss?.... Am I not my own abyss, my ownlight--my own darkness?' And she smiled bitterly as she said it, andthrowing herself again upon the couch, buried her head in her hands,exhausted equally in body and in mind.
At last she rose, and sat, careless of her dishevelled locks, gazingout into vacancy. 'Oh for a sign, for a token! Oh for the golden days ofwhich the poets sang, when gods walked among men, fought by their sideas friends! And yet.... are these old stories credible, pious, evenmodest? Does not my heart revolt from them? Who has shared more than Iin Plato's contempt for the foul deeds, the degrading transformations,which Homer imputes to the gods of Greece? Must I believe them now? MustI stoo
p to think that gods, who live in a region above all sense, willdeign to make themselves palpable to those senses of ours which arewhole aeons of existence below them? Degrade themselves to the baseaccidents of matter? Yes! That, rather than nothing!.... Be it even so.Better, better, better, to believe that Ares fled shrieking and woundedfrom a mortal man--better to believe in Zeus's adulteries and Hermes'sthefts--than to believe that gods have never spoken face to face withmen! Let me think, lest I go mad, that beings from that unseen world forwhich I hunger have appeared, and held communion with mankind, suchas no reason or sense could doubt--even though those beings were morecapricious and baser than ourselves! Is there, after all, an unseenworld? Oh for a sign, a sign!'
Haggard and dizzy, she wandered into her 'chamber of the gods'; acollection of antiquities, which she kept there rather as matters oftaste than of worship. All around her they looked out into vacancy withtheir white soulless eyeballs, their dead motionless beauty, those colddreams of the buried generations. Oh that they could speak, and set herheart at rest! At the lower end of the room stood a Pallas, completelyarmed with aegis, spear, and helmet; a gem of Athenian sculpture, whichshe had bought from some merchants after the sack of Athens by theGoths. There it stood severely fair; but the right hand, alas! was gone;and there the maimed arm remained extended, as if in sad mockery of thefaith of which the body remained, while the power was dead and vanished.
She gazed long and passionately on the image of her favourite goddess,the ideal to which she had longed for years to assimilate herself;till--was it a dream? was it a frolic of the dying sunlight? or didthose lips really bend themselves into a smile?
Impossible! No, not impossible. Had not, only a few years before, theimage of Hecate smiled on a philosopher? Were there not stories ofmoving images, and winking pictures, and all the material miracles bywhich a dying faith strives desperately--not to deceive others--but topersuade itself of its own sanity? It had been--it might be--it was--!
No! there the lips were, as they had been from the beginning, closedupon each other in that stony self-collected calm, which was only not asneer. The wonder, if it was one, had passed: and now--did her eyes playher false, or were the snakes round that Medusa's head upon the shieldall writhing, grinning, glaring at her with stony eyes, longing tostiffen her with terror into their own likeness?
No! that, too, passed. Would that even it had stayed, for it wouldhave been a sign of life! She looked up at the face once more: but invain--the stone was stone; and ere she was aware, she found herselfclasping passionately the knees of the marble.
'Athene! Pallas! Adored! Ever Virgin! Absolute reason, springingunbegotten from the nameless One! Hear me! Athene! Have mercy on me!Speak, if it be to curse me! Thou who alone wieldest the lightningsof thy father, wield them to strike me dead, if thou wilt; only dosomething!--something to prove thine own existence--something to makeme sure that anything exists beside this gross miserable matter, and mymiserable soul. I stand alone in the centre of the universe! I fall andsicken down the abyss of ignorance, and doubt, and boundless blankand darkness! Oh, have mercy! I know that thou art not this! Thou arteverywhere and in all things! But I know that this is a form whichpleases thee, which symbolises thy nobleness! T know that thou hastdeigned to speak to those who--Oh! what do I know? Nothing! nothing!nothing!
And she clung there, bedewing with scalding tears the cold feet of theimage, while there was neither sign, nor voice, nor any that answered.
On a sudden she was startled by a rustling near; and, looking round, sawclose behind her the old Jewess.
'Cry aloud!' hissed the hag, in a tone of bitter scorn; 'cry aloud, forshe is a goddess. Either she is talking, or pursuing, or she is on ajourney; or perhaps she has grown old, as we all shall do some day, mypretty lady, and is too cross and lazy to stir. What! her naughty dollwill not speak to her, will it not? or even open its eyes, because thewires are grown rusty? Well, we will find a new doll for her, if shechooses.'
'Begone, hag! What do you mean by intruding here?' said Hypatia,springing up; but the old woman went on coolly--
'Why not try the fair young gentleman over there?' pointing to a copyof the Apollo which we call Belvedere--'What is his name? Old maids arealways cross and jealous, you know. But he--he could not be cruel tosuch a sweet face as that. Try the fair young lad! Or, perhaps, if youare bashful, the old Jewess might try him for you?'
These last words were spoken with so marked a significance, thatHypatia, in spite of her disgust, found herself asking the hag whatshe meant. She made no answer for a few seconds, but remained lookingsteadily into her eyes with a glance of fire, before which even theproud Hypatia, as she had done once before, quailed utterly, so deep wasthe understanding, so dogged the purpose, so fearless the power, whichburned within those withered and shrunken sockets.
'Shall the old witch call him up, the fair young Apollo, with thebeauty-bloom upon his chin? He shall come! He shall come! I warrant himhe must come, civilly enough, when old Miriam's finger is once held up.'
'To you? Apollo, the god of light, obey a Jewess?'
'A Jewess? And you a Greek?' almost yelled the old woman. 'And whoare you who ask? And who are your gods, your heroes, your devils,you children of yesterday, compared with us? You, who were a set ofhalf-naked savages squabbling about the siege of Troy, when ourSolomon, amid splendours such as Rome and Constantinople never saw, wascontrolling demons and ghosts, angels and archangels, principalities andpowers, by the ineffable name? What science have you that you have notstolen from the Egyptians and Chaldees? And what had the Egyptians whichMoses did not teach them? And what have the Chaldees which Daniel didnot teach them? What does the world know but from us, the fathersand the masters of magic--us, the lords of the inner secrets of theuniverse! Come, you Greek baby--as the priests in Egypt said of yourforefathers, always children, craving for a new toy, and throwing itaway next day--come to the fountainhead of all your paltry wisdom! Namewhat you will see, and you shall see it!'
Hypatia was cowed; for of one thing there was no doubt,--that the womanutterly believed her own words; and that was a state of mind of whichshe had seen so little, that it was no wonder if it acted on her withthat overpowering sympathetic force, with which it generally does, andperhaps ought to, act on the human heart. Besides, her school had alwayslooked to the ancient nations of the East for the primeval founts ofinspiration, the mysterious lore of mightier races long gone by. Mightshe not have found it now?
The Jewess saw her advantage in a moment, and ran on, without giving hertime to answer--
'What sort shall it be, then? By glass and water, or by the moonlighton the wall, or by the sieve, or by the meal? By the cymbals, or by thestars? By the table of the twenty-four elements, by which the Empirewas promised to Theodosius the Great, or by the sacred counters of theAssyrians, or by the sapphire of the Hecatic sphere? Shall I threaten,as the Egyptian priests used to do, to tear Osiris again in pieces, orto divulge the mysteries of Isis? I could do so, if I chose; for I knowthem all and more. Or shall I use the ineffable name on Solomon's seal,which we alone, of all the nations of the earth, know? No; it would be apity to waste that upon a heathen. It shall be by the sacred wafer. Lookhere!--here they are, the wonder-working atomies! Eat no food this day,except one of these every three hours, and come to me to-night at thehouse of your porter, Eudaimon, bringing with you the black agate; andthen--why then, what you have the heart to see, you shall see!'
Hypatia took the wafers, hesitating--
'But what are they?'
'And you profess to explain Homer? Whom did I hear the other morninglecturing away so glibly on the nepenthe which Helen gave the heroes, tofill them with the spirit of joy and love; how it was an allegory ofthe inward inspiration which flows from spiritual beauty, and allthat?--pretty enough, fair lady; but the question still remains, whatwas it? and I say it was this. Take it and try; and then confess, thatwhile you can talk about Helen, I can act her; and know a little moreabout Homer than you do, after
all.'
'I cannot believe you! Give me some sign of your power, or how can Itrust you?'
'A sign?--A sign? Kneel down then there, with your face toward thenorth; you are over tall for the poor old cripple.'
'I? I never knelt to human being.'
'Then consider that you kneel to the handsome idol there, if youwill--but kneel!'
And, constrained by that glittering eye, Hypatia knelt before her.
'Have you faith? Have you desire? Will you submit? Will you obey?Self-will and pride see nothing, know nothing. If you do not give upyourself, neither God nor devil will care to approach. Do you submit?'
'I do! I do!' cried poor Hypatia, in an agony of curiosity andself-distrust, while she felt her eye quailing and her limbs looseningmore and more every moment under that intolerable fascination.
The old woman drew from her bosom a crystal, and placed the pointagainst Hypatia's breast. A cold shiver ran through her.... The witchwaved her hands mysteriously round her head, muttering from time totime, 'Down! down, proud spirit!' and then placed the tips of her skinnyfingers on the victim's forehead. Gradually her eyelids became heavy;again and again she tried to raise them, and dropped them againbefore those fixed glaring eyes...., and in another moment she lostconsciousness....
When she awoke, she was kneeling in a distant part of the room, withdishevelled hair and garments. What was it so cold that she was claspingin her arms? The feet of the Apollo! The hag stood by her, chuckling toherself and clapping her hands.
'How came I here? What have I been doing?'
'Saying such pretty things!--paying the fair youth there suchcompliments, as he will not be rude enough to forget in his visitto-night. A charming prophetic trance you have had! Ah ha! you are notthe only woman who is wiser asleep than awake! Well, you will make avery pretty Cassandra-or a Clytia, if you have the sense.... It lieswith you, my fair lady. Are you satisfied now? Will you have any moresigns? Shall the old Jewess blast those blue eyes blind to show that sheknows more than the heathen?'
'Oh, I believe you--I believe,' cried the poor exhausted maiden. 'I willcome; and yet--'
'Ah! yes! You had better settle first how he shall appear.'
'As he wills!--let him only come! only let me know that he is a god.Abamnon said that gods appeared in a clear, steady, unbearable light,amid a choir of all the lesser deities, archangels, principalities, andheroes, who derive their life from them.'
'Abamnon was an old fool, then. Do you think young Phoebus ran afterDaphne with such a mob at his heels? or that Jove, when he swam up toLeda, headed a whole Nile-flock of ducks, and plover, and curlews? No,he shall come alone--to you alone; and then you may choose for yourselfbetween Cassandra and Clytia.... Farewell. Do not forget your wafers,or the agate either, and talk with no one between now and sunset. Andthen--my pretty lady!'
And laughing to herself, the old hag glided from the room.
Hypatia sat trembling with shame and dread. She, as a disciple of themore purely spiritualistic school of Porphyry, had always looked withaversion, with all but contempt, on those theurgic arts which were somuch lauded and employed by Iamblicus, Abamnon, and those who clunglovingly to the old priestly rites of Egypt and Chaldaea. They hadseemed to her vulgar toys, tricks of legerdemain, suited only for thewonder of the mob.... She began to think of them with more favour now.How did she know that the vulgar did not require signs and wonders tomake them believe?.... How, indeed? for did she not want such herself?And she opened Abamnon's famous letter to Porphyry, and read earnestlyover, for the twentieth time, his subtle justification of magic, andfelt it to be unanswerable. Magic? What was not magical? The wholeuniverse, from the planets over her head to the meanest pebble at herfeet, was utterly mysterious, ineffable, miraculous, influencing andinfluenced by affinities and repulsions as unexpected, as unfathomable,as those which, as Abamnon said, drew the gods towards those sounds,those objects, which, either in form, or colour, or chemical properties,were symbolic of, or akin to, themselves. What wonder in it, afterall? Was not love and hatred, sympathy and antipathy, the law of theuniverse? Philosophers, when they gave mechanical explanations ofnatural phenomena, came no nearer to the real solution of them. Themysterious 'Why?' remained untouched.... All their analyses could onlydarken with big words the plain fact that the water hated the oilwith which it refused to mix, the lime loved the acid which it eagerlyreceived into itself, and, like a lover, grew warm with the rapture ofaffection. Why not? What right had we to deny sensation, emotion, tothem, any more than to ourselves? Was not the same universal spiritstirring in them as in us? And was it not by virtue of that spirit thatwe thought, and felt, and loved?--Then why not they, as well as we?If the one spirit permeated all things, if its all-energising presencelinked the flower with the crystal as well as with the demon and thegod, must it not link together also the two extremes of the great chainof being? bind even the nameless One itself to the smallest creaturewhich bore its creative impress? What greater miracle in the attractionof a god or an angel, by material incense, symbols, and spells, thanin the attraction of one soul to another by the material sounds of thehuman voice? Was the affinity between spirit and matter implied in that,more miraculous than the affinity between the soul and the body?--thanthe retention of that soul within that body by the breathing of materialair, the eating of material food? Or even, if the physicists were right,and the soul were but a material product or energy of the nerves, andthe sole law of the universe the laws of matter, then was not magiceven more probable, more rational? Was it not fair by every analogyto suppose that there might be other, higher beings than ourselves,obedient to those laws, and therefore possible to be attracted, even ashuman beings were, by the baits of material sights and sounds?.... Ifspirit pervaded all things, then was magic probable; if nothing butmatter had existence, magic was morally certain. All that remained ineither case was the test of experience.... And had not that test beenapplied in every age, and asserted to succeed? What more rational, morephilosophic action than to try herself those methods and ceremonieswhich she was assured on every hand had never failed but through theignorance or unfitness of the neophyte?.... Abamnon must be right....She dared not think him wrong; for if this last hope failed, what wasthere left but to eat and drink, for to-morrow we die?