Annie Payson Call - "As A Matter Of Course"

Jean de La Fontaine - "The Tales and Novels, v25: The Nightingale &c."

Louisa May Alcott - "Jack and Jill"

Susanna Moodie - "Roughing it in the Bush"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Hypatia

C >> Charles Kingsley >> Hypatia




'Zeus, father of gods and men.' .... Those were words of hope and
comfort .... But were they true? Father of men? Impossible!--not
father of Pelagia, surely. Not father of the base, the foul, the
ignorant .... Father of heroic souls, only, the poets must have
meant .... But where were the heroic souls now? Was she one? If
so, why was she deserted by the 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 had no claim? Or was it all a
dream of these old singers? Had they, as some bold philosophers had
said, invented gods in their own likeness, and palmed 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 bliss of man. Then
would they not teach men of themselves, unveil their own loveliness
to a chosen few, even for the sake of their own honour, if not, as
she had dreamed once, from love to those who bore a kindred flame to
theirs? ....What if there were no gods? What if the stream of fate,
which was sweeping away their names; were the only real power? What
if that old Pyrrhonic notion were the true solution of the problem
of the Universe? What if there were no centre, no order, no rest,
no goal--but only a perpetual flux, a down-rushing change? And
before her dizzying brain and heart arose that awful vision of
Lucretius, of the homeless Universe falling, falling, falling, for
ever from nowhence toward nowhither through the unending ages, by
causeless and unceasing gravitation, while the changes and efforts
of all mortal things were but the 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 her intellect, and, in the name of God, denied its lie ....
Yes,--there was virtue, beauty .... And yet--might not they, too,
be accidents of that enchantment, which man calls mortal life;
temporary and mutable accidents of consciousness; brilliant sparks,
struck out by the clashing of the dust-atoms? Who could tell?

There were those once who could tell. Did not Plotinus speak of a
direct mystic intuition of the Deity, an enthusiasm without passion,
a still intoxication 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 union which had existed from the first
moment in which she emanated from the One? Six times in a life of
sixty years had Plotinus risen to that height of mystic union, and
known himself to be a part of God. Once had Porphyry attained the
same glory. Hypatia, though often attempting, had never yet
succeeded in attaining to any distinct vision of a being external to
herself; though practice, a firm will, and a powerful imagination,
had long since made her an adept in producing, almost at will, that
mysterious trance, which was the preliminary step to supernatural
vision. But her delight in the brilliant, and, as she held, divine
imaginations, in which at such times she revelled, had been always
checked and chilled by the knowledge that, in such matters, hundreds
inferior to her in intellect and in learning,--ay, saddest of all,
Christian monks and nuns, boasted themselves her equals,--indeed, if
their own account of their visions was to be believed, her
superiors--by the same methods which she employed. For by celibacy,
rigorous fasts, perfect bodily quiescence, and intense contemplation
of one thought, they, too, pretended to be able to rise above the
body into the heavenly regions, and to behold things unspeakable,
which nevertheless, like most other unspeakable things, contrived to
be most carefully detailed and noised abroad .... And it was with a
half feeling of shame that she prepared herself that afternoon for
one more, perhaps one last attempt, to scale the heavens, as she
recollected how many an illiterate monk and nun, from Constantinople
to the Thebaid, was probably employed at that moment exactly as she
was. Still, the attempt must be made. In that terrible abyss of
doubt, she must have something palpable, real; something beyond her
own thoughts, and hopes, and speculations, whereon to rest her weary
faith, her weary heart .... Perhaps this time, at least, in her
extremest need, a god might vouchsafe some glimpse of his own beauty
.... Athene might pity at last .... Or, if not Athene, some
archetype, angel, demon .... And then she shuddered at the thought
of those evil and deceiving spirits, whose delight it was to delude
and tempt the votaries of the gods, in the forms of angels of light.
But even in the face of that danger, she must make the trial once
again. Was she not pure and spotless as Athene's self? Would not
her innate purity enable her to discern, by an instinctive
antipathy, those foul beings beneath the fairest mask? At least,
she must make the trial....

And so, with a look of intense humility, she began to lay aside her
jewels and her upper robes. Then, baring her bosom and her feet,
and shaking 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
bosom heaved, her breath came fast: but there was no more sign of
life in those straight still limbs, and listless feet and hands,
than in Pygmalion's ivory bride, before she bloomed into human flesh
and blood. The sun sank towards his rest; the roar of the city grew
louder and louder without; the soldiers revelled and laughed below:
but every sound passed through unconscious ears, and went its way
unheeded. Faith, hope, reason itself, were staked upon the result of
that daring effort to scale the highest heaven. And, by one
continuous effort of her practised will, which reached its highest
virtue, as mystics hold, in its own suicide, 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 she seemed to
herself alone in the abyss.

She dared not reflect, she dared not hope, she dared not rejoice,
lest she should break the spell .... Again and again had she broken
it at this very point, by some sudden and tumultuous yielding to her
own joy or awe; but now her will held firm .... She did not feel
her own limbs, hear her own breath .... A light bright mist, an
endless network of glittering films, coming, going, uniting,
resolving themselves, was above her and around her .... Was she in
the body or out of the body? ....
...............

The network faded into an abyss of still clear light .... A still
warm atmosphere was around her, thrilling through and through her
.... She breathed 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
interminable depths of glory, a dark and shadowy spot. It neared
and grew .... A dark globe, 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
could bear no more: and sprang to her feet with a shriek, to
experience in its full bitterness the fearful revulsion of the
mystic, when the human reason and will which he has spurned reassert
their God-given rights; and after the intoxication of the
imagination, come its prostration and collapse.

And this, then, was the answer of the gods! The phantom of her whom
she had despised, exposed, spurned from her! 'No, not their answer
--the answer of my own soul! Fool that I have been! I have been
exerting my will most while I pretended to resign it most! I have
been the slave of every mental desire, while I tried to trample on
them! What if that network of light, that blaze, that globe of
darkness, have been, like the face of Pelagia, the phantoms of my
own imagination--ay, even of my own senses? What if I have mistaken
for Deity my own self? What if I have been my own light, my own
abyss? .... Am I not my own abyss, my own light--my own darkness?'
And she smiled bitterly as she said it, and throwing 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, gazing
out into vacancy. 'Oh for a sign, for a token! Oh for the golden
days of which the poets sang, when gods walked among men, fought by
their side as friends! And yet .... are these old stories credible,
pious, even modest? Does not my heart revolt from them? Who has
shared more than I in Plato's contempt for the foul deeds, the
degrading transformations, which Homer imputes to the gods of
Greece? Must I believe them now? Must I stoop to think that gods,
who live in a region above all sense, will deign to make themselves
palpable to those senses of ours which are whole aeons of existence
below them? Degrade themselves to the base accidents of matter?
Yes! That, rather than nothing! .... Be it even so. Better,
better, better, to believe that Ares fled shrieking and wounded from
a mortal man--better to believe in Zeus's adulteries and Hermes's
thefts--than to believe that gods have never spoken face to face
with men! Let me think, lest I go mad, that beings from that unseen
world for which I hunger have appeared, and held communion with
mankind, such as no reason or sense could doubt--even though those
beings were more capricious and baser than ourselves! Is there,
after all, an unseen world? Oh for a sign, a sign!'

Haggard and dizzy, she wandered into her 'chamber of the gods'; a
collection of antiquities, which she kept there rather as matters of
taste than of worship. All around her they looked out into vacancy
with their white soulless eyeballs, their dead motionless beauty,
those cold dreams of the buried generations. Oh that they could
speak, and set her heart at rest! At the lower end of the room stood
a Pallas, completely armed with aegis, spear, and helmet; a gem of
Athenian sculpture, which she had bought from some merchants after
the sack of Athens by the Goths. 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 the faith 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 did those lips really bend themselves into a smile?

Impossible! No, not impossible. Had not, only a few years before,
the image of Hecate smiled on a philosopher? Were there not stories
of moving images, and winking pictures, and all the material
miracles by which a dying faith strives desperately--not to deceive
others--but to persuade 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, closed
upon each other in that stony self-collected calm, which was only
not a sneer. The wonder, if it was one, had passed: and now--did
her eyes play her false, or were the snakes round that Medusa's head
upon the shield all writhing, grinning, glaring at her with stony
eyes, longing to stiffen her with terror into their own likeness?

No! that, too, passed. Would that even it had stayed, for it would
have been a sign of life! She looked up at the face once more: but
in vain--the stone was stone; and ere she was aware, she found
herself clasping passionately the knees of the marble.

'Athene! Pallas! Adored! Ever Virgin! Absolute reason, springing
unbegotten from the nameless One! Hear me! Athene! Have mercy on
me! Speak, if it be to curse me! Thou who alone wieldest the
lightnings of thy father, wield them to strike me dead, if thou
wilt; only do something!--something to prove thine own existence--
something to make me sure that anything exists beside this gross
miserable matter, and my miserable soul. I stand alone in the
centre of the universe! I fall and sicken down the abyss of
ignorance, and doubt, and boundless blank and darkness! Oh, have
mercy! I know that thou art not this! Thou art everywhere and in
all things! But I know that this is a form which pleases thee,
which symbolises thy nobleness! T know that thou hast deigned 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
the image, while there was neither sign, nor voice, nor any that
answered.

On a sudden she was startled by a rustling near; and, looking round,
saw close behind her the old Jewess.

'Cry aloud!' hissed the hag, in a tone of bitter scorn; 'cry aloud,
for she is a goddess. Either she is talking, or pursuing, or she is
on a journey; or perhaps she has grown old, as we all shall do some
day, my pretty lady, and is too cross and lazy to stir. What! her
naughty doll will not speak to her, will it not? or even open its
eyes, because the wires are grown rusty? Well, we will find a new
doll for her, if she chooses.'

'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
copy of the Apollo which we call Belvedere--'What is his name? Old
maids are always cross and jealous, you know. But he--he could not
be cruel to such a sweet face as that. Try the fair young lad! Or,
perhaps, if you are bashful, the old Jewess might try him for you?'

These last words were spoken with so marked a significance, that
Hypatia, in spite of her disgust, found herself asking the hag what
she meant. She made no answer for a few seconds, but remained
looking steadily into her eyes with a glance of fire, before which
even the proud Hypatia, as she had done once before, quailed
utterly, so deep was the understanding, so dogged the purpose, so
fearless the power, which burned within those withered and shrunken
sockets.

'Shall the old witch call him up, the fair young Apollo, with the
beauty-bloom upon his chin? He shall come! He shall come! I
warrant him he 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 who
are you who ask? And who are your gods, your heroes, your devils,
you children of yesterday, compared with us? You, who were a set of
half-naked savages squabbling about the siege of Troy, when our
Solomon, amid splendours such as Rome and Constantinople never saw,
was controlling demons and ghosts, angels and archangels,
principalities and powers, by the ineffable name? What science have
you that you have not stolen from the Egyptians and Chaldees? And
what had the Egyptians which Moses did not teach them? And what
have the Chaldees which Daniel did not teach them? What does the
world know but from us, the fathers and the masters of magic--us,
the lords of the inner secrets of the universe! Come, you Greek
baby--as the priests in Egypt said of your forefathers, always
children, craving for a new toy, and throwing it away next day--come
to the fountainhead of all your paltry wisdom! Name what you will
see, and you shall see it!'

Hypatia was cowed; for of one thing there was no doubt,--that the
woman utterly believed her own words; and that was a state of mind
of which she had seen so little, that it was no wonder if it acted
on her with that overpowering sympathetic force, with which it
generally does, and perhaps ought to, act on the human heart.
Besides, her school had always looked to the ancient nations of the
East for the primeval founts of inspiration, the mysterious lore of
mightier races long gone by. Might she not have found it now?

The Jewess saw her advantage in a moment, and ran on, without giving
her time to answer--

'What sort shall it be, then? By glass and water, or by the
moonlight on the wall, or by the sieve, or by the meal? By the
cymbals, or by the stars? By the table of the twenty-four elements,
by which the Empire was promised to Theodosius the Great, or by the
sacred counters of the Assyrians, or by the sapphire of the Hecatic
sphere? Shall I threaten, as the Egyptian priests used to do, to
tear Osiris again in pieces, or to divulge the mysteries of Isis? I
could do so, if I chose; for I know them 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 a pity to waste that
upon a heathen. It shall be by the sacred wafer. Look here!--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 the house
of your porter, Eudaimon, bringing with you the black agate; and
then--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
morning lecturing away so glibly on the nepenthe which Helen gave
the heroes, to fill them with the spirit of joy and love; how it was
an allegory of the inward inspiration which flows from spiritual
beauty, and all that?--pretty enough, fair lady; but the question
still remains, what was it? and I say it was this. Take it and try;
and then confess, that while you can talk about Helen, I can act
her; and know a little more about Homer than you do, after all.'

'I cannot believe you! Give me some sign of your power, or how can
I trust you?'

'A sign?--A sign? Kneel down then there, with your face toward the
north; 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 you
will--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
up yourself, neither God nor devil will care to approach. Do you
submit?'

'I do! I do!' cried poor Hypatia, in an agony of curiosity and
self-distrust, while she felt her eye quailing and her limbs
loosening more and more every moment under that intolerable
fascination.

The old woman drew from her bosom a crystal, and placed the point
against Hypatia's breast. A cold shiver ran through her .... The
witch waved her hands mysteriously round her head, muttering from
time to time, 'Down! down, proud spirit!' and then placed the tips
of her skinny fingers on the victim's forehead. Gradually her
eyelids became heavy; again and again she tried to raise them, and
dropped them again before those fixed glaring eyes .... , and in
another moment she lost consciousness....

When she awoke, she was kneeling in a distant part of the room, with
dishevelled hair and garments. What was it so cold that she was
clasping in her arms? The feet of the Apollo! The hag stood by
her, chuckling to herself and clapping her hands.

'How came I here? What have I been doing?'

'Saying such pretty things!--paying the fair youth there such
compliments, as he will not be rude enough to forget in his visit
to-night. A charming prophetic trance you have had! Ah ha! you are
not the only woman who is wiser asleep than awake! Well, you will
make a very pretty Cassandra-or a Clytia, if you have the sense ....
It lies with you, my fair lady. Are you satisfied now? Will you
have any more signs? Shall the old Jewess blast those blue eyes
blind to show that she knows more than the heathen?'

'Oh, I believe you--I believe,' cried the poor exhausted maiden. 'I
will come; 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, and heroes, who derive their life from them.'

'Abamnon was an old fool, then. Do you think young Phoebus ran
after Daphne with such a mob at his heels? or that Jove, when he
swam up to Leda, 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 yourself between Cassandra and Clytia .... Farewell. Do
not forget your wafers, or the agate either, and talk with no one
between now and sunset. And then--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
the more purely spiritualistic school of Porphyry, had always looked
with aversion, with all but contempt, on those theurgic arts which
were so much lauded and employed by Iamblicus, Abamnon, and those
who clung lovingly to the old priestly rites of Egypt and Chaldaea.
They had seemed to her vulgar toys, tricks of legerdemain, suited
only for the wonder 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 to make them believe? .... How, indeed? for did
she not want such herself? And she opened Abamnon's famous letter
to Porphyry, and read earnestly over, for the twentieth time, his
subtle justification of magic, and felt it to be unanswerable.
Magic? What was not magical? The whole universe, from the planets
over her head to the meanest pebble at her feet, was utterly
mysterious, ineffable, miraculous, influencing and influenced 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, after
all? Was not love and hatred, sympathy and antipathy, the law of
the universe? Philosophers, when they gave mechanical explanations
of natural phenomena, came no nearer to the real solution of them.
The mysterious 'Why?' remained untouched .... All their analyses
could only darken with big words the plain fact that the water hated
the oil with which it refused to mix, the lime loved the acid which
it eagerly received into itself, and, like a lover, grew warm with
the rapture of affection. Why not? What right had we to deny
sensation, emotion, to them, any more than to ourselves? Was not
the same universal spirit stirring in them as in us? And was it not
by virtue of that spirit that we thought, and felt, and loved?--Then
why not they, as well as we? If the one spirit permeated all
things, if its all-energising presence linked the flower with the
crystal as well as with the demon and the god, must it not link
together also the two extremes of the great chain of being? bind
even the nameless One itself to the smallest creature which bore its
creative impress? What greater miracle in the attraction of a god
or an angel, by material incense, symbols, and spells, than in the
attraction of one soul to another by the material sounds of the
human voice? Was the affinity between spirit and matter implied in
that, more miraculous than the affinity between the soul and the
body?--than the retention of that soul within that body by the
breathing of material air, 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, and the sole law of the universe the laws
of matter, then was not magic even more probable, more rational?
Was it not fair by every analogy to suppose that there might be
other, higher beings than ourselves, obedient to those laws, and
therefore possible to be attracted, even as human beings were, by
the baits of material sights and sounds? .... If spirit pervaded
all things, then was magic probable; if nothing but matter had
existence, magic was morally certain. All that remained in either
case was the test of experience .... And had not that test been
applied in every age, and asserted to succeed? What more rational,
more philosophic action than to try herself those methods and
ceremonies which she was assured on every hand had never failed but
through the ignorance or unfitness of the neophyte? .... Abamnon
must be right .... She dared not think him wrong; for if this last
hope failed, what was there left but to eat and drink, for to-morrow
we die?



CHAPTER XXVI: MIRIAM'S PLOT


He who has worshipped a woman, even against his will and conscience,
knows well how storm may follow storm, and earthquake earthquake,
before his idol be utterly overthrown. And so Philammon found that
evening, as he sat pondering over the strange chances of the day;
for, as he pondered, his old feelings towards Hypatia began, in
spite of the struggles of his conscience and reason, to revive
within him. Not only pure love of her great loveliness, the
righteous instinct which bids us welcome and honour beauty, whether
in man or woman, as something of real worth--divine, heavenly, ay,
though we know not how, in a most deep sense eternal; which makes
our reason give the lie to all merely logical and sentimental
maunderings of moralists about 'the fleeting hues of this our
painted clay'; telling men, as the old Hebrew Scriptures tell them,
that physical beauty is the deepest of all spiritual symbols; and
that though beauty without discretion be the jewel of gold in the
swine's snout, yet the jewel of gold it is still, the sacrament of
an inward beauty, which ought to be, perhaps hereafter may be,
fulfilled in spirit and in truth. Not only this, which whispered to
him--and who shall say that the whisper was of the earth, or of the
lower world?--'She is too beautiful to be utterly evil'; but the
very defect in her creed which he had just discovered, drew him
towards her again. She had no Gospel for the Magdalene, because she
was a Pagan .... That, then, was the fault of her Paganism, not of
herself. She felt for Pelagia. but even if she had not, was not
that, too, the fault of her Paganism? And for that Paganism who was
to be blamed? She? .... Was he the man to affirm that? Had he not
seen scandals, stupidities, brutalities, enough to shake even his
faith, educated a Christian? How much more excuse for her, more
delicate, more acute, more lofty than he; the child, too of a
heathen father? Her perfections, were they not her own?--her
defects, those of her circumstances? .... And had she not welcomed
him, guarded him, taught him, honoured him? .... Could he turn
against her? above all now in her distress--perhaps her danger? Was
he not bound to her, if by nothing else, by gratitude? Was not he,
of all men, bound to believe that all she required to make her
perfect was conversion to the true faith? .... And that first dream
of converting her arose almost as bright as ever .... Then he was
checked by the thought of his first utter failure .... At least, if
he could not convert her, he could love her, pray for her .... No,
he could not even do that; for to whom could he pray? He had to
repent, to be forgiven, to humble himself by penitence, perhaps for
years, ere he could hope to be heard even for himself, much less for
another .... And so backwards and forwards swayed his hope and
purpose, till he was roused from his meditation by the voice of the
little porter summoning him to his evening meal; and recollecting,
for the first time, that he had tasted no food that day, he went
down, half-unwillingly, and ate.