Constant - "The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, v4"

J. Cuthbert Hadden - "Haydn"

Constant - "The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, v8"

Charlotte M. Yonge - "Lady Hester or, Ursula's Narrative"

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




In an instant the cunning beauty caught at the hint, and poured
forth a soft, low, sleepy song:--

'Loose the sail, rest the oar, float away down,
Fleeting and gliding by tower and town;
Life is so short at best! snatch, while thou canst, thy rest,
Sleeping by me!'

'Can you answer that, Wulf?' shouted a dozen voices.

'Hear the song of Asgard, warriors of the Goths! Did not Alaric the
king love it well? Did I not sing it before him in the palace of
the Caesars, till he swore, for all the Christian that he was, to go
southward in search of the holy city? And when he went to Valhalla,
and the ships were wrecked off Sicily, and Adolf the Balth turned
back like a lazy hound, and married the daughter of the Romans, whom
Odin hates, and went northward again to Gaul, did not I sing you all
the song of Asgard in Messina there, till you swore to follow the
Amal through fire and water until we found the hall of Odin, and
received the mead-cup from his own hand? Hear it again, warriors of
the Goths!'

'Not that song!' roared the Amal, stopping his ears with both his
hands. 'Will you drive us blood-mad again, just as we are settling
down into our sober senses, and finding out what our lives were
given us for?'

'Hear the song of Asgard! On to Asgard, wolves of the Goths!'
shouted another; and a babel of voices arose.

'Haven't we been fighting and marching these seven years?'

'Haven't we drunk blood enough to satisfy Odin ten times over? If
he wants us lot him come himself and lead us!'

'Let us get our winds again before we start afresh!'

'Wulf the Prince is like his name, and never tires; he has a winter-
wolf's legs under him; that is no reason why we should have.'

'Haven't you heard what the monk says?-we can never get ever those
cataracts.'

'We'll stop his old wives' tales for him, and then settle for
ourselves,' said Smid; and springing from the thwart where he had
been sitting, he caught up a bill with one hand, and seized
Philammon's throat with the other .... in a moment more, it would
have been all over with him....

For the first time in his life Philammon felt a hostile gripe upon
him, and a new sensation rushed through every nerve, as he grappled
with the warrior, clutched with his left hand the up-lifted wrist,
and with his right the girdle, and commenced, without any definite
aim, a fierce struggle, which, strange to say, as it went on, grew
absolutely pleasant.

The women shrieked to their lovers to part the combatants, but in
vain.

'Not for worlds! A very fair match and a very fair fight! Take
your long legs back, Itho, or they will be over you! That's right,
my Smid, don't use the knife! They will be overboard in a moment!
By all the Valkyrs, they are down, and Smid undermost!'

There was no doubt of it; and in another moment Philammon would have
wrenched the bill out of his opponent's hand, when, to the utter
astonishment of the onlookers, he suddenly loosed his hold, shook
himself free by one powerful wrench, and quietly retreated to his
seat, conscience-stricken at the fearful thirst for blood which had
suddenly boiled up within him as he felt his enemy under him.

The onlookers were struck dumb with astonishment; they had taken for
granted that he would, as a matter of course, have used his right of
splitting his vanquished opponent's skull--an event which they would
of course have deeply deplored, but with which, as men of honour,
they could not on any account interfere, but merely console
themselves for the loss of their comrade by flaying his conqueror
alive, 'carving him into the blood-eagle,' or any other delicate
ceremony which might serve as a vent for their sorrow and a comfort
to the soul of the deceased.

Smid rose, with a bill in his hand, and looked round him-perhaps to
see what was expected of him. He half lifted his weapon to strike
.... Philammon, seated, looked him calmly in the face .... The old
warrior's eye caught the bank, which was now receding rapidly past
them; and when he saw that they were really floating downwards
again, without an effort to stem the stream, he put away his bill,
and sat himself down deliberately in his place, astonishing the
onlookers quite as much as Philammon had done.

'Five minutes' good fighting, and no one killed! This is a shame!'
quoth another. 'Blood we must see, and it had better be yours,
master monk, than your betters','--and therewith he rushed on poor
Philammon.

He spoke the heart of the crew; the sleeping wolf in them had been
awakened by the struggle, and blood they would have; and not
frantically, like Celts or Egyptians, but with the cool humorous
cruelty of the Teuton, they rose altogether, and turning Philammon
over on his back, deliberated by what death he should die.

Philammon quietly submitted--if submission have anything to do with
that state of mind in which sheer astonishment and novelty have
broken up all the custom of man's nature, till the strangest deeds
and sufferings are taken as matters of course. His sudden escape
from the Laura, the new world of thought and action into which he
had been plunged, the new companions with whom he had fallen in, had
driven him utterly from his moorings, and now anything and
everything might happen to him. He who had promised never to look
upon woman found himself, by circumstances over which he had no
control, amid a boatful of the most objectionable species of that
most objectionable genus--and the utterly worst having happened,
everything else which happened must be better than the worst. For
the rest, he had gone forth to see the world--and this was one of
the ways of it. So he made up his mind to see it, and be filled
with the fruit of his own devices.

And he would have been certainly filled with the same in five
minutes more, in some shape too ugly to be mentioned: but, as even
sinful women have hearts in them, Pelagia shrieked out--

'Amalric! Amalric! do not let them! I cannot bear it!'

'The warriors are free men, my darling, and know what is proper.
And what can the life of such a brute be to you?'

Before he could stop her, Pelagia had sprung from her cushions, and
thrown herself into the midst of the laughing ring of wild beasts.

'Spare him! spare him for my sake!' shrieked she.

'Oh, my pretty lady! you mustn't interrupt warriors' sport!'

In an instant she had torn off her shawl, and thrown it over
Philammon; and as she stood, with all the outlines of her beautiful
limbs revealed through the thin robe of spangled gauze--

'Let the man who dares, touch him beneath that shawl!--though it be
a saffron one!'

The Goths drew back. For Pelagia herself they had as little respect
as the rest of the world had. But for a moment she was not the
Messalina of Alexandria, but a woman; and true to the old woman-
worshipping instinct, they looked one and all at her flashing eyes,
full of noble pity and indignation, as well as of mere woman's
terror--and drew back, and whispered together.

Whether the good spirit or the evil one would conquer, seemed for a
moment doubtful, when Pelagia felt a heavy hand on her shoulder, and
turning, saw Wulf the son of Ovida.

'Go back, pretty woman! Men, I claim the boy. Smid, give him to
me. He is your man. You could have killed him if you had chosen,
and did not; and no one else shall.'

'Give him us, Prince Wulf! We have not seen blood for many a day!'

'You might have seen rivers of it, if you had had the hearts to go
onward. The boy is mine, and a brave boy. He has upset a warrior
fairly this day, and spared him; and we will make a warrior of him
in return.'

And he lifted up the prostrate monk.

'You are my man now. Do you like fighting?'

Philammon, not understanding the language in which he was addressed,
could only shake his head--though if he had known what its import
was, he could hardly in honesty have said, No.

'He shakes his head! He does not like it! He is craven! Let us
have him!'

'I had killed kings when you were shooting frogs,' cried Smid.
'Listen to me, my sons! A coward grips sharply at first, and
loosens his hand after a while, because his blood is soon hot and
soon cold. A brave man's grip grows the firmer the longer he holds,
because the spirit of Odin comes upon him. I watched the boy's
hands on my threat; and he will make a man; and I will make him one.
However, we may as well make him useful at once; so give him an
oar.'

'Well,' answered his new protector, 'he can as well row us as be
rowed by us; and if we are to go back to a cow's death and the pool
of Hela, the quicker we go the better.'

And as the men settled themselves again to their oars, one was put
into Philammon's hand, which he managed with such strength and skill
that his late tormentors, who, in spite of an occasional inclination
to robbery and murder, were thoroughly good-natured, honest fellows,
clapped him on the back, and praised him as heartily as they had
just now heartily intended to torture him to death, and then went
forward, as many of them as were not rowing, to examine the strange
beast which they had just slaughtered, pawing him over from tusks to
tail, putting their heads into his mouth, trying their knives on his
hide, comparing him to all beasts, like and unlike, which they had
ever seen, and laughing and shoving each other about with the fun
and childish wonder of a party of schoolboys; till Smid, who was the
wit of the party, settled the comparative anatomy of the subject for
them-

'Valhalla! I've found out what he's most like!--One of those big
blue plums, which gave us all the stomach-ache when we were encamped
in the orchards above Ravenna!'



CHAPTER IV: MIRIAM


One morning in the same week, Hypatia's favourite maid entered her
chamber with a somewhat terrified face.

'The old Jewess, madam--the hag who has been watching so often
lately under the wall opposite. She frightened us all out of our
senses last evening by peeping in. We all said she had the evil
eye, if any one ever had--'

'Well, what of her?'

'She is below, madam, and will speak with you. Not that I care for
her; I have my amulet on. I hope you have?'

'Silly girl! Those who have been initiated as I have in the
mysteries of the gods, can defy spirits and command them. Do you
suppose that the favourite of Pallas Athene will condescend to
charms and magic? Send her up.'

The girl retreated, with a look half of awe, half of doubt, at the
lofty pretensions of her mistress, and returned with old Miriam,
keeping, however, prudently behind her, in order to test as little
as possible the power of her own amulet by avoiding the basilisk eye
which had terrified her.

Miriam came in, and advancing to the proud beauty, who remained
seated, made an obeisance down to the very floor, without, however,
taking her eyes for an instant off Hypatia's face.

Her countenance was haggard and bony, with broad sharp-cut lips,
stamped with a strangely mingled expression of strength and
sensuality. Put the feature about her which instantly fixed
Hypatia's attention, and from which she could not in spite of
herself withdraw it, was the dry, glittering, coal-black eye which
glared out from underneath the gray fringe of her swarthy brows,
between black locks covered with gold coins. Hypatia could look at
nothing but those eyes; and she reddened, and grew all but
unphilosophically angry, as she saw that the old woman intended her
to look at them, and feel the strange power which she evidently
wished them to exercise.

After a moment's silence, Miriam drew a letter from her bosom, and
with a second low obeisance presented it.

'From whom is this?'

'Perhaps the letter itself will tell the beautiful lady, the
fortunate lady, the discerning lady,' answered she, in a fawning,
wheedling tone. 'How should a poor old Jewess know great folks'
secrets?'

'Great folks?--'

Hypatia looked at the seal which fixed a silk cord round the letter.
It was Orestes'; and so was the handwriting .... Strange that he
should have chosen such a messenger! What message could it be which
required such secrecy?

She clapped her hands for the maid. 'Let this woman wait in the
ante-room.' Miriam glided out backwards, bowing as she went. As
Hypatia looked up over the letter to see whether she was alone, she
caught a last glance of that eye still fixed upon her, and an
expression in Miriam's face which made her, she knew not why,
shudder and turn chill.

'Foolish that I am! What can that witch be to me? But now for the
letter.'

'To the most noble and most beautiful, the mistress of philosophy,
beloved of Athene, her pupil and slave sends greeting.'....

'My slave! and no name mentioned!'

'There are those who consider that the favourite hen of Honorius,
which bears the name of the Imperial City, would thrive better under
a new feeder; and the Count of Africa has been despatched by himself
and by the immortal gods to superintend for the present the poultry-
yard of the Caesars--at least during the absence of Adolf and
Placidia. There are those also who consider that in his absence the
Numidian lion might be prevailed on to become the yoke-fellow of the
Egyptian crocodile; and a farm which, ploughed by such a pair,
should extend from the upper cataract to the Pillars of Hercules,
might have charms even for a philosopher. But while the ploughman
is without a nymph, Arcadia is imperfect. What were Dionusos
without his Ariadne, Ares without Aphrodite, Zeus without Hera?
Even Artemis has her Endymion; Athens alone remains unwedded; but
only because Hephaestus was too rough a wooer. Such is not he who
now offers to the representative of Athene the opportunity of
sharing that which may be with the help of her wisdom, which without
her is impossible. [Greek expression omitted] Shall Eros, invincible
for ages, be balked at last of the noblest game against which he
ever drew his bow?'....

If Hypatia's colour had faded a moment before under the withering
glance of the old Jewess, it rose again swiftly enough, as she read
line after line of this strange epistle; till at last, crushing it
together in her hand, she rose and hurried into the adjoining
library, where Theon sat over his books.

'Father, do you know anything of this? Look what Orestes has dared
to send me by the hands of some base Jewish witch!'--And she spread
the letter before him, and stood impatient, her whole figure dilated
with pride and anger, as the old man read it slowly and carefully,
and then looked up, apparently not ill pleased with the contents.

'What, father?' asked she, half reproachfully. 'Do not you, too,
feel the insult which has been put upon your daughter?'

'My dear child,' with a puzzled look, 'do you not see that he offers
you--'

'I know what he offers me, father. The Empire of Africa .... I am
to descend from the mountain heights of science, from the
contemplation of the unchangeable and ineffable glories, into the
foul fields and farmyards of earthly practical life, and become a
drudge among political chicanery, and the petty ambitions, and sins,
and falsehoods of the earthly herd .... And the price which he
offers me--me, the stainless--me, the virgin--me, the un-tamed, --
is-his hand! Pallas Athene! dost thou not blush with thy child?'

'But, my child--my child,--an empire--'

'Would the empire of the world restore my lost self-respect-my just
pride? Would it save my cheek from blushes every time I recollected
that I bore the hateful and degrading name of wife?--The property,
the puppet of a man--submitting to his pleasure--bearing his
children--wearing myself out with all the nauseous cares of
wifehood--no longer able to glory in myself, pure and self-
sustained, but forced by day and night to recollect that my very
beauty is no longer the sacrament of Athene's love for me, but the
plaything of a man;--and such a man as that! Luxurious, frivolous,
heartless--courting my society, as he has done for years, only to
pick up and turn to his own base earthly uses the scraps which fall
from the festal table of the gods! I have encouraged him too much--
vain fool that I have been! No, I wrong myself! It was only--I
thought--I thought that by his being seen at our doors, the cause of
the immortal gods would gain honour and strength in the eyes of the
multitude .... I have tried to feed the altars of heaven with
earthly fuel .... And this is my just reward! I will write to him
this moment,--return by the fitting messenger which he has sent,
insult for insult!'

'In the name of Heaven, my daughter!--for your father's sake!--for
my sake! Hypatia!--my pride, my joy, my only hope!--have pity on my
gray hairs!'

And the poor old man flung himself at her feet, and clasped her
knees imploringly.

Tenderly she lifted him up, and wound her long arms round him, and
laid his head on her white shoulder, and her tears fell fast upon
his gray hair; but her lip was firm and determined.

'Think of my pride--my glory in your glory; think of me .... Not
for myself! You know I never cared for myself!' sobbed out the old
man. 'But to die seeing you empress!'

'Unless I died first in childbed, father, as many a woman dies who
is weak enough to become a slave, and submit to tortures only fit
for slaves.'

'But--but--said the old man, racking his bewildered brains for some
argument far enough removed from nature and common sense to have an
effect on the beautiful fanatic--'but the cause of the gods! What
you might do for it! .... Remember Julian!'

Hypatia's arms dropped suddenly. Yes; it was true! The thought
flashed across her mind with mingled delight and terror ....
Visions of her childhood rose swift and thick--temples--sacrifices--
priesthoods--colleges--museums! What might she not do? What might
she not make Africa? Give her ten years of power, and the hated
name of Christian might be forgotten, and Athene Polias, colossal in
ivory and gold, watching in calm triumph over the harbours of a
heathen Alexandria .... But the price!

And she hid her face in her hands, and bursting into bitter tears,
walked slowly away into her own chamber, her whole body convulsed
with the internal struggle.

The old man looked after her, anxiously and perplexed, and then
followed, hesitating. She was sitting at the table, her face buried
in her hands. He did not dare to disturb her. In addition to all
the affection, the wisdom, the glorious beauty, on which his whole
heart fed day by day, he believed her to be the possessor of those
supernatural powers and favours to which she so boldly laid claim.
And he stood watching her in the doorway, praying in his heart to
all gods and demons, principalities and powers, from Athene down to
his daughter's guardian spirit, to move a determination which he was
too weak to gainsay, and yet too rational to approve.

At last the struggle was over, and she looked up, clear, calm, and
glorious again.

'It shall be. For the sake of the immortal gods--for the sake of
art, and science, and learning, and philosophy .... It shall be.
If the gods demand a victim, here am I. If a second time in the
history of the ages the Grecian fleet cannot sail forth, conquering
and civilising, without the sacrifice of a virgin, I give my throat
to the knife. Father, call me no more Hypatia: call me Iphigenia!'

'And me Agamemnon?' asked the old man, attempting a faint jest
through his tears of joy. 'I daresay you think me a very cruel
father; but--'

'Spare me, father--I have spared you.'

And she began to write her answer.

'I have accepted his offer--conditionally, that is. And on whether
he have courage or not to fulfil that condition depends-- Do not ask
me what it is. While Cyril is leader of the Christian mob, it may
be safer for you, my father, that you should be able to deny all
knowledge of my answer. Be content. I have said this--that if he
will do as I would have him do, I will do as you would have me do.'

'Have you not been too rash? Have you not demanded of him something
which, for the sake of public opinion, he dare not grant openly, and
yet which he may allow you to do for yourself when once--'

'I have. If I am to be a victim, the sacrificing priest shall at
least be a man, and not a coward and a time-server. If he believes
this Christian faith, let him defend it against me; for either it or
I shall perish. If he does not--as he does not--let him give up
living in a lie, and taking on his lips blasphemies against the
immortals, from which his heart and reason revolt!'

And she clapped her hands again for the maid-servant, gave her the
letter silently, shut the doors of her chamber, and tried to resume
her Commentary on Plotinus. Alas! what were all the wire-drawn
dreams of metaphysics to her in that real and human struggle of the
heart? What availed it to define the process by which individual
souls emanated from the universal one, while her own soul had,
singly and on its own responsibility, to decide so terrible an act
of will? or to write fine words with pen and ink about the
immutability of the supreme Reason, while her own reason was left
there to struggle for its life amid a roaring shoreless waste of
doubts and darkness? Oh, how grand, and clear, and logical it had
all looked half an hour ago! And how irrefragably she had been
deducing from it all, syllogism after syllogism, the non-existence
of evil!--how it was but a lower form of good, one of the countless
products of the one great all-pervading mind which could not err or
change, only so strange and recondite in its form as to excite
antipathy in all minds but that of the philosopher, who learnt to
see the stem which connected the apparently bitter fruit with the
perfect root from whence it sprang. Could she see the stem there?--
the connection between the pure and supreme Reason, and the hideous
caresses of the debauched and cowardly Orestes? was not that evil
pure, unadulterate with any vein of good, past, present, or future?
....

True;--she might keep her spirit pure amid it all; she might
sacrifice the base body, and ennoble the soul by the self-sacrifice
.... And yet, would not that increase the horror, the agony, the
evil of it-to her, at least, most real evil, not to be explained
away-and yet the gods required it? Were they just, merciful in
that? Was it like them, to torture her, their last unshaken votary?
Did they require it? Was it not required of them by some higher
power, of whom they were only the emanations, the tools, the
puppets?--and required of that higher power by some still higher
one--some nameless, absolute destiny of which Orestes and she, and
all heaven and earth, were but the victims, dragged along in an
inevitable vortex, helpless, hopeless, toward that for which each
was meant?--And she was meant for this! The thought was unbearable;
it turned her giddy. No! she would not! She would rebel! Like
Prometheus, she would dare destiny, and brave its worst! And she
sprang up to recall the letter .... Miriam was gone; and she threw
herself on the floor, and wept bitterly.

And her peace of mind would certainly not have been improved, could
she have seen old Miriam hurry home with her letter to a dingy house
in the Jews' quarter, where it was un-sealed, read, and sealed up
again with such marvellous skill, that no eye could have detected
the change; and finally, still less would she have been comforted
could she have heard the conversation which was going on in a
summer-room of Orestes' palace, between that illustrious statesman
and Raphael Aben-Ezra, who were lying on two divans opposite each
other, whiling away, by a throw or two of dice, the anxious moments
which delayed her answer.

'Trays again! The devil is in you, Raphael!'

'I always thought he was,' answered Raphael, sweeping up the gold
pieces....

'When will that old witch be back?'

'When she has read through your letter and Hypatia's answer.'

'Read them?'

'Of course. You don't fancy she is going to be fool enough to carry
a message without knowing what it is? Don't be angry; she won't
tell. She would give one of those two grave-lights there, which she
calls her eyes, to see the thing prosper.'

'Why?'

'Your excellency will know when the letter comes. Here she is; I
hear steps in the cloister. Now, one bet before they enter. I give
you two to one she asks you to turn pagan.'

'What in? Negro-boys?'

'Anything you like.'

'Taken. Come in, slaves?'

And Hypocorisma entered, pouting.

'That Jewish fury is outside with a letter, and has the impudence to
say she won't let me bring it in!'

'Bring her in then. Quick!'

'I wonder what I am here for, if people have secrets that I am not
to know,' grumbled the spoilt youth.

'Do you want a blue ribbon round those white sides of yours, you
monkey?' answered Orestes. 'Because, if you do, the hippopotamus
hide hangs ready outside.'

'Let us make him kneel down here for a couple of hours, and use him
as a dice-board,' said Raphael, 'as you used to do to the girls in
Armenia.'