THESE four months had been busy and eventful enough to Hypatia and
to Philammon; yet the events and the business were of so gradual and
uniform a tenor, that it is as well to pass quickly over them, and show
what had happened principally by its effects.
The robust and fiery desert-lad was now metamorphosed into the pale and
thoughtful student, oppressed with the weight of careful thought and
weary memory. But those remembrances were all recent ones. With his
entrance into Hypatia’s lecture-room, and into the fairy realms of Greek
thought, a new life had begun for him; and the Laura, and Pambo, and
Arsenius, seemed dim phantoms from some antenatal existence, which faded
day by day before the inrush of new and startling knowledge.
But though the friends and scenes of his 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 Hypatia and the beautiful boy one of those pure and yet
passionate friendships--call them rather, with St. 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 may cling to the wise and tender matron, who, amid
the turmoil of the world, and the pride of beauty, and the cares of
wifehood, bends down to with counsel and encouragement--earth knows
no fairer bonds than these, save wedded love itself. And that second
relation, motherly rather than sisterly, had bound Philammon with a
golden chain to the wondrous maid of Alexandria.
From the commencement of his attendance in her lecture-room she had
suited her discourses to what she fancied were his especial spiritual
needs; and many a glance of the eye towards him, on any peculiarly
important sentence, set the poor boy’s heart beating at that sign that
the words were meant for him. But before a month was past, won by the
intense attention with which he watched for every utterance of hers, she
had persuaded her father to give a place in the library as one of his
pupils, among the youths who were employed there daily in transcribing,
as well as in studying, the authors then in fashion.
She saw him at first but seldom--more seldom than she would have wished;
but she dreaded the tongue of scandal, heathen as well as Christian,
and contented herself with inquiring daily from her father about the
progress of the boy. And when at times she entered for a moment the
library, where he sat writing, or passed him on her way to the Museum, a
look was interchanged, on her part of most gracious approval, and on his
of adoring gratitude, which was enough for both. Her spell was working
surely; and she was too confident in her own cause and her own powers to
wish to hurry that transformation for which she so fondly hoped.
‘He must begin at the beginning,’ thought she to herself. ‘Mathematics
and the Parmenides are enough for him as yet. Without a training in the
liberal sciences be cannot gain a faith worthy of those gods to whom
some day I shall present him; and I should find his Christian ignorance
and fanaticism transferred, whole and rude, to the service of those gods
whose shrine is unapproachable save to the spiritual man, who has passed
through the successive vestibules of science and philosophy.’
But soon, attracted herself, as much as wishing to attract him, she
employed him in copying manuscripts for her own use. She sent back his
themes and declamations, corrected with her own hand; and Philammon laid
them by in his little garret at Eudaimon’s house as precious badges of
honour, after exhibiting them to the reverential and envious gaze of the
little porter. So he toiled on, early and late, counting himself
well paid for a week’s intense exertion by a single smile or word of
approbation, and went home to pour out his soul to his host on the
one inexhaustible theme which they had in common--Hypatia and her
perfections. He would have raved often enough on the same subject to
his fellow-pupils, but he shrank not only from their artificial city
manners, but also from their morality, for suspecting which he saw but
too good cause. He longed to go out into the streets, to proclaim to the
whole world the treasure which he had found, and call on all to come and
share it with him. For there was no jealousy in that pure love of his.
Could he have seen her lavishing on thousands far greater favours than
she had conferred on him, he would have rejoiced in the thought that
there were so many more blest beings upon earth, and have loved them
all and every one as brothers, for having deserved her notice. Her
very beauty, when his first flush of wonder was past, he ceased to
mention--ceased even to think of it. Of course she must be beautiful. It
was her right; the natural complement of her other graces but it was to
him only what the mother’s smile is to the infant, the sunlight to the
skylark, the mountain-breeze to the hunter--an inspiring element, on
which he fed unconsciously. Only when he doubted for a moment some
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--Could any but true words come out of
those perfect lips?--any but royal thoughts take shape within that
queenly head?.... Poor fool! Yet was it not natural enough?
Then, gradually, as she passed the boy, poring over his book, in some
alcove of the Museum Gardens, she would invite him by a glance to join
the knot of loungers and questioners who dangled about her and her
father, and fancied themselves to be reproducing the days of the
Athenian sages amid the groves of another Academus. Sometimes, even, she
had beckoned him to her side as she sat in some retired arbour, attended
only by her father; and there some passing observation, earnest and
personal, however lofty and measured, made him aware, as it was intended
to do, that she had a deeper interest in him, a livelier sympathy for
him, than for the many; that he was in her eyes not merely a pupil to be
instructed, but a soul whom she desired to educate. And those delicious
gleams of sunlight grew more frequent and more protracted; for by each
she satisfied herself more and more that she had not mistaken either
his powers or his susceptibilities: and in each, whether in public or
private, Philammon seemed to bear himself more worthily. For over and
above the natural ease and dignity which accompanies physical beauty,
and the modesty, self-restraint, and deep earnestness which he had
acquired under the discipline of the Laura, his Greek character was
developing itself in all its quickness, subtlety, and versatility, until
he seemed to Hypatia some young Titan, by the side of the flippant,
hasty, and 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 Philammon would
have gone hungry to his couch full many a night, to lie awake from baser
causes than philosophic meditation, had it not been for his magnanimous
host, who never lost heart for a moment, either about himself, or any
other human being. As for Philammon’s going out with him to earn his
bread, he would not hear of it. Did he suppose that he could meet any
of those monkish rascals in the street, without being knocked down and
carried off by main force? And besides there was a sort of impiety in
allowing so hopeful a student to neglect the ‘Divine Ineffable’ in order
to supply the base necessities of the teeth. So he should pay no rent
for his lodgings--positively none; and as for eatables--why, he must
himself work a little harder in order to cater for both. Had not all his
neighbours their litters of children to provide for, while he, thanks
to the immortals, had been far too wise to burden the earth with animals
who would add to the ugliness of their father the Tartarean hue of their
mother? And after all, Philammon could pay him back when he became a
great sophist, and made money, as of course he would some day or other;
and in the meantime, something might turn up--things were always
turning up for those whom the gods favoured; and besides, he had fully
ascertained that on the day on which he first met Philammon, the planets
were favourable, the Mercury being in something or other, he forgot
what, with Helios, which portended for Philammon, in his opinion, a
similar career with that of the glorious and devout Emperor Julian.
Philammon winced somewhat at the hint; which seemed to have an ugly
verisimilitude in it: but still, philosophy he must learn, and bread he
must eat; so he submitted.
But one evening, a few days after he had been admitted as Theon’s pupil,
he found, much to his astonishment, lying on the table in his garret, an
undeniable glittering gold piece. He took it down to the porter the
next morning, and begged him to discover the owner of the lost coin,
and return it duly. But what was his surprise, when the little man, amid
endless capers and gesticulations, informed him with an air of mystery,
that it was anything but lost; that his arrears of rent had been paid
for him; and that by the bounty of the upper powers, a fresh piece of
coin would be forthcoming every month! In vain Philammon demanded to
know who was his benefactor. Eudaimon resolutely kept the secret and
imprecated a whole Tartarus of unnecessary curses on his wife if she
allowed her female garrulity--though the poor creature seemed never to
open her lips from morning till night--to betray so great a mystery.
Who was the unknown friend? There was but one person who could have done
it.... And yet he dared not--the thought was too delightful--think it
was she. It must have been her father. The old man had asked him more
than once about the state of his purse. True, he had always returned
evasive answers; but the kind old man must have divined the truth. Ought
he not--must he not--go and thank him? No; perhaps it was more courteous
to say nothing. If he--she--for of course she had permitted, perhaps
advised, the gift--had intended him to thank them, would they have so
carefully concealed their own 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 he took the coin, bought unto himself a cloak of the most philosophic
fashion, and went his way, such as it was, rejoicing.
But his faith in Christianity? What had become of that?
What usually happens in such cases. It was not dead; but nevertheless it
had fallen fast asleep for the time being. He did not disbelieve it;
he would have been shocked to hear such a thing asserted of him: but he
happened to be busy believing something else--geometry, conic sections,
cosmogonies, psychologies, and what not. And so it befell that he had
not just then time to believe in Christianity. He recollected at times
its existence; but even then he neither affirmed nor denied it. When
he had solved the great questions--those which Hypatia set forth as the
roots of all knowledge--how the world was made, and what was the
origin of evil, and what his own personality was, and--that being
settled--whether he had one, with a few other preliminary matters, then
it would be time to return, with his enlarged light, to the study of
Christianity; and if, of course, Christianity should be found to be at
variance with that enlarged light, as Hypatia seemed to think ....
Why, then--What then?.... He would not think about such disagreeable
possibilities. Sufficient for the day was the evil thereof.
Possibilities? It was impossible.... Philosophy could not mislead. Had
not Hypatia 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? And he must find it--for logic and
mathematics could not err. If every step was correct, the conclusion
must be correct also; so he must end, after all, in the right path--that
is, of course, supposing Christianity to be the right path--and return
to fight the Church’s battles, with the sword which he had wrested from
Goliath the Philistine....But he had not won the sword yet.; and in the
meanwhile, learning was weary work; and sufficient for the day was the
good, as well as the evil, thereof.
So, enabled by his gold coin each month to devote himself entirely
to study, he became very much what Peter would have coarsely termed a
heathen. At first, indeed, he slipped into the Christian churches,
from a habit of conscience. But habits soon grow sleepy; the fear of
discovery and recapture made his attendance more and more of a labour.
And keeping himself apart as much as possible from the congregation, as
a lonely and secret worshipper, he soon found himself as separate from
them in heart as in daily life. He felt that they, and even more than
they, those flowery and bombastic pulpit rhetoricians, who were paid for
their sermons by the clapping and cheering of the congregation, were
not thinking of, longing after, the same things as himself. Besides, he
never spoke to a Christian; for the negress at his lodgings seemed to
avoid him--whether from modesty or terror, he could not tell; and cut
off thus from the outward ‘communion of saints,’ he found himself fast
parting away from the inward one. So he went no more to church, and
looked the other way, he hardly knew why, whenever he passed the
Caesareum; and Cyril, and all his mighty organisation, 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 lectures on astronomy were just opening before his
bewildered imagination.
Hypatia watched all this with growing self-satisfaction, and fed herself
with the dream that through Philammon she might see her wildest hopes
realised. 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, till
Philammon would have been as much astonished as self-glorified could he
have seen the idealised caricature of himself which the sweet enthusiast
had painted for her private enjoyment. They were blissful months those
to poor Hypatia. Orestes, for some reason or other, had neglected to
urge his suit, and the Iphigenia-sacrifice had retired mercifully into
the background. Perhaps she should be able now to accomplish all without
it. And yet--it was so long to wait! Years might pass before Philammon’s
education was matured, and with them golden opportunities which might
never recur again.
‘Ah!’ she sighed at times, ‘that Julian had lived a generation later!
That I could have brought all my hard-earned treasures to the feet of
the Poet of the Sun, and cried, “Take me!--Hero, warrior, statesman,
sage, priest of the God of Light! Take thy slave! Command her--send
her--to martyrdom, if thou wilt!” A pretty price would that have been
wherewith to buy the honour of being the meanest of thy apostles, the
fellow-labourer of Iamblichus, Maximus, Libanius, and the choir of sages
who upheld the throne of the last true Caesar!’