ther continue the conversation which entertained us, and which had
begun so well. This eager defence of the interests which most delight the
best of the Hellenes in Alexandria may perhaps result in infusing into
the mind of our friend Publius Scipio--and through him into that of many
young Romans--a proper esteem for a line of intellectual effort which he
could not have condemned had he not failed to understand it perfectly.

"Very often some striking poetical turn given to a subject makes it, all
at once, clear to our comprehension, even when long and learned
disquisitions have failed; and I am acquainted with such an one, written
by an anonymous author, and which may please you--and you too,
Aristarchus. It epitomizes very happily the subject of our discussion.
The lines run as follows:

"Behold, the puny Child of Man
Sits by Time's boundless sea,
And gathers in his feeble hand
Drops of Eternity.

"He overhears some broken words
Of whispered mystery
He writes them in a tiny book
And calls it 'History!'

"We owe these verses to an accomplished friend; another has amplified the
idea by adding the two that follow:

"If indeed the puny Child of Man
Had not gathered drops from that wide sea,
Those small deeds that fill his little span
Had been lost in dumb Eternity.

"Feeble is his hand, and yet it dare
Seize some drops of that perennial stream;
As they fall they catch a transient gleam--
Lo! Eternity is mirrored there!

"What are we all but puny children? And those of us who gather up the
drops surely deserve our esteem no less than those who spend their lives
on the shore of that great ocean in mere play and strife--"

"And love," threw in Eulaeus in a low voice, as he glanced towards
Publius.

"Your poet's verses are pretty and appropriate," Aristarchus now said,
"and I am very happy to find myself compared to the children who catch
the falling drops. There was a time--which came to an end, alas! with the
great Aristotle--when there were men among the Greeks, who fed the ocean
of which you speak with new tributaries; for the gods had bestowed on
them the power of opening new sources, like the magician Moses, of whom
Onias, the Jew, was lately telling us, and whose history I have read in
the sacred books of the Hebrews. He, it is true--Moses I mean--