us for a monk. Don't flatter
yourself that it will last. If you can wear the sheepskin, and haunt
the churches here for a month, without learning to lie, and slander, and
clap, and hoot, and perhaps play your part in a sedition--and--murder
satyric drama--why, you are a better man than I take you for. I, sir, am
a Greek and a philosopher; though the whirlpool of matter may have,
and indeed has, involved my ethereal spark in the body of a porter.
Therefore, youth,' continued the little man, starting up upon his baulk
like an excited monkey, and stretching out one oratorio paw, 'I bear a
treble hatred to the monkish tribe. First, as a man and a husband;....
for as for the smiles of beauty, or otherwise,--such as I have, I have;
and the monks, if they had their wicked will, would leave neither men
nor women in the world. Sir, they would exterminate the human race in a
single generation, by a voluntary suicide! Secondly, as a porter; for
if all men turned monks, nobody would be idle, and the profession of
portering would be annihilated. Thirdly, sir, as a philosopher; for as
the false coin is odious to the true, so is the irrational and animal
asceticism of the monk, to the logical and methodic self-restraint of
one who, like your humblest of philosophers, aspires to a life according
to the pure reason.'

'And pray,' asked Philammon, half laughing, 'who has been your tutor in
philosophy?'

'The fountain of classic wisdom, Hypatia herself. As the ancient
sage--the name is unimportant to a monk--pumped water nightly that he
might study by day, so I, the guardian of cloaks and parasols, at the
sacred doors of her lecture-room, imbibe celestial knowledge. From my
youth I felt in me a soul above the matter-entangled herd. She revealed
to me the glorious fact, that I am a spark of Divinity itself. A fallen
star, I am, sir!' continued he, pensively, stroking his lean stomach--'a
fallen star!--fallen, if the dignity of philosophy will allow of
the simile, among the hogs of the lower world--indeed, even into the
hog-bucket itself. Well, after all, I will show you the way to the
Archbishop's. There is a philosophic pleasure in opening one's treasures
to the modest young. Perhaps you will assist me by carrying this basket
of fruit?' And the little man jumped up, put his basket on Philammon's
head, and trotted off up a neighbouring street.

Philammon followed, half contemptuous, half wondering at what this
philosophy might be, which