the beautifully bespangled card-castle of Neo-Platonism, as an empty
medley of all Greek philosophies with all Eastern superstitions. All
such Philistines had as yet dreaded the pen and tongue of Raphael, even
more than those of the chivalrous Bishop of Cyrene, though he certainly,
to judge from certain of his letters, hated them as much as he could
hate any human being; which was after all not very bitterly.

But the visits of Synesius were few and far between; the distance
between Carthage and Alexandria, and the labour of his diocese, and,
worse than all, the growing difference in purpose between him and
his beautiful teacher, made his protection all but valueless. And now
Aben-Ezra was gone too, and with him were gone a thousand plans and
hopes. To have converted him at last to a philosophic faith in the old
gods! To have made him her instrument for turning back the stream of
human error I... How often had that dream crossed her! And now, who
would take his place? Athanasius? Synesius in his good-nature might
dignify him with the name of brother, but to her he was a powerless
pedant, destined to die without having wrought any deliverance on
the earth, as indeed the event proved. Plutarch of Athens? He was
superannuated. Syrianus? A mere logician, twisting Aristotle to mean
what she knew, and he ought to have known, Aristotle never meant. Her
father? A man of triangles and conic sections. How paltry they all
looked by the side of the unfathomable Jew!--Spinners of charming
cobwebs..... But would the flies condescend to be caught in them?
Builders of pretty houses..... If people would but enter and live in
them! Preachers of superfine morality.... which their admiring pupils
never dreamt of practising. Without her, she well knew, philosophy must
die in Alexandria. And was it her wisdom--or other and more earthly
charms of hers--which enabled her to keep it alive? Sickening thought!
Oh, that she were ugly, only to test the power of her doctrines!

Ho! The odds were fearful enough already; she would be glad of any help,
however earthly and carnal. But was not the work hopeless? What she
wanted was men who could act while she thought. And those were just the
men whom she would find nowhere but--she knew it too well--in the hated
Christian priesthood. And then that fearful Iphigenia sacrifice loomed
in the distance as inevitable. The only hope of philosophy was in her
despair! ...............

She dashed away the tears,