efended by any scientific culture from the inrushing flood. For
the first time in his life he found himself face to face with the
root-questions of all thought--'What am I, and where?' 'What can I
know?' And in the half-terrified struggle with them, he had all but
forgotten the purpose for which he entered the lecture-hall. He
felt that he must break the spell. Was she not a heathen and a
false prophetess? Here was something tangible to attack; and half
in indignation at the blasphemy, half in order to force himself into
action, he had sprung up and spoken.

A yell arose. 'Turn the monk out!''Throw the rustic through the window!'
cried a dozen young gentlemen. Several of the most valiant began to
scramble over the benches up to him; and Philammon was congratulating
himself on the near approach of a glorious martyrdom, when Hypatia's
voice, calm and silvery, stifled the tumult in a moment.

'Let the youth listen, gentlemen. He is but a monk and a plebeian, and
knows no better; he has been taught thus. Let him sit here quietly, and
perhaps we may be able to teach him otherwise.'

And without interrupting, even by a change of tone, the thread of her
discourse, she continued--

'Listen, then, to a passage from the sixth book of the _Iliad_, in which
last night I seemed to see glimpses of some mighty mystery. You know it
well: yet I will read it to you; the very sound and pomp of that great
verse may tune our souls to a fit key for the reception of lofty wisdom.
For well said Abamnon the Teacher, that "the soul consisted first of
harmony and rhythm, and ere it gave itself to the body, had listened to
the divine harmony. Therefore it is that when, after having come into
a body, it hears such melodies as most preserve the divine footstep of
harmony, it embraces such, and recollects from them that divine harmony,
and is impelled to it, and finds its home in it, and shares of it as
much as it can share."'

And therewith fell on Philammon's ear, for the first time, the mighty
thunder-roll of Homer's verse--

So spoke the stewardess: but Hector rushed From the house, the same way
back, down stately streets, Through the broad city, to the Scaian gates,
Whereby he must go forth toward the plain, There running toward him
came Andromache, His ample-dowered wife, Eetion's child-- Eetion the
great-hearted, he who dwelt In Thebe under Placos, and the woods Of
Placos, ruling over Kilic men. His daughter wedded Hector brazen-helmed,