it. Such moments come to every free-willed creature.
Happy are those who have not, like poor Philammon, been kept by a hotbed
cultivation from knowing how to face them? But he had yet to learn,
or rather his tutors had to learn, that the sure path toward willing
obedience and manful self-restraint, lies not through slavery, but
through liberty.

He was not certain which was Hypatia's house; but the door of the Museum
he could not forget. So there he sat himself down under the garden wall,
soothed by the cool night, and the holy silence, and the rich perfume of
the thousand foreign flowers which filled the air with enervating balm.
There he sat and watched, and watched, and watched in vain for some
glimpse of his one object. Which of the houses was hers? Which was the
window of her chamber! Did it look into the street? What business had
his fancy with woman's chambers?.... But that one open window, with the
lamp burning bright inside--he could not help looking up to it--he could
not help fancying--hoping. He even moved a few yards to see better the
bright interior of the room. High up as it was, he could still discern
shelves of books--pictures on the walls. Was that a voice? Yes! a
woman's voice--reading aloud in metre--was plainly distinguishable in
the dead stillness of the night, which did not even awaken a whisper in
the trees above his head. He stood, spellbound by curiosity.

Suddenly the voice ceased, and a woman's figure came forward to the
window, and stood motionless, gazing upward at the spangled star-world
overhead, and seeming to drink in the glory, and the silence, and the
rich perfume.... Could it be she? Every pulse in his body throbbed
madly.... Could it be? What was she doing? He could not distinguish the
features; but the full blaze of the eastern moon showed him an upturned
brow, between a golden stream of glittering tresses which hid her
whole figure, except the white hands clasped upon her bosom.... Was she
praying? were these her midnight sorceries?....

And still his heart throbbed and throbbed, till he almost fancied she
must hear its noisy beat--and still she stood motionless, gazing upon
the sky, like some exquisite chryselephantine statue, all ivory and
gold. And behind her, round the bright room within, painting, books, a
whole world of unknown science and beauty.... and she the priestess of
it all....inviting him to learn of her and be wise! It was a temptation!
He would flee from it!--F