now that the feminine mind is not mathematical. That
the great men whom Hypatia met in each city were first amazed and then
abashed by her proficiency in mathematics is quite probable. Some few
male professors being in that peculiar baldheaded hypnotic state when
feminine charms dazzle and lure, listened in rapture as Hypatia
dissolved logarithms and melted calculi, and not understanding a word
she said, declared that she was the goddess Minerva, reincarnated. Her
coldness on near approach confirmed their suspicions.

* * * * *

Just how long a time Hypatia spent upon her pilgrimage, visiting all of
the great living philosophers, we do not know. Some accounts have it one
year, others ten.

Probably the pilgrimages were extended over a good many years, and were
not continuous. Several philosophers proved their humanity by offering
to marry her, and a prince or two did likewise, we are credibly
informed. To these persistent suitors, however, Hypatia gently broke the
news that she was wedded to truth, which is certainly a pretty speech,
even if it is poor logic. The fact was, however, that Hypatia never met
a man whose mind matched her own, otherwise logic would have bolstered
love, instead of discarding it.

Travel, public speaking and meeting people of note form a strong trinity
of good things. The active mind is the young mind, and it is more than
the dream of a poet which declares that Hypatia was always young and
always beautiful, and that even Father Time was so in love with her that
he refused to take toll from her, as he passed with his hourglass and
scythe.

In degree she had followed the example of her great prototype, Plotinus,
and had made herself master of all religions. She knew too much of all
philosophies to believe implicitly in any. Alexandria was then the
intellectual center of the world. People who resided there called it the
hub of the universe. It was the meeting-place of the East and the West.

And Hypatia, with her Thursday lectures, was the chief intellectual
factor of Alexandria.

Her philosophy she called Neo-Platonism. It was Plato distilled through
the psychic alembic of Hypatia. Just why the human mind harks back and
likes to confirm itself by building on another, it would be interesting
to inquire. To explain Moses; to supply a key to the Scriptures; to
found a new School of Philosophy on the assumption that Plato was right,
but was not understood until