Charles Kingsley

“ We are now friends and brothers, in hatred to the monastic tribe.'
'I do not hate them, I tell you,' said Philammon. 'But these Nitrian savages—'
'Are the perfect examples of monkery, and you hate them; and therefore, all greaters containing the less, you hate all less monastic monks—I have not heard logic lectures in vain. Now, up! The sea woos our dusty limbs: Nereids and Tritons, charging no cruel coin, call us to Nature's baths. At home a mighty sheat-fish smokes upon the festive board; beer crowns the horn, and onions deck the dish ”

“ The barbaric mind is prone to superstition. Yet she is, being but a woman and a negress, a good soul, and thrifty, though requiring, like all lower animals, occasional chastisement. I married her on philosophic grounds. A wife was necessary to me for several reasons: but mindful that the philosopher should subjugate the material appetite, and rise above the swinish desires of the flesh, even when his nature requires him to satisfy them, I purposed to make pleasure as unpleasant as possible. ”

“ We can combine our meals, as our souls are already united.'
Philammon thanked him heartily for the offer, though he shrank from accepting it; and in ten minutes more found himself at the door of the very house which he had been watching the night before. It was she, then, whom he had seen! . . . . He was handed over by a black porter to a smart slave-girl, who guided him up, through cloisters and corridors, to the large library, where five or six young men were sitting, busily engaged, under Theon's superintendence, in copying manuscripts and drawing geometric diagrams. ”

“ Judith! clear the table. Now to the sanctuary of the Muses!'
Philammon rose, and finished his meal by a monkish grace. A gentle and reverent 'Amen' rose from the other end of the room. It was the negress. She saw him look up at her, dropped her eyes modestly, and bustled away with the remnants, while Philammon and his host started for Hypatia's lecture-room. ”

“ Philammon thought the latter part of the theory open to question, but he had by no means stopped eating when he rose, and his mouth was much too full of fish to argue.
'And therefore,' continued the little man,'we are to consider ourselves henceforth as one soul in two bodies. You may have the best of the corporeal part of the division . . . . yet it is the soul which makes the person. ”

“ The bigots and slanderers; wild beasts of the desert, and fanatic intriguers, who, in the words of Him they call their master, compass heaven and earth to make one proselyte, and when they have found him, make him two-fold more the child of hell than themselves. Go—I forgive you: you are young, and know not yet the mystery of the world. ”

“ Now go; you have been favoured beyond your deserts, and should learn that the philosopher can practise what the Christian only preaches, and return good for evil.' And he put into Philammon's hand a slip of paper, and bid one of the secretaries show him to the outer door. ”

“ Sick with hunger and fatigue, and aching from head to foot with his hard night's rest on the granite-flags, he felt as unable as man could well do to collect his thoughts or brace his nerves for the coming interview. ”

“ That which thou hast done, thou hast done by instinct—by divine compulsion—thou couldst no more help it than thou canst help eating that fish, and art no more to be praised for it.'
'Thank you,' said Philammon.
'Comprehend me. Our theory in the schools for such cases is this— has been so at least for the last six months; similar particles, from one original source, exist in you and me. Similar causes produce similar effects; our attractions, antipathies, impulses, are therefore, in similar circumstances, absolutely the same ”

“ And yet so tender, so open to repentance and noble shame!—That is no plebeian by birth; patrician blood surely flows in those veins; it shows out in every attitude, every tone, every motion of the hand and lip. lie cannot be one of the herd. ”

“ So having, by the bounty of Hypatia and her pupils, saved a small sum, I went out bought me a negress, and hired six rooms in the block we have just left, where I let lodgings to young students of the Divine Philosophy.'
'Have you any lodgers now?'
'Ahem! Certain rooms are occupied by a lady of rank. The philosopher will, above all things, abstain from babbling. To bridle the tongue, is to—But there is a closet at your service ”