Charles Kingsley

“ Old folks, like children, are fond of their own playthings.'
'And I am yours, then?' said Philammon fiercely.
'You are indeed, my beautiful boy,' answered she, looking up with so insinuating a smile that he could not be angry. 'After all, I know how to toss my balls gently—and for these forty years I have only lived to make young folks happy; so you need not be afraid of the poor soft-hearted old woman. Now—you saved Orestes's life yesterday.'
'How did you find out that?'
'I? I know everything. ”

“ To see those heathen slaves and Christian hounds plotting and vapouring, and fancying themselves the masters of the world, and never dreaming that we are pulling the strings, and that they are our puppets!—we, the children of the promises—we, The Nation—we, the seed of Abraham! Poor fools! I could almost pity them, as I think of their faces when Messiah comes, and they find out who were the true lords of the world, after all! . . . .He must be the Emperor of the South, though, that Orestes; he must, though I have to lend him Raphael's jewels to make him so. For he must marry the Greek woman. ”

“ I must know that before I help you, my pretty boy. Are you a monk still, or a man?'
'What do you mean?'
'Ah, ha, ha!' laughed she shrilly. 'And these Christian dogs don't know what a man means? Are you a monk, then? leaving the man alone, as above your understanding.'
'I?—I am a student of philosophy.'
'But no man?'
'I am a man, I suppose.'
'I don't; if you had been, you would have been making love like a man to that heathen woman many a month ago.'
'I—to her?'
'Yes, I—to her!' said Miriam, coarsely imitating his tone of shocked humility. ”

“ He shall have his choice of all the beauties in Alexandria, and be count of Pentapolis if he likes. But a spectacle I must have; and no one but Pelagia can dance Venus Anadyomene.'
Philammon's blood rushed to his heart, and then back again to his brow, as he reeled with horror and shame.
'The people will be mad with joy to see her on the stage once more. Little they thought, the brutes, how I was plotting for their amusement, even when as drunk as Silenus.'
'Your nobility only lives for the good of your slaves.'
'Here, boy! So fair a lady requires a fair messenger. ”

“ And thus Cyril, usually the most impatient and intractable of plotters, gave in, as wise men should, to a wiser man than himself, and made up his mind to keep the secret, and to command the monk to keep it also.
Philammon, after a sleepless night, and a welcome visit to the public baths, which the Roman tyranny, wiser in its generation than modern liberty, provided so liberally for its victims, set forth to the Prefect's palace, and gave his message; but Orestes, who had been of late astonishing the Alexandrian public by an unwonted display of alacrity, was already in the adjoining Basilica. ”

“ Have you coveted yet any of the pretty things which she has had the wit to make her slave-demons save from the Christian robbers?'
Philammon's tale was soon told. The old woman listened, watching him intently with her burning eye; and then answered slowly—
'Well, and what if you are a slave?'
'Am I one, then? Am I?'
'Of course you are. Arsenius spoke truth. I saw him buy you at Ravenna, just fifteen years ago. I bought your sister at the same time. She is two-and-twenty now. ”

“ Thither the youth was conducted by an apparitor, and led up the centre of the enormous hall, gorgeous with frescoes and coloured marbles, and surrounded by aisles and galleries, in which the inferior magistrates were hearing causes, and doing such justice as the complicated technicalities of Roman law chose to mete out. ”