of matter. This was the immortal Aphrodite, cradled in bliss in the pure
radiance of the ideal world and yet unable to free herself from the gross
clay of matter fouled by sensuality and the vehicle of sin.

The head of Serapis was the eternal Mind; in his broad breast slept the
Soul of the Universe, and the prototypes of all created things; the world
of matter was the footstool under his feet. All the subordinate forces
obeyed him, the mighty first Cause, whose head towered up to the realm of
the incoinprellensible and inconceivable One. He was the sum total of
the universe, the epitome of things created; and at the same time he was
the power which gave them life and intelligence and preserved them from
perishing by perpetual procreation. It was his might that kept the
multiform structure of the material and psychical world in perennial
harmony. All that lived--Nature and its Soul as much as Man and his
Soul--were inseparably dependent on him. If he--if Serapis were to fall,
the order of the universe must be destroyed; and with him: The Synthesis
of the Universe--the Universe itself must cease to exist.

But what would survive would not be the nothingness--the void of which
her grandmother had spoken; it would be the One--the cold, ineffable,
incomprehensible One! This world would perish with Serapis; but perhaps
it might please that One to call another world into being out of his
overflowing essence, peopled by other and different beings.

Gorgo was startled out of these meditations by a wild tumult which came
up from the slaves' hall some distance off and reached her ears in the
women's sitting-room. Could her grandmother have opened the wine stores
all too freely; were the miserable wretches already drunk?

No, the noise was not that of a troop of slaves who have forgotten