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Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face by Charles Kingsley
page 105 of 646 (16%)
stately figure, and answered--

'Of the human race in general, my young friend. The philosopher
must rise above the individual, to the contemplation of the
universal .... Aha!-Here is something worth seeing, and the gates
are open.' And he stopped at the portal of a vast building.

'Is this the patriarch's house?'

'The patriarch's tastes are more plebeian. He lives, they say, in
two dirty little rooms--knowing what is fit for him. The
patriarch's house? Its antipodes, my young friend--that is, if such
beings have a cosmic existence, on which point Hypatia has her
doubts. This is the temple of art and beauty; the Delphic tripod of
poetic inspiration; the solace of the earthworn drudge; in a word,
the theatre; which your patriarch, if he could, would convert to-
morrow into a--but the philosopher must not revile. Ah! I see the
prefect's apparitors at the gate. He is making the polity, as we
call it here; the dispositions; settling, in short, the bill of fare
for the day, in compliance with the public palate. A facetious
pantomime dances here on this day every week--admired by some, the
Jews especially. To the more classic taste, many of his movements--
his recoil, especially--are wanting in the true antique severity--
might be called, perhaps, on the whole, indecent. Still the weary
pilgrim must be amused. Let us step in and hear.'

But before Philammon could refuse, an uproar arose within, a rush
outward of the mob, and inward of the prefect's apparitors.

'It is false!' shouted many voices. 'A Jewish calumny! The man is
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