...............

'Ay. To believe in the old creeds, while every one else is dropping
away from them .... To believe in spite of disappointments .... To
hope against hope .... To show oneself superior to the herd, by
seeing boundless depths of living glory in myths which have become
dark and dead to them .... To struggle to the last against the new
and vulgar superstitions of a rotting age, for the faith of my
forefathers, for the old gods, the old heroes, the old sages who
gauged the mysteries of heaven and earth--and perhaps to conquer--at
least to have my reward! To be welcomed into the celestial ranks of
the heroic--to rise to the immortal gods, to the ineffable powers,
onward, upward ever, through ages and through eternities, till I
find my home at last, and vanish in the glory of the Nameless and
the Absolute One! ....

And her whole face flashed out into wild glory, and then sank again
suddenly into a shudder of something like fear and disgust, as she
saw, watching her from under the wall of the gardens opposite, a
crooked, withered Jewish crone, dressed out in the most gorgeous and
fantastic style of barbaric finery.

'Why does that old hag haunt me? I see her everywhere--till the
last month at least--and here she is again! I will ask the prefect
to find out who she is, and get rid of her, before she fascinates me
with that evil eye. Thank the gods, there she moves away!
Foolish!--foolish of me, a philosopher. I, to believe, against the
authority of Porphyry himself, too, in evil eyes and magic! But
there is my father, pacing up and down in the library.'