She spoke rapidly, and with white lips that quivered. Clara looked
at her wonderingly, and said hesitatingly: "I don't understand the half of what you have been saying, It sounds
to me very much as if you had stumbled into a lumber room of queer
ideas; snatched up a handful, all on different subjects, and woven
them into a speech as incongruous as Joseph's variegated coat."
There was no reply. Beulah's hands were clasped on the table before
her, and she leaned forward with eyes fixed steadily on the floor.
Clara waited a moment, and then continued: "I never noticed any of the mysteries of 'Manfred' that seem to
trouble you so much. I enjoy the fine passages, and never think of
the hidden meanings, as you call them; whereas it seems you are
always plunging about in the dark, hunting you know not what. I am
content to glide on the surface, and--"
"And live in the midst of foam and bubbles!" cried Beulah, with a
gesture of impatience.
"Better that than grope among subterranean caverns, black and icy,
as you are forever doing. You are even getting a weird, unearthly
look. Sometimes, when I come in and find you, book in hand, with
that far-off expression in your eyes, I really dislike to speak to
you. There is no more color in your face and hands than in that wall
yonder. You will dig your grave among books, if you don't take care.
There is such a thing as studying too much. Your mind is perpetually
at work; all day you are thinking, thinking, thinking; and at night,
since the warm weather has made me open the door between our rooms,
I hear you talking earnestly and rapidly in your sleep. Last week I
came in on tiptoe, and stood a few minutes beside your bed. The moon
shone in through the window, and though you were fast asleep, I saw
that you tossed your hands restlessly; while I stood there you spoke
aloud, in an incoherent manner, of the 'Dream Fugue,' and 'Vision of
Sudden Death,' and now and then you frowned, and sighed heavily, as
if you were in pain. Music is a relaxation to most people, but it
seems to put your thoughts on the rack. You will wear yourself out
prematurely if you don't quit this constant studying."
She rose to go, and, glancing up at her, Beulah answered musingly: "We are very unlike. The things that I love you shrink from as dull
and tiresome. I live in a different world. Books are to me what
family, and friends, and society are to other people. It may be that
the isolation of my life necessitates this. Doubtless, you often
find me abstracted. Are you going so soon? I had hoped we should
spend a profitable evening, but it has slipped away, and I have done
nothing. Good-night." She rose and gave the customary good-night
kiss, and, as Clara retired to her own room, Beulah turned up the
wick of her lamp and resumed her book. The gorgeous mazes of
Coleridge no longer imprisoned her fancy; it wandered mid the
silence, and desolation, and sand rivulets of the Thebaid desert;
through the date groves of the lonely Laura; through the museums of
Alexandria. Over the cool, crystal depths of "Hypatia" her thirsty
spirit hung eagerly. In Philammon's intellectual nature she found a
startling resemblance to her own. Like him, she had entered a
forbidden temple, and learned to question; and the same "insatiable
craving to know the mysteries of learning" was impelling her, with
irresistible force, out into the world of philosophic inquiry. Hours
fled on unnoted; with nervous haste the leaves were turned. The town
clock struck three. As she finished the book and laid it on the
table she bowed her head upon her hands. She was bewildered. Was
Kingsley his own Raphael-Aben-Ezra? or did he heartily believe in
the Christianity of which he had given so hideous a portraiture? Her
brain whirled, yet there was a great dissatisfaction. She could not
contentedly go back to the Laura with Philammon; "Hypatia" was not
sufficiently explicit. She was dissatisfied; there was more than
this Alexandrian ecstasy to which Hypatia was driven; but where, and
how should she find it? Who would guide her? Was not her guardian,
in many respects, as skeptical as Raphael himself? Dare she enter,
alone and unaided, this Cretan maze of investigation, where all the
wonderful lore of the gifted Hypatia had availed nothing? What was
her intellect given her for, if not to be thus employed? Her head
ached with the intensity of thought, and, as she laid it on her
pillow and closed her eyes, day looked out over the eastern sky.