Hypatia

Chapter 20

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER

'But, fairest Hypatia, conceive yourself struck in the face by a great stone, several hundred howling wretches leaping up at you like wild beasts--two minutes more, and you are torn limb from limb. What would even you do in such a case?'

'Let them tear me limb from limb, and die as I have lived.'

'Ah, but--When it came to fact, and death was staring you in the face?'

'And why should man fear death?'

'Ahem! No, not death, of course; but the act of dying. That may be, surely, under such circumstances, to say the least, disagreeable. If our ideal, Julian the Great, found a little dissimulation necessary, and was even a better Christian than I have ever pretended to be, till he found himself able to throw off the mask, why should not I? Consider me as a lower being t