“If I only wore a diadem, I know at whose feet it would be laid”—he said it simply, as to himself.
“Aleph the Chaldean already wears a diadem which the daughter of Alexander values more than any that will ever shine on the banks of the Tiber,” was the reply.
What is the use of being a princess and, by invitation, an empress, if she cannot speak her mind frankly? But what is her mind? Seti might have used the same words. From his lips they would have meant high approval and even admiration. Was this all that she meant? Did she only pay such fitting intellectual tribute to Aleph as one pays to an admirable statue, to the glorious stars, or to each of a hundred shining historic persons? We admire them and praise them—but we can live without them. We can leave the admirable statue in its palace or temple and very contentedly go about our business, never to see it again. We can praise Plato to the skies, and yet be quite willing to have him and his Republic remain some twenty odd centuries away from us. Who has a right to say that such was not the mind of Rachel?—appreciative, outspoken, Setian, and—nothing more?
XV.
THE CONFERENCES.
Αυοῖν παρόντων ήμισυς λόγος πάρα.
—Æschylus, Eum. 428.
He hears but half who hears one side only.