“The latter, only the latter,” cried a lively youth, hurrying to meet his master. Another and another advanced, and in a moment he was locked in a close circle.
“Mercy! mercy!” cried the philosopher, “drive me a step further and you will overturn a couple of statues.” Then, looking over his shoulder, “I have brought you, if he has not run away, a very pleasant young Corinthian, for whom, until he gain his own tongue, I shall demand reception.” He held out his hand with a look of bewitching encouragement, and the yet faltering Theon advanced. The mist had now passed from his eyes, and the singing from his ears, and both room and company stood revealed before him. Perhaps, had it not been for this motion, and still more this look of the sage, he had just now made a retreat instead of an advance. “In the hall of Epicurus—in that hall where Timocrates had beheld”—oh! horrid imagination! “And he a disciple of Zeno, the friend of Cleanthes—the son of a follower of Plato—had he crossed the threshhold of vice, the threshhold of the impious Gargettian!” Yes; he had certainly fled, but for that extended hand, and that bewitching smile. These however conquered. He advanced, and with an effort at composure, met the offered hand. The circle made way, and Epicurus presented “a friend.” “His name you must learn from himself, I am only acquainted with his heart, and that, on a knowledge of two hours, I pronounce myself in love with.”
“Then he shall be my brother,” cried the lively youth who had before spoken, and he ran to the embrace of Theon.
“When shall we use our own eyes, ears, and understandings?” said the sage, gently stroking his scholar’s head. “See! our new friend knows not how to meet your premature affection.”
“He waits,” returned the youth archly, “to receive the same commendation of me that I have of him. Let the master say he is in love with my heart, and he too will open his arms to a brother.”
“I hope he is not such a fool,” gaily replied the sage. Then with an accent more serious, but still sweeter, “I hope he will judge all things, and all people, with his own understanding, and not with that of Epicurus, or yet of a wiser man. When may I hope this of Sofron,” smiling and shaking his head, “can Sofron tell me?”
“No, indeed he cannot,” rejoined the scholar, smiling and shaking his head also, as in mimicry of his master.
“Go, go, you rogue! and show us to our supper: I more than half suspect you have devoured it.” He turned, and familiarly taking Theon by the shoulder, walked up the room, or rather gallery, and entered a spacious rotunda.
A lamp, suspended from the centre of the ceiling, lighted a table spread beneath it with a simple but elegant repast. Round the walls, in niches at equal distances, stood twelve statues, the work of the best masters; on either hand of these burned a lamp on a small tripod. Beside one of the lamps, a female figure was reclining on a couch, reading with earnest study from a book that lay upon her knee. Her head was so much bowed forward as to conceal her face, besides that it was shadowed by her hand, which, the elbow supported on an arm of the couch, was spread above her brows as a relief from the glare of the light. At her feet was seated a young girl, by whose side lay a small cithara, silent, and forgotten by its mistress. Crete might have lent those eyes their sparkling jet, but all the soul of tenderness that breathed from them was pure Ionian. The full and ruddy lips, half parted, showed two rows of pearls which Thetis might have envied. Still a vulgar eye would not have rested on the countenance: the features wanted the Doric harmony, and the complexion was tinged as by an Afric sun. Theon, however, saw not this, as his eyes fell on those of the girl, uplifted to the countenance of her studious companion. Never was a book read more earnestly than was that face by the fond and gentle eyes which seemed to worship as they gazed. The sound of approaching feet caught the ear of the maiden. She rose, blushed, half returned the salute of the master, and timidly drew back some paces. The student was still intent upon the scroll over which she hung, when the sage advanced towards her, and laying a finger on her shoulder, “What read you, my daughter?” She dropped her hand, and looked up in his face. What a countenance was then revealed! It was not the beauty of blooming, blushing youth, courting love and desire. It was the self-possessed dignity of ripened womanhood, and the noble majesty of mind, that asked respect and promised delight and instruction. The features were not those of Venus, but Minerva. The eye looked deep and steady from beneath two even brows, that sense, not years, had slightly knit in the centre of the forehead, which else was uniformly smooth and polished as marble. The nose was rather Roman than Grecian, yet perfectly regular, and though not masculine, would have been severe in expression, but for a mouth where all that was lovely and graceful habited. The chin was elegantly rounded, and turned in the Greek manner. The color of the cheeks was of the softest and palest rose, so pale, indeed, as scarcely to be discernible until deepened by emotion. It was so at this moment: startled by the address of the sage, a bright flush passed over her face. She rolled up the book, dropped it on the couch, and rose. Her stature was much above the female standard, but every limb and every motion was symmetry and harmony. “A treatise of Theophrastus;—eloquent, ingenious and chimerical. I have a fancy to answer it.” Her voice was full and deep, like the tones of a harp when its chords are struck by the hand of a master.
“No one could do it better,” replied the sage. “But I should have guessed the aged Peripatetic already silenced by the most acute, elegant, and subtle pen of Athens.” She bowed to the compliment.