If these strange things had occurred soon after my father’s death, when the spirit of religious inquiry was strong, and when I loved to search the Scriptures with my sisters, I would have been deeply, intensely interested in them. But the hardest thing in the world is to make a devotee out of a man who thinks himself a philosopher.

Moreover the influence of travel, and especially my free and happy life at Athens, had quite denationalized me. I was no longer a Jew.

I had breathed the mystic and magical air of Egypt, and had peeped into one of the very cradles of the human race; where I found everything so strange and so unlike what I had been taught by our childish Hebrew traditions.

I had trodden all the glorious and beautiful grounds hallowed in the immortal history and songs of Greece. I no longer wondered at the host of gods and goddesses which were conjured from the misty deeps of antiquity, to guard a nature so prolific and fair, and a people so perfect in form and so gifted in spirit.

The traditions of Greece, the poetry, the eloquence, the music, the philosophy, the art, and the divine architecture, which seemed a combination of them all, had so impressed and transformed my mind, that I looked back to my narrow circle of life and thought in Judea, as a man looks back upon the school-room and play-ground of his childhood.

After these things, it was impossible for me to believe that the Jews were the favored people of God, and that the descendants of the patriarchs were to govern the world. It was as easy to believe that the sun rose in Jericho and set in Joppa.

Therefore I smiled at my sister’s pious enthusiasm, and said to myself:

This Jesus of Nazareth is some estimable Jew, full of philanthropy and zeal, possessed perhaps of extraordinary healing powers. With these he will so astonish the poor ignorant Hebrews, that they will call him a prophet of God, or even invest him with divine honors. In Athens he would be simply a philosopher or a physician, more or less profound and brilliant. His pretensions would be scrutinized by a thinking public, and he would receive applause in proportion to his merit and capacity.

There was, I must confess, another reason why I did not turn my face toward Judea; why the prophecies and their fulfillment had ceased to interest me; and why even my charming sisters were occasionally forgotten. While studying the theologies of the nations and poring over the ethereal pantheism of Greece, I met that wonderful divinity who flies ever with his golden shafts between the earth and the sun, and I became the devotee of a new religion.

I had seen the most beautiful, the most wonderful woman in the world, and—

And what?

I loved!

I was rejoiced at this, for I had heard one of my companions say:

“Helena, the sister of Demetrius, is the most wonderful creature in the world.”

I verified the truth of his remark. It was indeed the echo of the popular lip. Helena was an institution of Athens, sought, seen and admired like its other wonders and beauties. No language can convey any adequate description of this cunning masterpiece of nature. There was no statue in all the rich collections of Grecian art, which excelled the matchless symmetry of her form or the perfect beauty of her features. She was the poet’s dream of perfection, embodied in the delicate tissues of a splendid womanhood.

Poor artist that I am, I throw my pencil down in disgust. I cannot reproduce Helena to your eyes as she appeared to me.

To see this woman, for a young enthusiastic spirit, with his celestial dream pressing downward for realization, was to love her. The shaft of love flies from one eye to another; from the eye to the heart; from the heart to the brain; from the brain to the soul. I looked, I loved. I was smitten to the soul by that malady which has no cure but the cause which inflicts it.

Helena had not only an irresistible sweetness of voice and grace of manner, but she had a singular directness of attack, concentrating all her charms upon you at once; so that few men ever left her presence without feeling that she had absorbed and taken from them some portion of their life, which they could only recover by returning into the enchanted atmosphere which surrounded her beautiful person.

Thus bewildered by her beauty and bewitched by her fascinations, I lost my life when away from her, and found it again, enhanced and glorified, when I approached her footstool. I was attracted to her continually; and if I tore myself away, and climbed the mountain-top, or walked by the sea-shore, she became the inspiring genius of my solitary rambles; and the beauties of nature were only beautiful, because in some inexplicable manner they seemed akin to, or associated with her.

Thus, day after day, week after week passed by, and philosophy became as dry as dust, and my companions silly and unprofitable; and Egypt became a myth and Judea a dream; while the past was forgotten and the future uncared for, except in connection with her. Solitude became sweet, and reverie ecstatic, and the language of poetry the voice of common life. I created for myself an ideal world, romantic, ethereal, felicitous; for the greatest magician that ever lived is Love.

I was sometimes, however, sunk into the fathomless abyss of despair. I met in the splendid halls of Calisthenes so many distinguished and wealthy and powerful men; so many soldiers and statesmen; so many philosophers, artists and poets; all many degrees superior to myself, and all paying the same homage to the idol I worshiped, that my envy and jealousy were being continually excited; and I frequently shrank within myself, taciturn and melancholy, contemplating the awful distance which intervened between my feeble pretensions and the transcendent object of my admiration.

Then Helena, observing my silence and grief, would single me out from the crowd with a peculiar sweetness; would bestow a smile which seemed meant only for me; would drop a sentence of pearl which I felt that I alone comprehended; would solicit my early return in a manner so special and impressive, that I was fired with new hope and endowed with new life; spurned the dull earth beneath me, and was ready, like the daring boy of Apollo, to drive the chariot of the sun.

With all this magnificent exterior, with the blended adornments of nature and art, this Helena was altogether unworthy of the pure and simple love I lavished upon her. She studied men as the angler studies the character, habits and locality of fish; solely to allure and capture them. She had the thoughtful brow and the words of wisdom for one class; the smile of the cupid and the laugh of the bacchante for another. She had an armory full of weapons; the tear of sympathy, the corruscations of wit, the meekness of modesty, the humility of religion, the splendor of dress, the ornament and even the exposure of person. Everything about her was the highest art in a garb of the sweetest nature.

She hesitated at nothing which would secure her a conquest. She was unhappy unless many were kneeling at her shrine. She lived upon the breath of adulation, the music of her own praises, the incense of delirious love. She wished to absorb everything; she gave nothing in return. She demanded for herself affection, thought, worship, life. She returned only smiles, hopes, dreams, shadows. She was a beautiful demon of selfishness. There were fascination, magic, spiritual death in her sphere; but the soul died listening to invisible music and dreaming of heaven.

She taught her that power, wealth, fashion, glory, were the true objects of rational pursuit. She cultivated her vanity, her petulance, her imperiousness. She basked in the sunshine of her beauty and power. Fatal parasite! she drew from the virgin tree upon which she fastened, the sustenance she could not herself extract from the earth and air. The too pliant pupil accepted and improved all the lessons of the teacher; and behold the result!

Of the true character of Helena I knew nothing at the time. That discovery was the result of subsequent information and experience. Nothing occurred in those blissful days to break the spell of the enchantress. I did, indeed, once or twice notice the contrast between this Athenian goddess and my pure and sweet sisters. I did once or twice wonder that Sappho and Horace should be her favorite poets, and Aspasia her model of female character. But these shadowy doubts, like the faint threat of clouds which sometimes appear in the clearest heaven, soon passed away.

She admitted me to her presence on a very familiar footing. One evening I called to see her, when she was dressing for a grand supper, and the servant ushered me into her boudoir. She was one bright blaze of jewels and beauty. The dressing-maid was giving the last caressing touches to her hair. She was scrutinizing the work in a metallic mirror with an ivory handle, which she held like a fan.

“Come! my Judean!” she said, casting upon me one of her most bewitching glances—“come and put this ring into my ear.”

This captivating service I rendered with trembling hands and palpitating heart. The dressing-maid smiled at my awkwardness and trepidation. Helena never looked more resplendent. I felt helplessly bound to the chariot-wheels of her destiny.

The waiting-girl left the room, and falling at the feet of the unimpassioned beauty, I stammered forth my passion.

“Helena! do you know that I love you?”

She was contemplating her chin in the mirror, and replied without looking at me:

“Of course you do. Everybody does.”

“But, Helena! I cannot live without loving you.”

“That is charming. Love me then and live.”

“Helena!” said I, sternly, “you mock me. You allure me as if I were a man; and then you treat me as if I were a boy. You invite me; you evade me; you tantalize me. Can you not love me?”

“Let me see,” said she, looking up at the Judgment of Paris beautifully frescoed on the ceiling; “let me see: I love wisdom, riches, power and glory. When you are wise as Socrates, rich as Crœsus, eloquent as Cicero, and powerful as Cæsar, I will love you and give myself to you.”

“Your combination is impossible,” said I, proudly, biting my lip with failing heart and unconcealed vexation.

Her face suddenly became radiant with a yielding, tender and beautiful expression, and I added:—

“But if it existed, Helena, you would be worthy of it.”

“To love such as yours,” she said, sweetly, pressing my hands, “all things are possible. We have been dreaming in the boudoir; let us converse in the parlor.”

She led the way and overwhelmed me with such civilities that I forgot the past which had wounded me, and had golden glimpses of that magical future which was to console and bless me. Such is the dream-land of love!

My sisters continued to write the most glowing letters, full of piety and tender affection. Their rehearsal of miracles and parables, and of voices from heaven, their enthusiasm, their faith, their zeal, all fell as dull and cold upon my ear as the monotonous songs of an old nurse.

Demetrius had letters to some of the most powerful and influential men in Rome, so that we were soon introduced into the best society there. It was not long before we received an invitation to one of the splendid suppers of Hortensius, the richest man and the greatest epicure in the world. I remembered the conversation of the slave-dealer at Alexandria. I mentally resolved, as we drove through the magnificent arch of his palace gate, that, although I might taste of the nightingales of Hortensius, I certainly would take none of his fish.

“Beware of the fish-ponds,” said I, laughingly, to Anthony, who accompanied us as footman.

This palace of Hortensius was an affair of Babylonian magnificence. Everything about it was of colossal proportions. It was said to have as many chambers as there were days in the year. Hortensius had twelve bed-rooms for himself, each named after one of the months, and gorgeously furnished in a manner to represent the month after which it was named. There were seven banqueting-halls named after gods and goddesses—the dreams rather than the creations of art. This grand structure was burned during the fire in the reign of Nero, and its splendors, no longer to be found anywhere on earth, are already regarded as fabulous.

We supped in the Hall of Apollo.

On my right hand, however, at the table, was a noble and sedate Roman, Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea. He had visited Rome to consult the emperor and the senate about the affairs of his province, and was on the eve of returning. He seemed pleased when he learned that my home was in the neighborhood of Jerusalem; and with great tact and urbanity drew me out of my abstracted mood, dissipated my bashfulness, and engaged me in an animated conversation.

The Hall of Apollo was a miracle of beauty. Its area was immense; its shape, circular. Supported by twenty-four golden columns, the ceiling rose to a vast height, as a blue dome painted to represent the visible heavens. The sun blazing up through masses of dense and crimson clouds; the intensely clear cerulean ether above; the horizon all around pierced by mountain peaks, overhung by rolling vapors of purple and gold, produced an illusion of astonishing power and magnificence.

I will not attempt to describe the feast, having no particular fondness for epicurism. The bill of fare exceeded anything I had ever imagined. There was service after service, dessert after dessert, wine after wine, seemingly without end. The meat-courses, lasting about three hours, were presented by handsome boys of every nationality, clad in beautiful livery. The after-courses, of sweets and luxuries, were brought on by female servants, lovely in person and graceful in manner, revealing by their dress or otherwise every charm of the human body.

When the company was well filled and duly flushed by the delicious wines, the whole western wall of the apartment, by some hidden and admirable mechanism, suddenly opened or changed like a dissolving view, and revealed an interior apartment a little above the level of ours, which looked like a beautiful garden adorned and lighted in a style of Oriental magnificence.

The shrubbery and flowers of this garden were the concentrated beauties of the floral world in all regions, cultivated here by art, and offering an incense of perfume to these Roman rulers, who aspired to conquer not only man but nature. Ivory statues of gods and goddesses, of nymphs and fawns and satyrs, added greatly to the beauty of the scene. But when a dozen dancing-girls alighted as it were from heaven upon this miraculous stage, and whirled among these statues and flowers, less perfect and beautiful than themselves, the fascination, to those who regarded such enchantments, was complete.

“More music! more wine!” cried Hortensius from his purple couch a little elevated above the rest—“the feast of thought ends always in the feast of love.”

The banquet progressed with continued variations of stimulus and entertainment. The guests were regaled by invisible music, repeatedly changed, and representing the airs and styles of every nation which had bowed its head to the Roman conqueror. The wine fell fast into golden goblets from vases composed of precious gems. The day dawned. The noise and excitement increased: the conversation degenerated into a babble, and the feast into a debauch; when a most extraordinary incident occurred, changing my uncle’s programme and perhaps my whole fate in the twinkling of an eye.

A great clamor was heard outside of the door nearest Hortensius. Loud and angry voices, the rapid tread of many feet, curses, groans, shrieks, indicated the approach of some dreadful storm. It was a thunderbolt in a clear sky. All sprang to their feet and advanced toward the sounds, when the door was burst open with violence, and my servant Anthony rushed in, foaming at the mouth, bleeding profusely from several wounds and flourishing an immense knife over his head.

“I will kill him if I die for it!” he shouted, glaring fiercely on the brilliant crowd before him, and endeavoring to single out the object of his hate.

“What does all this mean, Anthony?” I exclaimed, leaping forward and seizing him by the throat.

“And why did you not fly? madman!” I exclaimed, “why did you come here?”

“Oh! death was inevitable,” he answered, in a tone of desperation, “and I determined first to kill the vile despot, the author of these cruelties.”

“Slave! barbarian!” echoed from all parts of the hall.

“Slave I am: barbarian I may be!” shouted Anthony defiantly; “but in my country they do not feed fishes with men.”

The crowd had stood back a little while we were speaking: but now there was a sudden rush upon us in front and rear. I was pushed forcibly aside, and Anthony was borne down, disarmed and bound with his fellow-prisoner, whose rescue had caused this great excitement.

“Throw the old one to the fishes immediately,” cried Hortensius in a loud and cruel tone. “Bind this young villain by the pond and guard him till I come. I will cut him up, strip by strip, with my own hands.”

A murmur of approbation ran through the assembly. Thrusting the bystanders away, I confronted Hortensius face to face.

It would be difficult to describe the fierce and haughty stare which Hortensius and his noble guests fixed upon me during this little speech. They wondered at my folly, my stupidity, my audacity. To plead for a black slave who had drawn his knife against a Roman senator! To accord the spirit of liberty to such vermin of the earth! To speak of them as brave, faithful, noble, glorious, sublime! They were stupefied at the novelty and heresy of such ideas. I was certainly either a fool or a madman.

Hortensius, lowering his voice and infusing into it a little suavity,—for he suddenly remembered that I was his guest,—exclaimed:

“The proper discipline of my palace, young man, demands the immediate death of this would-be assassin. I will replace your servant with a better.”

“That is beyond your power,” I replied impetuously; “your whole household would not replace him. I am indebted to his brother for my sister’s life and honor. I am bound to this man’s flesh and blood as if they were my own. I cannot, I will not desert him in his extremity.”

There were loud exclamations of surprise, contempt and disapproval. Many, however, were silent, touched perhaps by a latent magnanimity.

“What will you do?” exclaimed a haughty old Roman in a most provoking tone.

“Do?” said I rashly, striking my hand upon the hilt of my dagger, “do?—I will defend him: I will die with him.”

This caused a great uproar in the assembly. Loud cries of

“Away with him! out with him!”

“Insult a Roman senator!”

“Abettor of slaves and assassins!”

“Insurrectionist! Madman! Idiot!”

“Down with the base Judean!”

Pontius Pilate stepped between Hortensius and myself, and waving his hand with great dignity and grace, requested silence.

“Pardon, dear friends and most noble senators! pardon the wine which has made this rash youth forget both reason and duty. He is a subject of mine, being a native and resident of my province. I claim jurisdiction over him, and will punish him as he deserves. He is from this moment a prisoner in charge of my retinue. He shall be carried back to his native village, disarmed, bound and disgraced, so that all Judean youths may know what folly it is to insult a Roman senator.”

There was a strong murmur of approbation throughout the assembly, and Hortensius nodded approval.

Pilate continued:

Whether this proposition struck the hearers as remarkable, or what was more likely, the social and civil weight of Pontius Pilate bore down their opposition and silenced their scruples, Hortensius acceded to it and all seemed satisfied. After drinking again to the health of Hortensius, the company dispersed. I soon found myself a prisoner bound for Judea, deserted by Demetrius, exiled from Helena, full of sadness and dark forebodings, with the educational tour projected by my good uncle brought to a sudden and ignominious conclusion.

The only comfort I experienced during the long and melancholy voyage was the thought that I had saved the life of my high-spirited Anthony, whom I was not permitted to see, and whose daring conduct I more admired the more I thought of it.

“You are now free,” he said. “I admire you too much to inflict any further punishment upon you for your incredible rashness. You cannot help being brave, but you can compel yourself to be prudent. Go, sir! When you get into trouble again, let me hear from you and I will befriend you, if possible.”

“And my servant?” said I, hoping to intercede for Anthony.

“He has been driven into the desert.”

An hour afterward I was trudging up the Mount of Olives, thinking of what a joyous surprise I was about to give to some dear little souls in Bethany.