Beulah - Page 133/348

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.