vast career of civilizing lore:  in this I serve the mass, I fulfill the general law, I execute the great moral that Nature preaches.  For myself I claim the individual exception; I claim it for the wise—­satisfied that my individual actions are nothing in the great balance of good and evil; satisfied that the product of my knowledge can give greater blessings to the mass than my desires can operate evil on the few (for the first can extend to remotest regions and humanize nations yet unborn), I give to the world wisdom, to myself freedom.  I enlighten the lives of others, and I enjoy my own.  Yes; our wisdom is eternal, but our life is short:  make the most of it while it lasts.  Surrender thy youth to pleasure, and thy senses to delight.  Soon comes the hour when the wine-cup is shattered, and the garlands shall cease to bloom.  Enjoy while you may.  Be still, O Apaecides, my pupil and my follower!  I will teach thee the mechanism of Nature, her darkest and her wildest secrets—­the lore which fools call magic—­and the mighty mysteries of the stars.  By this shalt thou discharge thy duty to the mass; by this shalt thou enlighten thy race.  But I will lead thee also to pleasures of which the vulgar do not dream; and the day which thou givest to men shall be followed by the sweet night which thou surrenderest to thyself.’

As the Egyptian ceased there rose about, around, beneath, the softest music that Lydia ever taught, or Iona ever perfected.  It came like a stream of sound, bathing the senses unawares; enervating, subduing with delight.  It seemed the melodies of invisible spirits, such as the shepherd might have heard in the golden age, floating through the vales of Thessaly, or in the noontide glades of Paphos.  The words which had rushed to the lip of Apaecides, in answer to the sophistries of the Egyptian, died tremblingly away.  He felt it as a profanation to break upon that enchanted strain—­the susceptibility of his excited nature, the Greek softness and ardour of his secret soul, were swayed and captured by surprise.  He sank on the seat with parted lips and thirsting ear; while in a chorus of voices, bland and melting as those which waked Psyche in the halls of love, rose the following song: 

The hymn of Eros

By the cool banks where soft Cephisus flows,
A voice sail’d trembling down the waves of air;
The leaves blushed brighter in the Teian’s rose,
The doves couch’d breathless in their summer lair;

While from their hands the purple flowerets fell,
The laughing Hours stood listening in the sky;—­
From Pan’s green cave to AEgle’s haunted cell,
Heaved the charm’d earth in one delicious sigh.

Love, sons of earth!  I am the Power of Love! 
Eldest of all the gods, with Chaos born;
My smile sheds light along the courts above,
My kisses wake the eyelids of the Morn.

Mine are the stars—­there, ever as ye gaze,
Ye meet the deep spell of my haunting eyes;
Mine is the moon—­and, mournful if her rays,
’Tis that she lingers where her Carian lies.