to the source whence all your
corruption flows. It is that famous nursery of learning where you, too,
were bred up. There, yes, there they cherish the heresy that makes the
gods into puppets of straw, and the majesty of the throne into an owl for
pert and insignificant birds to peck at. Thence comes the doctrine that
teaches men and women to laugh at virtue and to break their word. There,
where in other days noble minds, protected by the overshadowing favor of
princes, followed out great ideas, they now teach nothing but
words--empty, useless words. I saw and said that yesterday, and now I
know it for certain--every poison shaft that your malice has aimed at me
was forged in the Museum."

He paused for breath, and then continued, with a contemptuous laugh:

"If the justice which you rate higher than logic were to take its course,
nothing would be juster than to make an end this day of this hot-bed of
corruption. But your unlearned fellow-citizens shall taste of my justice,
too. You yourself will be prevented by the beasts in the Circus from
looking on at the effect your warning words have produced. But as yet you
are alive, and you shall hear what the experiences are which make the
severest measures the highest justice.

"What did I hope to find, and what have I really found? I heard the
Alexandrians praised for their hospitality--for the ardor with which they
pursue learning--for the great proficiency of their astronomers--for the
piety which has raised so many altars and invented so many doctrines;
and, lastly, for the beauty and fine wit of their women.

"And this hospitality! All that I have known of it is a flood of
malicious abuse and knavish scoffing, which penetrated even to the gates
of this temple, my dwelling. I came here as emperor, and treason pursued
me wherever I went--even into my own apartments; for there you stand,
whom a barbarian had to hinder from stabbing me with the knife of the
assassin. And your learning? You have heard my opinion of the Museum. And
the astrologers of this renowned observatory? The very opposite of all
they promised me has come to pass.

"Religion? The people, of whom you know as little from the musty volumes
of the Museum as of 'Ultima Thule'--the people indeed practice it. The
old gods are necessary to them. They are the bread of life to them. But
instead of those you have offered them sour, unripe fruit, with a
glittering rind-from your own garden, of your own growing. T