falling, for ever from nowhence
toward nowhither through the unending ages, by causeless and unceasing
gravitation, while the changes and efforts of all mortal things were but
the jostling of the dust-atoms amid the everlasting storm....

It could not be! There was a truth, a virtue, a beauty, a nobleness,
which could never change, but which were absolute, the same for ever.
The God-given instinct of her woman's heart rebelled against her
intellect, and, in the name of God, denied its lie.... Yes,--there was
virtue, beauty.... And yet--might not they, too, be accidents of
that enchantment, which man calls mortal life; temporary and mutable
accidents of consciousness; brilliant sparks, struck out by the clashing
of the dust-atoms? Who could tell?

There were those once who could tell. Did not Plotinus speak of a direct
mystic intuition of the Deity, an enthusiasm without passion, a still
intoxication of the soul, in which she rose above life, thought, reason,
herself, to that which she contemplated, the absolute and first One,
and united herself with that One, or, rather, became aware of that union
which had existed from the first moment in which she emanated from
the One? Six times in a life of sixty years had Plotinus risen to that
height of mystic union, and known himself to be a part of God. Once had
Porphyry attained the same glory. Hypatia, though often attempting,
had never yet succeeded in attaining to any distinct vision of a being
external to herself; though practice, a firm will, and a powerful
imagination, had long since made her an adept in producing, almost
at will, that mysterious trance, which was the preliminary step to
supernatural vision. But her delight in the brilliant, and, as she
held, divine imaginations, in which at such times she revelled, had
been always checked and chilled by the knowledge that, in such matters,
hundreds inferior to her in intellect and in learning,--ay, saddest of
all, Christian monks and nuns, boasted themselves her equals,--indeed,
if their own account of their visions was to be believed, her
superiors--by the same methods which she employed. For by celibacy,
rigorous fasts, perfect bodily quiescence, and intense contemplation of
one thought, they, too, pretended to be able to rise above the body
into the heavenly regions, and to behold things unspeakable, which
nevertheless, like most other unspeakable things, contrived to be most
carefully detailed and noised abroad....