She was standing ankle-deep in Gnostics and
Neo-Platonists; as for Mr. Rickman, he was, as he observed, out of his
depth there altogether.
"Iamblichus, _De Mysteriis Egyptiorum_. Do you know him?"
Mr. Rickman smiled as he admitted that his acquaintance with
Iamblichus was of the slightest; Lucia laughed as she confessed an
ignorance extending to the very name. He noticed that she always
seemed pleased when she had any ignorance to own up to; had she found
out that this gave pleasure to other people?
"Is he Philosophy, or is he Religion?" She invariably deferred to
Rickman on a question of classification. She handed the book to him.
"Can you tell?"
"I really don't know; he seems to be both. I'd better have a look at
him." He turned over the pages, glancing at the text. "I say, listen
to this."
He hit on a passage at random, and read out the Greek, translating
fluently.
"'If then the presence of the divine fire and the unspeakable form of
the divine light descend upon a man, wholly filling and dominating
him, and encompassing him on every side, so that he can in no way
carry on his own affairs, what sense or understanding or perception of
ordinary matters should he have who has received the divine fire?' Can
he be referring to the business capacity of poets?"
Lucia listened amused. And all the time he was thinking, "If I don't
tell her now I shall never tell her. She'll sneak off with Miss
Palliser somewhere in the afternoon.
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