The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 10, September, 1836Various
General
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 10, September, 1836
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Philothea assents joyfully to the union, although Chrysippus, the
wealthy prince of Clazomenæ, has made her an offer of his hand.
Anaxagoras dies. His grand-daughter, accompanied by Plato, and some
female acquaintances, takes her departure for Athens, and arrives
safely in the harbor of Phalerum. No important change has occurred in
Paralus, who still shows a total unconsciousness of past events. The
lovers are, however, united. Many long passages about this portion of
the narrative are of a lofty and original beauty. The dreamy,
distraught, yet unembittered existence of the husband, revelling in
the visions of the Platonic philosophy—the anxiety of the father and
his friends—the ardent, the pure and chivalric love, with the
uncompromising devotion and soothing attentions of the wife—are
pictures whose merit will not fail to be appreciated by all whose good
opinion is of value.
Hippocrates has been informed that Tithonus, the Ethiopian, possesses
the power of leading the soul from the body, “by means of a
soul-directing wand,” and the idea arises that the process may produce
a salutary effect upon Paralus. Tithonus will be present at the
Olympian Games, and thither the patient is conveyed, under charge of
Pericles, Plato and his wife. On the route, at Corinth, a letter from
Philæmon, addressed to Anaxagoras, is handed by Artaphernes, the
Persian, to Philothea. At the close of the epistle, the writer
expresses a wish to be informed of Eudora's fate, and an earnest hope
that she is not beyond the reach of Philothea's influence. The
travellers finally stop at a small town in the neighborhood of
Olympia, and at the residence of Proclus and his wife Melissa, “worthy
simple-hearted people with whom Phidias had died, and under whose
protection he had placed his adopted daughter.” The meeting between
this maiden and Philothea is full of interest. The giddy heart of
Eudora is chastened by sorrow. Phidias had desired her marriage with
his nephew Pandœnus—but her first love is not yet forgotten. A letter
is secretly written by Philothea to Philæmon, acquainting him with the
change in the character of Eudora, and with her unabated affection for
himself. “Sometimes,” she writes, “a stream is polluted in the
fountain, and its waters are tainted through all its wanderings; and
sometimes the traveller throws into a pure rivulet some unclean thing,
which floats awhile and is then rejected from its bosom. Eudora is the
pure rivulet. A foreign strain floated on the surface, but never
mingled with its waters.”
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