To the Lady Violet Lebas.
Dear Lady Violet,--You are discursive and desultory enough,as a reader,to have pleased even the late Lord Iddesleigh.It was "Aucassin and Nicolette"only a month ago,and to-day you have been reading Lord Lytton's "Strange Story,"I am sure,for you want information about Plotinus!He was born (about A.D.200)in Wolf-town (Lycopolis),in Egypt,the town,you know,where the natives might not eat wolves,poor fellows,just as the people of Thebes might not eat sheep.Probably this prohibition caused Plotinus no regret,for he was a consistent vegetarian.
However,we are advancing too rapidly,and we must discuss Plotinus more in order.His name is very dear to mystic novelists,like the author of "Zanoni."They always describe their favourite hero as "deep in Plotinus or Iamblichus,"and I venture to think that nearly represents the depth of their own explorations.We do not know exactly when Plotinus was born.Like many ladies he used to wrap up his age in a mystery,observing that these petty details about the body (a mere husk of flesh binding the soul)were of no importance.
He was not weaned till he was eight years old,a singular circumstance.Having a turn for philosophy,he attended the schools of Alexandria,concerning which Kingsley's "Hypatia"is the most accessible authority.
All these anecdotes,I should have said,we learn from Porphyry,the Tyrian,who was a kind of Boswell to Plotinus.The philosopher himself often reminds me of Dr.Johnson,especially as Dr.Johnson is described by Mr.Carlyle.Just as the good doctor was a sound Churchman in the beginning of the age of new ideas,so Plotinus was a sound pagan in the beginning of the triumph of Christianity.
Like Johnson,Plotinus was lazy and energetic and short-sighted.He wrote a very large number of treatises,but he never took the trouble to read through them when once they were written,because his eyes were weak.He was superstitious,like Dr.Johnson,yet he had lucid intervals of common sense,when he laughed at the superstitions of his disciples.Like Dr.Johnson,he was always begirt by disciples,men and women,Bozzys and Thrales.He was so full of honour and charity,that his house was crowded with persons in need of help and friendly care.Though he lived so much in the clouds and among philosophical abstractions,he was an excellent man of business.Though a philosopher he was pious,and was courageous,dreading the plague no more than the good doctor dreaded the tempest that fell on him when he was voyaging to Coll.
You will admit that the parallel is pretty close for an historical parallel,despite the differences between the ascetic of Wolf-town and the sage of Bolt Court,hard by Fleet Street!
To return to the education of Plotinus.He was twenty-eight when he went up to the University of Alexandria.For eleven years he diligently attended the lectures of Ammonius.Then he went on the Emperor Gordian's expedition to the East,hoping to learn the philosophy of the Hindus.The Upanishads would have puzzled Plotinus,had he reached India;but he never did.Gordian's army was defeated in Mesopotamia,no "blessed word"to Gordian,and Plotinus hardly escaped with his life.He must have felt like Stendhal on the retreat from Moscow.
From Syria his friend and disciple Amelius led him to Rome,and here,as novelists say,"a curious thing happened."There was in Rome an Egyptian priest,who offered to raise up the Demon,or Guardian Angel,of Plotinus in visible form.But there was only one pure spot in all Rome,so said the priest,and this spot was the Temple of Isis.Here the seance was held,and no demon appeared,but a regular God of one of the first circles.So terrified was an onlooker that he crushed to death the living birds which he held in his hands for some ritual or magical purpose.