Sardou's Cleopatra — page 97: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ee SARDOU’S CLEOPATRA. euishing characteristic was her lofty intellect. ‘To the most seductive graces a woman ever pos- sessed she added the genius of a man. She spoke seventeen languages, was a skillful musi- cian, and an excellent poet; she had studied all the sciences of which there was then any knowl- edge, and the best schools of which were estab- lished at Alexandria; she could converse with the sages upon all branches of human knowledge, as easily as she could converse with the ambassa- dors of all nations in their own tongue. When to this sovereign intelligence are added, sovereign beauty, and the possession of sovereign power in a country and at a time when the existences of millions of men converged toward a single point, the existence of the king—it is not strange to understand why she was hailed by her people as “moderator of the world, mistress of the living, ruler of nations,” and proclaimed ‘Goddess Ever- getes, living queen of above and below, eye of light, the favorite of the sun.” The apartment in which Iras sought the queen was more Greek than Egyptian in its decorations. The walls were painted a deep blue with a delt- cate tracery of white and gold. Low chairs of Athenian design were scattered here and there; -Gomicbooks (Ele)