This lucid exposition had no better result than to unite both the others in an onslaught on me, and what they called my pagan and atheistic opinions. “Atheist!” cried I, “and why not? my door is open to all comers; gods and laws of every degree are welcome. I reverence God, and worship His saints, and love to gossip and laugh with such as are good company, but to tell you the plain truth, one god is not quite enough for a man as greedy as I am, so I have saints and saintesses, fairies and spirits of the earth, air, and water. I believe in reason, but I believe also in folly, from which truth sometimes springs. If I have faith in sorcery, I like also to think of this earth hanging in the clouds, and I should love to have my fingers on all the springs that move the world.--What joy to listen to the bright-eyed planets, and watch the man in the moon.--‘Silly talk!’ say you, who are all for rule and order, but let me tell you, these things are to be had at a price only, and a high one. To be orderly means not to follow one’s own will, but that of others; it means to cut down the tall trees that the highroad may run straight;--convenient if you will, but ugly as the devil. No, mine are the old Gallic ideas,--many chiefs and a strong law, but every man for himself, and all brothers. Believe as you choose, but leave me to my belief, and the worship of my reason. Above all, let the gods alone; they are everywhere, in the heavens and in the waters under the earth; the world teems with them, and I not only respect those I know, but I am willing to accept new ones; only no one shall take from me one I have already known, unless he has deceived me.” Paillard and the vicar looked at me with positive compassion, and asked how I expected to get through the world with my head in such a tangle.