“Not at all. I think I could prove what I say, at the expense of some time and boring you. Consider the lives of Saints like Catherine of Siena, Sebastian and all the infinite martyrs, look at their representation in art; and then ask yourself what instincts are really satisfied by the cult of these personalities and images.” “That sounds like good Protestant prejudice.” “There are lots of things I detest in Protestantism—its smugness and aridity for instance—but I like its honesty. And we owe it a great deal. It was because of the political inconveniences resulting from a multitude of sects, that Holland and England reintroduced religious tolerance, which had disappeared with the triumph of the Christians. Of course, the tolerance is not complete, because the Christians are still persecutors at heart and have a thousand ways of vexing and maligning those who disagree with them or are merely indifferent. Hence the extraordinary defensive puritanism of many English rationalists. But something has been achieved. After all, during many centuries I should have been arrested, tortured and probably murdered for what I have just said to you, and you would have thought me a carbonized monster. Now any alleged truth or moral proposition or belief which has to be enforced by torture or defended by sophistry stands self-condemned.” Was ever woman in this manner wooed? But George had mounted one of his hobby-horses and was careering away through a dust of words. Elizabeth, with practical instinct, stopped him. “Where do you live?” “In Greek Street. I’ve got a large room there, big enough to paint in. Where do you live?” “In Hampstead. It’s rather horrid and the place is full of old maids. But anything is better than being at home. I don’t mind my father, but my mother makes me so nervous when I’m at home that I feel I shall just die if I have to be any longer with her.” “I’m so glad you hate your parents, at least one of them. It’s so important to recognize these antipathies, which are after all perfectly natural. Most animals hate their mature young. I remember I used to watch the young robins exterminating their fathers and think how right it was. But it ought to be the mothers. Men somehow leave each other alone.” “Oh, it’s partly due to the awful domestic-den family life. They can’t really help it, poor dears. The den was forced on them, and they had to live in it.”