‘In other words--you lead yourself inevitably to a God manifest in nature--not as a powerful being--that is a theme absolutely without interest to me--but as possessed in himself of the original pre-existent beauty, the counterpart of which in us we call art, and who has fashioned us so that we must fall down and worship the image of himself which he has set up.’ ‘That’s good, Charley. I’m so glad you’ve worked that out!’ ‘It doesn’t in the least follow that I believe it. I cannot even say I wish I did:--for what I know, that might be to wish to be deceived. Of all miseries--to believe in a lovely thing and find it not true--that must be the worst.’ ‘You might never find it out, though,’ I said. ‘You might be able to comfort yourself with it all your life.’ ‘I was wrong,’ he cried fiercely. ‘Never to find it out would be the hell of all hells. Wilfrid, I am ashamed of you!’ ‘So should I be, Charley, if I had meant it. I only wanted to make you speak. I agree with you entirely. But I _do_ wish we could be _quite_ sure of it; for I don’t believe any man can ever be sure of a thing that is not true.’ ‘My father is sure that the love of nature is not only a delusion, but a snare. I should have no right to object, were he not equally sure of the existence of a God who created and rules it. By the way, if I believed in a God, I should say _create_s not _create_d. I told him once, not long ago, when he fell out upon nature--he had laid hands on a copy of _Endymion_ belonging to me--I don’t know how the devil he got it--I asked him whether he thought the devil made the world. You should have seen the white wrath he went into at the question! I told him it was generally believed one or the other did make the world. He told me God made the world, but sin had unmade it. I asked him if it was sin that made it so beautiful. He said it was sin that made me think it so beautiful. I remarked how very ugly it must have looked when God had just finished it! He called me a blasphemer, and walked to the door. I stopped him for a moment by saying that I thought, after all, he must be right, for according to geologists the world must have been a horrible place, and full of the most hideous creatures, before sin came and made it lovely. When he saw my drift, he strode up to me like--well, very like his own God, I should think--and was going to strike me. I looked him in the eyes without moving, as if he had been a madman. He turned and left the room. I left the house, and went back to London the same night.’ ‘Oh! Charley, Charley, that was too bad!’ ‘I knew it, Wilfrid, and yet I did it! But if your father had made a downright coward of you, afraid to speak the truth, or show what you were thinking, you also might find that, when anger gave you a fictitious courage, you could not help breaking out. It’s only another form of cowardice, I know; and I am as much ashamed of it as you could wish me to be.’ ‘Have you made it up with him since?’