I looked across at him.
“Plucritus,” said I, “if you were placed in a cell ten feet high and fifteen square, would you yourself find much room for cultivation of anything?”
For one moment his lips came together in a thin, cruel line, then he got up, laughing, stretching out his arms as if tired of the discussion.
“If I were placed in a cell of the dimensions you mention I should burst the walls, even though they were of iron.”
I looked at him as he began walking back and forwards through the room and did not doubt the strength of which he spoke.
Then suddenly he lighted on the Paradise Lost which I had thrown away.
“Have you been reading that rot?” he asked carelessly.
“Well, yes, and I’ve fallen into the error common to all people.”
“That of liking Satan best,” he joined in, laughing.
“Decidedly. But at every other line I find myself stopping to consider how a man of such ability as Milton could ever come to be so deluded in his ideas of God.”