"Strange creatures, these peasant people." The man's words were speculative. "Dumb kind of beasts—these soil-tillers—the best of them. Got nothing in their lives but work and religion. Don't know as I blame you for laughing when you looked up there. Sacré, but there is nothing real about religion to me!"
"You're right." He stifled a yawn. "All that sort of thing went out of the world years ago. Thinking people aren't religious nowadays. It doesn't give them enough food for logical thought. It's all too palpably obvious and absurd for an intelligent person to bother with."
"Rather a strange view for an artist, my friend, is it not?"
"What do you mean?"
"Thought you fellows traded on the beauty of faith, the talk of priests, and all that sort of thing."
"Good Lord, no." His voice was energetic enough now. He was becoming interested. "All this belief in God and man and the innate good, and the rest of it, is tommyrot—That's what it is! And the soul within you—and the teachings of Christ"—he paused to regain his breath. "We'd know those things all right enough, if they were real. We'd see them, wouldn't we, if they were real? They'd happen—They couldn't help but happen—every day. But they don't, and so they're just talked about. I tell you if there were such things, we'd know it!"
"Yes—yes—Surely we would see it—some time."
"I haven't had more than the average University education," he went on. "But I've seen men and women, and I know that some of them are bad, and some of them are good, and that's all there is to it. If a man wants to be a liar—he'll lie. What's going to make him tell the truth, I'd like to know?"
"It doesn't sound like artistic idealism, this talk of yours."
"What do I care for any kind of idealism? There's too much of the poppycock—too many of those long-haired, long-winded donkeys playing the miniature creator for my taste. Lord, but I'd like to see an army of them in the field!"