“I wish I had never learned to read, or, if I had, that I had only read the books I saw at school: the primer or the other.”
“What was the other?”
“I think they called it the Bible: all about God, and Job, and Jesus.”
“Ah, I know it.”
“You have read it; is it a nice book—all true?”
“True, true—I don’t know what to say; but if the world be true, and not all a lie, a fiction, I don’t see why the Bible, as they call it, should not be true. By the bye, what do you call Bible in your tongue, or, indeed, book of any kind? as Bible merely means a book.”
“What do I call the Bible in my language, dear?”
“Yes, the language of those who bring you things.”
“The language of those who did, dear; they bring them now no longer. They call me fool, as you did, dear, just now; they call kissing the Bible, which means taking a false oath, smacking calfskin.”
“That’s metaphor,” said I; “English, but metaphorical; what an odd language! So you would like to have a Bible,—shall I buy you one?”