"When I was dwelling in the temple of Heliopolis I would often consider the things I beheld upon the walls:—vultures bearing sceptres, crocodiles playing upon lyres, faces of men with the bodies of serpents, cow-headed women prostrating themselves before ithyphallic gods:—and their supernatural forms attracted my thoughts to other worlds. I longed to know that which drew the gaze of all those calm and mysterious eyes.
"If matter can exert such power, it must surely contain a spirit. The souls of the Gods are attached to their images ...
"Those possessing the beauty of forms might seduce. But the others ... those of loathsome or terrible aspect ... how can men believe in them?..."
(And he beholds passing over the surface of the ground,—leaves, stones, shells, branches of trees,—then a variety of hydropical dwarfs: these are gods. He bursts into a laugh. He hears another laugh behind him;—and Hilarion appears, in the garb of a hermit, far taller than before, colossal.)
Anthony (who feels no surprise at seeing him).
"How stupid one must be to worship such things!"
Hilarion. "Aye!—exceedingly stupid!"
(Then idols of all nations and of all epochs—of wood, of metal, of granite, of feathers, of skins sewn together,—pass before them.
The most ancient of all anterior to the Deluge are hidden under masses of seaweed hanging down over them like manes. Some that are too long for their bases, crack in all their joints, and break their own backs in walking. Others have rents torn in their bellies through which sand trickles out.
Anthony and Hilarion are prodigiously amused. They hold their sides for laughter. Then appear sheep-headed idols. They totter upon their bandy-legs, half-open their eye-lids, and stutter like the dumb, "Ba! ba! ba!"