"It is not. Just an observation. I suppose since you have not had the time to marry you have devoted your life to good works."
"I have given employment to many, and help to the pauperized."
"It is commanded to be charitable."
"I have given millions of dollars—hundreds of thousands of pounds to philanthropies."
"Anonymously, of course. You must be a godly man, sir."
"I am an agnostic. I do not know if there is such a thing."
He shook his head. "Beneath us there are fish who do not know it is the sea in which they swim; above us there are birds unaware of the reaches of the sky. The fish have no conception of sky; the birds know nothing of the deep. They are agnostics also."
"Well, it doesnt seem to do them any harm. Fishes continue to spawn and birds to nest without the benefits of esoteric knowledge."
"Exactly. Fish remain fish in happy ignorance; doubt does not cause a bird to falter in its flight."
The sun was pushed into the air from the waters as a ball is pushed by the thumb and forefinger. The chalkcliffs were outlined ahead of me and I calculated we had little more than an hour to go. "You have chosen a strange way of earning a living, my friend," I ventured at last.