"
Vergniaud gave him a quick side-glance of earnest scrutiny.
"With you, perhaps not--" he replied--"But with me,--well!--it is a
different matter. However, it is really no use worrying one's self
with the question of 'To be, or not to be.' It drove Hamlet mad,
just as the knotty point as to whether Hamlet himself was fat or
lean nearly killed our hysterical little boy, Catullus Mendes. It's
best to leave eternal subjects like God and Shakespeare alone."
He laughed again, but the Cardinal did not smile.
"I do not agree with you, Vergniaud," he said--"I fear it is because
we do not think sufficiently for ourselves on the One eternal
subject that so much mischief threatens us at the present time. To
take gifts and ignore the Giver is surely the blackest ingratitude,
yet that is what the greater part of humanity is guilty of in these
days. Never was there so much beholding and yet ignoring of the
Divine as now. Science is searching for God, and is getting closer
to Him every day;--the Church remains stationary and refuses to look
out beyond her own pale of thought and conventional discipline. I
know,--" and the Cardinal hesitated a moment, "I know I can speak
quite plainly to you, for you are what is called a freethinker--yet
I doubt whether you are really as free as you imagine!"
The Abbe shrugged his shoulders.
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