"The world is as it is made,"--he went on, regarding me fixedly--"It is
moved by the lowest and pettiest motives,--it works for the most
trivial, ridiculous and perishable aims. It is not a paradise. It is not
a happy family of united and affectionate brethren. It is an
over-populated colony of jabbering and quarrelsome monkeys, who fancy
they are men. Philosophers in old days tried to teach it that the
monkey-type should be exterminated for the growth and encouragement of a
nobler race,--but they preached in vain--there never were enough real
men alive to overcome the swarming majority of the beasts. God Himself,
they say, came down from Heaven to try and set wrong things right, and
to restore if possible His own defaced image to the general aspect of
humanity,--and even He failed."
"There is very little of God in this world"--I said bitterly; "There is
much more Devil!"
He smiled,--a musing, dreamy smile that transfigured his countenance and
made him look like a fine Apollo absorbed in the thought of some new and
glorious song.
"No doubt!" he said, after a little pause--"Mankind certainly prefer the
devil to any other deity,--therefore if they elect him as their
representative, it is scarcely to be wondered at that he governs where
he is asked to govern. And yet--do you know Geoffrey--this devil,--if
there is one,--can hardly, I think, be quite so bad as his detractors
say. I myself don't believe he is a whit worse than a nineteenth-century
financier!"