The spit was never cold; the cook's sleeve was ever above
the elbow. Countrymen came down from distant villages into towns
and cities, to see perverters whom they had never heard of, and to
learn the righteousness of hatred. When heretics waxed fewer the
religious began to grumble that God, in losing his enemies, had also
lost his avengers.
"Do not thou, William Shakspeare, dig the hole for thy own stake.
If thou canst not make men wise, do not make them merry at thy cost.
We are not to be paganised any more. Having struck from our
calendars, and unnailed from our chapels, many dozens of decent
saints, with as little compunction and remorse as unlucky lads throw
frog-spawn and tadpoles out of stagnant ditches, never let us think
of bringing back among us the daintier divinities they ousted. All
these are the devil's imps, beautiful as they appear in what we
falsely call works of genius, which really and truly are the devil's
own,--statues more graceful than humanity, pictures more living than
life, eloquence that raised single cities above empires, poor men
above kings. If these are not Satan's works, where are they? I
will tell thee where they are likewise. In holding vain converse
with false gods.
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