"
But later she found a topic that could hold their attention for a time.
"We have never said a word about religion," she said.
Sir Richmond paused for a moment. "I am a godless man," he said. "The
stars and space and time overwhelm my imagination. I cannot imagine
anything above or beyond them."
She thought that over. "But there are divine things," she said.
"YOU are divine.... I'm not talking lovers' nonsense," he hastened to
add. "I mean that there is something about human beings--not just the
everyday stuff of them, but something that appears intermittently--as
though a light shone through something translucent. If I believe in any
divinity at all it is a divinity revealed to me by other people--And
even by myself in my own heart.
"I'm never surprised at the badness of human beings," said Sir Richmond;
"seeing how they have come about and what they are; but I have been
surprised time after time by fine things.... Often in people I disliked
or thought little of.... I can understand that I find you full of divine
quality, because I am in love with you and all alive to you. Necessarily
I keep on discovering loveliness in you. But I have seen divine things
in dear old Martineau, for example. A vain man, fussy, timid--and yet
filled with a passion for truth, ready to make great sacrifices and to
toil tremendously for that.
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