Though to be compared
to Homer passed the time pleasantly, I had not been greatly
perturbed had he stopped me with 'Is it a long story?' as
Henley would certainly have done. I was abashed before him as wit
and man of the world alone. I remember that he deprecated the very
general belief in his success or his efficiency, and I think with
sincerity. One form of success had gone: he was no more the lion
of the season, and he had not discovered his gift for writing
comedy, yet I think I knew him at the happiest moment of his life.
No scandal had darkened his fame, his fame as a talker was growing
among his equals, & he seemed to live in the enjoyment of his own
spontaneity. One day he began: 'I have been inventing a Christian
heresy,' and he told a detailed story, in the style of some early
father, of how Christ recovered after the Crucifixion and,
escaping from the tomb, lived on for many years, the one man upon
earth who knew the falsehood of Christianity. Once St. Paul
visited his town and he alone in the carpenters' quarter did not
go to hear him preach.
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