The White Stone

And to me it seems that you have fallen asleep upon a white rock, and in a parish of dreams, and have dreamt all this in a moment while it was night.

“What I state on the subject, Boni, is purely speculative, and not with the view of running counter to your ideas. How could one not believe you! Conviction has its home on your...

“Quite true,” replied Apollodorus. “But the gods sell dearly to virgins the privilege of interpreting their wishes, and of announcing future events. While conferring on them the...

Thus spake the philosopher Apollodorus. Gallio, who had listened to his speech with some degree of impatience, denied that he had fallen a victim to the mistakes and contradicti...

“I cannot say whether the Jewish folly will overtake the whole world. But it is past endurance that this madness should spread among the ignorant, that it should be tolerated in...

“These youthful gods, who die and come to life again, abound on Asiatic soil. The Syrian courtesans have brought several of them to Rome, and these celestial youths please, more...

“It was none the less impossible for Gallio,” replied Langelier, “to carry on with St. Paul a steady conversation on some important subject regarding morals or philosophy. I am...

“Less so than you think,” replied Langelier with a smile. “Jehovah or Hercules, it mattered little. You may be sure of this: the son of Alcmene would not have governed the world...

“The increasing multiplicity of communications and exchanges, the compulsory solidarity of the financial markets of every capital, of commercial markets vainly striving to guara...

“It remains to be seen, however, whether conquests abroad always constitute a good stroke of business for nations. It would not seem so. What have Mexico and Peru done for Spain...

“It was broad daylight when I awoke. I dressed myself much more quickly than it is my wont. Unconscious of the cause for this haste, I found myself in the street without knowing...

“‘Having so far explained matters, I shall proceed to lay before you, pursuant to your request, the origins of present-day society. It issued from the one preceding it. In moral...

“‘Moreover, we feel no shame in yielding to desire. We are no hypocrites. Only four hundred years ago, physiology was a sealed book to men, and their ignorance was the cause of...