theory of the Divine Right of Blasphemy? My dear fellow, do not
fret yourself on that point. He seemed to take it rather as a
compliment to his own audacity, and whispered to me that 'The Divine
Right of Blasphemy' was an expression of which Theodore Parker
himself need not have been ashamed."

"He was pleased to be complimentary. But, tell me, what was it in
his oratory which has so vexed the soul of the country squire?"

"That very argument of his, among many things. I saw, or rather
felt, that he was wrong; and yet, as I have said already, I could
not answer him; and, had he not been my guest, should have got
thoroughly cross with him, as a pis-aller."

"I saw it. But, my friend, used we not to read Plato together, and
enjoy him together, in old Cambridge days? Do you not think that
Socrates might at all events have driven the Professor into a
corner?"

"He might: but I cannot. Is that, then, what you were writing
about all last night?"

"It was. I could not help, when I went out on the terrace to smoke
my last cigar, fancying to myself how Socrates might have seemed to
set you, and the Professor, and that warm-hearted, right-headed,
wrong-tongued High-Church Curate, all together by the ears, and made
confusion worse confounded for the time being, and yet have left for
each of you some hint whereby you might see the darling truth for
which you were barking, all the more clearly in the light of the one
which you were howling down."