'Can there be found no fitter work for me than this, which any porter from the quay might do as well?
Am I not somewhat wasted on such toil as this?
Have I not an intellect, a taste, a reason?
I could appreciate what she said .-- Why should not my faculties be educated?
Why am I only to be shut out from knowledge?
There is a Christian Gnosis as well as a heathen one.

What was permissible to Clement'-- he had nearly said to Origen, but checked himself on the edge of heresy--'is surely lawful for me! Is not my very craving for knowledge a sign that I am capable of it?
Surely my sphere is the study rather than the street!' And then his fellow-labourers--he could not deny it to himself--began to grow less venerable in his eyes.

Let him try as he might to forget the old priest's grumblings and detractions, the fact was before him.

The men were coarse, fierce, noisy....

so different from her! Their talk seemed mere gossip--scandalous too, and hard-judging, most of it; about that man's private ambition, and that woman's proud looks; and who had stayed for the Eucharist the Sun-day before, and who had gone out after the sermon; and how the majority who did not stay could possibly dare to go, and how the minority who did not go could possibly dare to stay....
Endless suspicions, sneers, complaints....