"You don't make his image in order to pay it divine honours, but only to look at it, and think of Shakespeare; but this looking at a thing in order to think of a person is the very basis of idolatry.

Shakespeare's works are not sufficient for you; no more are the Bible or the legend of Saint Anthony or Saint Ignacio for us, that is for those of us who believe in them; I tell you, Zingara, that no religion can exist long which rejects a good bodily image." "Do you think," said I, "that Shakespeare's works would not exist without his image ?" "I believe," said the man in black, "that Shakespeare's image is looked at more than his works, and will be looked at, and perhaps adored, when they are forgotten.

I am surprised that they have not been forgotten long ago; I am no admirer of them." "But I can't imagine," said I, "how you will put aside the authority of Moses.

If Moses strove against image-worship, should not his doing so be conclusive as to the impropriety of the practice; what higher authority can you have than that of Moses ?" "The practice of the great majority of the human race," said the man in black, "and the recurrence to image-worship where image-worship has been abolished.

Do you know that Moses is considered by the church as no better than a heretic, and though, for particular reasons, it has been obliged to adopt his writings, the adoption was merely a sham one, as it never paid the slightest attention to them?
No, no, the church was never led by Moses, nor by one mightier than he, whose doctrine it has equally nullified--I allude to Krishna in his second avatar; the church, it is true, governs in his name, but not unfrequently gives him the lie, if he happens to have said anything which it dislikes.