The poet maintained, indeed, in the abstract, that life itself was pitch dark.

And yet, somehow, Christianity had darkened it.

The very man who denounced Christianity for pessimism was himself a pessimist.

I thought there must be something wrong.

And it did for one wild moment cross my mind that, perhaps, those might not be the very best judges of the relation of religion to happiness who, by their own account, had neither one nor the other.
It must be understood that I did not conclude hastily that the accusations were false or the accusers fools.