that they believe in
nothing. Yet I hold that the latter are really weaker, and I am sure
that they do more harm, than the former.

Notwithstanding my invincible habit of laughing, I am firmly persuaded
that man is a sublimely noble animal, raised infinitely far above the
brutes. Consequently I could not condescend to regard myself as a bit of
dung or mud, a dog or a pig, in the humble manner of freethinkers. In
spite of all the pernicious systems generated by men of ambitious and
seductive intellect, we are forced to believe ourselves higher in the
scale of beings, and more perfect, than they are willing to admit.
Although we may not be able to define with certainty what we are, we
know at any rate beyond all contradiction what we are not. Let the
freethinking pigs and hens rout in their mud and scratch in their
midden; let us laugh and quiz them, or weep and pity them; but let us
hold fast to the beliefs transmitted to us by an august line of
philosophers, far wiser, far more worthy of attention, than these sages
of the muck and dungheap. The modern caprice of turning all things
topsy-turvy, which makes Epicure an honest man, Seneca an impostor;
which holds up Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvetius, Mirabeau, &c., to our
veneration, while it pours contempt upon the fathers of the Church; this
and all the other impious doctrines scattered broadcast in our century
by sensual fanatics, more fit for the madhouse than the university, have
no fascination for my mind. I contemplate the disastrous influence
exercised by atheism over whole nations. This confirms me still more in
the faith of my forefathers. When I think of those fanatics, the sages
of the muck and midden, when I think of mankind deceived by them, I
repeat in their behoof the sacred words of Christ upon the cross:
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Finally, I
assert that I have always kept alive in me the flame of our august
religion, and that this has been for me my greatest stay and solace
during every affliction. The philosophers of the moment may laugh at me;
I am quite contented for them to regard me as a dullard, besotted by
what they choose to stigmatise as prejudice.

XXXII., XXXIII., XXXIV.

_Condensed by the Translator._

[Gozzi having been accused by his adversary Gratarol of hypocrisy and
covert libertinism, wished to make a full confession of his frailties to
the world, while the witnesses of his life and conversation were