People must have both their dreams and their dinners in this world, and when we go out of it we must take what we find. That is all. - James Branch Cabell

Each in his day, and within howsoever limited a circle of adherents, awakened that sustaining faith which appears vitally necessary to men's contentment, in the legend of the all powerful Redeemer who will come again, to-morrow. The theme of this book, then, is how that legend came to attach itself to Dom Manuel; how, in particular, that legend afterward affected, or did not affect, those persons who had known Dom Manuel almost intimately; and how in the end nobody believed in it any longer except Donander Veratyr. But Donander Veratyr was God.

"And how should I know whether or not I speak the truth?" the God asked of him, "since I am but the illusion of an old woman, as you have so frequently proved by logic."

These men who considered that all you possessed was loaned you to devote to the service of your God, your King and every woman who crossed your path, could hardly be behaving rationally.