In the evening, as I was going to bed, I saw him come into my room. 'I would not have come,' he told me, 'and interrupt your rest unless I believed that someone who could travel nine hundred leagues in half a day could have done so without getting tired. You don't know of the fine argument I've been having about you with our Jesuit priests?' he added. 'They insist you are a magician. The best you can hope for from them is to pass only for an impostor.'
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- A visitor visits the narrator at night to discuss rumors that he is a magician or impostor among religious priests.
- In plain terms
- Someone warns the narrator that priests think he is a magician or fraud.
- What can you take from it?
- Reputation can suffer when people misunderstand extraordinary abilities.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Why do authorities fear travelers?
- How do rumors affect reputation?
Another view
The quote does not clarify if the traveler is actually a magician or just misunderstood.
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