Its pretentiousness and cold frivolity

a jig-saw puzzle at one side of him spread out on a wooden frame, and on the other a chessboard with the pieces set for a problem. He rose to greet them very cordially but not hastily.

"You are very welcome, gentlemen," said Mr. Sensible. "Pray come and warm yourselves. Drudge" (and here he called to the servant) "make some supper ready for three: the usual supper, Drudge. I shall not be able to offer you luxury, gentlemen. The wine of my own country, cowslip wine⁵¹, shall be your drink. It will be rough to your palates, but to mine the draught that I owe to my own garden and my own kitchen will always have a flavour beyond Hippocrene⁵². The radishes, also of my own growing, I think I may venture to praise. But I see by your looks that I have already betrayed my foible. I confess that my garden is my pride. But what then? We are all children, and I reckon him the wisest among us that can make most sport out of the toys suitable to that condition, without seeking to go beyond it. Regum aequabit opes animis⁵³. Contentment, my friends, contentment is the best riches. Do not let the dog tease you, sir. He has mange. Down, Rover! Alas, Rover! thou little knowest that sentence is passed upon thee."

"You are surely not going to destroy him, sir?" said John.

"He begins to ail," said Mr. Sensible. "And it would be foolish to keep him longer. What would you? Omnes eodem cogimur⁵⁴. He has lain in the sun and hunted fleas enough, and now, poor fellow, he must go quo dives Tullus et Ancus⁵⁵. We must take life on the terms it is given us."

"You will miss your old companion."

"Why, as to that you know, the great art of life is to moderate our passions. Objects of affection are like other belongings. We must love them enough to enrich our lives while we have them--not enough to impoverish our lives when they are gone. You see this puzzle here. While I am engaged on it it seems to me of sovereign importance to fit the pieces together: when it is done I think of it no more; and if I should fail to do it, why I would not break my heart. Confound that Drudge. Hi! whoreson, are we to wait all night for our supper?"

"Coming, sir," said Drudge from the kitchen.

"I think the fellow goes to sleep over his pots and pans,"said Mr. Sensible, "but let us occupy the time by continuing our conversation. Good conversation I reckon among the finer sweets of life. But I

Far from attacking the spiritual life, the cultured world patronises it

would not include diatribe or lecturing or persistent discussion under that head. Your doctrinaire is the bane of all talk. As I sit here listening to your opinions--nullius addictus⁵⁶--and following the ball wherever it rolls, I defy system. I love to explore your minds en deshabille⁵⁷. Nothing comes amiss--j'aime le jeu, l'amour,les livres, la musique, la ville et la champagne-- enfin tou⁵⁸! Chance is, after all, our best guide--need I call a better witness than the fortunate cast of the dice which has brought you beneath my roof to-night?"

"It wasn't exactly chance," said Vertue, who had been restlessly waiting to speak. "We are on a journey and we are looking for a way to cross the Grand Canyon."

"Haud eqidem invideo⁵⁹," said the old gentleman. "You do not insist on my accompanying you?"

"We hadn't thought of it," said John.

"Why then I am very willing that you should go!" cried Mr. Sensible with a burst of melodious laughter. "And yet to what end? I often amuse myself with speculating on that curious restlessness in the mind which drives us, specially in youth, to climb up a mountain merely in order that we may then climb down, or to cross the seas in order that we may pay an inn-keeper for setting before us worse cheer than we might eat in our own house. Caelum non animum muamus⁶⁰. Not that I would repress the impulse, you understand, any more than I would starve any other part of my nature. Here again, the secret of happiness lies in knowing where to stop. A moderate allowance of travelling--enough to quiet, without satiating, a liberal curiosity--is very well. One brings back a few rarities to store in one's inner cabinet against a dull day. But the Grand Canyon--surely a modest tour along the cliffs on this side of it would give you much the same sort of scenery, and save your necks."

"It wasn't scenery we were looking for," said John. "I am trying to find the Island in the West."

"You refer, no doubt, to some aesthetic experience. There again--I would not urge a young man to shut his eyes to that sort of thing. Who has not felt immortal longings⁶¹ at the lengthening of the shadow or the turning of the leaf? Who has no stretched out his hands for the ulterior shore⁶²? Et ego in Arcadia⁶³! We have all been fools once--aye, and are

"The philosophy of all sensible men"⁶⁴

glad to have been fools too. But our imaginations, like our appetites, need discipline: not, heaven help us, in the interest of any transcendental ethic, but in the interests of your own solid good. That wild impulse must be tasted, no obeyed. The bees have stings, but we rob them of their honey. To hold all that urgent sweetness to our lips in the cup of one perfect moment, missing no faintest ingredient in the flavour of its µ________s __o__⁶⁵, yet ourselves, in a sense, unmoved--this is the true art. This tames in the service of the reasonable life even those pleasures whose loss might seem to be the heaviest, yet necessary, price we paid for rationality. Is it an audacity to hint that for the corrected palate the taste of the draught even owes its last sweetness to the knowledge that we have wrested it form an unwilling source? To cut off pleasures from the consequences and conditions which they have by nature, detaching, as it were, the precious phrase from its irrelevant context, is what distinguishes the man from the brute and the citizen from the savage. I cannot join with those moralists who inveigh against the Roman emetics⁶⁶ in their banquets: still less with those who would forbid the even more beneficent contraceptive devices of our later times. That man who can eat as taste, no nature, prompts him and yet fear no aching belly, or who can indulge in Venus and fear no impertinent bastard, is a civilized man. In him I recognize Urbanity--the note of the centre."

"Do you know of any way across the canyon?" said Vertue abruptly.

"I do not," said the host, "for I have never made inquiries. The proper study of mankind is man⁶⁷, and I have always left useless speculations alone. Suppose that there were a way across, to what purpose should I use it? Why should I scramble down this side and up the other to find after my labours the same soil still beneath me and the same heaven above? It would be laughable to suppose that the country beyond the gorge can be any different from the country on this side of it. Eadem sunt omnia semper⁶⁸. nature had already done all she can for our comfort and amusement, and the man who does not find content at home will seek it vainly abroad. Confound that fellow! Drudge!! Will you bring us our supper or do you prefer to have every bone in your body broken?"

"Coming, sir," said Drudge from the kitchen.