sion of
which I was only too glad to take advantage.

"It seems to me," he said, "that you are getting off the track!
Whatever the ultimate Good may be, what we really want to know, is the
kind of thing we can conceive to be good for people like ourselves.
And I thought that was what you were going to discuss."

"So I was," I said, "if Dennis would have let me."

"I will let you, by all means," Dennis interposed, "so long as it is
quite understood that everything you say has nothing to do with the
real subject."

"Very well," said Bartlett, "that's understood. And now let's get
along, on the basis of you and me and the man in the street. What are
we trying to get, when we try to get Good? That I take it is the real
question."

"And I can only answer," I said, "as I did before, that we are
trying to get some state of conscious experience, to enter into some
activity."

"Very well, then, what activity?" he inquired, catching me up sharp,
as if he were afraid of Dennis interposing again.

"What activity!" cried Ellis, "why all and every one as much as
another, and the more the merrier."

"What!" I exclaimed, rather taken aback, "all at once do you mean?
whether they be good or whether they be bad, all alike indifferently?"

"There are no bad activities," he replied, "none bad essentially in
themselves. Their goodness and badness depends on the way in which
they are interchanged or combined. Any pursuit or occupation palls in
time if it is followed exclusively; but all may be delightful in the
just measure and proportion. We are complex creatures, and we ought to
employ all our faculties alike, never one alone at the cost of all the
others."

"That may be sound enough," I said, "but will you not describe more in
detail the kind of life which you consider to be good?"

"How can I?" he replied. "It is like trying to sum infinity! The most
I can do is to hint and rhapsodize."

"Hint away, then!" cried Parry; "rhapsodize away! we're all
listening."

"Well, then," he said, "my ideal of the good life would be to move in
a cycle of ever-changing activity, tasting to the full the peculiar
flavour of each new phase in the shock of its contrast with that of
all the rest. To pass, let us say, from the city with all its bustle,
smoke, and din, its press of business, gaiety, and crime, straight
away, without word or warning, breaking all engagements, to the
farthest and loneliest corner of the world. To hunt or fish fo