consists in the activity itself which feeds upon both alike. If I were
Dennis I should say it is the synthesis of both."

"Well," said Leslie, "I never heard before of a synthesis produced by
one side of the antithesis simply swallowing the other."

"Didn't you?" said Ellis. "Then you have a great deal yet to learn.
This is known as the synthesis of the lion and the lamb."

"Oh, synthesis!" cried Parry. "Heaven save us from synthesis! What is
it you are trying to say?"

"That's what I want to know," I said "We seem to be coming perilously
near to Dennis's position, that what we call Evil is mere appearance."

"Well," said Ellis, "extremes meet! Dennis arrived at his view by a
denial of the world; I arrive at mine by an affirmation of it."

"But do you really think," I urged, "that everything in the world is
good?"

"I think," he replied, "that everything may be made to minister to
Good if you approach it in the proper way."

"That reads," said Audubon, "like an extract from a sermon."

"As I remarked before," replied Ellis, "extremes meet"

"But, Ellis," I protested, "do explain! How are you going to answer
Leslie?"

"Leslie is really too young," he replied, "to be answerable at all.
But if you insist on my being serious, what I meant to suggest is,
that when our activity is freshest and keenest we find delight in what
is called Evil no less than in what is called Good. The complexity of
the world charms us, its 'downs' as well as its 'ups,' its abysses
and glooms no less than its sunny levels. We would not alter it if we
could; it is better than we could make it; and we accept it not merely
with acquiescence but with triumph."

"Oh, do we!" said Audubon.

"We," answered Ellis, "not you! You, of course, do not accept
anything."

"But who are 'we'?" asked Leslie.

"All of us," he replied, "who try to make an art of living. Yes, art,
that is the word! To me life appears like a great tragi-comedy. It has
its shadows as well as its lights, but we would not lose one of them,
for fear of destroying the harmony of the whole. Call it good, or call
it bad, no matter, so it is. The villain no less than the hero claims
our applause; it would be dull without him. We can't afford to miss
anything or anyone."

"In fact," cried Audubon, "'Konx Ompax! Totality!' You and Dennis are
strangely agreed for once!"

"Yes," he replied, "but for very different reasons, as the judge said
on the one occasion when he concur