s, the sunset glow, and the moon rising full
over the mountains; and another recalled a bathe on the shore of
AEgina, the sun on the rocks and the hot scent of the firs, as though
the whole naked body were plunged in some aethereal liqueur, drinking
it in with every sense and at every pore, like a great sponge of sheer
sensation. After some minutes of this talk, as I still sat silent,
Ellis turned to me with the appeal, "But what about you, who are
supposed to be our protagonist? Here are we all rhapsodizing and you
sit silent. Have you nothing to contribute to your own theme?"

"Oh," I replied, "any experiences of mine would be so trivial they
would be hardly worth recording. The most that could be said of them
would be that they might, perhaps, illustrate more exactly than yours
what one might call the pure Goods of sense. For, as far as I can
understand, the delights you have been describing are really very
complex. In addition to pleasures of mere sensation, there is clearly
an aesthetic charm--you kept speaking of heather and sunrises, and
colours and wide prospects; and then there is the satisfaction you
evidently feel in skill, acquiring or acquired, and in the knowledge
you possess of the habits of beasts and birds. All this, of course,
goes beyond the delight of simple sense perception, though, no doubt,
inextricably bound up with it But what I was thinking of at first was
something less complex and more elementary in which, nevertheless,
I think we can detect Good--Good of sheer unadulterated sensation.
Think, for example, of the joys of a cold bath when one is dusty and
hot! You will laugh at me, but sometimes when I have felt the
water pouring down my back I have shouted to myself in my tub 'nunc
dimittis.'"

They burst out laughing, and Ellis cried:

"You gross sensualist! And to think of all this being concealed behind
that masque of austere philosophy!"

Then they set off again In praise of the delights of such simple
sensations, and especially of those of the palate, instancing, I
remember, the famous tale about Keats--how he covered his tongue
and throat with cayenne pepper that he might enjoy, as he said, "the
delicious coolness of claret in all its glory." And when this had
gone on for some time, "Perhaps enough has been said," I began, "to
illustrate this particular kind of Good. We have, I think, recognized
to the full its merits; and we shall be equally ready, I suppose, to
recognize its defec