at we might mean by a perfect Good,
even though we could not say that it be the Good itself."

"But what, then, would you call the Good itself?"

"A love, I suppose, which in the first place would be eternal, and in
the second all-comprehensive. For there is another defect in love, as
we know it, to which you did not refer, namely, that it is a relation
only to one or two individuals, while outside and beyond it proceeds
the main current of our lives, involving innumerable relations of a
very different kind from this."

"Yes," cried Ellis, "and that is why this gospel of love, with all its
attractiveness, which I admit, seems to me, nevertheless, so trivial
and absurd. Just consider! Here is the great round world with all that
in it is, infinite in time, infinite in space, infinite in complexity;
here is the whole range of human relations, to say nothing of those
that are not human, of activities innumerable in and upon nature and
man himself, of inventions, discoveries, institutions, laws, arts,
sciences, religions; and the meaning and purpose and end of all this
we calmly assert to be--what? A girl and a boy kissing on the village
green!"

"But," I protested, "who said anything about boys and girls and kisses
and village greens?"

"Well, I suppose that is love, of a sort?"

"Yes, of a sort, no doubt; but not a very good one."

"You are thinking, then, of a special kind of love?"

"I am thinking of the kind which I conceive to be the best."

"And what is that?"

"One, as I said just now, that should be eternal and
all-comprehensive."

"And so, in the end, you have nothing better than an imaginary heaven
to land us in!"

"I have no power, I fear, to land you there. But I believe there
is that dwelling within you which will not let you rest in anything
short."

"Then I fear I shall never rest!"

"That may be. But meantime all I want to do is to ascertain, if we
can, the meaning of your unrest. I have no interest in what you call
an imaginary heaven, except in so far as its conception is necessary
to enable us to interpret the world we know."

"But how should it be necessary? I have never found it so."

"It is necessary, I think, to explain our dissatisfaction. For the
Goods we actually realize always point away from themselves to
some other Good whose realization perhaps, as you say, for us is
impossible. But even if the Good were chimerical, we cannot deny the
passion that pursues it; for it is the