on one point, if only to prove to oneself the
absolutism of one's logic on all others. Thus do I, otherwise sane and
consistent realist, materialist, pessimist, cling to my one dream and
ideal--take it out, dandle it, nourish and cherish it, with weakly
sentimental faithfulness. To do so is ludicrous. But then my being here
at all, calmly considered, is ludicrous. And it, too, is among the
results of the one idea."

He paused, and Helen, leaning beside him, waited. The sunshine covered
them both. The sea wind was fresh in their faces. While the many voices
of Naples came up to them confused, strident, continuous, with
sometimes a bugle-call, sometimes a clang of hammers, or quick pulse of
stringed instruments, or jangle of church-bells, or long-drawn bellow
of a steamship clearing for sea, detaching itself from the universal
chorus. Capri, Ischia, Procida, floated, islands of amethyst, upon the
sapphire of the bay, and the smoke of Vesuvius rolled ceaselessly
upward.

"You see and hear and feel all this," Richard continued presently.
"Well, when I saw it for the first time I was pretty thoroughly out of
conceit with myself and all creation. I had been experimenting freely
in things not usually talked of in polite society. And I was abominably
sold, for I found the enjoyment such things procure is decidedly
overrated. Unmentionable matters, once fully explored, are just as
tedious and inadequate as those which supply the most unexceptionable
subjects of conversation. Moreover, in the process of exploration I had
touched a good deal of pitch, and, the simpleton being still
superfluously to the fore in me, I was squeamishly sensible of
defilement."

The young man shifted his position slightly, resting his chin in the
hollow of his hands, speaking quietly and indifferently, as of some
matter foreign to himself and his personal interests.

"I have reason to believe I was as fairly and squarely wretched as it
is possible for an intelligent being to be. I had convinced myself,
experimentally, that human existence, human nature, was a bottomless
pit and an uncommonly filthy one at that. Reaction was inevitable. Then
I understood why men have invented gods, subscribed to irrational
systems of theology, hailed and accredited transparently ridiculous
miracles. Such lies are necessary to certain stages of development
simply for the preservation of sanity, just as, at another stage,
sanity, for its own preservation, is necessar