ureanism pure and simple; or,
if you dislike the word because of its associations, you taught a mere
Neo-Cyrenaicism. You may say that the kind of pleasure you defended is
a refined and intellectual sort of pleasure, but for all that it tends
to produce men who withdraw from practical life into a mild hedonism;
you would develop a coterie of amiable, secluded persons, fastidious
and delicate, indifferent citizens, individualistic and self-absorbed;
the training of character retires into the background; and the meal
that you press upon us is a meal of exquisite sauces, but without meat.
Fortunately," his friend added, "the necessity of earning a living
keeps most people from drifting into a life of this kind. It is only
consistent with comfortable private means."

These phrases stuck in Hugh's memory with a painful insistence. He
felt as if he had been rolled among thorns. He determined to think the
matter carefully out. Was he himself drifting into a species of
mystical hedonism? It was very far from his purpose to do that. He
determined that he would prepare a little apologia on the subject, to
send to his friend; and this was what he eventually despatched:--

"_Your conversation with me the other day gave me a good deal to think
about. What you said practically amounted to a charge of hedonism. Of
course much depends upon the way in which the word is applied, because
I suppose that the large majority of men are hedonists, in the sense
that they pursue as far as possible their own pleasure. But the
particular kind of hedonism of which you spoke, Epicureanism, bears the
sense of a certain degree of malingering. It implies that the person
who pursues the course which I indicated is for some reason or other
shirking his duty in the world. It is against this that I wish to
defend myself; I would say in the first place that what I was
recommending was a very different sort of thing. I was rather
attacking a certain sheepishness of character which seems to me to be
the danger of our present type of education. The practical ideal held
up before boys at our public schools is that they should be virtuous
and industrious; and that after they have satisfied both these claims,
they should amuse themselves in what is held to be a manly way; that
they should fill their vacant hours with open-air exercise and talk
about games; a little light reading is not objected to; but it is
tacitly assumed that to be interested