“And I can only answer,” I said, “as I did before, that we are trying to get some state of conscious experience, to enter into some activity.”

“Very well, then, what activity?” he inquired, catching me up sharp, as if he were afraid of Dennis interposing again.

“What activity!” cried Ellis, “why all and every one as much as another, and the more the merrier.”

“What!” I exclaimed, rather taken aback, “all at once do you mean? whether they be good or whether they be bad, all alike indifferently?”

“There are no bad activities,” he replied, “none bad essentially in themselves.  Their goodness and badness depends on the way in which they are interchanged or combined.  Any pursuit or occupation palls in time if it is followed exclusively; but all may be delightful in the just measure and proportion.  We are complex creatures, and we ought to employ all our faculties alike, never one alone at the cost of all the others.”

“That may be sound enough,” I said, “but will you not describe more in detail the kind of life which you consider to be good?”

“How can I?” he replied.  “It is like trying to sum infinity!  The most I can do is to hint and rhapsodize.”

“Hint away, then!” cried Parry; “rhapsodize away! we’re all listening.”

“Well, then,” he said, “my ideal of the good life would be to move in a cycle of ever-changing activity, tasting to the full the peculiar flavour of each new phase in the shock of its contrast with that of all the rest.  To pass, let us say, from the city with all its bustle, smoke, and din, its press of business, gaiety, and crime, straight away, without word or warning, breaking all engagements, to the farthest and loneliest corner of the world.  To hunt or fish for weeks and months in strange wild places, camping out among strange beasts and birds, lost in pathless forests, or wandering over silent plains.  Then, suddenly, back in the crowd, to feel the press of business, to make or lose millions in a week, to adventure, compete, and win; but always, at the moment when this might pall, with a haven of rest in view, an ancient English mansion, stately, formal, and august, islanded, over its sunken fence, by acres of buttercups.  There to study, perhaps to write, perhaps to experiment, dreaming in my garden at night of new discoveries, to revolutionize science and bring the world of commerce to my feet.  Then, before I have time to tire, to be off on my travels again, washing gold in Klondike, trading for furs in Siberia, fighting in Madagascar, in Cuba, or in Crete, or smoking hasheesh in tents with Persian mystics.  To make my end action itself, not anything action may gain, choosing not to pursue the Good for fear I should let slip Goods, but, in my pursuit of Goods, attaining the only Good I can conceive—­a full and harmonious exercise of all my faculties and powers.”

On hearing him speak thus I felt, I confess, such a warmth of sympathy that I hesitated to attempt an answer.  But Leslie, who was young enough still to live mainly in ideas, broke in with his usual zeal and passion.