“But,” he said, “all this activity of which you speak is no more good than it is bad; every phase of it, by your own confession, is so imperfect in itself that it requires to be constantly exchanged for some other, equally defective.”

“Not at all,” answered Ellis, “each phase is good in its time and place; but each becomes bad if it is pursued exclusively to the detriment of others.”

“But is each good in itself? or, at least, is it more good than bad?  You choose, in imagination, to dwell upon the good aspect of each; but in practice you would have to experience also the bad.  Your hunting in trackless forests will involve exposure, fatigue, and hunger; your fighting in Madagascar, fever, wounds, and disillusionment; and so through all your chapter of accidents—­for accidents they are at best, and never the substance of Good; rather, indeed, a substance of Evil, dogged by a shadow of Good.”

“Oh!” cried Ellis, “what a horrid prosaic view—­from an idealist, too!  Why, the Bad is all part of the Good; one takes the rough with the smooth.  Or rather the Good stands above what you call good and bad; it consists in the activity itself which feeds upon both alike.  If I were Dennis I should say it is the synthesis of both.”

“Well,” said Leslie, “I never heard before of a synthesis produced by one side of the antithesis simply swallowing the other.”

“Didn’t you?” said Ellis.  “Then you have a great deal yet to learn.  This is known as the synthesis of the lion and the lamb.”

“Oh, synthesis!” cried Parry.  “Heaven save us from synthesis!  What is it you are trying to say?”

“That’s what I want to know,” I said “We seem to be coming perilously near to Dennis’s position, that what we call Evil is mere appearance.”

“Well,” said Ellis, “extremes meet!  Dennis arrived at his view by a denial of the world; I arrive at mine by an affirmation of it.”

“But do you really think,” I urged, “that everything in the world is good?”

“I think,” he replied, “that everything may be made to minister to Good if you approach it in the proper way.”

“That reads,” said Audubon, “like an extract from a sermon.”

“As I remarked before,” replied Ellis, “extremes meet”

“But, Ellis,” I protested, “do explain!  How are you going to answer Leslie?”

“Leslie is really too young,” he replied, “to be answerable at all.  But if you insist on my being serious, what I meant to suggest is, that when our activity is freshest and keenest we find delight in what is called Evil no less than in what is called Good.  The complexity of the world charms us, its ‘downs’ as well as its ‘ups,’ its abysses and glooms no less than its sunny levels.  We would not alter it if we could; it is better than we could make it; and we accept it not merely with acquiescence but with triumph.”

“Oh, do we!” said Audubon.

“We,” answered Ellis, “not you!  You, of course, do not accept anything.”