The quotation seemed to loosen all tongues; and there followed a flood of such talk as may be heard in almost every company of Englishmen, in praise of sport and physical exercise, touched with a sentiment not far removed from poetry—­the only poetry of which they are not half-ashamed.  Audubon even joined in, forgetting for the moment his customary pose, and rhapsodizing with the rest over his favourite pursuits of snipe-shooting and cricket.  Much of this talk was lost upon me, for I am nothing of a sportsman; but some touches there were that recalled experiences of my own, and for that reason, I suppose, have lingered in my memory.  Thus, I recollect, some one spoke of skating on Derwentwater, the miles of black, virgin ice, the ringing and roaring of the skates, the sunset glow, and the moon rising full over the mountains; and another recalled a bathe on the shore of AEgina, the sun on the rocks and the hot scent of the firs, as though the whole naked body were plunged in some aethereal liqueur, drinking it in with every sense and at every pore, like a great sponge of sheer sensation.  After some minutes of this talk, as I still sat silent, Ellis turned to me with the appeal, “But what about you, who are supposed to be our protagonist?  Here are we all rhapsodizing and you sit silent.  Have you nothing to contribute to your own theme?”

“Oh,” I replied, “any experiences of mine would be so trivial they would be hardly worth recording.  The most that could be said of them would be that they might, perhaps, illustrate more exactly than yours what one might call the pure Goods of sense.  For, as far as I can understand, the delights you have been describing are really very complex.  In addition to pleasures of mere sensation, there is clearly an aesthetic charm—­you kept speaking of heather and sunrises, and colours and wide prospects; and then there is the satisfaction you evidently feel in skill, acquiring or acquired, and in the knowledge you possess of the habits of beasts and birds.  All this, of course, goes beyond the delight of simple sense perception, though, no doubt, inextricably bound up with it But what I was thinking of at first was something less complex and more elementary in which, nevertheless, I think we can detect Good—­Good of sheer unadulterated sensation.  Think, for example, of the joys of a cold bath when one is dusty and hot!  You will laugh at me, but sometimes when I have felt the water pouring down my back I have shouted to myself in my tub ’nunc dimittis.’”

They burst out laughing, and Ellis cried: 

“You gross sensualist!  And to think of all this being concealed behind that masque of austere philosophy!”

Then they set off again In praise of the delights of such simple sensations, and especially of those of the palate, instancing, I remember, the famous tale about Keats—­how he covered his tongue and throat with cayenne pepper that he might enjoy, as he said, “the delicious coolness of claret in all its glory.”  And when this had gone on for some time, “Perhaps enough has been said,” I began, “to illustrate this particular kind of Good.  We have, I think, recognized to the full its merits; and we shall be equally ready, I suppose, to recognize its defects.”