“But successive architects,” cried St Denys, “may have deviated from the original plan.”
“Still, it holds and it rises; and I for one am content to go up with it—to re-order its chambers, perhaps, but never to quarrel with the main design.”
“And I for one would descend and leave it. Ah, bah! one may mount to the topmost branch of a tree, and yet be no nearer escaping from the forest. I find myself here in interminable thickets, monsieur. I see the poor, leaf-blinded denizens of them nosing passionlessly for roots and acorns in a loveless gloom; and I know the long green fields of light and pleasure to stretch all round this core of melancholy, if only these could find the way to win to them. Is self-discipline necessary to existence? Surely our very butterflies of fashion prove the contrary.”
“Now what,” thought Ned, “is the goad to this inexplicable character?”
“Does monsieur, then,” said he, “advocate a creed of hedonism?”
“Why not?” cried the other. “Shall not man enlarge, develop, and become more habitually one with his amiable instincts under the influence of pleasure, than he ever has done in his bondage to a religion of self-denial? To deny oneself is to deny God, after whose image one is made.”
“A pretty conceit,” said Ned; “but it spells degeneracy.”
“Ay, monsieur; and to the very foundations—as far back as the garden of Paradise.”
“What! You would revert to primitive conditions?”
“To the very ‘naked and unashamed’—but applying to that state the influence of long traditions of gentle manners. We will admit the happiness of the community to be the first consideration, and reconstruct upon a basis of nature.”