‘O beautiful God of this beautiful world, let me make somebody laugh to-day. Amen.’
At that point I laughed.
‘So his prayer is heard,’ said my friend. ‘Have you eaten all the figs while I have been reading?’
‘Yes; but don’t be unhappy. Remember it is your duty to be happy. You may have the last cigarette. No—we’ll toss for it.’
‘I’ll be shot if we do!’ said he.
‘Well, I’ll cut it in half.’
‘So that neither of us gets any,’ said he. ‘Give it me;’ and he very rudely snatched at it. Here ensued a scuffle, and, the bowels of the cigarette being scattered about the beach, neither of us got any, and the occasion gave rise to moral reflections. Also immoral ones. Then peace and plenty descended in the shape of a friend also coming down to bathe with a supply of fresh tobacco, and the sun was warm again and the sea blue. Then my friend (whom I must call Toby, because he objects to his real name being known, saying that I am certain to keep all the beautiful remarks for myself and give him all the idiocy) held forth:
‘The man is shallow,’ he said; ‘it is only a gospel of surfaces he preaches, and you think it profound merely because he loads it with grave words. I have done for years exactly what he preaches: I have succeeded in being always happy and usually gay, and I spend my whole life in looking for what I consider beautiful. Yet what did you call me last night? A second-hand sensualist, I think.’
‘Very likely. That is because you are not strenuous. Your pursuit of beauty must be passionate, and the pursuit must be an act of worship. Your pursuit of beauty is not an act of worship; it is more like sucking sweets.’
Toby laughed loudly and idiotically.