"Ah pardon me. You can't see them with the naked eye. Moreover, mine are principally negative. People's actions, I know, are for the most part the things they do—but mine are all the things I don't do. There are so many of those, so many, but they don't produce any effect. And then all the rest are shades—extremely fine shades."
"Shades of behaviour?" Nick inquired with an interest which surprised his sister, Mr. Nash's discourse striking her mainly as the twaddle of the under-world.
"Shades of impression, of appreciation," said the young man with his explanatory smile. "All my behaviour consists of my feelings."
"Well, don't you show your feelings? You used to!"
"Wasn't it mainly those of disgust?" Nash asked. "Those operate no longer. I've closed that window."
"Do you mean you like everything?"
"Dear me, no! But I look only at what I do like."
"Do you mean that you've lost the noble faculty of disgust?"
"I haven't the least idea. I never try it. My dear fellow," said Gabriel Nash, "we've only one life that we know anything about: fancy taking it up with disagreeable impressions! When then shall we go in for the agreeable?"
"What do you mean by the agreeable?" Nick demanded.