THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

Book ThreeKeshav Ganesh [Desai] — Broome Wilson — TrenethTreneth: But we must not forget our purpose in being here.Keshav: Well, Broome, what do you say to our resumingour cruise for the discovery of virtue? I avow the speculationweighs on me, and I am impatient to see the last of it.Wilson: I have not to learn that you are the most indolentof men. No sooner are you in a novel current of thought thanyou tire and swim back to the shore. I am indignant with Naturefor wasting on you a genius you so little appreciate.Treneth: Ah, but you are really quite wrong, Wilson. Geniusis a capacity for being indolent.Wilson: Enter Prince Paradox! But seriously, Keshav, I thinkthe argument will live beyond this afternoon and I give warningthat I shall drag you all over the field of ethics before we havedone with it.Keshav: It will be the corpse of my intellect you will maltreat.But in extremity I rely upon Treneth to slay my Argus withthe bright edge of a paradox.Wilson: We were at the third rung of the ladder, werewe not?Keshav: Yes, thou slave-driving Ishmaelite. I declare it is impiouson a day like this to bury ourselves in the gloomy vaults of speculation.But as you will.To remember how far we have climbed is the best incentiveto climb farther, and will give Treneth an idea of the situation.We happened to be weighing the ordinary principles of moralityand finding them all wanting cast about for a new principle anddiscovered that beauty was the sole morality of the universe,and it had colour, form and perfume as elements, harmony asits general effect and proportion, which we described as regularvariety or method in madness, as the ulterior cause of the harmony,and we ventured to imagine that as all the other elementsof the universe were harmonious notes in a perfect sonata butthe human element had wilfully chosen to jar upon and ruin the