THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

56 The Harmony of Virtuethe velvet luxury of a kiss and the downy cushion of an embraceand the perfect repose of desire fulfilled, has not been actuatedby cruelty but always by tenderness and not rather that all unnecessarypain is cruelty to the sufferer?Wilson: Certainly, unnecessary pain is cruelty.Keshav: Are you perfectly satisfied?Wilson: Perfectly satisfied.Keshav: We have discovered then that perfect evolution isrequisite for perfect virtue, but I do not think we have distilledits full flavour into the epithet. Or are you of the opinion thatwe want nothing more than the harmonizing of all the inbornqualities?Wilson: I cannot think of any other requisite.Keshav: Can you, Treneth?Treneth: I was much attracted by something you said in thebeginning about the elements of beauty and I suspect it is thesewe want now.Keshav: You have exactly hit it. We described it as not merelyharmony in effect and proportion in detail but as possessed ofone of the three elements, colour, perfume and form, and in mosttypes combining at least two and in many all three. But in confiningour outlook to harmony and proportion we have talked asif human virtue were merely possessed of one of the elements;yet is there any reason to suppose that human virtue does notpossess the whole three?Wilson: No reason whatever.Keshav: Well, might we not inquire whether it does possessall three, and if it does not, whether it may not legitimately or,to speak more properly, may not artistically possess all three?Wilson: By all means, let us inquire.Keshav: And if we find that it may artistically possess them,then, if our theory that beauty should be the governing principlein all things, is really correct, must we not say that they not onlymay but ought to possess all three?Wilson: Evidently we must.Treneth: That is as plain as a Cambridge laundress.Keshav: And it is clear that all qualities may, with diligence,be entirely divested of colour, form and perfume, and when