remember only a rather exquisite little
adventure. That beneficent goat had acted as Pegasus; and on its small
back my spirit had ridden to the places it loves.

In this fashion does the true aesthete tend to prefer, even like the
austerest moralist, the delights which, being of the spirit, are most
independent of circumstances and most in the individual's own keeping.

XIV.

It was Mr. Pater who first pointed out how the habit of aesthetic
enjoyment makes the epicurean into an ascetic. He builds as little as
possible on the things of the senses and the moment, knowing how
little, in comparison, we have either in our power. For, even if the
desired object, person, or circumstance comes, how often does it not
come at the wrong hour! In this world, which mankind fits still so
badly, the wish and its fulfilling are rarely in unison, rarely in
harmony, but follow each other, most often, like vibrations of
different instruments, at intervals which can only jar. The _n'est-ce
que cela_, the inability to enjoy, of successful ambition and
favoured, passionate love, is famous; and short of love even and
ambition, we all know the flatness of long-desired pleasures. King
Solomon, who had not been enough of an ascetic, as we all know, and
therefore ended off in cynicism, knew that there is not only satiety
as a result of enjoyment; but a sort of satiety also, an absence of
keenness, an incapacity for caring, due to the deferring of enjoyment.
He doubtless knew, among other items of vanity, that our wishes are
often fulfilled without our even knowing it, so indifferent have we
become through long waiting, or so changed in our wants.

XV.

There is another reason for such ascetism as was taught in _Marius the
Epicurean_ and in Pater's book on Plato: the modest certainty of all
pleasure derived from the beautiful will accustom the perfect aesthete
to seek for the like in other branches of activity. Accustomed to the
happiness which is in his own keeping, he will view with suspicion all
craving for satisfactions which are beyond his control. He will not
ask to be given the moon, and he will not even wish to be given it,
lest the wish should grow into a want; he will make the best of
candles and glowworms and of distant heavenly luminaries. Moreover,
being accustomed to enjoy the mere sight of things as much as other
folk do their possession, he will probably actually prefer that the
moon should be hanging in the heavens, and