lay down excellent
principles, and publicly profess them for the sake of standing well
with society, but privately make exceptions for themselves in any
arrangement that may suit their own convenience. Your people of
'exceptional temperament' settle moral difficulties by not allowing
any moral consideration to clash with their inclinations, and misery
comes of it. The plea of exceptional character, exceptional
circumstances, exceptional temperament, and what not, is merely
another way of expressing exceptional selfishness and excusing
exceptional self-indulgence."

"Surely _you_ are not content to be a mere slave to social
convention!" he exclaimed.

"I am talking of fundamental principles, not of social conventions,"
she replied; "please to discriminate. Self-control is not slavery, but
emancipation; to control our passions makes us lords of ourselves and
free of our most galling bonds--the bonds of the flesh."

"What a drawback the want of--er--a proper philosophic training is,"
he observed. "Culture does a great deal. It makes us more modest, for
one thing. I don't suppose you know, for instance, that you are
setting up an opinion of your own in opposition to such men as
Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer maintained that as the man of genius gave
his whole life for the profit of humanity, he had a license of conduct
which was not accorded to the rest of mankind."

"If culture leaves us liable to be taken in by a false postulate of
any man's, however well turned the postulate or able the man, then I
have no respect for culture. The fact that Schopenhauer said such a
thing does not prove it true. An assertion like that is a mere matter
of opinion. Half the worry in the world is caused by differences of
opinion. Let us have the facts and form our own opinions. Have the men
of genius who allowed themselves license of conduct been any the
better for it? the happier? the greater? Schopenhauer himself, for
instance!" She smiled at him with honest eyes when she had spoken, and
took another sandwich. "But don't let us talk sophistry and
silliness," she proceeded, "nor the kind of abstract that serves as a
cover for unrighteousness. Those tricks don't carry conviction to my
uncultivated mind. I know how they're done."

"You are lowering yourself in my estimation," he said severely.

"And what comes after that?" she asked.

He shook his head and gazed at her reproachfully. "How can you be so
trivial," he said, "in a moment li