At last,' said the Professor, as they began dinner that evening, 'the
fulness of time has come. All the evils of Humanity are removed, and
progress has come to an end because it can go no further. We have
nothing now to do but to be unspeakably and significantly happy.'
The champagne flowed freely. Our friends ate and drank of the best,
their spirits rose, and Virginia admitted that this was really 'jolly.'
The sense of the word pleased the Professor, but its sound seemed below
the gravity of the occasion; so he begged her to say 'sublime' instead.
'We can make it mean,' he said, 'just the same, but we prefer it for the
sake of its associations.'
It soon, however, occurred to him that eating and drinking were hardly
delights sufficient to justify the highest state of human emotion, and
he began to fear he had been feeling sublime prematurely; but in another
moment he recollected he was an altruist, and that the secret of their
happiness was not that any one of them was happy, but that they each
knew the others were.
'Yes, my dear curate,' said the Professor, 'what I am enjoying is the
champagne that you drink, and what you are enjoying is the champagne
that I drink. This is altruism; this is benevolence; this is the sublime
outcome of enlightened modern thought. The pleasures of the table, in
themselves, are low and beastly ones; but if we each of us are only glad
because the others are enjoying them, they become holy and glorious
beyond description.'
'They do,' cried the curate rapturously, 'indeed they do. I will drink
another bottle for your sake. It is sublime!' he said, as he tossed off
three glasses. 'It is significant!' he said as he finished three more.
'Tell me, my dear, do I look significant?' he added, as he turned to
Virginia, and suddenly tried, to crown the general bliss by kissing her.
Virginia started back, looking fire and fury at him. The Professor was
completely astounded by an occurrence so unnatural, and exclaimed in a
voice of thunder, 'Morality, sir--remember morality! How dare you upset
that which Professor Huxley tells us must be for ever strong enough to
hold its own?'
But the last glass of champagne had put the curate beyond the reach of
exact thought. He tumbled under the table, and the Professor carried him
off to bed.