No one now could possibly be more emancipated than Virginia. She
tittered all day long and whenever the Professor asked her why, she
always told him she was thinking of 'an intelligent First Cause,' a
conception which she said 'was really quite killing.' But when her first
burst of intellectual excitement was over, she became more serious. 'All
thought, Paul,' she said, 'is valuable mainly because it leads to
action. Come, my love, my dove, my beauty, and let us kiss each other
all daylong. Let us enjoy the charming license which exact thought shows
us we shall never be punished for.'
This was a result of freedom that the Professor had never bargained for.
He could not understand it, 'because,' he argued, 'if people were to
reason in that way, morality would at once cease to be possible.' But he
had seen so much of the world lately, that he soon recovered himself,
and recollecting that immorality was only ignorance, he began to show
Virginia where her error lay---her one remaining error. 'I perceive,' he
said, 'that you are ignorant of one of the greatest triumphs of exact
thought--the distinction it has established between the lower and the
higher pleasures. Philosophers, who have thought the whole thing over in
their studies, have become sure that as soon as the latter are presented
to men they will at once leave all and follow them.'
'They must be very nice pleasures,' said Virginia, 'if they would make
me leave kissing you for the sake of them.'
'They _are_ nice,' said the Professor. 'They are the pleasures of the
imagination, the intellect, and the glorious apprehension of truth.
Compared with these, kissing me would be quite insipid. Remain here for
a moment, whilst I go to fetch something, and you shall then begin to
taste them.'
In a few moments Paul came back again, and found Virginia in a state of
intense expectancy.
'Now--,' he exclaimed triumphantly.
'Now--,' exclaimed Virginia, with a beating heart.
The Professor put his hand in his pocket, and drew slowly forth from it
an object which Virginia knew well. It reminded her of the most innocent
period of her life; but she hated the very sight of it none the less. It
was a Colenso's Arithmetic.
'Come,' said the Professor, 'no truths are so pure and necessary as
those of mathematics; you shall at once begin the glorious apprehension
of them.'
'Oh, Paul,' cried Virginia, in an agony, 'but I really don't care for
truth at all; and you know that when I broke your tin box open and read
your private letters in my search for it, you were very angry with me.'
'Ah!' said Paul, holding up his finger, 'but those were not necessary
truths. Truths about human action and character are not necessary
truths; therefore men of science care nothing about them, and they have
no place in scientific systems of ethics. Pure truths are of a very
different character; and, however much you may misunderstand your own
inclinations, you can really care for nothing so much as doing a few
sums. I will set you some very easy ones to begin with, and you shall do
them by yourself, whilst I magnify in the next room the parasites of the
missing link.'
Virginia saw that there was no help for it. She did her sums by herself
the whole morning, which, as at school she had been very good at
arithmetic, was not a hard task for her, and Paul magnified parasites in
the next room, and prepared slides for his microscope.
When they met again, Paul began skipping and dancing, as if he had gone
quite out of his senses, and every now and then between the skips he
gave a sepulchral groan. Virginia asked him in astonishment what on
earth was the matter with him.
'Matter!' he exclaimed. 'Why, Humanity is at last perfect! All the evils
of existence are removed; we neither of us believe in a God or a
celestial future; and we are both in full enjoyment of the higher
pleasures and the apprehension of scientific truth. And therefore I skip
because Humanity is so unspeakably happy, and I groan because it is so
unspeakably solemn.'
'Alas! alas!' cried Virginia, 'and would not you like to kiss me?'
'No,' said the Professor, sternly; 'and you would not like me to kiss
you. It is impossible that one half of Humanity should prefer the
pleasure of unlawful love to the pleasure of finding out scientific
truths.'
'But,' pleaded Virginia, 'cannot we enjoy both?'
'No,' said the Professor, 'for if I began to kiss you I should soon not
care two straws about the parasites of the missing link.'
'Well, said Virginia, 'it is nice of you to say that; but still----Ah
me! Ah me!'
And her bosom heaved slowly with a soft, long sigh.