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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



so much care to kiss her after all. She, there- 

 fore, put on all her most enticing ways ; she 

 talked, flirted, and smiled her best, and made 

 her most effective eyes, that the curate might see 

 what a prize was forever beyond his reach. 



Paul thought the state of affairs full of glo- 

 rious promise. Virginia's tears were dried, she 

 had never looked so radiant and exquisite before. 

 The curate had forgone every attempt to kiss 

 Virginia, and yet he seemed happiness itself. 

 The professor took the latter aside, as soon as 

 the meal was over, to congratulate him on the holy 

 state to which exact thought had conducted him. 



" You see," he said, " what a natural growth 

 the loftiest morality is. Virginia doesn't want 

 to be kissed by you. I should be shocked at 

 your doing so shocking a thing as kissing her. 

 If you kissed her, you would make both of us 

 miserable ; and, as a necessary consequence, you 

 would be in an agony likewise ; in addition to 

 which, I should inevitably kick you." 



" But," said the curate, " suppose I kissed 

 Virginia on the sly — I merely put this as an hy- 

 pothesis, remember — and that in a little while 

 she liked it, what then ? She and I would both 

 be happy ; and you ought to be happy, too, be- 

 cause we were." 



" Idiot ! " said the professor. " Virginia is 

 another man's wife. Nobody really likes kissing 

 another man's wife ; nor do wives ever like kissing 

 any one except their husbands. What they real- 

 ly like is what Professor Huxley calls ' the unde- 

 fined but bright ideal of the highest good,' which, 

 as he says, exact thought shows us is the true 

 end of existence. But, pooh ! what is the use of 

 all this talking ? You know which way your 

 higher nature calls you ; and, of course, unless 

 men believe in God, they cannot help obeying 

 their higher nature." 



" I," said the curate, " think the belief in God 

 a degrading superstition ; I think every one an 

 imbecile who believes a miracle possible. And 

 yet I do not care two straws about the highest 

 good. What you call my lower nature is far the 

 strongest ; I mean to follow it to the best of my 

 ability ; and I prefer calling it my higher, for the 

 sake of the associations." 



This plunged the professor in deeper grief 

 than ever. lie knew not what to do. He paced 

 up and down the veranda, or about the rooms, 

 and moaned and groaned as if he had a violent 

 toothache. Virginia and the curate asked what 

 was amiss with him. " I am agonizing," he said, 

 " for the sake of holy, solemn, unspeakably dig- 

 nified Humanity." 



The curate, seeing the professor thus dejected, 

 by degrees took heart again ; and, as Virginia still 

 continued her fascinating behavior to him, he re- 

 solved to try and prove to her that, the test of 

 morality being happiness, the most moral thing 

 she could do would be to allow him to kiss her. 

 No sooner had he begun to propound these views, 

 than the professor gave over his groaning, seized 

 the curate by the collar, and dragged him out of 

 the room with a roughness that nearly throttled 

 him. 



" I was but propounding a theory — an opinion," 

 gasped the curate. " Surely thought is free. You 

 will not persecute me for my opinions ? " 



" It is not for your opinions," said the profess- 

 or, " but for the horrible effect they might have. 

 We can only tolerate opinions that have no pos- 

 sible consequence. You may promulgate any of 

 those as much as you like ; because to do that 

 would be a self-regarding action." 



XII. 



"Well," said the curate, "if I may not kiss 

 Virginia, I will drink brandy instead. That will 

 make me happy enough ; and then we shall all be 

 radiant." 



He soon put his resolve into practice, ne 

 got a bottle of brandy, he sat himself down under 

 a palm-tree, and told the professor he was going 

 to make an afternoon of it. 



" Foolish man ! " said the professor ; " I was 

 never drunk myself, it is true ; but I know that 

 to get drunk makes one's head ache horribly. To 

 get drunk is, therefore, horribly immoral ; and 

 therefore I cannot permit it." 



"Excuse me," said the curate; "it is a self- 

 regarding action. Nobody's head will ache but 

 mine ; so that is my own lookout. I have been 

 expelled from school, from college, and from my 

 first curacy, for drinking. So I know well enough 

 the balance of pains and pleasures." 



Here he pulled out his brandy-bottle, and ap- 

 plied his lips to it. 



" Humanity ! " he exclaimed, " how solemn 

 this brandy tastes ! " 



Matters went on like this for several days. 

 The curate was too much frightened to again ap- 

 proach Virginia. Virginia at last became con- 

 vinced that he did not care about kissing her. 

 Her vanity was wounded, and she became sullen ; 

 and this made the professor sullen also. In fact, 

 two- thirds of Humanity were overcast with gloom. 

 The only happy section of it was the curate, who 

 alternately smoked and drank all day long. 



"The nasty little beast!" said Virginia to the 



