In the night-silence water dripped with insistent melody in some hidden tank. From outside came the shrill distant notes of train whistles, rather silvery and exquisite, bringing the yearning for travel, “the horns of elf-land faintly blowing.” Where had he read that? Oh, of course, Stevenson. Funny how the Coningtons thought Stevenson a good author.... “Good-night, Elizabeth, good-night, sweet, sweet Elizabeth, good-night, good-night.” [ IV ] Before our eyes we have the regrettable examples of George Augustus and Isabel, Ma and Pa Tartly, dear Mamma and dear Papa—eponyms of sexual infelicity. Are we more intelligent than our ancestors? What a question for the British Press or for those three musketeers of publicity cheap and silly, of tattered debates on torn topics—Shaw, Chesterton and Belloc. Shaw, yes, the puritan Beaumarchais—_un coup de chapeau_—but the others! To the goddess Ennui sung by Pope, the groans of the Britons. Who will deliver us from the R. C. bores? * * * * * The problem may be stated thus: Let X equal the _ménage_ of dear Mamma-dear Papa, or a typical couple of the seventies and eighties; And let Y equal the _ménage_ George Augustus and Isabel, or a typical couple of the nineties and noughts; And further, let Z equal Elizabeth and George, or a typical bright young pair of the Georgian or European War epoch; Then, it remains to be proved whether Z is equal to, or greater than or less than X and / or Y. A pretty theorem, not to be solved mathematically—too many unknown quantities involved. I am naturally prejudiced in favour of Z, because I belong to their generation, but what do _les jeunes_, the sole competent authority, think? For, after all,—let us be perfectly frank—dear Papa expired peacefully in his bed; George Augustus was unhappily but accidentally slain in the performance of his religious duties; whereas George, if you accept my interpretation of the facts, virtually committed suicide at the age of twenty-six. But then dear Papa and George Augustus did not have to fight the European War.... The problem, you see, is almost insoluble, no doubt because it is wrongly stated. Let us examine it in different terms. * * * * * Without going back to Horace’s egg, may we not assume that he and she have lived well who have lived with felicity? This not only involves the problem of the _summum bonum_ or sovereign good, so much debated by the ancient philosophers, but the awful difficulty of knowing who is to decide whether another person has lived with felicity. Is there such a thing as a happy life? And, if there is would it be the most desirable life? Would you like to be Claudian’s old man of Verona? Or Mr. John D. Rockefeller? Or Mr. Michael Arlan? Or any other type of unabridged felicity?