In the absence of his playful Clerica--to use the Pantagruelian allusion--the great Homenas of Nevilton was compelled to fill his “tall-boy of extravagant wine” with his own hand. He did so, and continued his explanation. “By the worst of all heresies I mean the dangerous Puritan idea that pleasure itself is evil and a thing detestable to God. The Catholic doctrine, as I understand it, is that all these things are entirely relative to the persons concerned. Pleasure in itself is, in the Aristotelian sense, a supreme good. Everyone has a right to it. Everyone must have it. The whole thing is a matter of proportion and expediency. If an innocent playful game, of the kind you have just witnessed, was likely in this definite particular case to lead to harm, then you would be justified in your anxiety. But there must be no laying down of hard general rules. There must be no making a virtue of the mere denying ourselves pleasure.” Mr. Clavering could hardly wait for his guest to finish. “Then, according to your theory,” he exclaimed, “it would be right for you, or whoever you will,--pardon my making the thing so personal--to indulge in casual levities with any pretty barmaid, as long as you vaguely surmised that she was a sensible girl and would not be harmed?” “Certainly it would be right,” replied the papal apologist, sipping his wine and inhaling the perfume of the garden, “and not only right, but a plain duty. It is our duty, Mr. Clavering, to make the world happier while we live in it; and the way to make girls happier, especially when their occupations are laborious, is to kiss them; to give them innocent and admiring embraces.” “I am afraid you are not quite serious, Mr. Taxater,” said the clergyman. “I have an absurd way of being direct and literal in these discussions.” “Certainly, I am serious. Do you not know--young puritan--that some of the noblest spirits in history have not hesitated to increase the pleasure of girls’ lives by giving them frequent kisses? In the Greek days he who could give the most charming kiss was awarded a public prize. In the Elizabethan days all the great and heroic souls, whose exquisite wit and passionate imagination put us still to shame, held large and liberal views on this matter. In the eighteenth century the courtly and moral Joseph Addison used never to leave a coffee-house, however humble and poor, without bestowing a friendly embrace upon every woman in it. The religious Doctor Johnson--a man of your own faith--was notoriously in the habit of taking his prettier visitors upon his knee, and tenderly kissing them. It is no doubt due to this fact, that the great lexicographer was so frequently visited;--especially by young Quakers. When we come to our own age, it is well known that the late Archbishop Taraton, the refuter of Darwin, was never so happy as when romping round the raspberry-canes in his garden with a crowd of playful girls.