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Yes: there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new

Hedonism that was to recreate life and to save it from that harsh

uncomely puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious

revival. It was to have its service of the intellect, certainly,

yet it was never to accept any theory or system that would

involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experience. Its

aim, indeed, was to be experience itself, and not the fruits of

experience, sweet or bitter as they might be. Of the asceticism

that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar profligacy that dulls

them, it was to know nothing. But it was to teach man to

concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is itself but

a moment.