Seeing her thus attending to the laws of aesthetics so dutifully, it occurred to me that I could do nothing less than join her in order to help her to acquire whatever understanding she sought in any way I was able to. I began to contemplate those various ways, thoroughly enjoying the exquisite anticipation of the intellectual exchange I foresaw. For it is often true that foresight of an approaching pleasure is in itself an actual pleasure, and I was soon transported by my imagination.
But presently, as I stood and pondered these lovely issues, I noticed that she, on the bed, seemed to become what I can describe only as agitated, her cheeks taking on an unnatural but nonetheless delightful flush, her breathing quick and strained, so that I feared she might faint and quickly bent over her reclining figure and loosened her garments, whereupon she gratefully pulled me to her and expressed again her impatient desire to begin her lesson.
This without further mental preparation I therefore commenced.
MYSELF: I will begin with the senses. I must, naturally, consider the objects of my sensations. Recognizing the necessity of experience for understanding and hoping to impart this important value to you, my pupil, I will now consider the particular objects before me with great attention.
As I began carefully to investigate the immediate objects of my sensations, that is the ravishing graces and delights of a young girl reclining upon my bed, this activity seemed to stir her intellectual faculties in a highly agreeable manner, just as I had hoped and anticipated. Our lesson had at last begun in earnest.
MYSELF: There are two kinds of perception. First, I will demonstrate to you the meaning of 'impressions.' Impressions are perceptions that are forceful and violent, external objects pressing in upon you.
SHE: At this moment, not only do I sense a glorious external object forcefully pressing in upon me, but in truth I feel myself to be nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions...
MYSELF: ...which succeed each other with inconceivable rapidity?
SHE: Yes! Exactly! They are in perpetual flux and movement!
After some time, during which we continued our investigation into the nature of perception with a mutual interest and single-minded devotion to experience which precluded for the time being any discussion other than the occasional cry that signified the perception of a particularly forceful impression, I felt true friendship to be within our grasp, and I experienced a flash of understanding, of sublime illumination (a flash, I concluded from various observations, that I thoroughly shared with my pupil), and in my sudden enlightenment, I cried out these words:
MYSELF: The end of the social art is to secure and extend for all the enjoyment of the common rights which impartial nature has bequeathed to us all!
She answered in a voice thick with understanding.
SHE: Your logic, sir, is rigorous, your assertions sublime.
DON'T YOU GET TIRED of all the stuffy academics you hang around with?" Margaret asked Edward one morning. She lay in bed, turned on her side, looking at him.
"Are you tired of them?"
"No. But I like stuffy academics. That's why I married you."
Edward smiled.
"But what about the trendy ones?" Margaret went on. "Like my friends? Like Lily? Imagine Lily as a colleague. She's bad enough as a friend, but at least I don't have to take her seriously. I don't have to argue with her at department meetings. Your department is crawling with Lilys. How can you stand it?"
Margaret was actually envious of Edward, envious of the regular, comfortable world of academia. If only one didn't have to teach! She too could be a professor with a little office, with rumpled colleagues and spiteful intrigues and adoring students. But one did have to teach, and Margaret preferred to live in unstructured solitude rather than face a sea of students, arrogant and needy.
"Stand it? I live for it!" Edward said. "'All men by nature desire to know,' said Aristotle. And I am in a place dedicated to the desire to know. I fulfill the desire to know, I satisfy it. Even Lily, the eminently silly Lily, desires to know. She's wrong about everything, isn't she, but on she rushes, determined, lusty, indomitable in her quest, a creature of desire, of the desire to know. Ah, Lily. How many of her students desire to know little Lily, I wonder."
"Oh, please," Margaret said, and then she cupped her chin in her hand.
Sometimes she felt as small and aloof as a spider, hanging by its thread. No ground beneath its several feet, nor water. But at least a spider could spin a web, a frail sticky gathering place for stray passersby. Till had spun a web, drawing people to her simply by the strength of her desire, her desire to have them there. Edward had spun a web of enthusiasm and pleasure for all around him. Of course, this was a perverse and counterproductive way of viewing friendship: as a trap for struggling, buzzing prey. Still, Margaret thought, shall I spin a web? Isn't that better than being the struggling, buzzing prey in the nets of others?