The denunciation of pleasure seeking is very rightly suspect for it is itself so often the seeking of the pleasures. I mean the pleasure of being shocked, the pleasure of being censorious in a word, the pleasure of scandal. But there are criticisms of modern pleasure-seeking which are not merely the scandal-mongering of old women, which is a permanent temptation to men as they grow old. There are criticisms that rest on reasonable and eternal principles. And one of them, I think, is this-that so many modern pleasures aim at indiscriminate and incongruous combination. They are colours that kill each other. For instance, it is not greedy to enjoy a good dinner, any more than it is greedy to enjoy a good concert. But I do think there is something greedy about expecting to enjoy the dinner and the concert at the same time. I say trying to enjoy them, for it is the mark of this sort of complex enjoyment that it cannot be enjoyed. The fashion of having very loud music during meals in restaurants and hotels seems to me a perfect example of this chaotic attempt to have everything at once and do everything at once. Eating and drinking and talking have gone together by a tradition as old as the world; but the entrance of this fourth factor only spoils the other three. It is an ingenious scheme for combining music to which nobody will listen with conversation that nobody can hear. Recall some of the great conversation of history and literature; imagine some of the great and graceful impormptus, some of the spontaneous epigrams of the wits of the past; and then imagine any of them shouted through the deafening uproar of a brass band. It seems to me an intolerable insult to a musical artist that people should treat his art as an adjunct to a refind gluttony. It seems a yet more subtle insult to the musician that people should require to be fortified with food and drink at intervals, to strengthen them to endure his music. I say nothing of the deeper and darker insult to that other artist the cook. In any case it is the combination of the two pleasures that is unpleasant. The bill only deals with the second part of the question but the determination of the issue depends, to a very great extent, on what we consider to be our answer to the first part also. It is now well known that we have adopted the principle of the welfare state and that we now look up to the state to go to the help of the needy citizen in some of his needs that are so very urgent and important and the fulfilment of which is considered to be so necessary from the point of view.
