"Never mind," said Mr Hare smiling; "continue: we were talking of roast
beef and plum pudding--"

"Well, roast beef and plum pudding, say what you like, is a very
complete figuration of the Protestant ideal. Now let us think of
Sussex.... The villas with their gables, and railings, and laurels, the
snug farm-houses, the market-gardening, but especially the villas, so
representative of a sleepy smug materialism.... Oh, it is horrible; I
cannot think of Sussex without a revulsion of feeling. Sussex is utterly
opposed to the monastic spirit. Why, even the downs are easy, yes, easy
as one of the upholsterer's armchairs of the villa residences. And the
aspect of the county tallies exactly with the state of soul of its
people. In that southern county all is soft and lascivious; there is no
wildness, none of that scenical grandeur which we find in Scotland and
Ireland, and which is emblematic of the yearning of man's soul for
something higher than this mean and temporal life."

There was rapture in John's eyes. With a quick movement of his hands he
seemed to spurn the entire materialism of Sussex. After a pause, he
continued:

"There is no asceticism in Sussex, there is no yearning for anything
higher or better. You--yes, you and the whole place are, in every sense
of the word, Conservative--that is to say, brutally satisfied with the
present ordering of things."

"Now, now, my dear John, by your own account Pearson is not by any means
so satisfied with the present condition of things as you yourself would
wish him to be."