The Whole Secret of Life

Kimber Hill, North Cadbury

The whole secret of life depends upon the kind of sensuality that your inmost nature allows to itself. There is a witless, restless, brutal, unintelligent “pleasure-seeking” that is the extreme opposite of the diffused sensuality I am advocating here. And it is this garish, frivolous, brainless, restless pleasure-seeking that, more than anything else, is the enemy and destroyer of that delicious, dream-creating, contemplative sensuality which is the purpose of all intelligent life. This crude, brutal “having a good time” is as alien from real ecstatic happiness as is one’s absorption in business. It is far more deadly and far more evil than any practical work. Some kind of work it behoves us all to undergo, thus paying back what we owe to the human race for food and shelter. But we do not owe it to the human race that we should waste our precious time and spoil the sweet privacy of our secret delights by taking the remotest interest in those absurd “sports” as they are called… dictated by the silly fashions of the hour to such an extent that even their vulgarity is not fresh or spontaneous…

In Defense of Sensuality
John Cowper Powys
Victor Gollancz Ltd 1930
Page 190