ch in love. His laugh
shows that his love is real; my rude remark touches no chord in his
unconscious. But suppose I make a similar remark to Smith, who has
been very much married for ten years! He will hit me in the eye,
thereby betraying the fact that my remark touched what his unconscious
knows to be true. His blow is physically directed to me, but
psychically he is hitting to defend his conscious from his unconscious.

Hence if a flogger is angry when I accuse him of being a Sadist, I
guess that he is a Sadist.

I tried the experiment on Macdonald. He shook his head sadly.

"Poor chap," he said feelingly, "you're daft!"

"Right!" I said, "you aren't a Sadist, anyway, Mac. You must flog
because it is your method of self-assertion. As I've told you many
times, you strap kids because wielding a strap is your childish way of
showing your power."

Then Mac became angry, and when I hinted that my remarks must have hit
the bull's-eye . . . he laughed again. He is a baffling study in
psychology.

"You don't know much about it, old chap," he said genially.

"Hardly anything at all," I said with true modesty, "only I know one
thing about you, and that is that the fault always lies in yourself.
When you flog Tom Murray, you are really chastising the Tom Murray in
yourself . . . that is, the part that your wife knows so well--the part
of you that leaves the new graip out in the rain all night, that rebels
against the authority of the School Board and the inspectorate. Tom is
being crucified for your transgressions."

Barrie, wizard as he is, failed to understand the full significance of
Shakespeare's line: "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but
in ourselves."

* * * * *

The opposite of the Sadist is the Masochist--the person who finds
sexual gratification in being beaten or bullied. When 'Arriet proudly
boasts about the black eye that 'Arry gave her on Saturday night, she
is being masochistic, and the woman who likes to be bullied by the
strong, silent man is likewise a masochist. I do not say "nothing but"
a masochist, because she is also a Sadist, for Sadism and Masochism are
complementary in the same person.

It is an understood fact that many people find joy in suffering, and I
can recollect feeling something akin to joy when the dentist, before
the days of the local anaesthetic, used to lay hold on my molars.

Hence I look back to the day when I whacked Pete