iness,
at any rate not he, Ernest. We were put into this world not for pleasure
but duty, and pleasure had in it something more or less sinful in its
very essence. If we were doing anything we liked, we, or at any rate he,
Ernest, should apologise and think he was being very mercifully dealt
with, if not at once told to go and do something else. With what he did
not like, however, it was different; the more he disliked a thing the
greater the presumption that it was right. It never occurred to him that
the presumption was in favour of the rightness of what was most pleasant,
and that the onus of proving that it was not right lay with those who
disputed its being so. I have said more than once that he believed in
his own depravity; never was there a little mortal more ready to accept
without cavil whatever he was told by those who were in authority over
him: he thought, at least, that he believed it, for as yet he knew
nothing of that other Ernest that dwelt within him, and was so much
stronger and more real than the Ernest of which he was conscious. The
dumb Ernest persuaded with inarticulate feelings too swift and sure to be
translated into such debateable things as words, but practically insisted
as follows--

"Growing is not the easy plain sailing business that it is commonly
supposed to be: it is hard work--harder than any but a growing boy can
understand; it requires attention, and you are not strong enough to
attend to your bodily growth, and to your lessons too. Besides, Latin
and Greek are great humbug; the more people know of them the more
odious they generally are; the nice people whom you delight in either
never knew any at all or forgot what they had learned as soon as they
could; they never turned to the classics after they were no longer
forced to read them; therefore they are nonsense, all very well in
their own time and country, but out of place here. Never learn
anything until you find you have been made uncomfortable for a good
long while by not knowing it; when you find that you have occasion for
this or that knowledge, or foresee that you will have occasion for it
shortly, the sooner you learn it the better, but till then spend your
time in growing bone and muscle; these will be much more useful to you
than Latin and Greek, nor will you ever be able to make them if you do
not do so now, whereas Latin and Greek can be acquired at any time by