"Some folk might say that he is," I remarked.
"He gave me my licks the first mornin' he cam," he continued. "We got an essay 'How I spent my holidays,' and I said that I was in France and helped the Crown Prince to loot places. We quarrelled about how much we should get each and I shot him. The Mester gave me three scuds for tellin' lies."
"He would," I said grimly.
"But you used to tell me to tell lies!" he cried.
"I did, Jim. And you see the result.... I muck out a byre."
When Jim went away I came to a sudden resolution: I would fight for Jim. I'll do all in my power to help the lad to preserve his own personality.... Frank Thomson is his uncle and I'll try to get Jim to see me often. Professional etiquette! Professional etiquette be damned! I'm not in the profession now anyhow, and all the professional etiquette in the world is as nothing to the saving of a soul.
* * *
I find that I enjoy my food now. Formerly I looked on a meal as an appetiser for a smoke; now I look on a meal as an event. I feel healthier than I ever did in my life before. The land dulls one, however. The old cry "Back to the Land" means "Back to Elemental Mental Stagnation." I spent this forenoon cutting turnips, and I know that I thought of nothing all the time. I have a theory that great thoughts are the product of disease. Possibly this is only another way of saying that genius is allied to madness. Shelley was a physical weakling; Ibsen and Nietzsche went mad. Yes, geniuses are diseased folk, but the converse does not hold.
Macdonald came up to see me to-night; he wanted to ask a few things about the school. We lay on a bank and lit our pipes.