Arthur’s disposition was towards an extreme Rousseauism. It is the tendency of the interrogative class in all settled communities. He thought that a boy or girl ought to run wild until twelve and not be bothered by lessons, ought to eat little else but fruit and nuts, go bareheaded and barefooted. Why not? Oswald’s disposition would have been to oppose Arthur anyhow, but against these views all his circle of ideas fought by necessity. If Arthur was Ruskinite and Morrisite, Oswald was as completely Huxleyite. If Arthur thought the world perishing for need of Art and Nature, Oswald stood as strongly for the saving power of Science. In this matter of bare feet——
“There’s thorns, pins, snakes, tetanus,” reflected Oswald.
“The foot hardens.”
“Only the sole,” said Oswald. “And not enough.”
“Shielded from all the corruptions of town and society,” said Arthur presently.
“There’s no such corruptor as that old Mother Nature of yours. You daren’t leave that bottle of milk to her for half an hour but what she turns it sour or poisons it with one of her beastly germs.”
“I never approved of the bottle,” said Arthur, bringing a flash of hot resentment into Dolly’s eyes....
Oswald regretted his illustration.
“Old Mother Nature is a half-wit,” he said. “She’s distraught. You overrate the jade. She’s thinking of everything at once. All her affairs got into a hopeless mess from the very start. Most of her world is desert with water running to waste. A tropical forest is three-quarters death and decay, and what is alive is either murdering or being murdered. It’s only when you come to artificial things, such as a ploughed field, for example, that you get space and health and every blade doing its best.”
“I don’t call a ploughed field an artificial thing,” said Arthur.