"I wish you wouldn't joke about it, Harry. It's hard enough to see one's way, a precious sight harder than I thought last night. But I suppose there's a use and an abuse of both, and one'll get straight enough somehow. But you can't make out anyhow that one has a right to use old Vulgus-books and copy-books."
"Hullo, more heresy! How fast a fellow goes down hill when once he gets his head before his legs! Listen to me, Tom. Not use old Vulgus-books! Why, you Goth,[7] aren't we to take the benefit of the wisdom, and admire and use the work of past generations? Not use old copy-books! Why, you might as well say we ought to pull down Westminster Abbey, and put up a go-to-meeting-shop with churchwarden windows;[8] or never read Shakespeare, but only Sheridan Knowles.[9] Think of all the work and labor that our predecessors have bestowed on these very books, and are we to make their work of no value?"
"I say, Harry, please don't chaff; I'm really serious."
"And, then, is it not our duty to consult the pleasure of others rather than our own; and, above all, that of our masters? Fancy, then, the difference to them in looking over a Vulgus which has been carefully touched and retouched by themselves and others, and which must bring them a sort of dreamy pleasure, as if they'd met the thought or expression of it somewhere or another,—before they were born, perhaps,—and that of cutting up, and making picture-frames round all your and my false quantities and other monstrosities. Why, Tom, you wouldn't be so cruel as never to let old Momus hum over the 'O genus humanum' again, and then look up doubtingly through his spectacles, and end by smiling and giving three extra marks for it; just for old sake's sake, I suppose."
"Well," said Tom, getting up in something as like a huff as he was capable of, "it's deuced hard that when a fellow's really trying to do what he ought, his best friends'll do nothing but chaff him and try to put him down." And he stuck his books under his arm, and his hat on his head, preparatory to rushing out into the quadrangle, to testify with his own soul of the faithlessness of friendships.
"Now don't be an ass, Tom," said East, catching hold of him; "you know me well enough by this time; my bark's worse than my bite. You can't expect to ride your new crotchet without anybody's trying to make him kick you off: especially as we shall have to go on foot still. But now sit down, and let's go over it again. I'll be as serious as a judge."
Then Tom sat himself down on the table, and waxed eloquent about all the righteousness and advantages of the new plan, as was his wont whenever he took up anything; going into it as if his life depended upon it, and sparing no abuse which he could think of, of the opposite method, which he denounced as ungentlemanly, cowardly, mean, lying, and no one knows what besides. "Very cool of Tom," as East thought, but didn't say, "seeing as how he only came out of Egypt[10] himself last night at bed-time."
"Well, Tom," said he, at last, "you see, when you and I came to school there were none of these sort of notions. You may be right—I dare say you are. Only what one has always felt about the masters is that it's a fair trial of skill and last[11] between us and them—like a match at foot-ball, or a battle. We're natural enemies in school, that's the fact. We've got to learn so much Latin and Greek and do so many verses, and they've got to see that we do it. If we can slip the collar, and do so much less without getting caught, that's one to us. If they can get more out of us, or catch us shirking, that's one to them. All's fair in war, but lying. If I run my luck against theirs, and go into school without looking at my lessons, and don't get called up, why am I a snob[12] or a sneak? I don't tell the master I've learnt it. He's got to find out whether I have or not; what's he paid for? If he calls me up, and I get floored, he makes me write it out in Greek and English. Very good; he's caught me, and I don't grumble. I grant you, if I go and snivel to him, and tell him I've really tried to learn it, but found it so hard without a translation, or say I've had a toothache, or any humbug of that kind, I'm a snob. That's my school morality; it's served me, and you too, Tom, for the matter of that, these five years. And it's all clear and fair, no mistake about it. We understand it, and they understand it, and I don't know what we're to come to with any other."
THE TRUCE.
Tom looked at him pleased, and a little puzzled. He had never heard East speak his mind seriously before, and couldn't help feeling how completely he had hit his own theory and practice up to that time.