Nevertheless he followed his instinct for
the most part, rather than his reason. Sapiens suam si sapientiam
norit.
CHAPTER XXXI
WITH the masters Ernest was ere long in absolute disgrace. He had
more liberty now than he had known heretofore. The heavy hand and
watchful eye of Theobald were no longer about his path and about his
bed and spying out all his ways; and punishment by way of copying
out lines of Virgil was a very different thing from the savage
beatings of his father. The copying out in fact was often less trouble
than the lesson. Latin and Greek had nothing in them which commended
them to his instinct as likely to bring him peace even at the last;
still less did they hold out any hope of doing so within some more
reasonable time. The deadness inherent in these defunct languages
themselves had never been artificially counteracted by a system of
bona fide rewards for application. There had been any amount of
punishments for want of application, but no good comfortable bribes
had baited the hook which was to allure him to his good.
Indeed, the more pleasant side of learning to do this or that had
always been treated as something with which Ernest had no concern.
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