This conscious self of yours, Ernest, is a prig begotten of prigs
and trained in priggishness; I will not allow it to shape your
actions, though it will doubtless shape your words for many a year
to come. Your papa is not here to beat you now; this is a change in
the conditions of your existence, and should be followed by changed
actions. Obey me, your true self, and things will go tolerably well
with you, but only listen to that outward and visible old husk of
yours which is called your father, and I will rend you in pieces
even unto the third and fourth generation as one who has hated God;
for I, Ernest, am the God who made you."
How shocked Ernest would have been if he could have heard the advice
he was receiving; what consternation too there would have been at
Battersby; but the matter did not end here, for this same wicked inner
self gave him bad advice about his pocket-money, the choice of his
companions, and on the whole Ernest was attentive and obedient to
its behests, more so than Theobald had been. The consequence was
that he learned little, his mind growing more slowly and his body
rather faster than heretofore: and when by and by his inner self urged
him in directions where he met obstacles beyond his strength to
combat, he took- though with passionate compunctions of conscience-
the nearest course to the one from which he was debarred which
circumstances would allow.
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