margaret was reading a few pages of my diary to-night.
"why," she said, "it's all about yourself!"
"not all," i said hastily, "some of it is about you ... but i won't let you read that part until you are my wife. if you knew the terrible things i have written about you you would go off straightway and marry joe smith."
"you think quite a lot of yourself," she said with a laugh.
"everybody thinks a lot of himself, margaret. if i died to-night you would probably have forgotten the shape of my nose by the time you were sixty, but you'll never forget that i told you your neck was the loveliest neck in the county. my old grandmother used to tell me again and again of the man who stopped her on the road when she was seven and told her that her eyes were like blue stars. his name was donald gunn ... but she could never recollect the names of the girls she played with.
"the people who don't think much of themselves are people who have no personality to be proud of ... personally i haven't yet met any of the brand. we all have something that we're conceited about, dear. you are conceited about your eyes and your neck and your hair. jean hardie is about the plainest[pg 190] girl in the village, but i could bet that she thinks her hair the most glorious in the place ... and it is too.
"very often we are conceited about the things that we can do worst. i can draw pretty well, but i'm not conceited about it. i can't sing for nuts ... and if anyone left the room when i was warbling i should hate him to all eternity. i like a man to be an egotist ... if he has got an ego of any value. peter macmannish is a type of egotist that should be put into a lethal chamber. he has no ego to talk about, but he imagines that his stomach is his ego, and he will talk to you for an hour about the 'yirkin'' of the organ in question."
"what is an ego?" asked margaret. "i never heard the word before."
"it is the latin word for 'i,' and a person who uses the pronoun 'i' very often is called an egotist. the other word egoist has a different meaning; it means a person who thinks of himself all the time, a selfish person. you can be an egotist without being an egoist, and vice versa. peter mitchell never talks about himself; while you talk about yourself he is thinking out a method of selling you something at double its value.
"there are two kinds of egotist ... the man who talks about what he does, and the man who talks about what he thinks. when i get letters from my friends they are full of "i's." dorothy westbrook, a college friend of mine, a medallist in half-a-dozen classes, fills eight[pg 191] pages with small talk.... 'i went to see tree in the darling of the gods last night,' and so on. i generally skip the eight pages and look at the post-script. may baxter, another college friend, a girl who wouldn't recognise a medal if you showed her one, writes ten pages, and she usually commences with something like this:—'i was re-reading the new machiavelli last night, and i think that i begin to despise wells now.' i read her letter a dozen times. when she does take a fancy for the other kind of egotism she is delightful: she doesn't tell me what she does; she tells me what she is.
"i have half a mind to leave you for a year, margaret, just to give you a chance of writing about yourself. i won't be able to write to you in the same strain: i wrote myself out when i fell in love at twenty-two. you can only be a good letter-writer once, and that is when you are discovering yourself for the first time, and ramming it down on paper as fast as you can. i used to write letters of twenty foolscap pages, but now i never write a letter if i can help it. life has lost most of its glamour when you realise that you have discovered yourself. it's a sad business discovering yourself, dear. you set out to persuade yourself that you are a genius or a saint, and, after a long examination of yourself you discover that you are a sorry creature. you set out with faith and hope at your elbow, and at the end you find that they have long since left you, but you find that charity[pg 192] has taken their place. charity begins at home says the proverb, and i take this to mean that charity comes to you when you find yourself at home, when you discover yourself. i used to be the most uncharitable of mortals, but now i seldom judge a man or woman. peter macmannish gets drunk; i do not condemn him, for i have looked on the wine when it was red. mary macwinnie has had two illegitimate children; i am a theoretical don juan. shepherd, the rabbit-catcher, has an atrocious temper; i do not judge him, because, although my own temper is pretty equable, i can realise that the man can no more help his temper than i can the size of my feet. charity comes to you when you have discovered how weak you are, and that's what kept me from being a good code teacher. i was such a poor weak devil that i couldn't bring myself to make the boys salute me or fear me."
"you say that, but you don't believe it."
"i believe it, margaret. my whole theory of education is built on my abject humility. my chief objection to macdonald is that he ignores his own weaknesses. he has never analysed himself to see what manner of man he is. if he could look into his heart and discover all the little meanesses and follies and hypocrisies he would not have the courage to make a boy salute him; he would not have the impudence to strap a boy for swearing. one of the worst things about macdonald and a thousand other dominies is that they have[pg 193] forgotten their childhood. a dominie should never grow up. i would take away from all students their text-books on school management and psychology, and put into their hands barrie's peter pan and stevenson's a child's garden of verses.
"margaret, why can't people see that the macdonald system is all wrong? what in all the world is the use of dominies and ministers and parents posing before children? what is respect but a pose? what is macdonald's sternness but a pose? he is a kindly decent fellow outside his school. the bairns meet with pose the first thing in the morning when they enter the school. they stand up and repeat the lord's prayer monotonously, and without the faintest realisation of what they are saying. the dominie closes his eyes and clasps his hands in front of him, and i don't believe there is a single dominie in scotland who really prays each morning. for that matter i don't believe that there are half-a-dozen ministers who repeat the prayer on sundays with any thought of its meaning. the morning prayer is a gigantic sham. when i said to macdonald that i would have it abolished in schools he almost had a fit. the bigger the sham is the louder is the screaming in its defence if you attack it.
"think of all the shams that parents practise. they pretend that babies come in the doctor's pocket; they pretend that a lie is as much an abomination to them as it is to the lord;[pg 194] they imply by their actions that they never stole apples in their lives; they hint that they don't know what bad language means. they live a life that is one continuous lie."
"i don't understand that," said margaret with a puzzled look.
"a mother lies to her child when she tells it that it is wicked when it makes a noise; a father lies to his son when he tells him that he will come to a bad end if he smokes any more cigarettes. worse than that they lie by negation. the father changes his 'hell!' into 'hades!' when he hits his thumb with a hammer; the mother says 'tut tut!' when she means 'damnation!' both go to church as an example to their offspring ... and going to church is in most cases a lie. nearly every father of a family says grace before meat, and he generally delays the practice until his first-born is old enough to take notice. then there is the lie about relationship. a child never discovers that its father has about as much love for its mother's aunt as he has for the king of siam.
"convention is one huge lie, margaret. you lift your hat when a coffin goes by; you beg my pardon when i ask you to pass the marmalade; you stand bare-headed when a band plays the national anthem. it's all a lie, dear, a pretty lie perhaps, but a lie all the same. but after all, the manners business is a minor affair; you can't abolish it, and if you try you will only make yourself ridiculous.[pg 195] but the other lies, the hypocritical lies that are told to children ... these are dangerous. an ardent republican will doff his hat when the band plays god save the king, and be none the worse; the unpleasantness that might follow his keeping his hat on his head wouldn't be worth it. but if i pretend to a child that i am above human frailty i am doing a hellish thing that may have devilish consequences."
"your language is awful!" cried margaret in feigned protest.
"i was quoting the ancient mariner, dear; you read it at my evening class, and you have evidently forgotten it. since the beginning of humanity children have been warped by the attitudinising of their elders. a child is imitative always; he hasn't the power to think out biggish things for himself. he is tremendously docile; he will believe almost anything you tell him, and he will accept an older person's pose without question. if one of the village boys were to see macdonald stotting home drunk he would be like the countryman who, when he saw a giraffe for the first time, cried: 'hell!... i don't believe it!' and the sad thing is that they never are able to distinguish between pose and truth. the villagers who used to tell my bairns that i was daft don't realise what pose is; they have never found the right values. when they criticise the minister or the dominie they invariably fasten on the wrong things. they are beginning to criticise macdonald because he insists on a[pg 196] bairn's bringing a written excuse when he has been absent, but they believe in all his poses—his love for respect, his authority, his whackings, his hiding of his pipe when a child is near, his passion for sex morality, his dignity, his ... his frayed frock coat that he wears in school."
"the poor man's only wearing out his old sunday coat!" protested margaret.
"i never thought of that, margaret; i'll cut out the coat. but he shouldn't have a frock coat anyway. when we get married i shall insist on dressing in an old golfing jacket, flannel bags, and a soft collar. the only danger is that men of my stamp are apt to make unconvention conventional. it's a very difficult thing to keep from posing when you are protesting against pose."
"oh! i don't understand the half of what you say," said margaret wearily.
"that means that you think my lips might be better employed, you schemer!" and i ... well, i don't think i need write everything down after all.
* * *
"there was a venter locust at the schule the day," remarked annie. i was brushing my boots at the bothy door, and the girls sat on the step and watched me.
"a what?" i asked.
"a venter locust. ye paid a penny to get in, and jim jackson gaithered the pennies in[pg 197] the mannie's hat and got in for nothing, for he didna put his ain penny in."
"what sort of show was it, annie?"
"he had a muckle doll wi' an awfu' ugly face, and he asked it questions."
"did it answer them?"
"aye. it opened its great big mooth."
"there maybe was a gramaphone inside," suggested gladys.
"jim jackson said that it was the mannie that was speakin' a' the time," said janet.
"jim jackson was bletherin'," said annie with scorn. "aw watched 'im, and his mooth never moved a' the time."
"perhaps he was talking through his hat, annie," i said.
"he wasna," she cried, "for his hat was on the mester's desk fu' o' pennies!"
"well," i ventured, "the proverb says that money talks, you know."
"weel," tittered annie, "there wasna much money to talk, for the pennies was nearly a' hapennies!"
"aw dinna understand how that doll managed to speak," said ellen, and i proceeded to explain the mysteries of ventriloquism to them. then i told them my one ventriloquist yarn.
a broken-down ventriloquist stopped at a village inn one hot day, and stared longingly through the bar door. he hadn't a cent in his pocket. he sat down on the bench and gazed wearily at a stray mongrel dog that[pg 198] had followed him for days. suddenly inspiration came to him. he rose and walked into the bar.
"a pint of beer, mister!" he cried, and pretended to fumble for his money, when the landlord placed the tankard on the bar counter.
the dog looked up into his face.
"here, mister," said the dog, "ain't i going to get one?"
the landlord started.
"that's a remarkable animal," he said with staring eyes.
"pretty smart," said the ventriloquist indifferently.
"i'll—i'll buy that dog," said the landlord eagerly; "i'll give you five pounds for him."
the ventriloquist considered for a while.
"all right," he said at length, "i hate to part with an old friend like him, but i must live, and i have no money."
the landlord counted out the five sovereigns, and the ventriloquist drank up his beer and made for the door.
"better come round and take hold of the dog," he said, "or he'll follow me."
the landlord lifted the bar-flap and took hold of the dog by the collar.
at the door the ventriloquist looked back. the dog gazed at him.
"you brute," it cried, "you've sold me for vulgar gold. i swear that i'll never speak again."
i paused.
[pg 199]
"and, you know, girls, he never did."
"eh," cried janet, "what a shame! the public-hoose mannie wud leather the puir beast to mak' it speak."
"that's the real point of the story, jan. a story is no good unless it leaves something to the imagination."
"the mester gae us a story to write for composition the day," said annie. "it was aboot a boy that was after a job and a' the boys were lined up and they had to go in to see the man, and he had a bible lyin' on the floor, and a' the lads steppit over it, but this laddie he pickit it up and got the job."
"that's what you call a story with a moral, annie. it is meant to teach you a lesson. the best stories have no morals ... neither have the people who listen to them."
"we had to write the story," said ellen, "and syne we had to tell why the boy got the job. aw said it was becos he was a guid boy and went to the sunday schule."
"aw said it was becos he was a pernikity sort o' laddie that liked things to be tidy," said gladys.
annie laughed.
"aw said the man was maybe a fat man that cudna bend doon to pick it up. what did you say, jan?"
"aw dinna mind," said janet ruefully, "but when the mester cried me oot for speakin', aw picked up a geography book on the floor, just to mak the mester think that aw[pg 200] had learned a lesson frae his story, but he gae me a slap on the lug for wastin' time comin' oot."
"jim jackson got three scuds wi' the strap for his story," said annie.
"ah!" i cried, "what did he write?"
"he said that the laddie maybe hadna a hankie, and his nose was needin' dichted and he didna like to let the man see him dichtin' it wi' the sleeve o' his jaicket, so he bent doon to pick up the bible and dicht his nose on the sly at the same time."
"yes," i said sadly, "that's jim jacksonese, pure and simple. poor lad!"
"the mester said he was a vulgar fellow," said janet.
"a low-minded something or other, he ca'ed him," said gladys.
"but he didna greet when he got the strap," said annie, "he just sniffed thro' his nose and—and dichted it wi' his sleeve."
i knew then that all the macdonalds in creation couldn't conquer my jim.
