There is
a certain awkward squad--too easily identified--who have been drafted again
and again into service only to be in the way of every skilled manoeuvre,
only to be mustered out as raw recruits at the very end of life. And,
finally, there is a miscellaneous crowd of our faculties scattered far and
near at their humdrum peaceful occupations; so that if a quick call for war
be heard, these do but behave as a populace that rushes into a street to
gaze at the national guard already marching past, some of the spectators not
even grateful, not even cheering.
All that day John had to fight a battle for which he had never been trained;
moreover he had been compelled to divide his forces: there was the far-off
solemn battle going on in his private thoughts; and there was the usual
siege of duties in the school. For once he would gladly have shirked the
latter; but the single compensation he always tried to wrest from the
disagreeable things of life was to do them in such a way that they would
never fester in his conscience like thorns broken off in the flesh.
During the forenoon, therefore, by an effort which only those who have
experienced it can understand, he ordered off all communication with larger
troubles and confined himself in that stifling prison-house of the mind
where the perplexities and toils of childhood become enormous and everything
else in the world grows small.
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