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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