The Journal of a Disappointed Man

December 31. A Conversation "There is that easily calculable element in your nature, dear boy," I said, "by which you forego the dignity of a free-willed human being and come under an inflexible natural law. I can anticipate your movements, intentions, and opinions long beforehand. For example, I know quite well that every Saturday morning will see you with The New Statesman under your arm; I know that the words 'Wagner' or 'Shaw' uttered slowly and deliberately in your ear will produce a perfectly definite reaction." "I bet you can't predict what I am going to buy now," R---- replied gaily, advancing to the newspaper stall. He bought the Pink 'Un and I laughed.... "And so you read Pragmatism," he mused, "while the fate of the Empire stands in the balance." "Yes," said I, "and the Paris Academy of Sciences were discussing the functions of θ and the Polymorphism of Antarctic diatoms last September when the Germans stood almost at the gates of Paris." This was a lucky stroke for me, for he knew he was rubbing me on the raw. We are, of course, great friends, but sometimes we get on one another's nerves. "I am polychromatic," I declaimed, "rhetorical, bass. You--besides being a bally fool--are of a pretty gray colour, a baritone and you paint in water-colours." "Whereas you, of course, would paint in blood?" he answered facetiously. His Oxford education has a firm hold on him. He says for example, "e converso" instead of "on the other hand" and "entre nous" for "between ourselves." He labels his paragraphs α, β, γ, instead of a, b, c, and quotes Juvenal, knows Paris and Naples, visits the Alps for the winter sports, all in the approved manner of dons.