This sort of incident cannot happen when one cuts lectures to go on the river in the morning. And one does more work. You take your Plato’s “Phædo,” and you really enjoy it. If there’s any word you don’t know, you leave it; if there’s any sentence you can’t understand, you don’t worry about it; and if there’s any word you _can_ understand, it goes home to you more. That’s the right spirit. That’s the way the ancient Greeks took their language. What did they know about dictionaries and grammars and cribs? And then, after a couple of minutes, one pitches the “Phædo” into the bows of the boat, and a great Peace falls on one’s soul. My Better Self does not agree with me on these points; but I had words with my Better Self this morning, and since then we have not been on speaking terms. I find it impossible to convince my Better Self of great truths; I could deceive my Better Self, which is a common practice, but I will not do it. I have seen men do it; and I have been very, very sorry for them. I have known a man, who had previously been honest, commence to keep an average of the amount of work he did _per diem_. The way he faked that average would have brought a blush to the cheek of the chartered libertine, and made the chartered accountant moan for humanity. The first week gave a daily average of 2 hours 20·5 minutes. In the second week we were asked to believe that he had done rather more than ten hours a day. That man drives a cab now: self-deception never pays. Another man, who was quite a friend of mine, liked pork chops. He pretended that he didn’t, and made himself believe that he didn’t. Why? Simply and solely because he once wrote a poem--and published it--which began: Darling, thy hot kiss lingers on my lips. Before he wrote that poem, he used to feed almost entirely on pork chops. After it was published, he pretended that a little ripe fruit was all he needed. What’s become of him? What do you suppose? Trichinosis, of course. It’s much better to be perfectly honest. The worst case of all was last May. A man made himself believe that he loved Bradelby’s sister, and he never got any better. He just pined away and married her. Perhaps you don’t realise what that means, but you never met Bradelby’s sister. I met her. She sat down at the piano, and stroked it as if it were a lap-dog. She was quite tender in her movements, and she sang: Once in the deeeeer dead dyes beyond recall. Shortly afterwards she said that she wanted to live a useful life. That sort of thing stamps a woman. * * * * *