Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth
John Stuart Mill · en
Sir Hugh bore this juvenile impertinence with unshaken good humour. But
the spirits of Lionel were too mutinous for such lenity: he grew bolder
in his attacks, and more fearless of consequences; and in a very short
time, his uncle seemed to him little more than the butt at which he
might level the shafts of his rising triumph; till tired, at length,
though not angry, the baronet applied to Dr. Orkborne, and begged he
would teach him, out of hand, some small little smattering of Latin
sentences, by which he might make the young pedant think better of him.
Dr. Orkborne complied, and wrote him a few brief exercises; but these,
after toiling day and night to learn, he pronounced so ill, and so
constantly mis-applied, that, far from impressing his fellow-labourer
with more respect, the moment he uttered a single word of his new
lesson, the boy almost rolled upon the floor with convulsive merriment.
Sir Hugh, with whom these phrases neither lost nor gained by mistaking
one word for another, appealed to Dr. Orkborne to remedy what he
conceived to be an unaccountable failure. Dr. Orkborne, absorbed in his
new personal pursuit, to which he daily grew more devoted, was earnest
to be as little as possible interrupted, and therefore only advised him
to study his last lesson, before he pressed for any thing new.
Study, however, was unavailing, and he heard this injunction with
despair; but finding it constantly repeated upon every application for
help, he was seized again with a horror of the whole attempt, and begged
to consult with Mr. Tyrold.
'This gentleman you have recommended to me for my tutor,' he cried, 'is
certainly a great scholar; I don't mean to doubt that the least in the
world, being no judge: and he is complaisant enough too, considering all
that; but yet I have rather a suspicion he is afraid I shall make no
hand of it; which is a thing so disheartening to a person in the line of
improvement, that, to tell you the honest truth, I am thinking of giving
the whole up at a blow; for, Lord help me! what shall I be the better
for knowing Latin and Greek? It's not worth a man's while to think of
it, after being a boy. And so, if you please, I'd rather you'd take
Lionel home again.'
Mr. Tyrold agreed; but asked what he meant to do further concerning the
Doctor?
'Why that, brother, is the very thing my poor ignorant head wants your
advice for: because, as to that plan about our learning all together, I
see it won't do; for either the boys will grow up to be no better
scholars than their uncle, which is to say, none at all; or else they'll
hold everybody cheap, when they meet with a person knowing nothing; so
I'll have no more hand in it. And I shall really be glad enough to get
such a thing off my mind; for it's been weight enough upon it from the
beginning.'