The Voice of the People

o hid her merriment in her curls. There were several
other children in the room, but Nicholas did not see them distinctly.
Something had got before his eyes and there was a lump in his throat. He
sat rigidly in his seat, his straw hat, with the shoestring around the
crown, lying upon the desk before him. He looked neither to the right
nor to the left, keeping his frightened gaze upon the tutor's face.

Mr. Graves asked him a few questions, which he could not answer, and
then, giving him a book, turned to the other children. As the lessons
went on it seemed to Nicholas that he had never known anything in his
life; that he should never know anything; and that he should always
remain the most ignorant person on earth--unless that lot fell to Sairy
Jane.

The difficulties besetting the path of knowledge appeared to be
insurmountable. Even if he had the books and the time he could never
learn anything--his head would prevent it.

"Bound Beloochistan, Tom," said the tutor, and Tom, a stout, fair-haired
boy with a heavy face, went through the process to the satisfaction of
Mr. Graves and to the amazement of Nicholas.

The office was a plain, square room, containing, besides the desks and
tables, an old secretary and a corner cupboard of an antique pattern,
which held an odd assortment of cracked china and chemist bottles. There
was also a square mahogany chest, called the wine-cellar, which had been
sent from the dining-room when the last bottle of Tokay was opened to
drink the health of the Confederacy.

Before the war the place had been used by the judge as a general
business room, but when the slaves were freed and there were fewer
servants it was found to be little needed, and was finally given over
entirely to the children's school.

When recess came the tutor left the office, telling Nicholas that he
might go home with the little girls if he liked. "I shall try to have
the books you need by to-morrow," he said, and, his natural amiability
overcoming his assumed superciliousness

John Addington Symonds (October 5, 1840 - April 19, 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. He was an early advocate of the validity of male love which included for him pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships, and which he would refer to as lamour de limpossible.

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