regarding the latter's partiality towards Keesje,
the butcher's son. But that fiery feeling for right and justice
which has harrassed me from my earliest youth--ah, for years have I
waited in vain for justice--and the foolish passion for hunting after
mitigating circumstances, even when the misdeed has been proved--all
this compels me to say that Pennewip's lot might be considered a
mitigating circumstance for a man convicted of the eight deadly sins.

I have found that many great men began their careers as feeders of
hogs (see biographical encyclopedias); and it seems to me that this
occupation develops those qualities necessary in ruling or advancing
mankind.

If the theologists should happen to criticise this story, and perhaps
accuse me of far-reaching ignorance, because I enumerate one cardinal
sin more than they knew of, or of the crime of classifying man as
a sort of hog, I reply that, still another new canonical sin could
be discovered that they have never studied. And that ought to be as
pleasing to them as influenza is to the apothecary.

New problems, gentlemen, new problems!

And as for our relationship with pigs, just consider the relation
of coal to diamond, and I think everyone will be satisfied--even
the theologists.

What a magnificent prospect anyone has who spends his tender youth
with those grunting coal-diamonds of the animal world! But I have
often wondered that in the "Lives of Famous Men" we so seldom read of
a school-teacher, for in the school all the ingredients of greatness
are abounding.

The reverse is more often true. Every day we see banished princes
teaching lazy boys. Dionysius and Louis Philippe are not the only
ones. I myself once tried to teach an American French. It was no go.

If it should ever become customary again to elect kings, I hope the
people will elect such persons as have studied men, just as one studies
Geography on globes or maps. All virtues, propensities, passions,
mistakes, misdeeds, knowledge of which is so indispensable in human
society, can be studied much better in the schoolroom. The field is
restricted, and can be taken in more readily. The famous statecraft
of many a great man, if the truth were known, had its origin in that
old tripping trick, which is everything to the three-foot Machiavellis.

The task of a schoolmaster is not an easy one. I have never understood
why he is not better paid, or, since this must be so, why there are
still men who pre