Johnson said to the lady in Fleet Street; 'No, no; it won't do, my
girl!'"
LXVI
OF DISCIPLINE
"Well, anyhow," said Vincent at dinner, commenting on something that had
been said, "you may not get anything else out of a disagreeable affair like
that, but you get a sort of discipline."
"Come, hold on," said Father Payne; "that won't do, you know! Discipline,
in my belief, is in itself a bad thing, unless you not only get something
out of it, but, what is more, know what you get out of it. You can't
discipline anyone, unless he desires it! Discipline means the repressing of
something--you must be quite sure that it is worth repressing."
"What I mean," said Vincent, "is that it makes you tougher and harder."
"Yes," said Father Payne, "but that is not a good thing in itself, unless
there is something soft and weak in you. Discipline may easily knock the
good things out of you. There's a general kind of belief that, because the
world is a rough place, where you may get tumbles and shocks without any
fault of your own, therefore it is as well to have something rough about
you. I don't believe in that. The reason why a man gets roughly handled, in
nine cases out of ten, is not because he is obnoxious or offensive, but
because other people are harsh and indifferent. I want to apply discipline
to the brutal, not to brutalise the sensitive. If discipline simply made
people brave and patient, it would be different, but it often makes them
callous and unpleasant.
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