270325that they were all sinkingin a waste of waters.He liked to think so.Sometimes for a moment James felt that he alone understood theirritation & the why he was so violent & so moody & so iradespondent - it was because the world had was like this - running wildseas round stark rocks, & people went on saying no: it issweet & cloudy & soft.[But it was hard, & it was bitter, & it was wild;& for his own part, he thanked goodness he had sixty or seventyyears before him in which to do battle with it.He would uprootthat devil -] [So he went about in those dismal places,& stood up, very straight, & condemned vice & frivolity.]But he genuinely believed.And that was what he admired in hisBut hisfather f said no: & his father believed that they were all sinking in awaste of waters. He was like some old co sea bird hunched upon a rock.There he sat reading his book with his legs curled round,He was aloof from them all, & sometimes James felt that hisquite content.He didnot want pity or affection or care, orThey should have left him alone.any of the things he seemed to want, he wanted to be left aloneon his rock, & then he would sail out into the air, &then he would plunge, like a stone.And he should never haveAnd then nobody would have hated him, as Jamesnothad hatedhim& yet, he thought, he had never hated his fatherWhat he hadhated had been theFor he did not hate him now.He understood quite well now - that he wanted to be left inpeace to read his book.What was his book?Aristotle, Plato, Greek was it?It was Greek, Cam thought; some foreign language anyhow.Greek or Latin probably.It was a little book with a mottledcover which he alwaysslipped into his pocket when he travelled.He always read when they travelled.Hours & hours seemed to