I shall do this joy-song much better than I did the song of sorrow and despair." "Like Davidson's 'Ballad of a Nun,'" I said, for the sake of saying something.
"Naturally Davidson would write the 'Ballad of a Nun,' Frank; his talent is Scotch and severe; but I should like to write 'The Ballad of a Fisher Boy,'" and he fell to dreaming.
The thought of his punishment was oft with him.

It seemed to him hideously wrong and unjust.

But he never questioned the right of society to punish.

He did not see that, if you once grant that, the wrong done to him could be defended.
"I used to think myself a lord of life," he said.

"How dared those little wretches condemn me and punish me?
Everyone of them tainted with a sensuality which I loathe." To call him out of this bitter way of regret I quoted Shakespeare's sonnet: "For why should others' false adulterate eyes Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, Which in their wills count bad what I think good ?" "His complaint is exactly yours, Oscar." "It's astonishing, Frank, how well you know him, and yet you deny his intimacy with Pembroke.