Dr. Scannell has this year taken over Senior Pass Latin class, who are so bad and lazy that the name has become a proverb, and every day there is murder during the class. A few days ago he called them a gang in the History class, and they took it up literally and formed one with Joe Ganley as President, Hunt as Secretary, etc. Their motto is Vive le canaille! and they have a Mirabeau and a Philippe Egalité amongst them. We of the Honours class are the Aristos, and we have the best of sport fighting, and having hurling matches, in factions. Vive le canaille! Vive les aristos!! – Got No. 18 ‘Lands and Peoples’ It is fine, dealing with Crete, Persia and 6 South American Republics. – Whenever I hear Mám play ‘St Francis Preaching to the Birds’ I get a sort of indefinable loneliness, and think of the sad desolate stretch of sand by Howth with the curlews and the gulls and their sad cries. It [was] two years ago when Mám and I were in Dublin for 2 weeks, when she gave a wonderful Liszt recital. That must be the connection.
