Finlay’s Casebook The Resolution that Went Wrong Though poets have assured us that man is the master of his fate, and novelists presented us with heroes who, having once set their teeth, grimly pursue their purpose to the bitter end – in reality things don’t happen that way. Life makes sport even of those gentlemen who so splendidly clench their molars; and, in spite of the poet’s assertion to the contrary, the bloody head is almost always bowed. It would be pleasant to exhibit Finlay in the best Victorian tradition – a strong and silent youth whose glittering pledges were never unfulfilled. But Finlay was human. Finlay had as much to put up with as you or I. And, often as not, circumstances played spillikins with his most fervent resolutions. One afternoon, some months after he had come to Levenford, he was sitting in the surgery doing nothing. He was, in fact, quite glad to be doing nothing, for his morning round had been arduous, his lunch heavy and late.
