And they talked — always they talked, under the trees, against the ivied walls, assembled in their rooms, they talked — in limp sprawls — incessant, charming, empty Southern talk; they talked with a large easy fluency about God, the Devil, and philosophy, the girls, politics, athletics, fraternities and the girls — My God! how they talked!
“Observe,” lisped Mr. Torrington, the old Rhodes Scholar (Pulpit Hill and Merton, ‘14), “observe how skilfully he holds suspense until the very end.
Observe with what consummate art he builds up to his climax, keeping his meaning hidden until the very last word.”
Further, in fact.
At last, thought Eugene, I am getting an education.
This must be good writing, because it seems so very dull.
When it hurts, the dentist says, it does you good.
Democracy must be real, because it is so very earnest.
It must be a certainty, because it is so elegantly embalmed in this marble mausoleum of language.
Essays For College Men — Woodrow Wilson, Lord Bryce and Dean Briggs.
But there was no word here of the loud raucous voice of America, political conventions and the Big Brass Band, Tweed, Tammany, the Big Stick, lynching bees and black barbecue parties, the Boston Irish, and the damnable machinations of the Pope as exposed by the Babylon Hollow Trumpet (Dem.), the rape of the Belgian virgins, rum, oil, Wall Street and Mexico.
All that, Mr. Torrington would have said, was temporary and accidental.
It was unsound.
Mr. Torrington smiled moistly at Eugene and urged him tenderly into a chair drawn intimately to his desk.
“Mr. —? Mr. —? —” he said, fumbling at his index cards.
“Gant,” said Eugene.
“Ah, yes — Mr. Gant,” he smiled his contrition.
“Now — about your outside reading?” he began.
But what, thought Eugene, about my inside reading?
Did he like to read?
Ah — that was good.
He was so glad to hear it.
The true university in these days, said Carlyle (he did hope Eugene liked rugged old Thomas), was a collection of books.
“Yes, sir,” said Eugene.
That, it seemed to him, was the Oxford Plan.
Oh, yes — he had been there, three years, in fact.
His mild eye kindled.
To loaf along the High on a warm Spring day, stopping to examine in the bookseller’s windows the treasures that might be had for so little.
Then to Buol’s or to a friend’s room for tea, or for a walk in the meadows or Magdalen gardens, or to look down into the quad, at the gay pageant of youth below.
Ah — Ah!
A great place?
Well — he’d hardly say that.
It all depended what one meant by a great place.
Half the looseness in thought — unfortunately, he fancied, more prevalent among American than among English youth — came from an indefinite exuberance of ill-defined speech.
“Yes, sir,” said Eugene.
A great place?
Well, he’d scarcely say that.
The expression was typically American.
Butter-lipped, he turned on the boy a smile of soft unfriendliness:
“It kills,” he observed, “a man’s useless enthusiasms.”
Eugene whitened a little.
“That’s fine,” he said.
Now — let him see.
Did he like plays — the modern drama?
Excellent.
They were doing some very interesting things in the modern drama.
Barrie — oh, a charming fellow!
What was that?
Shaw!
“Yes, sir,” said Eugene.