"Well, you're not in Sociology or Economics. Still, don't trifle with a long-established aesthetic idol either. Trustees--and department heads--are conservative." "Oh, you mean about----?" "About your immortal William. He wrote them. Don't try to rob him. Don't try to knock him off his pedestal." "Oh, you're thinking about my thesis. What I said about Warwickshire was just a little flight of fancy, I guess,--a bit of doorstep travel. I'm likely enough to stay where I am." "Well, how about the thesis, really?" "I think I shall end by digging something out of Here and Now. 'Our Middle-West School of Fiction,'--what would you think of that?" "H'm! If you can make it seem worth while...." "Well, can't I?" "Your work, from the very nature of it, must be critical. Now the critic, nine times out of ten, takes down a volume from its established shelf, dusts it off, ruffles the leaves a bit, and then puts it back where it was. The ruffling is sometimes very nice and interesting and often gives the ruffler a good position in the glorious company of earlier rufflers----" "I shouldn't be satisfied with anything like that. Things have got to move. I want to take some recent, less-known men and put _them_ on the shelves." "Yet you don't want to waste work on material which time may show as of transient value, or of none." "A fellow must chance it. Who gives quickly gives twice;--I suppose that applies to praise as well as to money. It irks me to find more praise bestowed on the praised-enough,--even on groups of secondary importance, sometimes just because they are remote (in England, perhaps), and so can be treated with an easy objectivity. To dig in your own day and your own community is harder, but I should feel it more rewarding." "But aren't the English books really better? Haven't they more depth, substance and background?" "Possibly,--according to the conventions they themselves have established--and according to the society they depict." "Well, Academe hasn't nailed you yet!" "No; and I hope it won't. I should like to write a whole book about our new men." "But don't write a thesis and then expect to publish it with profit _as_ a book. That's a common enough expectation--or temptation." They turned away from the lake terrace and the imposing coal-pile. Cope, Randolph saw, was in quite a glow; a generous interest had touched him, putting fresh light into his eyes and a new vigor into his step. He had displayed a charming enthusiasm, and a pure, disinterested one. Randolph, under a quiet exterior, was delighted. He liked the boy better than ever, and felt more than ever prompted to attach him to himself. "How are you pleased with your present quarters?" he asked, as they returned through the Botany court. He thought of the narrow couch, the ink-spotted cover on the deal table, the few coats and shoes (they _couldn't_ be many) behind that calico curtain.