[_As a voice calls_, "Nathaniel, are you up there?" _Nathaniel looks at Letitia._ NATHANIEL His voice is just the same. (_Calling_) Yes, John, I am up here. [_The antagonism between the two brothers is apparent immediately._ _John Clay enters. He is an austere, pompous man of fifty who has the softness of the tithe-collector and the hardness of the tax-collector. He speaks with an adamantine finality which is destined to rude shattering._ JOHN How do you do, Nathaniel? NATHANIEL I am very well, I thank you, John. How are you? [_They shake hands perfunctorily._ JOHN You arrived ahead of time. NATHANIEL Yes. JOHN We haven't met for seventeen years. NATHANIEL No. I've been away, John. JOHN Where have you been? NATHANIEL I shall be here for two weeks, John, and if I should tell you all about myself today, I should have nothing to talk about tomorrow. JOHN (_severely_) You haven't changed, Nathaniel. You are still frivolous. NATHANIEL I shall be serious when I am your age, brother. JOHN I came out here to ask you to be very careful of your conversation before the children. NATHANIEL The children? JOHN Yes, my two grandchildren.-- NATHANIEL Grandchildren! My, that makes me a great uncle. I _am_ getting old, Aunt Letitia! JOHN I do not care to have them or Jonathan hear about any revolutionary or other unusual ideas. NATHANIEL I shall try not to contaminate the children and Jonathan. How old are the children? JOHN Mary is four and John 3rd is two. NATHANIEL I shall try to spare their sensibilities. JOHN They may not understand you but they will hear. NATHANIEL (_to Letitia_) How old is Jonathan? LETITIA Fourteen. NATHANIEL The impressionable age. JOHN The silly age. NATHANIEL Brother John, no age is the silly age. Fourteen is the age of visions and enchantments and fears. What a boy of fourteen sees and hears takes on a value that we cannot underestimate. Most men are defeated in life between fourteen and twenty. At fourteen a boy begins to make a lens through which he sees life. He thinks about everything. Ambition is beginning to stir in him and he begins to know why he likes things, why he wants to do certain things. He formulates lasting plans for the future and he takes in impressions that are indelible. Things that seem nothing to old people become memories to him that affect his whole life. The memory of a smile may encourage him to surmount all obstacles and the memory of a bitterness may act as an eternal barrier. JOHN Nathaniel, are you a father? NATHANIEL No, John, I am only a bachelor who is very much in love with life in general and one lady in particular. JOHN You can know nothing of children, then. NATHANIEL I remember myself. Most men forget their younger selves and that is fatal. JOHN One would think to hear you talk that the most important things in life were a boy of fourteen and his moorings. NATHANIEL One might know it. JOHN