HOLDEN: Not so much because they created beauty, but because they were able to let beauty flow into their lives--to create themselves in beauty. So as a romantic young man (_smiles_), it seemed if I could go where they had been--what I had felt might take form. Anyway, I had a wonderful time there. Oh, what wouldn't I give to have again that feeling of life's infinite possibilities! FEJEVARY: (_nodding_) A youthful feeling. HOLDEN: (_softly_) I like youth. Well, I was just back, visiting my sister here, at the time of the tenth anniversary. I had a chance then to go to Harvard as instructor. A good chance, for I would have been under a man who liked me. But that afternoon I heard your father speak about books. I talked with Silas Morton. I found myself telling him about Greece. No one had ever felt it as he felt it. It seemed to become of the very bone of him. FEJEVARY: (_affectionately_) I know how he used to do. HOLDEN: He put his hands on my shoulders. He said, 'Young man, don't go away. We need you here. Give us this great thing you've got!' And so I stayed, for I felt that here was soil in which I could grow, and that one's whole life was not too much to give to a place with roots like that. (_a little bitterly_) Forgive me if this seems rhetoric. FEJEVARY: (_a gesture of protest. Silent a moment_) You make it--hard for me. (_with exasperation_) Don't you think I'd like to indulge myself in an exalted mood? And why don't I? I can't afford it--not now. Won't you have a little patience? And faith--faith that the thing we want will be there for us after we've worked our way through the woods. We are in the woods now. It's going to take our combined brains to get us out. I don't mean just Morton College. HOLDEN: No--America. As to getting out, I think you are all wrong. FEJEVARY: That's one of your sweeping statements, Holden. Nobody's all wrong. Even you aren't. HOLDEN: And in what ways am I wrong--from the standpoint of your Senator Lewis? FEJEVARY: He's not my Senator Lewis, he's the state's, and we have to take him as he is. Why, he objects, of course, to your radical activities. He spoke of your defence of conscientious objectors. HOLDEN: (_slowly_) I think a man who is willing to go to prison for what he believes has stuff in him no college needs turn its back on. FEJEVARY: Well, he doesn't agree with you--nor do I. HOLDEN: (_still quietly_) And I think a society which permits things to go on which I can prove go on in our federal prisons had better stop and take a fresh look at itself. To stand for that and then talk of democracy and idealism--oh, it shows no mentality, for one thing. FEJEVARY: (_easily_) I presume the prisons do need a cleaning up. As to Fred Jordan, you can't expect me to share your admiration. Our own Fred--my nephew Fred Morton, went to France and gave his life. There's some little courage, Holden, in doing that.