Children of the rich -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
Judge Torrey succeeded Whitney as chairman of the overseers of Tecumseh
and in the vacant trusteeship of the Ranger bequest. Soon Dr. Hargrave,
insisting that he was too old for the labors of the presidency of such a
huge and varied institution as the university had become, was made
honorary president, and his son, still in Europe, was elected chairman of
the faculty. Toward the middle of a fine afternoon in early September Dr.
Hargrave and his daughter-in-law drove to the railway station in the
ancient and roomy phaeton which was to Saint X as much part of his
personality as the aureole of glistening white hair that framed his
majestic head, or as the great plaid shawl that had draped his big
shoulders with their student stoop every winter day since anyone could
remember. Despite his long exposure to the temptation to sink into the
emasculate life of unapplied intellect, mere talker and writer, and to
adopt that life's flabby ideals, he had remained the man of ideas, the
man of action. His learning was all but universal, yet he had the rugged,
direct vigor of the man of affairs. His was not the knowledge that
enfeebles, but the knowledge that empowers. As his son, the new executive
of the university--with the figure of a Greek athlete, with positive
character, will as well as intellect, stamped upon his young
face--appeared in the crowd, the onlookers had the sense that a
"somebody" had arrived. Dory's always was the air an active mind never
fails to give; as Judge Torrey once said: "You've only got to look at him
to see he's the kind that does things, not the kind that tells how they
used to be done or how they oughtn't to be done." Now there was in his
face and bearing the subtly but surely distinguishing quality that comes
only with the strength a man gets when his fellows acknowledge his
leadership, when he has seen the creations of his brain materialize in
work accomplished. Every successful man has this look, and shows it
according to his nature--the arrogant arrogantly; the well-balanced with
tranquil unconsciousness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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