"Come, my boy," continued Stanton, as if ashamed at himself for his outburst, and putting his hand on my shoulder, "you're a good sort of boy, after all ... you have so much in you, so much energy and power ... why don't you put it to right uses?... after your father has made such sacrifices for you, I hate to see you run off to a ravelled edge like this. "Even yet, if you'll only promise to behave and preserve a proper dignity in the presence of the other students--even yet we would be glad to have you stay and graduate ... and we might be able to procure you a scholarship at Harvard or Princeton or Yale or Brown. Lang says you put yourself into the spirit of Homer like an old Greek, always doing more work than the requirements,--and Dunn says, that you show him things in Vergil that he never saw before." Moved, I shook my head sadly. I hated myself for liking these people. "If you mean that I should be like other people ... I just can't ... it's neither pose nor affectation." (He had intimated that some of the professors alleged that as the core of the trouble.) "I guess I don't belong here ... yes, it would be better for me to go away!" * * * * * That night, unobserved, I stole into the chapel that stood on the Crest of the hill, against the infinite stars. I spent nearly all the night in the chapel, alone. The place was full of things. I felt there all the gods that ever were worshipped ... and all the great spirits of mankind. And I perceived fully how silly, weak, grotesque, and vain I was; and yet, how big and wonderful, it would be to swim counter, as I meant, to the huge, swollen, successful currents of the commercial, bourgeois practicality of present-day America. * * * * * I pinned up a sign on the bulletin board in the hall, in rhyme, announcing, that, that afternoon, at four o'clock, John Gregory would hold an auction of his books of poetry. * * * * * My room was crowded with amused students. I mounted the table, like an auctioneer, while they sat on my cot and on the floor, and crowded the door. At first the boys jeered and pushed. But when I started selling my copy of Byron and telling about his life, they fell into a quiet, and listened. After I had made that talk, they clapped me. Byron went for a dollar, fetching the largest price. I sold my Shelley, my Blake, my Herrick, my Marvell, my Milton ... all.... My Keats I could not bring myself to sell. I kept that like a treasure. What I could not sell I gave away. My entire capital was ten dollars ... one suit of clothes ... a change of underwear ... two shirts. I discarded my trunk and crammed what little I owned into my battered suitcase. That night, the story of my dismissal from school having travelled about from mouth to mouth, and the tale of my poets' auction--the boys cheered me, as I came into the dining hall--cheered me partly affectionately, partly derisively.