Very little of the oil had been burned, but Stephen Blaine had been rather badly singed. In the case of Beatrice’s money this was not so pronounced, but it was obvious that his father had devoted the previous year to several unfortunate gambles in oil.In a good-natured way he had almost decided that Princeton was one part deadly Philistines and one part deadly grinds, and to find a person who could mention Keats without stammering, yet evidently washed his hands, was rather a treat.“That however the brains and abilities of men may differ, their stomachs are essentially the same.” “The truth is that the public has done one of those startling and amazing things that they do about once in a hundred years.There was no God in his heart, he knew his ideas were still in riot there was ever the pain of memory the regret for his lost youth - yet the waters of disillusion had left a deposit on his soul, responsibility and a love of life, the faint stirring of old ambitions and unrealized dreams."I know myself," he cried, "but that is all - " He stretched his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky.Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.And he could not tell why the struggle was worth while, why he had determined to use the utmost himself and his heritage from the personalities he has passed.The more strong lights, the more spiritual scandal you can throw on the matter, the more money they pay you, the more the people buy the issue. What's your business? Why, to be as clever, as interesting, and as brilliantly cynical as possible about every man, doctrine, book, or policy that is assigned you to deal with. Look at you you're on The New Democracy, considered the most brilliant weekly in the country, read by the men who do things and all that.People get sick of hearing the same name over and over. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher - a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard.A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.He doesn't believe that public swimming-pools and a kind word in time will right the wrongs of the world moreover, he takes a drink whenever he feels like it.If living isn't seeking for the grail it may be a damned amusing game. I've thought I was right about life at various times, but faith is difficult. Even if, deep in my heart, I thought we were all blind atoms in a world as limited as a stroke of a pendulum, I and my sort would struggle against tradition try, at least, to displace old cants with new ones. I simply state that I'm a product of a versatile mind in a restless generation - with every reason to throw my mind and pen in with the radicals.They tear me, teach me, strew the heavy air Heavier winds that stir the veil of fate, Wait for the mists and for the blacker rain. With its new air the breath of sunken seas The body of the darker storm flies brings
People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard.
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