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.
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