This Side of Paradise

arly to know the time, for something in his mind that catalogued and classified liked to chip things off cleanly. Later it would satisfy him in a vague way to be able to think "that thing

motional crisis and Rosalind's abrupt decision-the strain of it had drugged the foreground of his mind into a merciful coma. As he fum

, Amo

known at Princeton; he

y-" he heard h

Wilson-you'v

bet, Jim. I

to re

ly he realized that he w

overs

ping back to let some one pass, he knocked

muttered. "H

omatic, reached over and

ad plenty

ntil Wilson grew embarr

mory finally. "I haven

ooked in

or not?" cried

they soug

e h

st take

displaced by Carling, class of '15. Amory, his head spinning gorgeously, layer upon layer of sof

King Cole, "got be Prussian 'bout ev'thing, women 'specially. Use' be straight 'bout women college. Now don'givadam." He expressed his lack of principle by sweeping a seltzer bo

t Amory, waxing br

n' wonder-" He became so emphatic in impressing on Carling the fact that he didn't wonder that he lost t

ou celebrat

forward con

Great moment blow my life

ddressing a remark

a bromo-

his head i

that s

re making yourself sick.

elf in the mirror but even by squinting up one eye coul

id. We go get s

halance, but letting go of the bar was too

ley's," suggested Carl

o get his legs in motion enough to p

el. He consumed three club sandwiches, devouring each as though it were no larger than a chocolate-drop. Then Rosalind began popping into his mind again, and he found

ling was saying something ab

to articulate drowsi

ALCO

. His head was whirring and picture after picture was forming and blurring and melting before his eyes, but

at hotel

l right, send up t

bottle or just two of those little glass containers. Then, with

ar boy with the drinks and had a sudden desire to kid him. On reflec

nema reel of the day before. Again he saw Rosalind curled weeping among the pillows, again he felt her tear

llapsed on the bed in a shaken spasm of grief. After

ther glass he gave way loosely to the luxury of tears. Purposely he called up into his mind little incidents

very happy." Then he gave way again and knelt b

girl-my

that the tears streamed

u... need you... we're so pitiful ... just misery we brought each other.... She'll be shut aw

hen a

o happy, so v

y exhausted while he realized slowly that he had been very drunk the night before, and t

ng to recite "Clair de Lune" at luncheon; then he slept in a big, soft chair until almost five o'clock when another crowd found and woke him; there followed an alcoholic dressing of several temperaments for the ordeal of dinner. They selected theatre tickets

of the number of high-balls he drank, grew quite lucid and garrulous. He found that the party consisted of five men, two of whom he knew slightly; he became r

mself... this involved him in an argument, first with her escort and then with the headwaiter-Amory's attitude being a lofty

t suicide," he an

Next

take a room at the Commodore, ge

etting

another ry

talk it ove

o be dissuaded, fro

way?" he demanded con

ur

ft

ronic

d that in his opinion it was when one's health was bad that one felt that way most. Amory's suggestion was that they should each order a Bronx, mix broken glass in it, and drink it off. To his relief no one applau

to him, a pretty woman, with brown,

home!"

aid Amory,

" she announ

ke yo

man in the background and that one

onfided the blue-eyed woman. "I hat

eried Amory wit

odded

he advised gravely

the background broke away fro

I brought this girl out he

oldly, while the gir

at girl!" crie

o make his ey

cted finally, and turned

sight," he

and nestled close to him. S

over and spoke

he's drunk and this fellow here

shouted Amory furiously. "I'm no

her

ng on, damn it!

bent back Margaret Diamond's fingers until she released her hold on Amory, whereupon she s

d!" crie

t's

taxis are ge

k, wa

y. Your roma

y la

e you spoke. No idea. '

THE LABOR

the president's door at Bascome

me

tered un

ng, Mr.

e inspection and set his mouth sligh

We haven't seen you

Amory. "I'm

well-t

t like

ite-ah-pleasant. You seemed to be a hard worker

whether Harebell's flour was any better than any one else's. In fact, I never ate a

teeled by several i

d for a p

ed him to

erpaid. Thirty-five dollars a w

ou'd never worked before

e your darned stuff for you. Anyway, as far as length of service goes, y

ue with you, sir," sa

ust wanted to tell

t each other impassively and then

TTLE

engaged on a book review for The New Democracy on the staff of whic

el

el

here'd you get the b

y la

a mere n

is coat and bar

k he

ted a lo

hit

laughe

wly replaced his shirt. "It was bound to come sooner

was

the strangest feeling. You ought to get beaten up just for the experience of it. You fall down a

ted a ci

Amory. But you always kept a little ahead

o a chair and ask

w?" asked Tom

y sobe

family had been after him

f pain sh

o b

get some one else if we're going

ody. I'll leave

nded to have framed, propped up against a mirror on his dresser. He looked at it unmoved. After the vivid mental

cardboa

Why should I have? Oh, yes-the

dkerchiefs, and some snap-shots. As he transferred them carefully to the box his mind wandered to some place in a book where the hero, after preservi

e it, dropped the package into the bottom of his tru

voice held an und

-hu

he

t say, o

ve dinner

Sukey Brett I'd

O

y-

to Washington Square and found a top seat on a bus. He disemb

Amo

ll you

o! Wa

ATURE

over, he had neither remorse for the past three weeks nor regret that their repetition was impossible. He had taken the most violent, if the weakest, method to shield himself fr

had surprised him, gentleness and unselfishness that he had never given to another creature. He had later love-affairs, but of a different sort: in those he went back to that, perhaps, more

surroundings that he remembered as being cool or delicately artificial, seemed to promise him a refuge. He wrote a cynical story which featured his father's funeral and desp

several excellent American novels: "Vandover and the Brute," "The Damnation of Theron Ware," and "Jennie Gerhardt." Mackenzie, Chesterton, Galsworthy, Bennett, had sunk in his appreciation from sagacious, life-saturated geniuses t

had not heard from him; besides he knew that a visit to Monsignor would entail t

ence, a very intelligent, very dignified lady, a conv

no, Monsignor wasn't in town, was in Boston she thought; he'd promised t

, Mrs. Lawrence," he said rath

Lawrence regretfully. "He was very anxious to

ged into Bolshevism?"

aving a fri

hy

epublic. He thinks

S

greatly distressed because the receiving committee, when they r

't bla

n anything while you were in the a

e army-let me see-well, I discovered that physical courage depends to a great extent on the phys

t el

they get used to it, and the fact that I got

mperament, but in her perfect grace and dignity. The house, its furnishings, the manner in which dinner was served, were in immense contrast to what he had met in the great places on Long Island, where the servants were so obtrusive that they had positively to be bumped out of

ion and literature and the menacing phenomena of the social order. Mrs. Lawrence was ostensibly pleased with him, and her interest

you're his reincarnation, that yo

resent. It's just that religion doesn't seem t

this young poet, Stephen Vincent Benet, or the Irish Republic. Between the rancid accusations of Edward Carson and Justice Cohalan he h

this revival of old interests did not mean that he was

LESS

stretching himself at ease in the comfortable window-s

rted to write," he continued. "Now you save

English hunting prints on the wall were Tom's, and the large tapestry by courtesy, a relic of decadent days in college, and the great profusion of orphaned candlesticks and the carved Louis XV chair in which n

to the Biltmore bar at twelve or five and find congenial spirits, and both Tom and Amory had outgrown the passion for dancing with mid-Western or New Jersey debbies at the Club-de-Vingt (surnamed

year to little more than pay for the taxes and necessary improvements; in fact, the lawyer suggested that the whole property was simply a white elephant on Amory's hands. Nevert

quite typical. He had risen at noon, lunched with Mrs. Lawrence, a

Isn't that the conventional frame of mind f

atively, "but I'm more t

war did

y great effect on either you or me-but it certainly ruined the old

ed up in

great dictator or writer or religious or political leader-and now even a Leonardo da Vinci or Lorenzo de Medici couldn't be a real old-fashioned bolt in

ere never were men placed in such egotistic po

sagreed

nd Lenin take a definite, consistent stand they'll become merely two-minute figures like Kerensky. Even Foch hasn't half the significance of Stonewall Jackson. War used to be the most individualistic pursuit of man, and

here will be any more p

ld have difficulty getting material for

a good liste

riter or philosopher-a Roosevelt, a Tolstoi, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lor

lame it on

cy that is assigned you to deal with. 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. You, Tom d'Invilliers, a blighted Shelley, changing, shifting, clever, unscrupulous, represent the critical c

d Amory continu

ch, unprogressive old party with that particularly grasping, acquisitive form of mentality known as financial genius can own a paper that is the intellectual meat and drink of thousands of tired, hurried men, men too involved in the business of modern living to swallow anything but predigested foo

nly to get

gh sins on my soul without putting dangerous, shallow epigrams into people's heads; I might cause a poor, inoffensive cap

r this lampooning of his conn

got to do with

that it had muc

the less that's true. The only alternative to letting it get you is some violent interest. Well, the war is over; I believe too much in the responsibilities of authorship to write just now; and business, well, business speaks for itself. It has no connection

ion," sug

oing it instead of living-get thinking maybe life is waiting for me in the

al urge. I wanted to be a regular human be

find a

No, sir, the girl really worth having won't wait for anybody. If I thought there'd be another I'd lose my remainin

hour by the clock. Still, I'm glad to see you're b

. "Yet when I see a happy family

make people feel that w

THE

when Tom, wreathed in smoke, indulged in the sla

Rinehart-not producing among 'em one story or novel that will last ten years. This man Cobb-I don't tink he's either clever or amusing-and wh

ey

eal, comprehensive picture of American life, but his style and perspective are barbarous. Ernest Poole and Dorothy Canfield try but they're hindered by their absolute lack of any

double

f literary felicity but they just simply won't write honestly; they'd all claim there was no public for good stuff. Then wh

tle Tommy lik

ms until they swung loosely beside

m now, calling it 'Boston B

it," said Am

t the last fe

n. Let's hear 'em,

t and read aloud, pausing at intervals so

S

r Are

d Kre

San

Unte

e Tie

Shan

Oppe

l Bode

rd Gl

rmel

ad A

your n

t you

ly as

mauve-col

e Juv

llected

y ro

l buy you a meal on the arro

ovelists and poets. He enjoyed both Vachel Lindsay and Booth Tarkington,

'I am God-I am man-I ride the winds-I lo

ghas

ts to read about it, unless it's crooked business. If it was an entertaining subject they'd buy the life

is stories about little girls who break their spines and get adopted by grouchy old men because they smile so m

atch. "I'll buy you a grea' big dinner on the stre

NG BA

already hard for him to visualize the heart-whole boy who had stepped off the transport, passionately desiring the adventure of life. One night while the heat

wind-washed by night

ps, bearing on wasted

o gleams under the l

achine, in an hour

f the eyes of many m

l.... Oh, I was you

nite and most beautif

dreams, sweet and

ng in the midnight ai

-Life cracked like i

d pale, you stood...

ort upon the roofs a

one

osty mist along the

ong, mazed wires-eeri

a fatuous sigh for yo

ngs she loved, lea

HER

Monsignor Darcy, who had eviden

EAR

eeling of romance that you had before the war. You make a great mistake if you think you can be romantic without religion. Sometimes I think that with both of us the secret of success, when we find it, is the mystical element in us: s

at present, so it is hard for me to get a moment to write, but I wish you w

rprised to see the red hat of a cardinal descend upon my unworthy head within the next eight months. In

of your life. You might marry in haste and repent at leisure, but I think you won't. From what you write me about the present calamitous state of your finances, what you

eel annoyingly o

atest af

ER D

cause was the serious and probably chronic illness of Tom's mother. So they stored the furniture, gave instruction

ns by two hours, and, deciding to spend a few days with an ancient, remembered uncle, Amory journeyed up through the luxuriant fields of Mar