...

Never since did I see the real man, Spalton, as I saw him then, the man
he might always have been, if he had had an old-world environment,
instead of the environment of modern, commercial America--the spirit of
which finally claimed him, as he grew more successful....

Modern, commercial America--where we proudly make a boast of lack of
culture, and where artistic and aesthetic feeling, if freely expressed,
makes one's hearers more likely than not, at once uneasy and restive.

* * * * *

That night, at supper, I caught my first glimpse of the Eoites in a
body. The contrast between them and my school-folk was agreeably
different. I found among them an atmosphere of good-natured greeting and
raillery, that sped from table to table. And when Spalton strode in,
with his bold, swinging gait (it seemed that he had just returned from a
lecture in a distant city early that afternoon), there was cheering and
clapping.

Guests and workers joined together in the same dining hall, with no
distinctive division.... I sat next to Spalton's table, and a warm glow
of pleasure swept through me when he sent me a pleasant nod.

"Hello, Razorre," he had greeted me; then he had turned to the group at
his table and told them about me, I could see by their glances--but in a
pleasant way.

* * * * *

The next morning I was at work in the bindery, smearing glue on the
backs of unbound books. My wage was three dollars a week and "found," as
they say in the West. Not much, but what did it matter? There was a fine
library of the world's classics, including all the liberal and
revolutionary books that I had heard about, but which I could never
obtain at the libraries ... and there were, as associates and
companions, many people, who, if extremely eccentric, were,
nevertheless, alive and alert and interested in all the beautiful things
Genius has created in Art and Song....

Derelicts, freaks, "nuts" ... with poses that outnumbered the silver
eyes in the peacock's tail in multitude ... and yet there was to be
found in them a sincerity, a fineness, and a genuine feeling for
humanity that "regular" folks never achieve--perhaps because of their
very "regularness."

* * * * *

Here, at last, I had found another environment where I could "let loose"
to the limit ... which I began to do....

In the first place, there was the matter of clothes. I