r salary makes me blush. It's all wrong that a man like
you should have these petty worries, particularly with Mrs Holden so in
need of the things a little money can do. Now this man Lewis is a
reactionary. So, naturally, he doesn't approve of you.
HOLDEN: So naturally I am to go.
FEJEVARY: Go? Not at all. What have I just been saying?
HOLDEN: Be silent, then.
FEJEVARY: Not that either--not--not really. But--be a little more
discreet. (_seeing him harden_) This is what I want to put up to you.
Why not give things a chance to mature in your own mind? Candidly, I
don't feel you know just what you do think; is it so awfully important
to express--confusion?
HOLDEN: The only man who knows just what he thinks at the present moment
is the man who hasn't done any new thinking in the past ten years.
FEJEVARY: (_with a soothing gesture_) You and I needn't quarrel about
it. I understand you, but I find it a little hard to interpret you to a
man like Lewis.
HOLDEN: Then why not let a man like Lewis go to thunder?
FEJEVARY: And let the college go to thunder? I'm not willing to do that.
I've made a good many sacrifices for this college. Given more money than
I could afford to give; given time and thought that I could have used
for personal gain.
HOLDEN: That's true, I know.
FEJEVARY: I don't know just why I've done it. Sentiment, I suppose. I
had a very strong feeling about my father, Professor Holden. And this
friend Silas Morton. This college is the child of that friendship. Those
are noble words in our manifesto: 'Morton College was born because there
came to this valley a man who held his vision for mankind above his own
advantage; and because that man found in this valley a man who wanted
beauty for his fellow-men as he wanted no other thing.'
HOLDEN: (_taking it up_) 'Born of the fight for freedom and the
aspiration to richer living, we believe that Morton College--rising as
from the soil itself--may strengthen all those here and everywhere who
fight for the life there is in freedom, and may, to the measure it can,
loosen for America the beauty that breathes from knowledge.' (_moved by
the words he has spoken_) Do you know, I would rather do that--really do
that--than--grow big.
FEJEVARY: Yes. But you see, or rather, what you don't see is, you have
to look at the world in which you find yourself. The only way to stay
alive is to grow big. It's been hard, but I have tried to--carry on.
HOLDEN: And so
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