e 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. I
don't mean just Morton College.

HOLDEN: No--America. As to getting out, I think you are all wrong.

FEJEVARY: That's one of your sweeping statements, Holden. Nobody's all
wrong. Even you aren't.

HOLDEN: And in what ways am I wrong--from the standpoint of your Senator
Lewis?

FEJEVARY: He's not my Senator Lewis, he's the state's, and we have to
take him as he is. Why, he objects, of course, to your radical
activities. He spoke of your defence of conscientious objectors.

HOLDEN: (_slowly_) I think a man who is willing to go to prison for what
he believes has stuff in him no college needs turn its back on.

FEJEVARY: Well, he doesn't agree with you--nor do I.

HOLDEN: (_still quietly_) And I think a society which permits things to
go on which I can prove go on in our federal prisons had better stop and
take a fresh look at itself. To stand for that and then talk of
democracy and idealism--oh, it shows no mentality, for one thing.

FEJEVARY: (_easily_) I presume the prisons do need a cleaning up. As to
Fred Jordan, you can't expect me to share your admiration. Our own
Fred--my nephew Fred Morton, went to France and gave his life. There's
some little courage, Holden, in doing that.

HOLDEN: I'm not trying to belittle it. But he had the whole spirit of
his age with him--fortunate boy. The man who stands outside the idealism
of this time--

FEJEVARY: Takes a good deal upon himself, I should say.

HOLDEN: There isn't any other such loneliness. You know in your heart
it's a noble courage.

FEJEVARY: It lacks--humility. (HOLDEN _laughs scoffingly_) And I think
you lack it. I'm asking you to co-operate with me for the good of Morton
College.

HOLDEN: Why not do it the other way? You say enlarge that we may grow.
That's false. It isn't of the nature of growth. Why not do it the way of
Silas Morton and Walt Whitman--each man being his purest and intensest
self. I was ful