This Side of Paradise [62]
little pools of water.... "Golden is the air, golden notes from golden mandolins, golden frets of golden violins, fair, oh, wearily fair.... Skeins from braided basket, mortals may not hold; oh, what young extravagant God, who would know or ask it?... who could give such gold..."
AMORY IS RESENTFUL
Slowly and inevitably, yet with a sudden surge at the last, while Amory talked and dreamed, war rolled swiftly up the beach and washed the sands where Princeton played. Every night the gymnasium echoed as platoon after platoon swept over the floor and shuffled out the basket-ball markings. When Amory went to Washington the next week-end he caught some of the spirit of crisis which changed to repulsion in the Pullman car coming back, for the berths across from him were occupied by stinking aliens-Greeks, he guessed, or Russians. He thought how much easier patriotism had been to a homogeneous race, how much easier it would have been to fight as the Colonies fought, or as the Confederacy fought. And he did no sleeping that night, but listened to the aliens guffaw and snore while they filled the car with the heavy scent of latest America.
In Princeton every one bantered in public and told themselves privately that their deaths at least would be heroic. The literary students read Rupert Brooke passionately; the lounge-lizards worried over whether the government would permit the English-cut uniform for officers; a few of the hopelessly lazy wrote to the obscure branches of the War Department, seeking an easy commission and a soft berth.
Then, after a week, Amory saw Burne and knew at once that argument would be futileBurne had come out as a pacifist. The socialist magazines, a great smattering of Tolstoi, and his own intense longing for a cause that would bring out whatever strength lay in him, had finally decided him to preach peace as a subjective ideal.
"When the German army entered Belgium," he began, "if the inhabitants had gone peaceably about their business, the German army would have been disorganized in"
"I know," Amory interrupted, "I've heard it all. But I'm not going to talk propaganda with you. There's a chance that you're rightbut even so we're hundreds of years before the time when non-resistance can touch us as a reality."
"But, Amory, listen"
"Burne, we'd just argue"
"Very well."
"Just one thingI don't ask you to think of your family or friends, because I know they don't count a picayune with you beside your sense of dutybut, Burne, how do you know that the magazines you read and the societies you join and these idealists you meet aren't just plain German?"
"Some of them are, of course."
"How do you know they aren't all pro-Germanjust a lot of weak oneswith German-Jewish names."
"That's the chance, of course," he said slowly. "How much or how little I'm taking this stand because of propaganda I've heard, I don't know; naturally I think that it's my most innermost convictionit seems a path spread before me just now."
Amory's heart sank.
"But think of the cheapness of itno one's really going to martyr you for being a pacifistit's just going to throw you in with the worst"
"I doubt it," he interrupted.
"Well, it all smells of Bohemian New York to me."
"I know what you mean, and that's why I'm not sure I'll agitate."
"You're one man, Burne going to talk to people who won't listen with all God's given you."
"That's what Stephen must have thought many years ago. But he preached his sermon and they killed him. He probably thought as he was dying what a waste it all was. But you see, I've always felt that Stephen's death was the thing that occurred to Paul on the road to Damascus, and sent him to preach the word of Christ all over the world."
"Go on."
"That's all-this is my particular duty. Even if right now I'm just a pawnjust sacrificed. God! Amoryyou don't think I like the Germans!"
"Well, I can't say anything elseI get to the end of all the logic about non-resistance, and there, like an excluded middle, stands the huge spectre of man as he is and always
AMORY IS RESENTFUL
Slowly and inevitably, yet with a sudden surge at the last, while Amory talked and dreamed, war rolled swiftly up the beach and washed the sands where Princeton played. Every night the gymnasium echoed as platoon after platoon swept over the floor and shuffled out the basket-ball markings. When Amory went to Washington the next week-end he caught some of the spirit of crisis which changed to repulsion in the Pullman car coming back, for the berths across from him were occupied by stinking aliens-Greeks, he guessed, or Russians. He thought how much easier patriotism had been to a homogeneous race, how much easier it would have been to fight as the Colonies fought, or as the Confederacy fought. And he did no sleeping that night, but listened to the aliens guffaw and snore while they filled the car with the heavy scent of latest America.
In Princeton every one bantered in public and told themselves privately that their deaths at least would be heroic. The literary students read Rupert Brooke passionately; the lounge-lizards worried over whether the government would permit the English-cut uniform for officers; a few of the hopelessly lazy wrote to the obscure branches of the War Department, seeking an easy commission and a soft berth.
Then, after a week, Amory saw Burne and knew at once that argument would be futileBurne had come out as a pacifist. The socialist magazines, a great smattering of Tolstoi, and his own intense longing for a cause that would bring out whatever strength lay in him, had finally decided him to preach peace as a subjective ideal.
"When the German army entered Belgium," he began, "if the inhabitants had gone peaceably about their business, the German army would have been disorganized in"
"I know," Amory interrupted, "I've heard it all. But I'm not going to talk propaganda with you. There's a chance that you're rightbut even so we're hundreds of years before the time when non-resistance can touch us as a reality."
"But, Amory, listen"
"Burne, we'd just argue"
"Very well."
"Just one thingI don't ask you to think of your family or friends, because I know they don't count a picayune with you beside your sense of dutybut, Burne, how do you know that the magazines you read and the societies you join and these idealists you meet aren't just plain German?"
"Some of them are, of course."
"How do you know they aren't all pro-Germanjust a lot of weak oneswith German-Jewish names."
"That's the chance, of course," he said slowly. "How much or how little I'm taking this stand because of propaganda I've heard, I don't know; naturally I think that it's my most innermost convictionit seems a path spread before me just now."
Amory's heart sank.
"But think of the cheapness of itno one's really going to martyr you for being a pacifistit's just going to throw you in with the worst"
"I doubt it," he interrupted.
"Well, it all smells of Bohemian New York to me."
"I know what you mean, and that's why I'm not sure I'll agitate."
"You're one man, Burne going to talk to people who won't listen with all God's given you."
"That's what Stephen must have thought many years ago. But he preached his sermon and they killed him. He probably thought as he was dying what a waste it all was. But you see, I've always felt that Stephen's death was the thing that occurred to Paul on the road to Damascus, and sent him to preach the word of Christ all over the world."
"Go on."
"That's all-this is my particular duty. Even if right now I'm just a pawnjust sacrificed. God! Amoryyou don't think I like the Germans!"
"Well, I can't say anything elseI get to the end of all the logic about non-resistance, and there, like an excluded middle, stands the huge spectre of man as he is and always