This Side of Paradise F. Scott Fitzgerald (mini ebook reader .txt) 📖

where others would be forever unable to get a foothold.

“I tell you,” Amory declared to Tom, “he’s the first contemporary I’ve ever met whom I’ll admit is my superior in mental capacity.”

“It’s a bad time to admit it⁠—people are beginning to think he’s odd.”

“He’s way over their heads⁠—you know you think so yourself when you talk to him⁠—Good Lord, Tom, you used to stand out against ‘people.’ Success has completely conventionalized you.”

Tom grew rather annoyed.

“What’s he trying to do⁠—be excessively holy?”

“No! not like anybody you’ve ever seen. Never enters the Philadelphian Society. He has no faith in that rot. He doesn’t believe that public swimming-pools and a kind word in time will right the wrongs of the world; moreover, he takes a drink whenever he feels like it.”

“He certainly is getting in wrong.”

“Have you talked to him lately?”

“No.”

“Then you haven’t any conception of him.”

The argument ended nowhere, but Amory noticed more than ever how the sentiment toward Burne had changed on the campus.

“It’s odd,” Amory said to Tom one night when they had grown more amicable on the subject, “that the people who violently disapprove of Burne’s radicalism are distinctly the Pharisee class⁠—I mean they’re the best-educated men in college⁠—the editors of the papers, like yourself and Ferrenby, the younger professors.⁠ ⁠… The illiterate athletes like Langueduc think he’s getting eccentric, but they just say, ‘Good old Burne has got some queer ideas in his head,’ and pass on⁠—the Pharisee class⁠—Gee! they ridicule him unmercifully.”

The next morning he met Burne hurrying along McCosh walk after a recitation.

“Whither bound, Tsar?”

“Over to the Prince office to see Ferrenby,” he waved a copy of the morning’s Princetonian at Amory. “He wrote this editorial.”

“Going to flay him alive?”

“No⁠—but he’s got me all balled up. Either I’ve misjudged him or he’s suddenly become the world’s worst radical.”

Burne hurried on, and it was several days before Amory heard an account of the ensuing conversation. Burne had come into the editor’s sanctum displaying the paper cheerfully.

“Hello, Jesse.”

“Hello there, Savonarola.”

“I just read your editorial.”

“Good boy⁠—didn’t know you stooped that low.”

“Jesse, you startled me.”

“How so?”

“Aren’t you afraid the faculty’ll get after you if you pull this irreligious stuff?”

“What?”

“Like this morning.”

“What the devil⁠—that editorial was on the coaching system.”

“Yes, but that quotation⁠—”

Jesse sat up.

“What quotation?”

“You know: ‘He who is not with me is against me.’ ”

“Well⁠—what about it?”

Jesse was puzzled but not alarmed.

“Well, you say here⁠—let me see.” Burne opened the paper and read: “ ‘He who is not with me is against me, as that gentleman said who was notoriously capable of only coarse distinctions and puerile generalities.’ ”

“What of it?” Ferrenby began to look alarmed. “Oliver Cromwell said it, didn’t he? or was it Washington, or one of the saints? Good Lord, I’ve forgotten.”

Burne roared with laughter.

“Oh, Jesse, oh, good, kind Jesse.”

“Who said it, for Pete’s sake?”

“Well,” said Burne, recovering his voice, “St. Matthew attributes it to Christ.”

“My God!” cried Jesse, and collapsed backward into the wastebasket.

Amory Writes a Poem

The weeks tore by. Amory wandered occasionally to New York on the chance of finding a new shining green autobus, that its stick-of-candy glamour might penetrate his disposition. One day he ventured into a stock-company revival of a play whose name was faintly familiar. The curtain rose⁠—he watched casually as a girl entered. A few phrases rang in his ear and touched a faint chord of memory. Where⁠—? When⁠—?

Then he seemed to hear a voice whispering beside him, a very soft, vibrant voice: “Oh, I’m such a poor little fool; do tell me when I do wrong.”

The solution came in a flash and he had a quick, glad memory of Isabelle.

He found a blank space on his programme, and began to scribble rapidly:

“Here in the figured dark I watch once more,
There, with the curtain, roll the years away;
Two years of years⁠—there was an idle day
Of ours, when happy endings didn’t bore
Our unfermented souls; I could adore
Your eager face beside me, wide-eyed, gay,
Smiling a repertoire while the poor play
Reached me as a faint ripple reaches shore.

Yawning and wondering an evening through,
I watch alone⁠ ⁠… and chatterings, of course,
Spoil the one scene which, somehow, did have charms;
You wept a bit, and I grew sad for you
Right here! Where Mr. X defends divorce
And What’s-Her-Name falls fainting in his arms.”

Still Calm

“Ghosts are such dumb things,” said Alec, “they’re slow-witted. I can always outguess a ghost.”

“How?” asked Tom.

“Well, it depends where. Take a bedroom, for example. If you use any discretion a ghost can never get you in a bedroom.”

“Go on, s’pose you think there’s maybe a ghost in your bedroom⁠—what measures do you take on getting home at night?” demanded Amory, interested.

“Take a stick” answered Alec, with ponderous reverence, “one about the length of a broom-handle. Now, the first thing to do is to get the room cleared⁠—to do this you rush with your eyes closed into your study and turn on the lights⁠—next, approaching the closet, carefully run the stick in the door three or four times. Then, if nothing happens, you can look in. Always, always run the stick in viciously first⁠—never look first!”

“Of course, that’s the ancient Celtic school,” said Tom gravely.

“Yes⁠—but they usually pray first. Anyway, you use this method to clear the closets and also for behind all doors⁠—”

“And the bed,” Amory suggested.

“Oh, Amory, no!” cried Alec in horror. “That isn’t the way⁠—the bed requires different tactics⁠—let the bed alone, as you value your reason⁠—if there is a ghost in the room and that’s only about a third of the time, it is almost always under the bed.”

“Well” Amory began.

Alec waved him into silence.

“Of course you never look. You stand in the middle of the floor and before he knows what you’re going to do make a sudden leap for the bed⁠—never walk near the bed; to a ghost your ankle is your most vulnerable part⁠—once in bed, you’re safe; he may lie around under the bed all night, but you’re safe as daylight. If you still have doubts pull