Mary Heaton Vorse

“ Every young business man in America, wears a collar of the stamp I have described. They do not deviate. The great steam-roller which we call civilization has smoothed out all vagaries in masculine dress.
Frederick had been steam-rollered, Heaven knows. Public school, Exeter, Harvard, and home had worked harmoniously to produce a young American as much like all other young Americans as his unyielding collar was like theirs, and yet each day, as the collar sawed into Frederick's clean-shaven, pink chin, the Thought grew and throve, until it bore the preposterous resolve:
"By Jove, I will!" ”

“ By this you may perceive that Eleanor Paine's question about the soft tie was one of more than casual interest. It was the only question in his present course that worried Frederick. He dreaded the advent of the out-of-town customer. In fact, Frederick, though he did not put it into words to himself, had embarked upon that battle which of all battles is most dear to the soul of man when once he has undertaken it. He was fighting against Error and Superstition. Had he not come of a race whose only mode of persuasion was the clenched fist, he might have founded a new band of freedom. ”

“ Their business brought them in contact with the "best people" of their community. In Hartfield when a parent uttered the words, "John is with Peabody & Emerson," it was as though he had handed the listener a certificate of John's morals, brains, and the position of his family in the community. Frederick was the flower of the young manhood in the employ of this illustrious firm.
Six years out of Harvard, twenty-eight years old, clean-cut, well-dressed, looking as much as possible like every other young business man of education, Frederick sat before his desk in his office. ”

“ Moodily, Frederick divested himself of his comfortable overcoat. He was wondering now if a spiritual comfort was not worth all the physical comfort in the world. As he walked toward Mr. Peabody's office his boots seemed to clump noisily; his soft tie hurt him more than ever had his high collar. In fact, Frederick felt sore. It is not an easy thing to realize that for three weeks all your friends have thought you were a fool. ”

“ Scarcely a grown man or woman in the crowd walked erect, for the sharp wind blowing around the corner clawed at their hats and they bent almost double to meet the blast, clutching their head-wear with one cold hand. Scarcely a human being had shoes or stockings appropriate for the season. Only the girls young enough to wear knitted caps, and some of the workmen, were dressed with any relation to the weather. During that brief moment of insight Frederick reflected upon other details of women's attire and men's. ”

“ Those loose, flowing ties always were so pretty and more appropriate, I think, too, with the rolling collar."
"That sounds good to me," Frederick answered, belligerently. "I should like to have lived in a time when people were not afraid to dress as they chose."
"I'm glad, Frederick," his mother interposed, swan-like and superior, "that you live at a moment when young men are afraid to make asses of themselves." ”

“ This gave him the opportunity that he wanted for a final spiritual break with Ruth.
So his friendship with Eleanor grew until he confided the secret of his new suit. She laughed and said, "That will make some fuss in the office, won't it?" And she further asked, "Are you really going to wear that soft tie next time you have to go to Boston on business?"
For it was Frederick who, because of his social graces, was the favored young man who was sent to Boston from Hartfield, on various business matters, and whose duty it also was to pilot thither certain up-state customers, intent on amusement. ”

“ The worst thing with thought is its tendency to materialize into action. The morning after his revelation Frederick appeared in the dining-room of his home clad in a soft shirt. There was no more prosperous sight in the world than the Lodge's dining-room, especially on a bright winter morning. ”

“ Why, why, be uncomfortable, he wondered, open-eyed as a dweller from Mars beholding a vast human folly for the first time. Then the utter irrationality of a whole city full of people paying money to buy things with which to make themselves uncomfortable struck his sense of humor, and he laughed aloud. ”

“ Lodge, my eyes traveled over his clothes. Frederick has had a new suit made and he has had all the buttons put upon the left side and the button-holes on the right, while the sleeve vents are upon the upper instead of the under side of the cuff." There are some things a man may not do in this world. Frederick wantonly and with malice aforethought had done one of them. ”

“ If ever there was a man set in his cast with cement it was Frederick. If ever a man proclaimed his cast by his bearing and appearance, Frederick accomplished this. There was no man in the world whom Mr. ”