Percy Marks

“ Carl puffed contemplatively at his pipe for a few minutes before replying. Hugh waited, watching the slender boy stretched out in a big chair before the fire, his ankles crossed, his face gentle and boyish in the ruddy, flickering light. The shadows, heavy and wavering, played magic with the room; it was vast, mysterious.
"No," said Carl, pausing again to puff his pipe; "no, he won't get over it. He'll go home."
"Aw, shucks. A big guy like that isn't going to stay a baby all his life." Hugh was frankly derisive. "Soon as he gets to know a lot of fellows, he'll forget home and mother." ”

“ In the last batch of themes I got five telling me of the perfection of Sanford: Sanford is the greatest college in the country; Sanford has the best athletes, the finest equipment, the most erudite faculty, the most perfect location, the most loyal alumni, the strongest spirit—the most superlative everything. Nonsense! Rot! Bunk! Sanford hasn't anything of the sort, and I who love it say so. Sanford is a good little college, but it isn't a Harvard, a Yale, or a Princeton, or, for that matter, a Dartmouth or Brown; and those colleges still have perfection ahead of them. ”

“ Hugh thought of Cynthia. "I suppose all that you say is true," he admitted dubiously, "but I can't feel that college does what it should for us. We are told that we are taught to think, but the minute we bump up against a problem in living we are stumped just as badly as we were when we are freshmen."
"Oh, no, not at all. You solve problems every day that would have stumped you hopelessly as a freshman. You think better than you did four years ago, but no college, however perfect, can teach you all the solutions of life. ”

“ The hills already brilliant with color—scarlet, burnt orange, mauve, and purple—flamed up to meet the clear blue sky; the elms softly rustled their drying leaves; the white houses of the village retreated coyly behind maples and firs and elms: everywhere there was peace, the peace that comes with strength that has been stronger than time.
As Hugh Carver hastened up the hill from the station, his two suit-cases banged his legs and tripped him. He could hardly wait to reach the campus. ”

“ About a week after the opening of college, Hugh returned to Surrey Hall one night feeling unusually virtuous and happy. He had worked religiously at the library until it had closed at ten, and he had been in the mood to study. His lessons for the next day were all prepared, and prepared well. He had strolled across the moon-lit campus, buoyant and happy. Some one was playing the organ in the dark chapel; he paused to listen. Two students passed him, humming softly,
"Sanford, Sanford, mother of men,
Love us, guard us, hold us true...." ”

“ A drunkard is a beastly sight, rotten. If I have learned anything in college, it is that a man has to respect himself, and I can't respect any one any longer who deliberately reduces himself to a beast. I was a beast with you a year ago. I treated you like a woman of the streets, and I abused Norry Parker's hospitality shamefully. If I can help it, I'll never act like a rotter again, I hate a prig, Cynthia, like the devil, but I hate a rotter even more. ”

“ Henley nodded in agreement. "It would be hard to deny your assertions," he acknowledged, "and I don't think that I am going to try to deny them. Of course, men grow coarser while they are in college, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't grow coarser if they weren't in college. It isn't college that coarsens a man and destroys his illusions; it is life. Don't think that you can grow to manhood and retain your pretty dreams. You have become disillusioned about college. In the next few years you will suffer further disillusionment. That is the price of living." ”

“ You don't want anybody to know that you write poetry. You're trying to make yourself like fellows that are inferior to you." Norry was piteously in earnest. His hero had crumbled into clay before his eyes, and he was trying to patch him together again preparatory to boosting him back upon his pedestal.
"Oh, cripes, Norry," Hugh said a little impatiently, "you exaggerate all my virtues; you always have. I'm not half the fellow you think I am. I do love beautiful things, but I don't believe my poetry is any good." ”

“ Slade was one of those superb natural athletes who make history for many colleges. He was big, powerfully built, and moved as easily as a dancer. His features were good enough, but his brown eyes were dull and his jaw heavy rather than strong. Hugh had often heard that Slade dissipated violently, but he did not believe the rumors; he was positive that Slade could not be the athlete he was if he dissipated. He had been thrilled every time Slade had spoken to him—the big man of the college, the one Sanford man who had ever made All American, as Slade had this year. ”

“ The seniors and juniors sat in the nave, the sophomores on the right side of the transept, the freshmen on the left. Hugh gazed upward in awe at the dim recesses of the vaulted ceiling, at the ornately carved choir where gowned students were quietly seating themselves, at the colored light streaming through the beautiful windows, at the picture of the pork merchant. The chapel bells ceased tolling; rich, solemn tones swelled from the organ. ”

“ Hugh hadn't thought before of what that word meant. Commencement! The beginning. What was he going to do with this commencement of his into life? Old Pudge was going to law school and so was Jack Lawrence. George Winsor was going to medical school. But what was he going to do? He felt so pathetically unprepared. And then there was Cynthia.... What was he going to do about her? She rarely left his mind. How could he tackle life when he couldn't solve the problem she presented? It was like trying to run a hundred against fast men when a fellow had only begun to train. ”

“ Such is the college that you write themes about to tell me that it is perfect. The college is made up of men who worship mediocrity; that is their ideal except in athletics. The condition of the football field is a thousand times more important to the undergraduates and the alumni than the number of books in the library or the quality of the faculty. The fraternities will fight each other to pledge an athlete, but I have yet to see them raise any dust over a man who was merely intelligent. ”

“ Larry Stillwell, the last man, was a dark, handsome youth with exceedingly regular features, pomaded hair parted in the center and shining sleekly, fine teeth, and rich coloring: a "smooth" boy who prided himself on his conquests and the fact that he never got a grade above a C in his courses. There was no man in the freshman class with a finer mind, but he declined to study, declaring firmly that he could not waste his time acquiring impractical tastes for useless arts.
"Now everybody shut up," said Pudge, seating himself in a big chair and laboriously crossing one leg over the other. ”

“ There is enough good in man to make that philosophy practical. Why, there is more kindness and goodness around than we know about. We see the evil, and we know we have lusts and—and things, but we do good, too. And Hugh was right when he talked a while ago about the beauty in the world. There's lots of it, lots and lots of it. There's beautiful poetry and beautiful music and beautiful scenery; and there are people who appreciate all of it. I tell you that in spite of everything life is worth living. ”

“ Hugh looked at him wonderingly. He didn't know this Norry at all. "Yes," he said slowly; "yes, I see what you mean; I think I do, anyway. But what has it to do with me?"
"Well, I know most of the fellows pet and all that sort of thing, and they don't think anything about it. But you're different; you love beautiful things as much as I do. You told me yourself that Jimmie Henley said last year that you were gifted. You can write and sing and run, but I've just realized that you aren't proud of those things at all; you just take them for granted. And you're ashamed that you write poetry. ”

“ Bob Tucker took him severely to task. "What do you mean, Hugh," he demanded, "by turning down the Dramat? Here you've got a chance for a lead, and you turn up your nose at it as if you were God Almighty. It seems to me that you are getting gosh-awful high-hat lately. You run around with a bunch of thoroughly wet ones; you never come to fraternity meetings if you can help it; you aren't half training down at the track; and now you give the Dramat the air just as if an activity or two wasn't anything in your young life." ”

“ Every one called every one else by his first name; every one shook hands with astonishing vigor, usually clutching the other fellow by the forearm at the same time. How cockily these lads went around the campus! No confusion or fear for them; they knew what to do.
For the first time Hugh felt a pang of homesickness; for the first time he realized that he wasn't yet part of the college. He clung close to Carl and one or two other lads in Surrey with whom he picked up an acquaintance, and Carl clung close to Hugh, careful to hide the fact that he felt very small and meek. ”

“ Hugh strolled lazily along with Winsor.
"Not poker, Hugh—craps. I've sworn off craps for good, and maybe I'll swear off poker after to-night. I'm nearly a hundred berries to the good right now, and I can afford to play if I want to."
"I'm a little ahead myself," said Hugh. "I don't play very often, though, except in the house when the fellows insist. I can't shoot craps at all, and I get tired of cards after a couple of hours."
"I'm a damn fool to play," Winsor asserted positively, "a plain damn fool, I oughtn't to waste my time at it, but I'm a regular fiend for the game. ”

“ Instantly every one within hearing would drop his books—or his cards—and rush to the yelling group, which would line up in fours and begin circling the campus, the line ever getting longer as more men came running out of the dormitories and fraternity houses. On, on they would go, arm in arm, dancing, singing Sanford songs, past every dormitory on the campus, past every fraternity house—pausing occasionally to give a cheer, always, however, keeping one goal in mind, the fraternity house where the team lived during the football season. ”

“ Every one, men and women alike, the Raleigh adherents excepted, promptly turned into extraordinarily active lunatics. The women waved their banners and shrieked, or if they had no banners, they waved their arms and shrieked; the men danced up and down, yelled, pounded each other on the back, sometimes wildly embraced—many a woman was kissed by a man she had never seen before and never would again, nor did she object—Wayne Gifford was turning handsprings, and many of the students were feebly fluttering their hands, voiceless, spent with cheering, weak from excitement. ”

“ Pudge Jamieson admitted, "but we'd like to have a little mercy shown to us now. We've spent four years here, and while we've enjoyed them, we've just about made up our minds that they have been all in all wasted years."
"No." Henley was decisive. His playful manner entirely disappeared. "No, not wasted. You have enjoyed them, you say. Splendid justification. You will continue to enjoy them as the years grow between you and your college days. All men are sentimental about college, and in that sentimentality there is continuous pleasure." ”