The Vision Splendid

by William MacLeod Raine

  CHAPTER 3

  "Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind,"--Emerson.

  CONVERSING ON RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY, THE REBEL LEARNS THAT IT ISSOMETIMES WISE TO SOFT PEDAL IDEAS UNLESS THEY ARE ACCEPTED ONES

  During his freshman year Jeff saw little of his cousin beyond the usualcampus greetings, except for a period of six weeks when the juniorhappened to need him. But the career of James K. tickled immenselythe under classman's sense of humor. He was becoming the most dazzlingsuccess ever developed by the college. Even with the faculty he stoodhigh, for if he lacked scholarship he had the more showy gifts that wentfarther. He knew when to defer and when to ride roughshod to his end.It was felt that his brilliancy had a solidity back of it, a quality offlintiness that would endure.

  James was inordinately ambitious and loved the spotlight like anactor. The flamboyant oratory at which he excelled had won for him theinterstate contest. He was editor-in-chief of the "Verdenian," managerof the varsity football team, and president of the college senate.

  With the beginning of his senior year James entered another phase of hisdevelopment. He offered to the college a new, or at least an enlarged,interpretation of himself. Some of his smiling good-fellowship had beensloughed to make way for the benignity of a budding statesman. He stillheld a tolerant attitude to the antics of his friends, but it was easyto see that he had put away childish things. To his many young womenadmirers he talked confidentially of his aims and aspirations. Thefuture of James K. Farnum was a topic he never exhausted.

  It was, too, a subject which greatly interested Jeff and Sam Miller.His cousin might smile at his poses, and often did, but he never deniedJames qualities likely to carry him far.

  "His one best bet is his belief in himself," Sam announced one night.

  "It's a great thing to believe in yourself."

  "He's so dead sure he's cast for a big part. The egoism just oozes outof him. He doesn't know himself that he's a faker."

  "He is a long way from that," Jeff protested warmly.

  "Take his oratory," Miller went on irritably. "It's all bunk. He throwsa chest and makes you feel he's a big man, but what he says won't standanalysis--just a lot of platitudes."

  "Don't forget he's young yet. James K. hasn't found himself."

  "Sure there's anything to find?"

  "There's a lot in him. He's the biggest man in the university to-day."

  "You practically wrote the oration that won the interstate contest.Think I don't know that?" Miller snorted.

  Jeff's mouth took on a humorous twist. "I gave him some suggestions. Howdid you know?"

  "Knew he wasn't hanging around last term for nothing. He's selfish asthe devil."

  "You're all wrong about him, Sam. He isn't selfish at all at bottom."

  "Shoot the brains out of that oration and what's left would be thepart he supplied. The fellow's got a gift of absorbing new ideassuperficially and dressing them up smartly."

  "Then he's got us beat there," Jeff laughed goodnaturedly. He had notin his make-up a grain of envy. Even his laughter was generally genial,though often irreverent to the God-of-things-as-they-are.

  "When he won the interstate he lapped up flattery like a thirsty pup,but his bluff was that it was only for the college he cared to win."

  "Most of us have mixed motives."

  "Not J. K. Reminds me of old Johnson's 'Patriotism is the last refuge ofa scoundrel.'"

  Jeff straightened. "That won't do, Sam. I believe in J. K. You've gotnothing against him except that you don't like him."

  "Forgot you were his cousin, Jeff," Miller grumbled. "But it's a factthat he works everybody to shove him along."

  "He's only a kid. Give him time. He'll be a big help to any community."

  "James K.'s biggest achievement will always be James K."

  Jeff chuckled at the apothegm even while he protested. Sam capped itwith another.

  "He's always sitting to himself for his own portrait."

  "He'll get over that when he brushes up against the world." Jeff addedhis own criticism thoughtfully. "The weak spot in him is a sort offlatness of mind. This makes him afraid of new ideas. He wants to berespectable, and respectability is the most damning thing on earth."

  After Miller had left Jeff buckled down to Ely's "Political Economy."He had not been at it long when James surprised him by dropping in. Hishost offered the easiest chair and shoved tobacco toward him.

  "Been pretty busy with the team, I suppose?" Jeff suggested.

  "It's taken a lot of my time, but I think I've put the athleticassociation on a paying basis at last."

  "I see by your report in the 'Verdenian' that you made good."

  "A fellow ought to do well whatever he undertakes to do."

  Jeff grinned across at him from where he lay on the bed with his fingerslaced beneath his head. "That's what the copybooks used to say."

  "I want to have a serious talk with you, Jeff."

  "Aren't you having it? What can be more important than the successes ofJames K. Farnum?"

  The senior looked at him suspiciously. He was not strongly fortifiedwith a sense of humor. "Just now I want to talk about the failures ofJefferson D. Farnum," he answered gravely.

  Jeff's eyes twinkled. "Is it worth while? I am unworthy of this boon, Ogreat Cesar."

  "Now that's the sort of thing that stands in your way," James told himimpatiently. "People never know when you're laughing at them. Thereis no reason why you shouldn't succeed. Your abilities are up to theaverage, but you fritter them away."

  "Thank you." Jeff wore an air of being immensely pleased.

  "The truth is that you're your own worst enemy. Now that you have takento dressing better you are not bad looking. I find a good many of thefellows like you--or they would if you'd let them."

  "Because I'm so well connected," Jeff laughed.

  "I suppose it does help, your being my cousin. But the thing depends onyou. Unless you make a decided change you'll never get on."

  "What change do you suggest? Item one, please?"

  James looked straight at him. "You lack bedrock principles, Jeff."

  "Do I?"

  "Take your habits. Two or three times you've been seen coming out ofsaloons."

  "Expect I went in to get a drink."

  "It's not generally known, of course, but if it reached Prexy he'd fireyou so quick your head would swim."

  "I dare say."

  The senior looked at him significantly. "You're the last man that oughtto go to such places. There's such a thing as an inherited tendency."

  The jaw muscles stood out like ropes under the flesh of Jeff's leanface. "We'll not discuss that."

  "Very well. Cut it out. A drinking man is handicapped too heavily towin."

  "Much obliged. Second count in the indictment, please."

  "You've got strange, unsettling notions. The profs don't like them."

  "Don't they?"

  "You know what I mean. We didn't make this world. We've got to takeit as it is. You can't make it over. There are always going to be richpeople and poor ones. Just because you've fed indigestibly on Ibsen andShaw you can't change facts."

  "So you advise?"

  "Soft pedal your ideas if you must have them."

  "Hasn't a man got to see things as straight as he can?"

  "That's no reason for calling in the neighbors to rejoice with himbecause he has astigmatism."

  Jeff came back with a tag of Emerson, whose phrases James was fond ofquoting in his speeches. "Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist.Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."

  "You can push that too far. It isn't practical. We've got to makecompromises, especially with established things."

  Jeff sat up on the bed. Points of light were dancing in his big eyes."That's what th
e Pharisees said to Jesus when he wouldn't stand for liesbecause they were deep rooted and for injustice because it had becomerespectable."

  "Oh, if you're going to compare yourself to Christ--"

  "Verden University is supposed to stand for Christianity, isn't it?It was because Jesus whanged away at social and industrial freedom, atfraternity, at love on earth, that he had to endure the Cross. He gotunder the upper class skin when he attacked the traditional lies ofvested interests. Now why doesn't Bland preach the things that Jesustaught?"

  "He does."

  "Yes, he does," Jeff scoffed. "He preaches good form, respectability,a narrow personal righteousness, a salvation canned and petrified threehundred years ago."

  "Do you want him to preach socialism?"

  "I want him to preach the square deal in our social life, intellectualhonesty, and a vital spiritual life. Think of what this college mightmean, how it might stand for democracy It ought to pour out into thestate hundreds of specialists on the problems of the country. Instead,it is only a reflection of the caste system that is growing up inAmerica."

  James shrugged his broad shoulders. "I've been through all that. It'sa phase we pass. You'll get over it. You've got to if you are going tosucceed."

  A quizzical grin wrinkled Jeff's lean face. "What is success?"

  "It's setting a high goal and reaching it. It's taking the world by thethroat and shaking from it whatever you want." James leaned across thetable, his eyes shining. "It's the journey's end for the strong, that'swhat it is. I don't care whether a man is gathering gilt or fame, he'sgot to pound away with his eye right on it. And he's got to trample downthe things that get in his way."

  Jeff's eye fell upon a book on the table. "Ever hear of a chap calledGoldsmith?"

  "Of course. He wrote 'The School for Scandal.' What's he got to do withit?"

  Jeff smiled, without correcting his cousin. "I've been reading abouthim. Seems to have been a poor hack writer 'who threw away his life inhandfuls.' He wrote the finest poem, the best novel, the most charmingcomedy of his day. He knew how to give, but he didn't know how to take.So he died alone in a garret. He was a failure."

  "Probably his own fault."

  "And on the day of his funeral the stairway was crowded with poor peoplehe had helped. All of them were in tears."

  "What good did that do him? He was inefficient. He might have saved hismoney and helped them then."

  "Perhaps. I don't know. It might have been too late then. He chose togive his life as he was living it."

  "Another reason for his poverty, wasn't there?"

  Jeff flushed. "He drank."

  "Thought so." James rose triumphantly and put on his overcoat. "Well,think over what I've said."

  "I will. And tell the chancellor I'm much obliged to him for sendingyou."

  For once the Senior was taken aback. "Eh, what--what?"

  "You may tell him it won't be your fault that I'll never be a credit toVerden University."

  As he walked across the campus to his fraternity house James did notfeel that his call had been wholly successful. With him he carried apicture of his cousin's thin satiric face in which big expressive eyesmocked his arguments. But he let none of this sense of futility get intothe report given next day to the Chancellor.

  "Jeff's rather light-minded, I'm afraid, sir. He wanted to branch offto side lines. But I insisted on a serious talk. Before I left him hepromised to think over what I had said."

  "Let us hope he may."

  "He said it wouldn't be my fault if he wasn't a credit to theUniversity."

  "We can all agree with him there, Farnum."

  "Thank you, sir. I'm not very hopeful about him. He has other things tocontend with."

  "I'm not sure I quite know what you mean."

  "I can't explain more fully without violating a confidence."

  "Well, we'll hope for the best, and remember him in our prayers."

  "Yes, sir," James agreed.