Once Stover had reconciled himself to the loss of a senior society
election, he found ample compensation in the absolute liberty of action
that came to him. It was not that he condemned this parent system; he
believed in it as an honest attempt to reward the best in the college
life, a sort of academic legion of honor, formed not on social cleavage,
but given as a reward of merit. In his own case, he believed his own
personal offending in the matter of Le Baron and Reynolds had been so
extreme that nothing could counteract it.
So he gave himself up to the free and untrammelled delights of living
his own life. His fierce stand for absolute democracy made of his rooms
the ante-room of the class, through which all crowds seemed to pass, men
of his own kind, socially calculating, glad to be known as the friends
of Regan, Hungerford and Story, all rated sure men, and Stover, about
whom they began to wonder more and more, as a unique and rebellious
personality, which, contrary to precedent, had come to bear down all
opposition. Gimbel and Hicks, elected managers for the coming year, came
often, willing to conciliate the element they had fought, in the hopes
of a favorable outcome on Tap Day. Men who worked their way dropped in
often on Regan; Ricketts, with his drawling Yankee astuteness, always
laughing up his sleeve; twenty odd, lonely characters, glad to sink into
a quiet corner and listen to the furious discussions that raged about
Brockhurst, Story and Regan.
It was seldom that Stover talked. He learned more by listening, by
careful weighing of others' opinions, than in the attempt to classify
his own thoughts through the medium of debate. At times when the
discussion wandered from vital sources, he would ask a question, and
these sharp, direct remarks had a pertinency and a searching trenchancy
that sometimes upset an elaborate argument.
Regan brought him to the romance of commonplace things, to a genuine
interest and study of political conditions; Brockhurst irritated and
dissatisfied him, and so stimulated him to reading and self-analysis;
Story, with his seriousness and fairness, recalled him always to a
judicial point of view and an understanding of others; Hungerford, with
his big, effusive nature, always dissatisfied and eager for realities,
was akin to his own nature, and they grew into a confidential intimacy.
In a community of splendid barbarians, their circle was exceptional, due
to the pronounced individuality of their several rebellious minds.
Despite the abolition of the sophomore societies, other groups still
maintained their exclusiveness, and kept alive the old antagonism, as
the approach of Tap Day intensified the struggle for election and the
natural campaigning of friend for friend.
As Brockhurst had prophesied, the chairmanship of the _Lit_ Board went
to Wiggin, a conscientious, thorough little plodder, who had never
failed to hand in to each number his numerically correct quota of
essays, two stories, a hammered-out poem and two painful portfolios.
On the night of the election, Stover heard from his room in Lyceum the
familiar:
"Oh, you Dink Stover--stick out your head."
"Hello there, Brocky; come up," he said anxiously. "Who got it?"
"Wiggin, of course. Come on down, I want a ramble."
It was the first time that Brockhurst had shown a longing for
companionship. Stover returned into the room, announcing:
"Poor old chap. Wiggin got it. Isn't it the devil?"
"Wiggin--oh, Lord!" said Regan.
"Why, he's not fit to tie Brocky's shoe-strings," said Hungerford, who
fired a volley of soul-relieving oaths.
"I'm going down to bum around a bit with him," said Stover, slipping on
his coat, "cheer the old boy up."
"Well, he knew it."
"Lots of difference that makes!"
Below Brocky, muffled to the ears, brim down, was whistling in unmusical
enthusiasm.
"_'Tis a jolly life we lead,_
_Care and sorrow we defy--_"
"Hello, that you, Dink?" he said, breaking off. "Come on for a tramp."
At that age, being inexperienced, the undergraduate in questions of
sympathy wisely returns to the instincts of the canine. Stover, without
speaking, fell into his stride, and they swung off towards West Rock.
"Wiggin is the type of man," said Brockhurst, meditatively puffing his
pipe, "that is the glorification of the commonplace. He is a sort of
sublime earthworm, plodding along and claiming acquaintance with the
rose because he travels around the roots. He is really by instinct a
bricklayer, and the danger is that he may continue either in literature
or some profession where the cry is for imagination."
"You could have beaten him out," said Stover, as a solace.
"And become an earthworm?" said Brockhurst. "The luck of it is, he made
up his mind to heel the _Lit_. With his ideas he would have made leader
of the glee club, president of the Phi Beta Kappa, chairman of the
_News_, or what not."
"Still, give him credit," said Stover, smiling to himself, for he felt
that he saw for the first time the human side of Brockhurst.
"I did; it was quite an amusing time."
"What happened?"
"Why, the little grubber came up to me and said, 'Brocky, old man, you
ought to have had it.'"
"Why, that was rather decent," said Stover.
"Rubbish. All form," said Brockhurst impatiently. "Showed the calibre of
his mind,--the obvious; nothing but the obvious. He thought it the thing
to say, that's all."
"Well, what did you answer?" said Stover wondering.
"I said, 'Well, why didn't you vote for me then?'"
Stover burst out laughing, and Brockhurst, who had lost a coveted honor,
was a little mollified by the tribute.
"Of course he stammered and looked annoyed--naturally; situation his
imagination couldn't meet, so I said:
"'Come, Wiggin, no stuff and nonsense. You didn't think I ought to have
it, and I know damn well, now that you've won out, you'll get a Skull
and Bones to wear, pose in the middle of the photograph for the Banner,
and be thoroughly satisfied at our board meeting to sit back and listen
while I do the talking.'"
Stover broke into a laugh.
"Brocky, you scandalized him."
"Not at all. He thought I was joking--the last thing that occurs to the
grubber is that wit is only a polite way of calling a man an ass."
"Brocky, you're at your best, don't stop."
Brockhurst smiled. It was turning a defeat into a victory. He continued:
"After all, Wiggy is interesting. I'll be revenged. I'll put him in a
book some day. He represents a type--the mathematical mind, quantity not
quality. He set out for the chairmanship as a man trains for a
long-distance run. Do you know the truth? He rose every morning and took
a cold shower, fifty swings to the left with the dumb-bell, fifty to the
right, ate nothing heavy or starchy for his meals, walked the same
distance each afternoon, and worked his two hours each night, hammering
out divine literature."
"Oh, I say!" said Dink, a little in doubt.
Brockhurst began to laugh.
"He may have for all I know. Now I'll bury him. He will be eminently
successful--I like that word eminently. You see he has no sense of
humor, and especially no imagination to hinder him." Brockhurst, in one
of his quixotic moods, began to gesture to the stars as he abandoned
himself to the delights of his conceit. "Oh, that's a wonderful thing,
to have no imagination--the saving of commonplace minds. If Wiggin had
an imagination he would never have written a line, he would have
perceived the immense distances that separated him from the Olympians.
Instead he read Stevenson, Dumas, Kipling, and, unafraid, wrote little
Stevenson echoes of Dumas, capsule Kiplings. He'll go out in the world,
nothing will frighten him. He will rebel against nothing, for he hasn't
an idea. He will choose the woman he needs for his needs, persuade
himself that he's in love, and then persuade her. And he'll believe
that's a virtuous marriage. He'll belong to the conservative party, the
conservative church, and will be a distinguished subordinate, who will
stand for tradition, institutions, and will be said to resemble some
great man. Then he'll die, and will be pointed to as a great example.
_Requiescat in pace._"
"Off with his head," said Stover appreciatively. "Now he's finished, own
up, Brocky, that you are furious that you did not buckle down and beat
him out."
"Of course I am--damn it," said Brockhurst. "I know I did right, but no
one else will ever know it. And the strange thing is, Dink, the best
thing for me is to have missed out."
"Why, in Heaven's name?"
"If I had made the chairmanship, I should probably be tapped for
Bones--one of the successful. I might have become satisfied. Do you know
that that is the great danger of this whole senior business?"
"What?"
"The fellow who wears his honors like a halo. He's made Bones or Keys,
he's a success in life. Nothing more awaits him. 'I was it.'"
"Still, you would have liked it."
"Sure; I'm inconsistent," said Brocky, with a laugh. "It's only when I
don't get what I want that my beautiful reason shows me I shouldn't have
had it."
"Well, there's no danger of either of us disappearing under the halos,"
said Stover shortly.
"I'm not so sure about you," said Brockhurst.
The casual doubt aroused strange emotions in Stover.
"I thought you didn't believe in them," he said slowly.
"I don't. I don't believe in organizations, institutions,
traditions--that's my point of view," said Brockhurst. "But then I'm in
the world to be in revolt."
"You once spoke of the society system--the whole thing as it exists in
America--" said Stover, "as a sort of idol worship. I never quite
understood your meaning."
"Why, I think it's quite obvious," said Brockhurst surprised. "What was
idol worship? A large body of privileged charlatans, calling themselves
priests, impressed the masses with all the flummery of mysterious
ceremonies, convenient voices issuing from caves or stone idols. What
was an idol? An ordinary chunk of marble, let us say, issuing from the
sculptor's chisel. When did it become sacred and awe-inspiring? When it
had been placed in an inner shrine of shrines, removed from the public,
veiled in shadows, obscured by incense, guarded by solicitous guards;
the stone is still a stone but the populace is convinced. Look into a
well in daylight--commonplace; look into it at night--a great mystery;
black is never empty, the imagination fills it."
"How does this apply?" said Stover, impatiently.
"Cases are parallel. A group of us come together for the purpose of
debate and discussion; no one notices it beyond a casual thought.
Suddenly we surround ourselves with mystery, appear on the campus with a
sensational pin stuck in our cravats, a bat's head or a gallows, and
when, marvellously enough, some one asks us what the dickens we are
wearing, we turn away; instantly it becomes known that something so
deadly secret has begun that we have sworn to shed our heart's blood
before we allow the holy, sacred name of Bat's Head or Gallow's Bird to
pass our lips!"
"It's a little foolish, but what's the harm?"
"The harm is that this mumbo-jumbo, fee-fi-fo-fum, high cockalorum
business is taken seriously. It's the effect on the young imagination
that comes here that is harmful. Dink, I tell you, and I mean it
solemnly, that when a boy comes here to Yale, or any other American
college, and gets the flummery in his system, believes in it--surrenders
to it--so that he trembles in the shadow of a tomblike building, doesn't
dare to look at a pin that stares him in the face, is afraid to
pronounce the holy, sacred names; when he's got to that point he has
ceased to _think_, and no amount of college life is going to revive him.
That's the worst thing about it all, this mental subjection which the
average man undergoes here when he comes up against all this rigmarole
of Tap Day, gloomy society halls, marching home at night, et cetera--et
ceteray. By George, it _is_ a return of the old idol-worship
idea--thinking men in this twentieth century being impressed by the same
methods that kept nations in servitude to charlatans three thousand
years before. It's wrong, fundamentally wrong--it's a crime against the
whole moving spirit of university history--the history of a struggle for
the liberation of the human mind."
"But, Brocky, what would you have them do--run as open clubs?"
"Not at all," said Brockhurst. "I would strip them of all nonsense; in
fact that is their weakness, not their strength, and it is all
unnecessary. This is what I'd do: drop the secrecy--this extraordinary
muffled breathless guarding of an empty can--retain the privilege any
club has of excluding outsiders, stop this childishness of getting up
and leaving the room if some old lady happens to ask are you a Bones man
or a Keys man. Instead, when a Bones man goes to see a freshman whom he
wants to befriend, have him say openly as he passes the chapter house:
"'That's my society--Skull and Bones. It stands as a reward of merit
here. Hope you'll do something to deserve it.'
"Which is the better of the two ideas, the saner, the manlier and the
more natural? What would they lose by eliminating the objectionable,
unnecessary features--all of which you may be sure were started as horse
play, and have curiously enough come to be taken in deadly earnestness?"
"I think you exaggerate a little," said Stover, unwilling to accept this
arraignment.
"No, I don't," said Brockhurst stubbornly. "The thing is a fetish; it
gets you; it's meant to get you. It gets me, and if you're honest you'll
admit it gets you. Now own up."
"Yes, I suppose it does."
"Now, Dink, you're fighting for one thing up here, the freedom of your
mind and your will."
"Why, yes," Stover said, surprised at Brockhurst's knowledge of his
inner conflicts. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm fighting out."
"Well, my boy, you'll never get what you're after until you see this
thing as it is--the unreasoning harm done, the poppycock that has been
thrown around a good central idea--if you admit such things are
necessary, which of course I don't."
"You see," said Stover stubbornly, "you're against all organization."
"I certainly am--inherited organizations," said Brockhurst immediately,
"organizations that are imposed on you. The only organization necessary
is the natural, spontaneous coming together of congenial elements."
They had returned to the campus, and Brockhurst, by intent leading the
way, stopped before the lugubrious bulk of Skull and Bones.
"There you are," he said, with a laugh. "Look at it. It's built of the
same stone as other buildings, it has in it what secret? Go up, young
Egyptian, to its mystery in awe and reverence, young idol worshiper of
thirty centuries ago."
"Damn it, Brocky, it does get me," said Stover with a short laugh.
"Curious," said Brockhurst, turning away. "The architecture of these
sacred tombs is almost invariably the suggestion of the dungeon--the
prison of the human mind."
Stover's conversation with Brockhurst did not at first trouble him much.
Curiously enough the one idea he retained was that Brockhurst had spoken
of him as a possibility for Tap Day.
"What nonsense," he said to himself angrily. "Here, I know better!"
But the next afternoon, the thought returning to him with pleasure, all
at once, following a boyish whim, he passed into his old entry at
Lawrence, and, going down a little guiltily into the region of the
bath-tubs, came to the wall on which was inscribed the lists of his
class.
On the Bones list, third from the top, the name Stover had been replaced
and heavily underlined.
It gave him quite a thrill; something seemed to leap up inside of him,
and he went out hastily. Then all at once he became angry. It was like
opening up again a fight that had been fought and lost.
"What an ass I am," he said furiously. "The deuce of a chance I have to
go Bones--with Reynolds and Le Baron. Can the leopard change his spots?
About as much chance as a ki-yi has to go through a sausage machine and
come out with a bark."
But, as he went towards Jean Story's home, thinking of her and what she
would want, the force of what Brockhurst had said began to weaken.
"Brocky is impractical," he said artfully. "We must deal with things as
they are, make the best of them. He exaggerates the effect on the
imagination. At any rate, no one can accuse me of not taking a stand."
He saw the old colonial home, white and distinguished under the elms,
and he said to himself, hoping against hope:
"If I were tapped--it would mean a good deal to her. I'll be darned if
I'll let Brocky work me up. I'm not going up against anything more! I've
done enough here."
He said it defiantly, for the courage of a man has two factors, his
courage and the courage of the woman he loves.