"By which I set great store, but a child must be weaned. Stuart is living in an age of shifting boundaries in ideas and life.
"I should hate to see him lower his youthful standards, but I should like to see him less in the clouds. I should like to see him leaven the lump with a sense of humor. To be self-consciously dedicated to noble things and yet unable to smile at one's ego is to be censorious, and to be censorious is to be offensive."
"But he's just a child yet," argued Stuart's mother. "For all his height and strength he's hardly more than a boy after all."
"Quite true, yet to-night he's tossing in his bed and breathing like a furnace because his heart is broken for all time. It's all very well to swear:
"To love one maiden only, cleave to her
And worship her by years of noble deeds,
but for him that day is still far off. Meanwhile he's got to have his baptism of fire. It's a mighty good thing for a boy like Stuart to begin taking a little punishment while he's young. Young hearts, not less than young bones, mend quicker and better. He's over intense and if he got the real before he's had his puppy loves it would go hard with him."