“All right, I’m down. I’ve passed your hills of judicial comment and reached the moonlight on the street pavement outside. It suggests a contest. Suppose we all make up a line describing the moonlight on the street—the moonlight that falls like a quiet silver derision on all philosophies—and we’ll see which of us is best acquainted with the penitent promise of words. I’ll begin. ‘The moonlight repressed the grey street, like a phantom virtue.’ Only original lines—nothing from books.”
“Here I am in the midst of a talk on Bergson, and this young poet asks me to make up some pretty lines about the moon,” said Jarvin, in a voice of poised scorn. “I read enough about the moon in the flood of mushy poetry that pours into my office.”
“You might try to describe it yourself,” said Carl. “In that way you could provide an excellent antidote for your disgust. It is, I assure you, an important task to rescue the moon from the rape of trite words.”
“No, I’ll leave that to minor poets,” said Jarvin.
Carl gave him the malicious grin of one who is enjoying a sham battle.
“If the moon doesn’t satisfy you, Mr. Jarvin, let’s try that whispering prison of trees just outside of this window, or the people who place their unsearching feet upon streets every day. Anything except voluble shop-talk about the latest mediocrities with now and then a philosopher or scientist thrown in for purposes of repentance and caution.”
“Well, our young iconoclast even scorns philosophy,” said Jarvin. “Perhaps it speaks with too much thought and authority to suit your fancy. It’s much easier to let your emotions juggle words.”
“Philosophy is a bottle-faced dwarf drowning with imposing howls in an ocean that does not see him,” said Carl, with a languid lack of interest. “But philosophy should be read, if only with a careful indifference.”
Jarvin threw another rock, with haste, and Carl gave him another epigram. Kone, always a restive audience, interposed.
“The anarchist, Pearlman, has just come to town,” he said. “Perhaps all of you know that he served twenty years in prison for attempting to kill a millionaire. A cruel penance!”