Well, let him. I would not exchange my conscience for his for all his affluence. And yet, from his point of view, he is right. The world applauds his plays. No one seems to interfere with his private affairs. He is received by all his fellow club members with impersonal respect. The wide white way is always open to him and the woman. There no one ever pushes them aside. The legal wife and children are unknown to cruel, gay Broadway. The narrow paths of the meadows and lanes of the suburban retreat in which this successful author has his family housed are their only byways. Through them they slowly tread—to the little church and beyond it to the graveyard, towards which the wife and mother ever sets her gaze—as if in prayerful hope.
And the author of successful plays is content.
He knows his wife is a Christian.
What is he?
I wonder.
I would rather sell fresh eggs from the end of my private car in one-night stands—than barter impure ones on the stage of a leading New York playhouse.
An agnostic objects to salaries for draped preachers and to temples whose roofs prohibit thought from permeating the realm of inspiration.