“That’s all I want to know,” he said, as though satisfied by the estimate of his own eyes. “I appreciate your confidence, and like you for it. I’m not partisan for the wild oats theory but, sometimes, when you’ve been through the mill, it does leave you with a sense of values.” Our eyes met, and each nodded in silent comprehension.
“Now, let’s go on. Was there ever a question of pride in it—on your side?”
“Frankly and naturally, yes. I have no intention of going through life on my wife’s pocketbook.”
“Good. Now the decks are cleared. As I thought. You’ve been frank. So’ll I. Take up this question of money. What is money? Opportunity. If men like yourself, who have ideas, energy, and ambition, refuse to take the opportunity money offers you,—who profits? Some well-groomed little parasite who will loaf through life genteelly until the day when the real people rise and take it away from him. And quite right, I say. And that is what I don’t intend to have for my daughter.” He cited names of men, men in public life of our acquaintance, whose start in life had been facilitated by the fortunes of their wives. “Look at it from my point of view. I’ve made what I’ve made, and I want it to count in this world. David, what do you intend to do in life?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Fight through the war.”
“But, after?”
“After!” I said incredulously. “I may take up the study of architecture again, unless—unless I am able to do what I really want,—which is to write.”
“So I supposed. Don’t decide quickly. The current is all the other way. We are a country of action, and you’ve got that in you. I don’t make mistakes in men. The real Americans are not those who sit and meditate; they are those who are laying the foundations. Write? What is the future? Deceptions. You know I’m not a low-brow, as they say. Every night, before I go to sleep, I read an hour in Balzac. Books are half my life, so what I say to you I say without narrowness. But what are our writers to-day? The servants of a great public that wants to be amused, diverted in moments of relaxation; a great mass that is striving, combating, contending,—a public of children. Is that all you want to do? Amuse them? Write for yourself: you’ll be over their heads—misunderstood—if not ridiculed! The current is against you. We move rapidly, and we read rapidly; a moment to laugh or dream, as we read on the train. Hard for you,—yes, but what do individuals count, to-day?” He laid his hand on my arm. “Commerce, science, public affairs. You like a man’s job. That’s where it lies, and it’s our kind that must lead. Jump into the fight. Wealth and education are not only opportunities but responsibilities: that’s what we must understand. I said I want you as my son-in-law, Davy. It’s more than that: I want to invest what I’ve made in a man that counts. I want you with me. I want to feel when it comes time for me to step out that I’m passing on the power to count for big things to some leadership I’ve inspired.”
He talked some while in this strain and, despite myself, I felt myself yielding to his persuasion. Brinsmade is not a selfish man. Among his own friends he was looked at rather askance for his progressive tendencies. I found myself thinking, with pride, “Here is a man, thoroughly American, who has a sentiment of nationality; who does not look at life from a detached point of view but has a sense of being one in a multitude with a higher loyalty than his own interests—loyalty to the name he bears—and a pride in the America that will come!”