"Those who chose the world as their arena," the minister went on, "must suffer the world's jars and jeers. The world is a magnet that draws all the men of courage; it sucks their talents and their virtues and spews them forth, as often as not into the waters of oblivion. To swim ashore needs wonderful strength! Here in the calmer waters we are but tame fellows; we miss most of the prizes, but, we also miss the dangers. Perhaps, some day, Dick, you'll come back to us again?"
"I don't know. Perhaps. But I don't think so. That other taste is bitter, perhaps, but it holds one captive. And I'm changed, you see; the old things that delighted me once are stale, and I need the perpetual excitation of the town's unceasing changes. The town is a juggernaut with prismatic wheels."
They had nearly reached the minister's house.
"I haven't preached to you, have I Dick?"
Dick looked at the minister quickly. There was a sort of wistfulness behind the eye-glasses, and a half smile beneath the waving mustache.
"No. I wish you would!"
"Ah, Dick, I can't! I'm not competent. You're in one world, and I'm in another. Too many make the mistake that they can live in the valleys and yet tell the mountaineers how to climb. But, Dick, whatever you do, keep your self-respect! In this complex time of ours, circumstances and comparisons alter nearly everything, and one sometimes wonders whether b-a-d does not, after all, spell good; but self-respect should stand against all confusions! Goodbye, Dick. Remember we're all fond of you! I go to a convention in one of the neighboring towns tonight, and I won't see you again before you go back. Goodbye!"
Dick carried the picture of the kindly, military-looking old face with him for many minutes. If there were more such ministers! He recalled some of the pale, cold clergymen he had met at various houses in town, and remembered how repellant their naughty assumption of superiority has been to him. He was still musing over his dear old friend's counsel, when he noticed that he was approaching the house where the Wares lived. There was the veranda, blood red with it's creeper-clothing, and full of memories for him.
He began to walk slowly as he drew nearer. He was thinking of the last time that he had seen Dorothy Ware. He recalled, with a queer smile, her parting words: 'Goodbye, Dick, be good!' He realized that the Dick of that day and the Dick of today were two very differing persons. And she, too, doubtless, would no longer be the Dorothy Ware he once had known. Something of fierce hate toward the world and fate came to him as he thought of the way of human plans and planning were truthlessly canceled by the decrees of change. Had he been good? Bah, the thought of it made him sneer. If these memories were not to be driven away he would presently settle down into determined, desperate melancolia.
The conflict, in this man, was always between the intrinsic good and the veneer of vice that the world puts on. In most men the veneer chokes everything else. When those men read this, if they ever do, they will wonder why in the world this young man was torturing himself with fancies? But the men whose outer veneer has not yet choked the soul will remember and understand.