Fourteen.
NATHANIEL
JOHN
The silly age.
NATHANIEL
Brother John, no age is the silly age. Fourteen is the age of visions and enchantments and fears. What a boy of fourteen sees and hears takes on a value that we cannot underestimate. Most men are defeated in life between fourteen and twenty. At fourteen a boy begins to make a lens through which he sees life. He thinks about everything. Ambition is beginning to stir in him and he begins to know why he likes things, why he wants to do certain things. He formulates lasting plans for the future and he takes in impressions that are indelible. Things that seem nothing to old people become memories to him that affect his whole life. The memory of a smile may encourage him to surmount all obstacles and the memory of a bitterness may act as an eternal barrier.
JOHN
Nathaniel, are you a father?
NATHANIEL