beautifully and morally and contentedly. Their reviews remind me of a British
Sunday. They are the popular mouthpieces. They back up your professors of
English, and your professors of English back them up. And there isn't an
original idea in any of their skulls. They know only the established, - in fact,
they are the established. They are weak minded, and the established impresses
itself upon them as easily as the name of the brewery is impressed on a beer
bottle. And their function is to catch all the young fellows attending the
university, to drive out of their minds any glimmering originality that may
chance to be there, and to put upon them the stamp of the established.«
    »I think I am nearer the truth,« she replied, »when I stand by the
established, than you are, raging around like an iconoclastic South Sea
Islander.«
    »It was the missionary who did the image breaking,« he laughed. »And
unfortunately, all the missionaries are off among the heathen, so there are none
left at home to break those old images, Mr. Vanderwater and Mr. Praps.«
    »And the college professors, as well,« she added.
    He shook his head emphatically. »No; the science professors should live.
They're really great. But it would be a good deed to break the heads of
nine-tenths of the English professors - little, microscopic-minded parrots!«
    Which was rather severe on the professors, but which to Ruth was blasphemy.
She could not help but measure the professors, neat, scholarly, in fitting
clothes, speaking in well-modulated voices, breathing of culture and refinement,
with this almost indescribable young fellow whom somehow she loved, whose
clothes never would fit him, whose heavy muscles told of damning toil, who grew
excited when he talked, substituting abuse for calm statement and passionate
utterance for cool self-possession. They at least earned good salaries and were
- yes, she compelled herself to face it - were gentlemen; while he could not
earn a penny, and he was not as they.
    She did not weigh Martin's words nor judge his argument by them. Her
conclusion that his argument was wrong was reached - unconsciously, it is true -
by a comparison of externals. They, the professors, were right in their literary
judgments because they were successes. Martin's literary judgments were wrong
because he could not sell his wares. To use his own phrase, they made good, and
he did not make good. And besides, it