"
"Well, there is something to think about," said Donald Whiting,
staring past Linda at the side of the canyon as if he had seen
the same handwriting on the wall that dismayed Belshazzar at the
feast that preceded his downfall.
"I see what you're getting at," he said. "I had thought that
there might be some way to circumvent him."
"There is!" broke in Linda hastily. "There is. You can beat
him, but you have got to beat him in an honorable way and in a
way that is open to him as it is to you."
"I'll do anything in the world if you will only tell me how,"
said Donald. "Maybe you think it isn't grinding me and
humiliating me properly. Maybe you think Father and Mother
haven't warned me. Maybe you think Mary Louise isn't secretly
ashamed of me. How can I beat him, Linda?"
Linda's eyes were narrowed to a mere line. She was staring at
the wall back of Donald as if she hoped that Heaven would
intercede in her favor and write thereon a line that she might
translate to the boy's benefit.
"I have been watching pretty sharply," she said. "Take them as a
race, as a unit--of course there are exceptions, there always are
--but the great body of them are mechanical. They are imitative.
They are not developing anything great of their own in their own
country. They are spreading all over the world and carrying home
sewing machines and threshing machines and automobiles and
cantilever bridges and submarines and aeroplanes--anything from
eggbeaters to telescopes.
Pages:
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129