Holden monologue (Act 6) — Plays

Why not do it the other way? You say enlarge that we may grow. That's false. It isn't of the nature of growth. Why not do it the way of Silas Morton and Walt Whitman--each man being his purest and intensest self. I was full of this fervour when you came in. I'm more and more disappointed in our students. They're empty--flippant. No sensitive moment opens them to beauty. No exaltation makes them--what they hadn't known they were. I concluded some of the fault must be mine. The only students I reach are the Hindus. Perhaps Madeline Morton--I don't quite make her out. I too must have gone into a dead stratum. But I can get back. Here alone this afternoon--(_softly_) I was back.