@@@@@ O'Neill or Eliot are the only ones Eliot
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O'Neill or Eliot are the only ones
Eliot doesn't belong in the same bed with O'Neill(Laughter)
They argue for an hour and Hearn listens to the namesA few are familiar to him, Ibsen and Shaw and Galsworthy, but he has never heard of Strindberg, Hauptmann, Marlowe, Lope De Vega, Webster, PirandelloThe names go on, and he tells himself desperately that he must read

He makes a start in the late spring of his first year, rediscovers the volume of Housman that nourished him in prep school, but to it he adds poets like Rilke and Blake and Stephen SpenderBy the time he goes home for the summer he has switched his major to English, and he deserts the beach many afternoons, the Sally Tendeckers and her replacements, spends the nights writing short stories
They are poor enough, but there is a temporary focus of excitement, a qualified successWhen he returns to Harvard, he makes one of the literary magazines in the fall competitions, glares drunkenly into the spotlight at the initiation, and comes off without making too big a fool of himself
The changes come slowly at first, then quicklyHe reads everything, spends a lot of time at Fogg, goes to the symphony on Friday afternoons, absorbs the pleasant connotative smell of old furniture and old prints and the malty odor of empty beer cans in the aged rooms of the magazineIn the spring he wanders through the burgeoning streets of Cambridge, strolls along the Charles, or stands talking outside his house entry while the evening comes, and there is all the magic of freedom
Several times he goes out on drunks to Scollay Square with a friend or twoIt is a self-conscious business with old clothing, an undeviating tour of all the bars and dives
Practice for finding the sawdust saloons on Third Avenue
If there is puke on the floor, they are delighted; they are fraternity men dancing with movie starsBut the moods all changeAfter they become drunk, there is the pleasurable sadness of late spring evenings, the cognition of all hope and longing arrayed against the casual ugly attrition of time
God, look at these people, Hearn says, talk of your animal existences
What do you expect, his friend says, they're the by-product of an acquisitive society, refuse, that's all, the fester in Spengler's world-city
Jansen, you're a phony, what do you know about an acquisitive society, there's things I could tell you, it's different, you're a phony, that's all
So are you, we're all phoniesThe thing is to get out and join the movement
What's the matter, Hearn asks, you going political on me?
I'm not political, that's bullshit, everything's bullshitHe waves his arm sweepi