As for the other considerations you mention, they
are of no weight at all. I never wanted to keep you in a glass case.
Even if all were well between us, I wouldn't have any feeling about
your singing in public other than pride in your ability to command
public favor with your voice. It's a wonderful voice, too big and
fine a thing to remain obscure.
"JACK."
He added, evidently as an afterthought, a somewhat lengthy postscript:
"I wish you would do something next month, not as a favor to me
particularly, but to ease things along for Charlie and Linda. They
are genuinely in love with each other. I can see you turning up your
little nose at that. I know you've held a rather biased opinion of
your brother and his works since that unfortunate winter. But it
doesn't do to be too self-righteous. Charlie, then, was very little
different from any rather headlong, self-centered, red-blooded
youngster. I'm afraid I'm expressing myself badly. What I mean is
that while he was drifting then into a piggy muddle, he had the
sense to take a brace before his lapses became vices. Partly
because--I've flattered myself--I talked to him like a Dutch uncle,
and partly because he's cast too much in the same clean-cut mold
that you are, to let his natural passions run clean away with him.
He'll always be more or less a profound egotist. But he'll be a good
deal more of a man than you, perhaps, think.
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