More Portmanteau Plays Part 40

Grandchildren! My, that makes me a great uncle. I _am_ getting old, Aunt Let.i.tia!

JOHN

I do not care to have them or Jonathan hear about any revolutionary or other unusual ideas.

NATHANIEL

I shall try not to contaminate the children and Jonathan. How old are the children?

JOHN

Mary is four and John 3rd is two.

NATHANIEL

I shall try to spare their sensibilities.

JOHN

They may not understand you but they will hear.

NATHANIEL (_to Let.i.tia_)

How old is Jonathan?

LEt.i.tIA

Fourteen.

NATHANIEL

The impressionable age.

JOHN

The silly age.

NATHANIEL

Brother John, no age is the silly age. Fourteen is the age of visions and enchantments and fears. What a boy of fourteen sees and hears takes on a value that we cannot underestimate. Most men are defeated in life between fourteen and twenty. At fourteen a boy begins to make a lens through which he sees life. He thinks about everything. Ambition is beginning to stir in him and he begins to know why he likes things, why he wants to do certain things. He formulates lasting plans for the future and he takes in impressions that are indelible. Things that seem nothing to old people become memories to him that affect his whole life. The memory of a smile may encourage him to surmount all obstacles and the memory of a bitterness may act as an eternal barrier.

JOHN

Nathaniel, are you a father?

NATHANIEL

No, John, I am only a bachelor who is very much in love with life in general and one lady in particular.

JOHN

You can know nothing of children, then.

NATHANIEL

I remember myself. Most men forget their younger selves and that is fatal.

JOHN

One would think to hear you talk that the most important things in life were a boy of fourteen and his moorings.

NATHANIEL

One might know it.

JOHN

You are still the same impractical theorist.

NATHANIEL

I am the same theorist--a little older, a little more travelled. The trouble with you, John, is that you think no age is important except your own. You always thought that, even when you were fourteen. Oh, I know I wasn't born then, but I know you.

JOHN

Did you come back to your home in order to lecture me?

NATHANIEL

No, no, I beg your pardon. I came back to see my home and Aunt Let.i.tia and the children--and you, and I--I think--Jonathan.

JOHN

Nathaniel, when your letter came telling me that you had decided to come back to see us, I was going to ask you not to come--

NATHANIEL

I gave no address.

JOHN

But on second thought, I made up my mind to forgive you--

NATHANIEL

Thank you.

JOHN