The Youth of Parnassus, and Other Stories — Edition Insights

Foley thought he had done his duty in calling, and meant for the future to see as little as possible of his new neighbour. And yet there had been something pleasant and sensitive in his face, he remembered afterwards; and at times he was haunted by the thought of this stranger sitting as he had found him, alone and lonely in the room upstairs, with two or three books in the empty shelves, a few photographs of home that made the mantelpiece and bare walls look all the more homeless and unfriendly. Now and then he would hear footsteps above moving vaguely about, or he would meet the American on the stairs, or see him walking out alone, and at last, out of kindness, he went again to call.

Before long he began to take a certain liking to Sutton, and would often go up in the evenings with a cigarette to his rooms. To the young Englishman the American was certainly a curious and amusing study. How curious were the views and impressions of Oxford, that, breaking through his shy reserve, he would once in a while express, in his prim middle-aged way! He was a good deal shocked by the wine-drinking, card-playing, and Sabbath-breaking that seemed so prevalent there; what religion there was, (well, he didn't guess there was much,) he thought mechanical and dead. Of course there was a great deal of culture in Oxford; but in other things, like telephones and electric lights, why England was behind the Mississippi Valley!

Foley began to have ideas of his own about this Mississippi Valley. He had already read of its rivers and railways and mushroom towns, and he remembered some of the proud things that Sutton had said at different times of Parnassus City and its importance--it was almost the only subject on which the reticent young man ever seemed willing to talk--the thought-out comparisons he would draw between that place and Oxford, in his attempts to explain to himself what he saw, and account for it all, according to his principles.

One evening, in a burst of unusual talkativeness, he described how Parnassus City had been laid out twenty years before, on what had been till then an unploughed prairie; but now there were thousands of inhabitants, rows of business buildings, and elegant residences in the outskirts. There were electric trolleys too in the streets; and the whole town was lighted by natural gas. Not only had the place grown fast in trade and population, but there had been, he explained, a pretty rapid growth in culture. Oh, they didn't intend to let the moss grow on them out in Indiana! Schools and churches were built--the most elegant was the First Methodist, the Reverend Dr. Turnpenny's. It was Dr. Turnpenny, he added, who started the Forward Movement among the Indiana Methodists which made such a stir. Then, after the churches, they had built a lecture hall and library, and, at last, the Parnassus College.

Foley asking more about this college, Sutton explained that though it had been built a few years before as a college for Methodist theology and liberal learning, it was already larger than the neighbouring institute at Corinth Creek, and only second in those parts to the University of Miomi. It wasn't of course like the universities in the Eastern States, but still they were proud of it there.

He had pinned up on the old panelling of his wall a photograph of this Parnassus College: a rather gaunt frame building, standing in a ploughed field among a few new-planted trees. About the steps were grouped a number of young men and women, many of them wearing spectacles, and all with earnest faces and provincial dress. "That's my class," Sutton explained, pointing at his own figure in the group. "It's the biggest class we've had so far, thirteen gentlemen and seven ladies."

Foley studied the photograph of the college, and the pictures on the mantelpiece--several college friends, with lank serious faces; an intellectual young lady, her hand resting on a copy of the Bible; and an old, mild, white bearded minister--Dr. Turnpenny, no doubt. There was a picture too of a wide city street. Then it really existed, this remote place, and people lived there! he thought, amused at the curious chance which had brought Sutton, the promise and pride, perhaps, of his native town, and set him down in so different a world.