"Yes--to fit them for making money, not to turn them into highbrows. You must have a spade to dig a garden, but it's the garden you're proud of, not the spade."
"And the very President of the country--"
"Is what you call an intellectual man; but that's a bit of chance. He's not President because he was a college professor, but because he was a politician. If he hadn't been a politician--something that the country values--he'd still be rotting in some two-by-three university. Listen, Edith!" He emphasized his point by the movement of his forefinger. "We've a rule in business which is the test of everything. So long as you stick to it you can't go wrong in your estimates. _The value of a thing is as much money as it will bring._ You know the value of the intellectual in American eyes the minute you think of what the American people is willing to pay for it. You say your intellectual man has a position of his own. Well, you can see how big the position is by what he earns. He doesn't earn enough decently to support a wife, and so long as the American people have anything to say to it, he never will. You can box the whole compass of fellows who live by their wits--teachers, writers, journalists, artists, musicians, clergymen, and the whole tribe of them. We don't want them in this country, except as you want a spade and a hoe in your tool-house. When they try to get in, we starve them out; and, Collingham as you are, once you've married this fellow you'll go with your gang." He pushed back his chair and rose. "That's all I've got to say. Think it over." As he passed out through the French window to the terrace beyond he snapped his fingers. "Dauphin, come along!"
But, perhaps for the first time in his life, Dauphin didn't immediately follow him. Instead, he went first to Edith, laying his long nozzle in her lap.
For five or ten minutes, as Collingham smoked his morning cigar while visiting the stables, the garage, and the kitchen garden, the natural man tried to raise his voice.
"Why didn't you say, 'Marry your man, Edith, my child, and I'll give you ten thousand a year?' Poor little girl," this first Collingham went on, "she's so frank and true and high spirited! You've made her unhappy when you could so easily have made her glad."