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The Great GatsbybyF. Scott FitzgeraldThen wear the gold hat if that will move herIf you can bounce high bounce for her tooTill she cry quotLover gold-hatted high-bouncing loverI must have youquot--THOMAS PARKE DINVILLIERSChapter 1In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that Ive been turningover in my mind ever since.quotWhenever you feel like criticizing any onequot he told me quotjust remember that all the people inthis world havent had the advantages that youve had.quotHe didnt say any more but weve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way and Iunderstood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence Im inclined to reserve alljudgments a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victimof not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this qualitywhen it appears in a normal person and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused ofbeing a politician because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild unknown men. Most of theconfidences were unsought--frequently I have feigned sleep preoccupation or a hostile levitywhen I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on thehorizon--for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they expressthem are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is amatter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that as my fathersnobbishly suggested and I snobbishly repeat a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelledout unequally at birth.And after boasting this way of my tolerance I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conductmay be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes
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