Part 10 (1/2)
Litton had thenceforward been wedded to knowledge. He had read nearly everything ancient, but he must have forgotten the sentence of Publilius Syrus: ”Even a G.o.d could hardly love and be wise.” He felt no mercy in his soft heart for the soft-headed Teed. He was a wors.h.i.+per of language for its own sake and cast a vote accordingly.
”I do not question the propriety of the conduct of these young people,”
he said. ”Mr. Teed claims to be engaged to the estimable young woman.”
”Ah!” said Professor Mackail, delightedly.
Teed was the brightest pupil in his laboratory and he had voted for acquittal. His joy vanished as Professor Litton went on:
”But”--he spoke the word with emphasis--”but waiving all questions of propriety, I do feel that we should administer a stinging rebuke to the use of such appallingly infantile language by one of our students.
Surely a man's culture should show itself, above all, in the addresses he pays to the young lady of his choice. What vanity to build and conduct a great inst.i.tution of learning, such as this aims to be, and then permit one of its pupils to express his regard for a student from the Annex in such language as even Mr. Kraus was reluctant to quote: 'Mezie-wezie loves oozie-woozie bestest!'--if I remember rightly.
Really, gentlemen, if this is permitted we might as well change the university to a kindergarten. For his own sake I vote that Mr. Teed be given six months of meditation at home; and I trust that the faculty of the Woman's College will have a similar regard for its ideals and the welfare of the misguided young woman.”
Professor Mackail protested furiously, but his advocacy only embittered Litton--for Mackail was the leader of the faction that had tried for years to place Webster University in line with others by removing Latin and Greek from the position of required studies.
Mackail and his crew pretended that French and German, or science, were appropriate subst.i.tutes for the cla.s.sic languages in the case of those whose tastes were not scholastic; but to Litton it was a religion that no man should be allowed to spend four years in college without at least rubbing up against Homer, aeschylos, Vergil, and Horace.
As Litton put it: ”No man has a right to an Alma Mater who doesn't know what the words mean; and n.o.body has a right to graduate without knowing at least enough Latin to read his own diploma.”
This old war had been fought with all the bitterness and professional jealousies of scholars.h.i.+p, which rival those of religion and exceed those of the stage. For yet a while Litton and his followers had vanquished opposition. He little dreamed what he was preparing for himself in punis.h.i.+ng Teed.
Teed accepted his banishment with poor grace, but a magnificent determination to come back and graduate. The effect of his punishment was shown when, after six months of rustic meditation, he set out for the university, leaving behind him his Fannie, who had been too timid to return to the scene of her discomfiture. Teed's good-by words ran something like this:
”Bess its ickle heartums! Don't se care! Soonie as Teedle-weedle gets graduated he'll get fine job and marry his Fansy-pansy very first sing.”
Then he kissed her ”Goo'byjums”--and went back with the face of a Regulus returning to be tortured by the enemy.
II
Teed had a splendid mind for everything material and modern, but he could not and would not master the languages he called dead. His mistranslations of the cla.s.sics were themselves cla.s.sics. They sent the other students into uproars; but Litton saw nothing funny in them. When he received Teed's examination papers he marked them with a pitiless exact.i.tude.
Teed reached the end of his junior year with a heap of conditions in the cla.s.sics. Litton insisted that he should not be allowed to graduate until he cleaned them up. This meant that Teed must tutor all through his last vacation or carry double work throughout his senior year--when he expected to play some patriotic or Alma-Matriotic football.
Teed had no intention of enduring either of these inconveniences; he trusted to fate to inspire him somehow with some scheme for attaining his diploma without delay. His future job depended on his diploma--and his girl depended on his job.
He did not intend to be kept from either by any ancient authors. He had not the faintest idea how he was going to bridge that chasm--but, as he wrote his Fansy-pansy, ”Love will find the way.”
While Teed was taking thought for the beginning of his life-work Litton was completing his--or at least he thought he was. With the splendid devotion of the scholar he had selected for his contribution to human welfare the best possible edition of the work least likely to be read by anybody. A firm of publishers had kindly consented to print it--at Litton's expense.
Litton would donate a copy to his own university; two or three college libraries would purchase copies out of respect to the learned professor; and Litton would give away a few more. The rest would stand in an undisturbed stack of increasing dust, there to remain unread as long perhaps as the myriads of Babylonian cla.s.sics that a.s.surbani-pal had copied in brick volumes for his great library at Nineveh.
Professor Litton had chosen for his life-work a recension of the ponderous epic in forty-eight books that old Nonnus wrote in Egypt, the labyrinthine Dionysiaka describing the voyage of Bacchus to India and back.
A pretty theme for an old water-drinker who had never tasted wine! But Litton toiled over the Greek text, added copious notes as to minute variants, appallingly learned prolegomena, an index, and finally an English version in prose. He had begun to translate it into hexameters, but he feared that he would never live to finish it. It was hard enough for a man like Litton to express at all the florid spirit of an author whose theme was ”the voluptuous phalanxes” of Bacchus' army--”the heroic race of such unusual warriors; the s.h.a.ggy satyrs; the breed of centaurs; the tribes of Sileni, whose legs bristle with hair; and the battalions of Ba.s.sarids.”
He had kept at it all these years, however, and it was ready now for the eyes of a world that would never see it. He had watched it through the compositors' hands, keeping a tireless eye on the infinite nuisance of Greek accents. He had read the galley proofs, the page proofs, and now at last the black-bordered foundry proofs. He scorned to write the b.a.s.t.a.r.d ”O. K.” of approval and wrote, instead, a stately ”Imprimatur.”
He placed the proofs in their envelope and sealed it with lips that trembled like a priest's when giving an illuminated Gospel a ritual kiss.
The hour was late when Professor Litton finished. He stamped the brown-paper envelope and went down the steps of the boarding-house that had been for years his nearest approach to a home. He left the precious envelope on the hall-tree, whence it would be taken to the post-office for the first mail.