The Idyl of Twin Fires

The Idyl of Twin Fires

I was sitting at a late hour in my room above the college Yard, correcting daily themes. I had sat at a late hour in my room above the college Yard, correcting daily themes, for it seemed an interminable number of yearswas it six or seven? I had no great love for it, certainly. Some men who go into teaching, and of course all men who become great teachers, do have a genuine love for their work. But I am afraid I was one of those unfortunates who take up teaching as a stop-gap, a means of livelihood while awaiting wider opportunities. These opportunities in my case were to be the authorship of an epoch-making novel, or a great drama, or some similar masterpiece. I had been accredited with brilliant promise in my undergraduate days, and the college had taken me into the English department upon graduation. 4It was a warm night in early April. I had a touch of spring fever, and wrote vicious, sarcastic comments on the poor undergraduate pages of unexpressiveness before me, as through my open windows drifted up from the Yard a snatch of song from some returning theatre party. Most of these themes were hopeless. Your average man has no sense of literature. Moreover, by the time he reaches college it is too late to teach him even common, idiomatic expressiveness. That ought to be done in the secondary schoolsand isnt. I toiled on. Near the bottom of the pile came the signature, James Robinson. I opened the sheet with relief. He was one of the few in the class with the real literary instincta lad from some nearby New England village who went home over Sunday and brought back unconscious records of his changing life there. I enjoyed the little drama, for I, too, had come from a suburban village, and knew the first bitter awakening to its narrowness. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 34177
Author: Eaton, Walter Prichard
Release Date: Oct 31, 2010
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Fogarty, Thomas, 1873-1938