"But didn't the ancient Greeks have their racecourses? Didn't they believe in running and jumping and boxing and I don't know what all?"
"That is true, but the times were very different then. They had not in the least lost the sense of the poetry of life. They were not so crassly or grossly materialistic as the present age undoubtedly is. Every grove was peopled with divinities, every mountain was the abode of the unseen. Why, Mr. Phelps, the Greeks were the only people that ever lived that looked upon mountains as anything but blots or defects."
"Is that so?" inquired Will in surprise.
"It certainly is. It is true that since the days of the poet Gray there has been a tendency among English-speaking people to affect a veneration for the mountains, but it is, I fawncy, only a faint echo of the old Greek conception and is a purely superficial product of an extremely superficial age and people.""Didn't the Hebrews have a feeling like the one you tell of? Isn't there a psalm that begins 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help'? Didn't they describe the high hills that were round about Jerusalem?"
"Ah, yes. That is true," assented the professor in some confusion. "I had not thought of it in that light precisely. You have given me a new insight to-day, Mr. Phelps. I shall at once go over my data again. I am grateful to you for acceding to my request to remain to-day."
"But, professor," persisted Will, "what about my work in Greek? I've had a tutor ever since you told me to get one and I've been working hard too. Today I didn't do very well, but I was so excited about the fever, for Peter John—I mean Schenck—is one of the fellows to come down with it, you know, and we've been telephoning and telegraphing home—"
"Ah, yes. But you heard my remarks to-day concerning the necessity of increased work in Greek as a preventive, did you not?"
"I did. But, professor, I'm willing to work. If I'm to be shut out of the exam—I mean the examination—as you seem to think I will, anyway, I don't see any use in my trying any more."
The expression on the professor's face became instantly harder as he said, "I fawncy the effort to curry favor with the various members of the faculty is not very popular with the student body."
"Do you think I'm trying to 'boot-lick'?" demanded Will quickly.