"But I'll never use Greek any. I wish I could take some other study in its place."
"Just now it is not a question of Greek or something in its place. It is a question of facing and overcoming a difficulty or permitting it to overcome you. You must decide whether you will be a victor or a victim. There are just three things a man can do when he finds himself compelled to meet one of these difficult things that in one form or another come to everybody. He can turn and run from it, but that's the part of a coward. He can get around it, evade it somehow, but that's the part of the timid and palterer, and sooner or later the superficial man is found out. Then there is the best way, which is to meet and master it. Everybody has to decide which he will do, but do one of the three he must, and there is no escape."
"You think I ought to hit it between the eyes?"
"Yes, though I should not put it in quite that way," said his father with a smile.
"I'd like to smash it! I don't like it! I'll never make a Greek scholar, and I detest Splinter. He's as dry as a bone or a Greek root! He hasn't any more juice than a piece of boiled basswood!"
"That does not alter the matter. It won't change, and you've got to choose in which of the three ways I have suggested you will meet it."
"I suppose that's so," said Will quietly. "But it doesn't make it any easier."
"Not a bit."
"I know what you would say."
"Then it isn't necessary for me to say another word. There's one thing I am thankful for, Will, and that is that you and I are such good friends that we can talk this trouble all over together. The dean was telling me this morning—"