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The class work was largely pure rot arbitrary mathematics, antiquated botany, hesitating German, and a veritable military drill in the conjunction of Greek verbs conducted by a man with a non-com. soul, a pompous, sandy-whiskered manikin with cold eyes and a perpetual cold in the nose, who had inflicted upon a patient world the four-millionth commentary on Xenophon.
The most advanced of us, and those that have longest been like Anna, who 'departed not from the Temple, day nor night, will certainly eject ourselves unless, like the Psalmist, we use the verbs in both tenses, and say, 'One thing have I desired ... that will I seek after. John Bunyan saw that there was a back door to the lower regions close by the gates of the Celestial City.
"At first, it was the funniest thing to see them together, they were both so shy; but after a day or two they were quite friends, and now you may find Eden perched any day in Power's window-seat, grinding away at his Greek verbs, and as happy as a king. Power helps him in his work, too. It'll be the making of the little fellow. Already he's coming out strong in form."
Thus, a dog can learn his own name, and understand the verbs "go" and "come," especially with the imperative tone of his master; but he could never understand the words "outgoing year" or "incoming year."
However much the lecturer in Idolology may dislike the method and person of the Reader in the Mandingo language, these two learned men do not box in taverns, nor take off their coats if they meet each other at the Clarendon Press. People are careful not to pitch into each other in that way, though the temper which confounds opponents for their theory of irregular verbs is not at all abated.
Indeed there are many that can express what we should call an adjective only by making a participle out of a verb. "Red" in such languages is merely a derivative "being red," as our "sleeping" or "walking" are derivatives of primary verbs. Just as we can verbify the idea of a quality in such cases as "reddens," so we can represent a quality or an action to ourselves as a thing.
Van Dusen, or any other conductor, came near, but always had to hunt for it, and once brought up a cookie instead, which fearful mistake mortified her to the depths of her soul. Horace was sure all eyes were fixed on his charming little charge, and was proud of the honor of showing her off; but he paid for it dearly; it cost him more than his Latin, with all the irregular verbs.
Yet we know at first hand from the officer who edited the French communiqués that these conferences were a regular part of the business of war; that in the worst moment of Verdun, General Joffre and his cabinet met and argued over the nouns, adjectives, and verbs that were to be printed in the newspapers the next morning.
It is the feeling expressed in La Bruyère's famous book: "Everything has been said, everything has been written, everything has been done." Here in America everything was to do; we were forced to conjugate our verbs in the future tense. No doubt our existence has been, in some respects, one of barbarism, but it has been the barbarism of life and not of death.
The sound of the lines, the roll of the oi's and ou's was in David's ear all day, and to learn a dozen irregular verbs in the interval between two customers was like the gulping of a dainty. Meanwhile, as he collected his English poets he read them. And here was a whole new world. For in his occupation with the Encyclopaedists he had cared little for poetry.
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