Page:The life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (IA b21778401).pdf/87

Rh During this term I formally gave up my intention to read for a first class. Aut primus aut nullus was ever my motto, and though many second-class men have turned out better than many first-class men, I did not care to begin life with a failure. I soon ascertained the fact that men who may rely upon first classes are bred to it from their childhood, even as horses and dogs are trained. They must not waste time and memory upon foreign tongues. They must not dissipate their powers of brain upon anything like general education. They may know the -isms, but they must be utterly ignorant of the -ologies; but, above all things, they must not indulge themselves with that is popularly called "The World." They must confine themselves to one straight line, a college curriculum, and even then they can never be certain of success. At the very moment of gaining the prize their health may break down, and compel them to give up work. I surprised Dr Greenhill by my powers of memory when I learned Adam's "Antiquities" by heart. But the doctor, who had not taken a class himself, threw cold water on my ambition—perhaps the best thing he could do—and frankly told me that, though I could take a first class, he could by no means answer that I would. The fellows of Trinity were nice gentlemanly men, but I by no means wished to become one of the number. My father had set his heart upon both sons being provided for by the Universities, and very often "when fathers propose, sons dispose."

My disgust at the idea of University honours was perhaps not decreased by my trying for the two scholarships, and failing to get them.

I attributed my non-success at University College (where I was beaten by a man who turned a chorus of Æschylus into doggerel verse) chiefly to my having stirred the bile of my examiners with my real (Roman) Latin. At times, too, the devil palpably entered into me, and made me speak Greek Romaically by accent, and not by quantity, even as they did and still do at Athens. I had learnt this much from one of the Rhodo-Kanakis Greek merchants at Marseille, so that I could converse in Latin and Greek as spoken as well as ancient Latin and Greek.

Years after I was laughed at at Oxford, public opinion took a turn, and Roman pronunciation of Latin was adopted in many of the best schools. I was anxious to see them drop their absurd mispronunciation of Greek, but all the authorities whom I consulted on the subject, declared to me that schoolmasters had quite enough to do with learning Italianized Latin, and could not be expected to trouble themselves with learning Athenianized Greek.

At last the dreary time passed away, and a happy family meeting was promised. My father brought my mother and sister from Pisa to Wiesbaden in Germany, and we boys, as we were still called, were invited over to spend the Long Vacation. We were also to escort