Page:The plastic age, (IA plasticage00mark).pdf/251

Rh hadn’t read the book, he was treated to a look of contempt that sent him hastening to the library.

Of course, not all of the undergraduates took to reading and thinking; the millennium had not ar¬ rived, but the intelligent majority began to read and discuss books openly, and the intelligent majority ruled the campus.

Hugh was one of the most enthusiastic of the readers. He was taking a course in nineteenth:entury poetry with Blake, the head of the English department. His other instructors either bored lim or left him cold, but Blake turned each class lour into a thrilling experience. He was a hand¬ some man with gray hair, dark eyes, and a magnif¬ icent voice. He taught poetry almost entirely by -eading it, only occasionally interpolating an explanitory remark, and he read beautifully. His reading vas dramatic, almost tricky; but it made the poems ive for his students, and they reveled in his classes.

Hugh’s junior year was made almost beautiful by hat poetry course and by his adoration for Cynhia. He was writing verses constantly—and he ound “Cynthia” an exceedingly troublesome word; t seemed as if nothing would rime with it. At
 * imes he thought of taking to free verse, but the

•esults of his efforts did not satisfy him. He al¬ ways had the feeling that he had merely chopped ip some rather bad prose; and he was invariably