Clear Speech Student's Book: Pronunciation and Listening Comprehension in North American English

Smith, I found, had got books for me, Latin and Greek-English dictionaries, a Tacitus, too, and Xenophon's Memorabilia with a Greek grammar: I insisted on paying for them all and he began to talk. Tacitus he just praised for his superb phrases and the great portrait of Tiberius- «perhaps the greatest historical portrait ever painted in words.» I had a sort of picture of King Edward the Fourth in my romantic head, but didn't venture to trot it out. But soon, Smith passed to Xenophon and his portrait of Socrates as compared with that of Plato. I listened all ears while he read out a passage from Xenophon, painting Socrates with little human touches: I got him to translate every word literally and had a great lesson, resolving, when I got home, I'd learn the whole page by heart. Smith was more than kind to me: he said I'd be able to enter the junior class and thus have only two years to graduation. If Willie gave me back even five hundred dollars, I'd 6e able to get through without care or work. Then Smith told me how he had gone to Germany after his American Diversity: how he had studied there and then worked in Athens at ancient Greek for another year till he could talk classic Greek as easily as German. «There were a few dozen professors and students,» he said, «who met regularly and talked nothing but classic Greek: they were always trying to make the modern tongue just like the old.» He gave me a translation of Das Kapital of Marx, and in fifty ways inspired and inspirited me to renewed effort ...»