He wanted, however, as he told me, to know modern
Greek, as the language of the islands. Also, like the natural Englishman
he was, to be able to talk with the Albanian hunters with whom he went
shooting in the hills of the mainland. But when he had mastered enough
modern Greek to read the newspaper and so forth, he began to wonder
whether he could not use his knowledge to find out what Homer was like.
He very soon found out that he could read him as one reads Chaucer. From
this point he went on till he made himself--I will not say a Greek
scholar, but something much better--a person able to read Greek and
enjoy it in the original. Throughout the period of my friendship with
him, which lasted for nearly a quarter of a century, he was constantly
reading and translating from Greek authors and talking about them in an
intimate and stimulating way.
Once more, it is because I want people to study and to love classical
literature and to imbibe the Greek spirit that I desire that the
ordinary man should not be forced to grind away at Greek grammar when he
might be getting in touch with great minds and great books. I am not
blind, of course, to the gymnastic defence of the classics, though I do
not share it.
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