8

ungenerous soil of his memory clogged with the
stumps and roots of the old dry goods plantation
did not respond adequately to cultivation,
however fierce and unremitting.
Algebra racked him, coughs and Euclid attacked
him a grim professor hacked him,
French Prose nearly cracked him. But David
held on trusting that his genius for argument
would yet clear away Euclid, that
French Prose would also explain iteself if he stayed
with it that Algebra might be conquered
by hook or by prayer, by crook or entreaty
or perhaps just turn out after all to be
only a bad dream, too bad to be true. As
to Latin, well the less said about that
the better: least said, soonest mended.
It was a nasty spectre at first, with
a full accoutrement of blood-sweat,
rattling irons and hollow groans. From
all these plague-spots, David's only