ago.
The Doctor had a great gift of sententious speech, not only
in his written discourses, but in his ordinary conversation or
his instruction from the professor's chair. He was speaking
one day of Combe and of something disrespectful he had said
about the English metaphysicians. "What does Mr. Combe mean?"
said the Doctor. "I make no apology for the English metaphysicians.
They have made their mistakes. They have their shortcomings.
But they are surely entitled to the common privilege of Englishmen
--to be judged by their peers." He was speaking one day of
some rulers who had tried to check the rising tide of some
reform by persecuting its leaders. "Fools!" said the Doctor.
"They thought if they could but wring the neck of the crowing
cock it would never be day."

One of the delightful characters and humorists connected
with Harvard was Evangelinus Apostolides Sophocles, tutor
in Greek. He was a native of Thessaly, born near Mount Pelion
and educated in the convent of the Greek Church on Mount Sinai.
It is said, although such instances are rare, that he was
of the purest Greek blood. At any rate, his face and head
were of the Greek type. He was a man of wonderful learning,
--I dare say the best Greek scholar of his generation, whether
in Europe or America. He was a very simple-hearted person
in dealing with ordinary affairs. But his conversation and
his instruction in the class-room were full of wit and sense.
He used to tell a story, whether of his father or his grandfather
I am not sure, that one night very late he was sitting in
his warehouse alone when two men entered and told him they
were come to kill him. He asked them why they wished to kill
him, and they told him that they had been hired by an enemy
of his. "Well," said the old man, "what are you to be paid?"
They told him the sum. He said: "I will give you twice as
much to kill him." Accordingly they accepted the offer and
went away, leaving the old fellow alive, kept their bargain
with him and killed his enemy.

Sophocles had a great love of little children and a curious
love of chickens which he treated as pets and liked to tame
and to play with, squatting down on the ground among them
as if he were a rooster himself. It is said that during his
last sickness the doctor directed that he should have chicken
broth. He indignantly rejected it, and declared he would
not eat a creature that he loved.

In what I have said about Professor